Work Text:
The bell above the entrance door of Rose Apothecary rattled hard, interrupting Patrick mid-sentence as he helped a repeated Elmdale customer choose between the lavender or eucalyptus bath salts. He widened in his eyes as he saw Stevie burst in, bits of her long brown hair matted against the sweat on her face. She slammed the door behind her and wheezed.
“Pa-patrick,” she breathed out. She panted and bent over a bit, clutching her side. He saw her break a sweat before when they practiced and performed their dance routines for Cabaret, but the spotted red on her face and pale lips revealed she overexerted herself. What was so bad she had to run here from the motel?
“Uh, excuse me one second,” Patrick said. He stepped back from the lady customer and headed toward Stevie.
Stevie raised her head and met his gaze.
Terror knotted in Patrick’s stomach as he read the distress in her eyes. Was David okay? Oh, God. He was out driving doing rounds and meeting up with their vendors today. Please be okay. Patrick left his phone behind the checkout counter and what if Stevie had tried to call him?
“Is David..?” The question caught in his throat. He couldn’t ask. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want Stevie to confirm it.
“Can you reach him?” Stevie’s question came out in rough pants.
“What’s going on, Stevie?” Patrick rushed toward the counter and leaned over, grabbing his phone from under the register. He glanced at his screen. No new messages. Stevie hadn’t tried to call him.
“The buyer...” Stevie panted and swallowed. “The buyer woke up.”
Patrick gestured to her for more emphasis. “What buyer? David hasn’t talked about any new potential vendors lately.”
Unless he had and Patrick zoned it out because he’d been so focused on Cabaret. As much he enjoyed the play, he was glad it was finally over and he had more freedom to focus on David again. Especially now that they were engaged and had a wedding to plan.
Stevie stopped and stared at Patrick as if he was wearing one of David’s outfits. “The buyer. Did David not tell you?”
The terror that still weighed in his stomach transformed and twisted into sharp nervousness. Andy Roberts. The buyer who almost brought the town a few years ago. The buyer who slipped into a coma.
“He told me,” Patrick whispered. He shook his head as he tried to recollect the rumors David told him about Andy Roberts. “I thought the buyer woke up a while ago and wanted nothing to do with this town?”
“Oh, he still wants something to do with this town,” Stevie rasped.
The muscles in Patrick’s body stiffened. “What?” he exclaimed through clenched teeth.
“I know. Roland came in this morning and broke the news to me and Mr. Rose. Andy Roberts woke up cackling up about how he got the best sleep of his life and wants to buy the town for even more money!”
“What was he offering in the first place?”
“I don’t know. Mr. Rose told me he needed to talk to Mrs. Rose first, but...I tried to call David because we can’t have him be blindsided by this. You know how he would react, and I couldn’t reach him, and I tried Alexis but...”
“She’s with David.”
It was as much as a final siblings outing before Alexis left for the Galapagos as it was strengthening David’s relationship with the vendors.
“Great,” Stevie said. “I thought the cell reception here was bad.”
The customer approached the counter, seemingly decided on the lavender bath salts. Patrick excused himself from Stevie and rang the lady’s products up and bagged it. He nearly banged the tote bag against the counter as he handed it over. Why did Stevie’s news throw him off? What was he worried about?
The door chimed as the woman left and Stevie seemed to have gotten her breathing back under control. She approached the work counter and rolled her fingers against the edge. “If the Roses sell...” The various and multiple implications laid out in the air for Patrick to grab at.
“He’s not going to leave, Stevie. I think we know him a little better than that,” Patrick said, a strong edge to his voice.
The corner of Stevie’s lips tugged and her features softened. “I know.” She pulled her hair free from her face and straightened it out. “Still...it’s a big temptation. The lure of your old life.”
Patrick knew. He was scared to come out to his parents because it was easier to keep up the pretense of an old life, of who you used to be, to keep things the same. But when he did come out to them, he never felt such relief, like he could breathe again, that he could finally be who he truly was. Coming out was Patrick rejecting his old life and finally embracing his new one.
Patrick only wished he’d done it sooner, but as David said, it was best he did it on his terms. And now, Patrick had to give David the same support. Allow David to face his old life on his terms.
David made sure Patrick was able to prepare himself to face his parents instead of being completely caught off-guard. Patrick had to ensure David had the same preparation.
“I know he’s meeting with Heather, Brenda, and Mr. Hockley. I think David also wanted to take a side-trip to spend some time with Alexis...” Patrick rummaged through the shelves underneath the counter. David had a book with the vendor’s phone numbers. Patrick tossed it on the work table.
Stevie inhaled a sharp breath. “I’m a little worried, Patrick. I don’t admit that easily.”
“I know.”
“I’m scared they won’t react the way I think they will.”
Patrick flexed his jaw, trying to keep from smiling. He’d said the same thing about his parents.
If there was one thing Patrick learned that night on his birthday was that sometimes...sometimes, love wins.
He remembered David’s reassurance as clear as day: “Then I will be here. And we’ll get through it together.”
The tightness in his stomach unloosened and Patrick found his shoulders relaxing.
“Okay,” Patrick acknowledged softly. “You call Brenda, and I’ll try to get a hold of Heather.”
Stevie narrowed her gaze. “No offense, but I was kind of expecting more of a reaction out of you.”
Patrick knew this kind of issue would someday arise. He and David talked about it a bit but they hadn’t touched this topic in a long time. He expected himself to be nervous, more so for David than for him.
What he hadn’t expected was the sudden calmness that filled him. Was it because he proposed? Because David said yes. Because he knew David was committed to him?
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “So did I.”
Patrick pulled his car into the motel parking lot and pursed his lips in thought as he saw Ray’s car. The presence of Roland’s truck was explanatory, but for the first time since Patrick received the news, the tightness in his stomach returned. If Ray was here...
Patrick did another quick scan of the parking lot, hoping he’d somehow missed the black Lincoln. David and Alexis still hadn’t return. And despite his and Stevie’s efforts, they’d been unable to reach the Rose siblings. Heather was the only vendor who didn’t pick up, while the others mentioned that David and Alexis had already been by.
Patrick wanted to go search for them. It wasn’t like David to go this long without texting or calling him. But as he closed Rose Apothecary, Stevie sent him an urgent text, demanding he come to the motel right away.
The tightness coiled as Patrick got out of his car and headed for the motel lobby. As he entered, he caught the end of Roland’s sentence:
“...signing off on that. Though, I do remember a while back he got me to sign an odd-looking receipt when he refused to take cash from me once.”
“You didn’t find that strange?” Johnny pressed, thick eyebrows raised in exasperation.
Johnny and Moira sat on the couch, with Ray on the chair on the right. Roland leaned against the motel check-in counter next to Stevie, who shot him a look when Patrick entered.
“Ah! Patrick!” Ray exclaimed in happy greeting.
Patrick’s smile felt strained even to himself. What was going on here? Were they going on with the sale behind David’s back? He needed to delay all this if that was the case. “Hi Ray.”
He snuck a glance at Johnny and Moira, trying to take in their demeanors. Huh. Johnny held Moira’s hand and met Patrick’s gaze with a tight smile. Moira averted eye-contact all together, focused on Ray as if no one else were in the room.
Patrick forced himself not to read into it.
Luckily, Ray offered a distraction.
“I’m glad you’re here! You saved me the trouble of hunting you down.” Patrick wanted to object by saying Ray knew where he lived, but his former roommate plowed ahead. “If we could get your signature, then we can quicken the sale.”
Johnny’s brows furrowed. “Why do you need Patrick’s signature?”
“Did you guys already get married?” Stevie joked.
Ray clasped his hands together and smiled up at Patrick. “I should probably explain. You look like a little lost lamb.” He chuckled wryly at his own joke.
Patrick remained rooted by the door, wondering what reality he walked into.
“As I was explaining to the Roses earlier, a little more than a year ago, David came to me and we officially made him the owner of Schitt’s Creek.”
“Wh-what?” Patrick wasn’t aware of this. He knew Johnny brought the town as a birthday joke for David, but as far he was concerned, Johnny and Moira were the legal owners on paper.
“David found the gift affidavit, as a formal statement and proof that the town was gifted to him, making him the sole owner of Schitt’s Creek. I told him in order to sanction this, he needed Roland’s signature...”
“Which I don’t remember signing,” Roland interjected.
“We know, Roland,” Johnny snapped.
“...which he quickly received. I feel like I must apologize, Roland, he said you were onboard with this,” Ray said.
Roland twisted his mouth side to side, thinking. Finally, he shrugged. “Well, he’s technically the real owner of this town if it was a gift.”
“Why do we need Patrick’s signature, Ray?”
Patrick glanced over to the couch. Moira had asked that and she was looking at Patrick the same way she looked at him when he had his first one-on-one conversation with her, where she invited him to their family barbeque to celebrate his and David’s relationship. Maybe she didn’t want to sell the town either, or maybe she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted. Since the Crows movie was shelved, Moira had been clingier to her family and a bit recluse.
“David added a clause to this particular part of the legal document in which he will not sell the town unless Patrick saw whether or not a particular condition was met. If the condition was not met, Patrick’s signature will give David the go-ahead to sell the town.”
“What was the condition?” Johnny asked, yet there was something in his voice that Patrick couldn’t read.
“It was a rather peculiar one. I can’t exactly remember.” Ray thumbed through the files on his lap and Patrick found himself walking further into the room, waiting, heart thumping because David trusted Patrick with something and he didn’t exactly know for sure what it was. Ray stopped at a paper halfway down the pile and chuckled to himself. “Ah. Yes. The condition was that the owner of Schitt’s Creek, David Rose, will sell the town if Patrick Brewer no longer found that the subject, David Rose, compared to Mariah Carey.”
I know I’ll never be able to compete with Mariah, Patrick had told David, and here David had twisted Patrick’s own words in a legal document.
Patrick couldn’t stop it. His lips stretched out into a wide smile and he released a soft laugh. He covered it up and tried to restrain it. Oh, David.
“When...when did David do all this?” Patrick had to ask, had to know, because he thought he knew, but needed clarification.
“Oh, I remember it was during Single’s Week, because he brought me ice cream and watched Bridget Jone’s Diary with me when I failed to get any dates by the end of it.”
Patrick recalled that night, coming home from baseball practice and being bewildered to find David in the living room with Ray. David made an offhand comment about waiting for him and how Patrick owed him for getting stuck spending the afternoon with Ray but...
That was the week when Patrick told David he loved him, that David was his Mariah Carey. That week Patrick didn’t expect David to say it back, as much as he wanted David to, he knew it was hard for David and not only because of his past. Which is why it was all the more surprising and exhilarating when David said I love you back later that day.
Patrick had never been more proud of him.
The door of the motel lobby flew open and everyone in the room jerked in surprise.
David came into the lobby with Alexis at his heels. Dirt covered David’s cheeks, and his usual coiffed hair was flat. Alexis looked disheveled, a slight tear on her blouse up at the shoulder.
“Hi,” David whispered upon seeing Patrick.
Patrick smiled.
“Uh, we got your messages, sorry it took so long,” David said.
“We’re never going to Heather’s farm again,” Alexis whined. “I can never unsee that.”
And they both shivered in disgust at the same time.
David caught Patrick’s expression. “With Ted out of town and Miguel on call, we decided to help Heather give birth to one of her goats.”
“We decided?” Alexis objected. “Um, you decided. And some help you were. I think you terrified the goat into giving birth.”
“Excuse me, as if you were any better,” David argued. “You were squealing louder than the goat!”
Alexis seemed to notice the others in the room before David did. She scrunched her nose and gestured to them all. “Um, what’s going on here?”
David’s mock angry features morphed into worry.
“We were trying to hear our options about selling the town,” Johnny said.
“You can’t because David’s the owner,” Alexis said.
“You knew?”
“He told me like five minutes ago when your messages finally started pinging off the cell towers, and he’s not going to sell our home.”
“That’s right,” Patrick confirmed. “He’s not.”
David inhaled a startled breath. He rubbed his jaw with his fingers, a motion he does when he’s embarrassed and nervous. “Did Ray...”
“I think you may have to make some amendments to that clause,” Patrick said.
“Oh?” Soft, gentle, cautious.
“Because I specially said that I couldn’t compete with Mariah. To me, Mariah has nothing on you.”
David’s mouth twisted to the side, trying to hide his amusement, and his eyes sparkled. He cleared his throat. “Um, excuse us for a moment.” He grabbed Patrick’s hand and guided them outside.
As Patrick shut the door behind him, David buried his face into his hands, the four golden rings on his each of his left forefingers shone underneath the sunlight. “Mmmmmmm, Patrick, you can’t say stuff like that.” He dropped his hands and shook his head fondly at Patrick.
“Oh? This is coming from the guy who wrote a clause that he won’t sell the town unless I no longer love him?” Patrick teased back.
“Well, I knew it wouldn’t happen,” David said.
“I’m starting to believe maybe you’re the more sappy one in this relationship. You did this right after we said ‘I love yous?’”
“Well, that’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?”
David’s lips curled inward and he smiled. He averted his gaze to look upward for a few moments as he seemed to gather his courage. He met Patrick’s gaze and said: “That I would marry you.”
All the pieces suddenly clicked into place. David’s change and evolution in their relationship since that moment.
“Wait, does this mean that you were ready to move in with me?”
“So why not explore that now, so that we don't have to have this conversation five years down the line.”
“It was just a very messy day. And I was, I was trying to detangle things, and...and just make everything okay.”
“You were limping, and the rest of the hike would've made it worse.”
“Oh.” The single word came out of Patrick’s mouth as more of an exhale. His heart fluttered. “Why didn’t you tell me you did this?” he whispered. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m loving all this, but...”
David looked away and ran his hands across his face. “I was going to.” He dropped his hands and released an emotional sigh. “I don’t know, a part of me was embarrassed, I guess. Then I thought about Rachel.”
Patrick’s brows pinched. So many questions jammed into his mind. His jaw clenched as he tried to pick one.
David answered all of them: “Your last relationship before me, you were engaged. And, I don’t know, I guess I just trying to make sure you didn’t feel pressured.”
Patrick snaked a hand around David’s waist. He loved this man, it overwhelmed him how much he loved David. “You never did, David. You always made everything okay.”
David huffed out a smile. “I think this...doing this, formally becoming owner of Schitt’s Creek, was more for me, more of me following some advice I gave Ted.”
Patrick’s brows shot up. “Oh, you gave advice? Was it how he was acting incorrect?”
David chuckled. “I can have my nice moments.”
Patrick grinned. “Yeah, I know. What was it?”
Tints of scarlet colored David’s cheeks. He rubbed his lips and glanced away.
“David?”
David seemed to have found his courage and locked his gaze with Patrick’s. “That sometimes things do work out, and um, if you’ve got it, don’t let it go.”
Warmth spread throughout Patrick’s body. “You rejected your old life,” he whispered more to himself than David.
“Hmmm?” David tilted his head.
Instead of repeating himself, Patrick decided to challenge David. “You do know the buyer is offering a lot more than he did before.”
“Five million.”
Patrick’s breath caught in his throat. That much? “Oh?” he squeaked.
David folded his arms around Patrick. “But I have something here worth much more than that.”
Patrick didn’t know if his heart could swell with any more affection. He rose on his toes and captured David’s lips with his own. He poured out the affection he no longer could contain into the man he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, the man he wanted to have arguments over silly things with, the man who continued to surprise him every day, whether it’s from his clothes, dramatics, or genuine actions like these.
Patrick read somewhere once, probably from reading one of Alexis’ magazines while he waited for David to change clothes, that there are certain hurdles couples must overcome, especially before they make the decision to get married or stay together for a long time.
Patrick had thought his little secret, withholding his relationship with David from his parents was the hurdle they needed to overcome.
He realized that, yes, they needed to overcome it together, but the hurdle was mainly for Patrick to defeat with David’s support. He needed to face that in order to safely become settled in his relationship with David, to deeply feel and know that he wanted to marry David.
For David, the big hurdle was declaring I love you. Which to Patrick wasn’t that big, but for David, it was everything. For a man who often described his past romantic relationships as a string as bad luck, for a man who wrestled with expressing genuine emotions, for a man who only said I love you to his parent’s twice and once at a Mariah Carey concert, saying that and expressing it was like reaching the top of a mountain, freeing and powerful.
Patrick smiled inwardly. Made sense why David wore that expansive-wings-of-a-bird-over-the-shoulders sweater that day.
They broke their kiss and Patrick buried his nose into the crook of David’s shoulder. “I love you.”
“I love you,” David whispered back.
Oh, Patrick knew that. Still, he couldn’t resist a jest. “Couldn’t let this town go, huh? Had to hold onto your Schitt, didn’t you?”
David pulled back and rolled his eyes. “I take it all back, I’d rather have Mariah Carey.”
Patrick laughed. “It’s too late now. You’re stuck with me.”
“I haven’t said I do yet.”
“You will,” Patrick murmured.
David sighed dramatically. “I will,” he conceded. He shook his head and leaned in, kissing Patrick once again.
All this time, David already made his choice.
He chose love.
He chose Patrick.
Patrick couldn’t wait to marry this man.