Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Patrick walks in his sleep. He’s been doing it since he was young, and it’s something that has always come as a surprise to people who know him. He’s done it at Boy Scout camp and birthday sleepovers, in his college dorm, and even once on a trip to Niagara with Rachel’s family. For the most part, the people around him tend to treat it like a cute little quirk. His friends used to call it a glitch in his programming—something that proved calm, capable, in control Patrick wasn’t always perfect. He had a crack in his otherwise overachieving veneer. The sleepwalking makes him a little fallible, a little more real. 

So, of course, he hates it.

There are plenty of reasons to be frustrated by it, but mostly Patrick hates that, even now, there are still things about himself that he doesn’t understand and that he can’t seem to explain. He doesn’t want to reorganize his pantry or alphabetize his books while he’s supposed to be sleeping, but it happens anyway and without his consent. 

Whether he likes it or not, sleepwalking tends to come and go like the seasons. It enters his life with David like spring, when their relationship is still fresh and blossoming. The first time David finds him across the pitch black room, bumbling in the dark, they laugh. The very idea that one moment Patrick can be cocooning around David and the next, he’s standing by the door nude, hand on the knob to exit is hysterical to both of them. In the dark, even from a bone-deep sleep, David had sensed his absence. Patrick jokes that David saved him from a possible eviction that night, but underneath the gentle snark, he’s grateful for much more than that. 

And then the sleepwalking exits, slipping out of his life on soft feet for months at a time, and when it returns, it enters like autumn, crisp and bracing and kaleidoscopic in its range. 

Tonight, Patrick wakes to a hand on his back, and while he shouldn’t be, he’s surprised to see David standing next to him in his tiny kitchen, wide-eyed and concerned. “Hey, it’s okay, I’ve got you. Just come back to bed.”

The sound Patrick makes is unintelligible, even to him, and he acquiesces as David wraps a warm arm around his shoulder and gently steers him back to their bed. 

David pulls the covers over him, kissing his temple softly. Patrick is dozily wavering just below sleep, his eyelids heavy and his brain fuzzy, but David is close, and he wants to burrow into his safe and solid warmth. David whispers into his ear, “We’ve got a long drive tomorrow. You need to get your rest, honey.”

“Hmm,” Patrick says into David’s bicep after he’s found a way to nestle there, and he falls back to sleep with David’s fingers in his hair and David’s name on his lips.

When his 6:00 a.m. alarm sounds, Patrick’s apartment is filled with the strong aroma of French roast coffee. Patrick is alone in bed, and the door to the bathroom is closed. He rolls over to press his face into David’s now vacant pillow, inhaling sweet pockets of David’s residual shampoo and moisturizer and skin. 

Patrick knows he should be getting up to get ready and packed for the drive, but he’s exceptionally tired, even though he went to bed at a reasonable time and doesn’t remember tossing and turning. Oh. Sleepwalking. And if David is up before he is, that means that David either never returned to sleep after providing rescue, or he’s just that excited about going to Patrick’s parents for Thanksgiving.

Stumbling into the bathroom, Patrick finds David carefully grooming the stubble on his neck and applying some sort of beard balm as if it’s gold leaf on a sculpture, so naturally that’s where Patrick’s lips are immediately drawn to leave a good morning kiss. In the mirror, David’s eyes crinkle with a smile and in the foggy steam of his meticulous morning skincare regimen, Patrick’s stomach swoops. Patrick is looking forward to sharing more of David with his family, but he is the only one lucky enough to have David this way, half-awake and undone.

Patrick brushes his teeth, kisses David, clambers into the shower, kisses David, lathers up and shaves, kisses David, packs the last of his toiletries into his Dopp kit for travel, kisses David. David is well-kissed before the car is fully packed, and they’re admittedly getting behind schedule. 

“If I didn’t know better,” David says into Patrick’s mouth as he’s backed up against the side of Patrick’s car, engine running, “I’d think you were stalling.”

“I’m not stalling,” he denies. The idea to drive to his parents for an old-fashioned (though early) Thanksgiving had originally been his; something practical and well-timed. But like most areas of their relationship, David seems to have seized it as his own and improved upon it, making the trip an opportunity for them both to experience something resembling consistency and tradition. To make something that belongs to both of them.

“Okay, because I had to bribe my mother with sleeping pills for the drive to convince her she needed to rise before 10:00 a.m., and we don’t want to have to pour her into the backseat.” Patrick tries to ignore whatever foreboding that statement warrants, then closes the trunk. Bringing the Roses along was also Patrick’s idea, and while David was reluctant at first, he now seems to have fully embraced it, and he seems willing to do whatever he needs to do to make sure that it goes off without a hitch.

David has done so much that Moira and Johnny are packed and ready when Patrick pulls into the lot, and that feels like its own kind of victory. Moira is already yawning and she gives Patrick a fluttery, dry kiss on the cheek as he takes her suitcase—enormous for a two day trip—and loads into the trunk. “Experience has taught me there’s an eight minute window with these pills, so it’s best to point me toward my seat post haste.”

As Moira settles into the backseat with her silk eye mask and a neck pillow, Johnny proudly presents David with a spreadsheet he’s devised to plan stops for gas and potential points of interest, a gesture somewhere between helpfully overbearing and oddly sweet.

“It’s just a little something I put together during my down time at the front desk using one of our old road atlases,” Johnny stage whispers to David over Moira’s gentle snores. “I wanted to make a contribution to our trip.”

“That was really thoughtful, thank you,” David says from the passenger seat, and Patrick gives him a fond smile. “Although, what do we know about the snack options at these gas stations? Was that information also in the atlas? Was there internet cross-referencing, or—”

“I thought you already bought snacks?” Patrick watches for traffic as he guides the car onto the highway, holding the steering wheel with his hands at ten and two.

“I did. But you know I like options.” David pauses to examine the clipboard more closely. “But can we really hold out three hours before licorice presents itself?”

“I mean, I certainly hope so.” He isn’t sure what might constitute a licorice emergency, but he also knows better than to trigger one. “But let me know when things start feeling dire and I’ll pull over.”

Mr. Rose taps Patrick lightly on the shoulder. “I did list some alternate stops on page two if you think we’ll need them, Patrick.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rose. I appreciate that.” He does appreciate it. Patrick hasn’t made this drive very often—in fact, he’s only made it once and in the opposite direction—so the roads aren’t quite as familiar as they should be. He has gotten in the car with the intention of driving home on several occasions; once, after Rachel visited, he’d considered doing so permanently. But he hasn’t been back, despite repeatedly saying, “Soon,” every time one of his parents had asked, because the words, “David is my boyfriend,” hadn’t yet left his mouth.

It’s a point of contention, perhaps only in his own head, whether or not he could have gone back home without David, could have gone back at all without his parents knowing the truth. It’s not that it’s better this way, but he feels lighter at being able to have that mostly behind them; that the secret hasn’t settled forever like a fever in his joints. And now, coming home, he can show David everything and everyone, and maybe his family will get some sense of closure. The guilt over keeping a secret from everyone he loved, though, that may still linger.

David pulls Patrick out of his own thoughts as he strokes a finger up the arm closest to him. “Whatever that list says, I’m not really dying to see Canada’s Biggest Ball of Twine or where to find the best maple syrup. Just get us to Blind River.” 

Patrick nods, because that is something he can do.

For weeks, David has been asking questions about Patrick’s hometown that sound as if he believes they might be travelling to Narnia, or at least somewhere vaguely mythic.  Blind River is neither populated with talking lions nor really even terribly interesting, unless you’re an avid golfer, which many people are, or an aficionado of uranium refineries, which people generally...are not. He also doubts that David will care much for the thriving logging industry, either, but he’s taking a chance on the more personal aspects.

The distance has Patrick feeling his own sense of nostalgia for the people and the places that he’d like to experience through David’s eyes for the first time: the site of the old Rose Video store 785; the coffee house, Cup of Ambition, where he and his friends used to hold their Open Mic Nights; even his childhood bedroom with its sports memorabilia and notebooks full of song lyrics and posters of childhood heroes. They aren’t exciting places, but they meant something once, and he hopes that they still do. 

The past has a tendency to ache now when it surfaces, and stays tender like a bruise. Maybe once he’s home, he’ll find a way to tell David about how unhappy he used to be, when he still didn’t know how to name it. His chest tightens thinking of all the glimpses that David will suddenly have into a past that Patrick thought might be lost somehow, and he’s only now realizing still belongs to him.

After an hour, David falls asleep listening to one of his true crime podcasts, which leaves Patrick and Mr. Rose to fend for themselves conversationally. It starts out a little slowly, with Mr. Rose reading him road signs and occasionally suggesting that he pass slower-moving vehicles, but eventually they hit their stride when Patrick laments the Jays’ postseason prospects. He and Mr. Rose are comparing notes on strategic planning from an article they’d both read when Patrick realizes that more than an hour has passed and he’s legitimately enjoying their back and forth, instead of constantly worrying that he’s about to fall face-first into a conversational minefield. 

David rouses after another 30 kilometers or so, and soon, the car is filled with Mariah and Whitney and a smattering of Harry Styles, and this time, Mr. Rose is the one gently snoring.

They eventually stop at a gas station where Patrick fills up and David bravely circumnavigates the rest stop for fresh coffee, donuts, and emergency licorice, which was luckily in stock despite a lack of proper reconnaissance.

Patrick rests against the car as he waits for the tank to fill, and watches as David exits the store with his plastic bag of recent purchases around his wrist and a cardboard coffee cup in each hand. David is gorgeous—it’s an undeniable and objective fact—and every time he comes into view, Patrick is stunned anew that he somehow convinced that man to marry him.

David catches Patrick smiling at him over the roof of the car, nodding as if he can hear Patrick’s thoughts across the parking lot, and instead of returning to the passenger seat, David meets Patrick over by the pump. “Hi.” 

Taking the cups and the bag from David, Patrick balances them on the closed trunk as they naturally crowd into each other’s space, drawn together as if by magnets, David pushing his hips into Patrick’s.

“I brought you that tea you like,” David murmurs, nosing at the area just under his earlobe, causing Patrick to shiver. His hand falls lower on Patrick’s back. “Do you have any idea how cute you are, talking to my dad about...whatever that was.”

“I thought you were asleep.” Patrick allows his head to drop slightly and he accepts another series of kisses, accompanied by David’s warm breath, along the shell of his ear. And speaking of Mr. Rose, he’s getting quite the mid-morning entertainment. “We shouldn’t—”

David’s hair tickles at Patrick’s temple as he continues his campaign of featherlight kisses down Patrick’s jaw. “I was asleep, but I could have sworn I heard you say penetration, and like Pavlov’s dog, I immediately responded.” He says between kisses.

“Well, we were talking about,” heat travels up his neck and he lowers his voice, just in case anyone at the next pump is listening, “penetration, but it was market related. What kind of conversation did you think we were having?” His eyes dart to the back window to ensure that Mr. Rose is still asleep, or is at least valiantly pretending to be, before he’s completely distracted by the peppermint taste of David’s lip balm.

Patrick, still surrounded by the sharp smell of gasoline and the warm, heady smell of David, jumps when the pump loudly thunks to off, and he very reluctantly pries himself away to complete the rest of his task. 

In the bright sunlight, David looks fairly smug about how discombobulated he has just made Patrick, probably noticing the shaky legs Patrick is now attempting to make operate smoothly. “I don’t know, it sounded like he might have been talking to you about the birds and the bees.” 

“It definitely wasn’t that.” Patrick doesn’t want to imagine how awkward and blustery Johnny Rose’s version of a sex talk would be, although now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t think his own dad ever really had that conversation with him, either. Other than, don’t. “When it comes to business, your dad really knows his stuff. It’s just…” He searches for the right word, realizes that it’s not at all an exaggeration of the truth. “It’s nice to be able to talk to him.”

David’s mouth twists as he considers this statement, apparently deciding whether to be thrilled or terrified. From his resulting smile, he appears to have chosen the former. “Look at you, blending seamlessly.”

"Okay, David. It’s hardly been seamless,” he demurs. He’s still haunted by the incident during Cabaret rehearsals when Moira walked in on him and David “fitting” his costume, even though it was months ago. Moira’s only comment had been about how Patrick was dancing to the beat of David’s music, which hardly seemed like disapproval, but still felt a bit like he was being judged.

David catches his retroactive embarrassment and brushes his hand over Patrick’s forearm. “She called you a series regular in the soap opera of our lives the other day.” David knows this will only make Patrick blush harder, and he’s starting to think David’s doing it on purpose now.

“Well, don’t act like you and my mom haven’t been conspiring about...wait, what exactly have you been conspiring about?” 

David preens and pulls Patrick closer again, balancing a hand on the top of each of Patrick’s shoulders and squeezing as he speaks. “She called me once from the grocery store when she wasn’t sure which wine to buy. And another time to ask me your shirt size. You’re the one who keeps doing the Group FaceTime thing and we get all caught up in Property Brothers’ open concept renovate-the-kitchen talk.” 

He has been doing the group calls, and maybe it’s too much. But David always glows during those conversations, and it makes him happy to see David so happy. “You picked out their new wine fridge and the backsplash. You like it.”

“I do. I like it so much that we need to actually get there.” David smiles and reluctantly releases his grip on Patrick, and then collects his purchases to get back into the car and onto the road. 

Seventy-five minutes later, but far sooner than Patrick is expressly ready, they’re crossing into the town limits of Blind River. 

David is so riveted by the new landscape that he turns the stereo off so he can appreciate it appropriately. He marvels at the traditional suburban architecture as if he’s browsing through the Museum of Modern Art. “Everything is so boxy,” he says, and while Patrick would expect him to hate it, or at least judge it critically, he appears to be almost enamored of what he sees. “But it’s all so orderly and well-kept and...they sort of remind me of you. Like you’re that house.” He points out the window to a sturdy, rectangular blue ranch, with a brown roof and neatly trimmed lawn.

“I’m not a house, David.” And if he was, that one seems a little on the nose. (Also, why couldn’t he be a two-story?) He likes that David thinks about things that way, giving houses personalities, or seeing things for their potential instead of their current reality. Patrick’s never thought of his neighborhood as anything but a place he happened to live.

A hand reaches across the front seat and settles on the back of his neck; David’s palm is warm and wide against his skin. Patrick wonders how he always seems to know exactly when he requires that touch to ground him; if it’s something that David’s learned or if it’s something that he’s always known how to do.

“We aren’t far now,” Patrick announces and he’s not sure who he’s telling, himself or David.

The only sound in the car is the mechanical click, click, click of Patrick’s turn signal as he maneuvers the car onto his childhood street, and David is practically leaning out of his seat with excitement, the arch of his hair brushing against the rolled up passenger window.

“I can’t believe I finally get to see where you come from.” The wonder and awe in his voice warms Patrick from the inside out, as if it matters where and how he was produced. As if he’s anything close to the person he was when he last called this home. 

He remembers what it was like to live here and what it felt like to leave, and the difference is staggering, really, when he thinks of how little of himself he decided to bring with him into his new life. Even though some of his interests have made the transition to Schitt’s Creek, so much else hasn't, and for the next few days, he’s faced with gracefully bridging that divide somehow. 

Patrick swallows that back, not wanting to burden David with something he can’t solve. Not here. Not now. So he does what he usually does, and wills a joke to form before something else—something worse—might. “Well, I didn’t come from this neighborhood. I was born in Belleville and we moved here when I was six.”

David flutters the hand not currently on Patrick’s neck. “A technicality.”

“Okay, well, technically, we’re here,” Patrick says, pretending to be casual, as he pulls into the driveway of his childhood home.

The car hasn’t been stopped for more than a few seconds—Mrs. Rose is still fast asleep and Mr. Rose is attempting to wake her by using his most reasonable, soothing tone and promises of promo codes and copious wine—when Patrick’s own mother and father come out of the painted oak door and down the front steps to greet them.

Patrick is barely out of the car before his mom is in his arms, his dad trailing a few feet behind.

“Oh, sweetie,” Patrick’s mom touches his shirt like she still isn’t sure he’s real. “You didn’t have to dress up for us,” she says, referring to his dark blue button-up. “You look so nice.”

"It’s just a shirt, Mom.” It’s not as if he wasn’t wearing a very similar thing the last time they’d seen each other. Though two years ago, he was wearing a lot of t-shirts and baseball caps and was barely combing his hair half the time. Maybe his appearance is a little more polished than she’s used to. He clears his throat. “But, uh, thanks.”

“We’re just glad you finally came home, honey. We’ve missed you.”

Luckily, that’s when David appears at his side, six feet of black and white and a gorgeously dimpled, if hesitant, smile. Patrick’s brain short circuits a bit at the sight of David here, in his parents’ driveway. It’s completely incongruous and, yet, he absolutely fits. 

"David, you made it!” His mom is grabbing at David’s arm and pulling him in for a hug, and Patrick finds that he can’t meet his dad’s eye because they’re both misting up. 

Patrick fiddles with the car keys in his hand and pops the car trunk for something to do that isn’t crying in the driveway. Maybe his dad senses the need to cut the tension, too, because he glances over Patrick’s shoulder at the steamer trunk Moira brought and says, “I didn’t know Thanksgiving dinner required packing to board the Titanic.”

“My kingdom for an iceberg,” comes Moira’s lilting, though muffled voice, and Patrick gives his father a strained smile. David had mentioned that the sleeping pill sometimes made his mother...erratic, and this feels like the beginning of something vaguely unsteady. 

“My mother never does a holiday without a minimum of three costume changes. It’s in her contract.” David jokes and Patrick rests his hand on the small of David’s back, giving him a pat even though David doesn’t seem nervous. “Thank you so much for inviting us.” David’s smile is warm and genuine and it wraps itself around Patrick’s rawer nerves like a balm. 

Johnny finally emerges from the backseat, looking remarkably fresh and unrumpled in his suit. “Marcy, Clint, so good to see you again. You’re both doing well, I presume.”

There are more vague pleasantries and handshakes exchanged before the opposite door opens and Moira exits the vehicle. Her wig that is also a hat is askew, and her makeup is slightly smudged from the eyemask, but she is as regal as ever. She’s also clutching what appears to be a generous stack of her own headshots.

David scowls at his mother and hisses through his teeth, “I thought I asked you to leave those at home.” 

“You can never be too prepared for an audience, dear. Give the people what they want.” 

“People? It’s the Brewers. And they already have your autographed headshot.” She’d sent one home with them after Patrick’s surprise party, and David had been mortified even though Patrick’s parents had accepted it with a confused benevolence. 

“Yes,” Patrick agrees, in the interest of untangling any potential unrest before they even enter the house. “That was a very generous gift.” Patrick has the fleeting worry that his parents haven’t displayed that frame in a place of prominence and there will be damage control to do, but he’s distracted by his dad clapping a hand on his shoulder and beginning to guide him toward the front door.

“Moira, Johnny, you have quite the meal in store for you. Marcy’s been up since dawn, rolling out pie crusts and peeling potatoes and brining and basting the turkey.”

From somewhere behind him, Patrick hears Moira ask, “Why?”

His dad’s face does an admirable job of not blanching. “Well, because it’s Brewer Thanksgiving. And we’re very excited to have Moira and Johnny Rose here.” He glances at Patrick. “And David, too, of course.”

Patrick allows his parents and the Roses to go on ahead, while he and David remain on the porch. “So, are you ready for this?” Patrick asks, lacing his fingers through David’s.

“You mean being trapped with our parents for an early holiday? No. I can honestly say nothing thus far in my life has prepared me for that.”

“So should we make a run for it?” He’s joking, but he’s also a little bit serious. Patrick has run from here before, and at this moment, he’s not sure that he won’t have to again.

David squeezes his hand, bobbles it a little. “This is okay, right?”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” 

“Honey.” David says it like a warning and he purposefully takes a step back, bringing Patrick with him. “Do we need a safe word?”

“At my parents house?”

“No, not...like a code word, or a sign, for quick subject changes...”

“David, they’re my parents. I don’t need a code word.” 

“What if I want a code word?” 

“Then you should pick one. They’re probably wondering what we’re still doing out here.” He’s not impatient. He’s just... impatient. And he feels badly about it because David is trying so hard to make this go well. He wonders what his face is doing, what his body is doing, that David senses inherent danger and he doesn’t.

“Does this house have a fire alarm we can pull?” He waves a hand. “No, no. It’s going to be fine. My parents were very concerned about making sure that you have a good experience.”

“What? Why?”

“They’ve mentioned a few things, here and there, about why your parents didn’t know about us…”

“And you’re telling me this now? On their porch?” He turns his whole body then, curious and a little taken aback, but not letting go of David’s hand. “David.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just… They like you a lot. And sometimes they have a hard time understanding why… You know what? It’s neither here nor there. We’re going to have a lovely meal and some wine and everything will be fine.”

“Yes, because nothing is going to go wrong.” Which, the second he says it, he knows is like walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror or stepping on a sidewalk crack. 

By the time they get inside, Johnny and Patrick’s dad are chatting in the foyer while Moira prowls around the living room like a restless panther, inspecting candlesticks and lifting picture frames for appraisal. Patrick finds himself breathing a literal sigh of relief when he finds Moira’s headshot smiling at him from its place on a side table. David notices the same thing and rolls his eyes loudly, if that’s possible.

“Moira,” Patrick’s mom gently extracts a crystal vase from Moira’s hand and places it back on the mantel. “Why don’t you follow Clint, and he’ll show you and Johnny to the guest room?”

“Well, that’s a bit of a role reversal, isn’t it, John?” Moira says, but obediently turns to follow both men as they ascend the stairs. “I hope it’s a garden view.”

“Hey, how about that tour?” David rubs at his back after Patrick’s mom turns to go into the kitchen and check on the turkey. Patrick feels like he should be following her, doing something to help with dinner, having a conversation, but David is tugging his hand, and it’s hard to say no.

“I cannot tell you how happy it makes me that a cute boy is showing me his room,” David announces as they climb the stairs. “I just can’t wait to see all your ribbons and your...sports cups.”

“They’re trophies, David, and really, there aren’t that many of them,” Patrick says as he opens the door. And he’s telling the truth because the bookshelf that housed the trophies is gone. As are the trophies themselves, his bed, his nightstand, his Blue Jays memorabilia, and any evidence he’d ever lived in this room. 

David gestures to the stark black ergonomic desk chair in the space Patrick’s childhood bed used to occupy. “Mhmm. This certainly explains why your posture is so good.”

"What the fff—” He knows that his mom has been on a renovating kick lately with the kitchen, spending hours on the phone with David talking about subway tile and texting him about paint chips, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about changing his bedroom. “I had no idea,” he says, mostly to himself. 

His bedroom is clearly the home office now, housing a desktop computer with an enormous monitor, copious binders labeled with previous tax years, and neatly stacked boxes of his mother’s craft supplies. His dad’s record player has a place of prominence on top of the cedar chest that Patrick used to house his baseball cards in, and there are record album covers proudly displayed on the shelves. 

“Huh.” David says, turning his feet in a neat circle in order to take it all in. “Well.”

“This is…” Patrick collapses into the uncomfortable plastic desk chair and sighs, a little stunned. “I guess this is what they mean when they say you can’t go home again.” 

“Aw, I bet you were very sweet here amongst the tax receipts and the Anne Murray records,” David perches carefully on Patrick’s knee and rubs at his sternum with dancing fingers. “I can still picture you in this room, if it helps.”

“It does, a little.” What helps most is having David this close, being solid and real and tangible. Patrick looks down at the hardwood floor under his feet. “This isn’t even the same terrible brown shag carpet. You would have hated it.”

"Oh, I’m sure I would have. But isn’t a lack of shag carpet something we should be celebrating?” 

Patrick shrugs. He’s not sure if he can explain it, how it feels like a loss not having his room the way it had been, not being able to show it to David. Feeling paved over, erased. “No, you’re right. It’s just a room.”

“Well, show it to me.” He does that little move with his shoulder that Patrick’s come to accept as David’s invitation to do what he’s asking. Which generally means Patrick either complies immediately or does the exact opposite, depending on the day. Sometimes the minute.

“Show it to you? We’re in it.”

“No, I mean, show it to me.” David’s lip quirks when he’s clear that Patrick isn’t purposely being obtuse, when he knows that the shoulder shimmy hasn’t been in vain. “So, your bed...it was here?” He gestures expansively with his arms, and Patrick finally understands what he’s doing. Granted, the flourishing movement almost knocks both of them to the ground with the way they’re precariously balanced in the chair, but Patrick manages to nod his assent while keeping them both aloft. “Was it a twin?”

“No, it was full-sized,” he replies slowly.

"Was your duvet plaid? I feel like it was a jewel-toned plaid.”

"David, you don’t have to—”

“No, I want to. Tell me about your linens but just...don’t tell me about the thread count of your sheets.” His face belies imagined horror. “Too depressing.”

“Okay, I’ll protect you from the big bad truth about my bed sheets.”

"Chivalrous.” David purrs at him and rubs comfortingly at his chest again.

It actually takes a few seconds to remember what anything had looked like. Even when he still lived in town, he had his own place, at least for a little while—though he stayed here often, especially when he and Rachel were off. “Everything in my old room was in Blue Jays colors. Royal blue, white, red—”

“—I cannot imagine you surrounded by anything in the entirety of the red color palette.” David interrupts as if he’s just been met with the precise picture of this abomination and he needs to make certain that everyone’s limbs are still intact. “It just doesn’t work with your alabaster skin tone.” 

Patrick finds himself laughing. “I think it was fine. My bedding was mostly blue so my skin tone remained...unscathed.”

“Good, good. Blue is very soothing.” David pets at his shoulder, examining the room further. Patrick tries to look at the room through David’s eyes: the walls have been repainted a creamy taupe, which is far more within David’s aesthetic than the bright powder blue it used to be. “Okay, so what about these sports...trophies? Did everyone get one or did you have to win something? Was there a ceremony?”

“I mean, sometimes everyone got one, but I had…” Patrick squints as if he’s imagining his bookcase. “I had a few from Little League and from hockey, when we won the championship,” He stops. “Do you really care about this stuff, David? I mean, they’re just...plastic. And they’re not even—it doesn’t matter.”

“Did they mean something to you?”

Patrick shrugs. “Maybe not as much as I thought.” And definitely not as much as the man who is attempting to salvage this almost-failed trip down memory lane. He tightens his grip around David’s waist and pulls him closer. 

“Okay, then...I feel like you’re having difficulty getting into the scene and you might need a prop.”  David pivots in his arms, quickly taking stock of the desk and presenting Patrick with the stainless steel pencil cup. “So tell me about this VIP trophy,” he prompts.

The gesture is sweet, but there’s a part of him that still feels a little ridiculous performing this exercise. It’s as if he forgets sometimes that he can be anything with David, any bit of himself, even if he’s anxious or broken or just confused—as long as it’s true.  

“It is not,” Patrick feels compelled to correct, “the MVP trophy. This is my trophy for Best Mental Attitude. It’s essentially for good sportsmanship,” he explains when David gives him a quizzical look, “like not letting a loss impact your performance, supporting your teammates, that kind of thing.”

He watches as David bites his lip, clearly doubting Patrick’s story. “Okay, no, that makes sense.”

“I used to be a lot more...reserved, I guess? Coaches liked me because I followed directions, mostly.” That was back when Patrick was under the impression that being nice was the same thing as being good, and maybe he still struggles with that sometimes. David is watching him with quiet, kind eyes and Patrick thinks this might be his chance to tell him how difficult it is being home, how there’s Before David and With David, and a chasm in between, but when he goes to say it, David’s lip quirks, and all he wants to do is show him. “David, I—I see what you’re trying to do here, and I really—” Patrick sets the cup back on the desk, emotion clogging his throat. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” David’s face is very close and he’s blinking more slowly, eyes lowering to Patrick’s lips. Patrick draws in, ever closer, and covers David’s lips with his softly at first, then with greater need. David teeters and Patrick has to right him with a stronger hand to his back. “Was kissing in your bed always this wobbly?”

“I didn’t really kiss a lot of people here, but I don’t remember a lot of wobbling, no.” They readjust, David turning so that he’s straddling Patrick more fully with both feet on the ground, his groin pressed against Patrick’s stomach. Patrick has never been more grateful for an armless chair in his life. “This is much better.” 

David’s hands are on Patrick’s jaw and he’s examining his face carefully, lovingly, before he dips his head back down. David’s eyes are brown and deep and so warm, filled with all the things that Patrick loves about him, that he loves about Patrick. It’s easy to want to stay in them, safe, but David’s mouth is soft and just a little bit open, and it’s equally as easy to want to cut the distance and kiss his way into that space. The angle is harder since he’s beneath David, but the noise David makes as he licks into his mouth is worth it; he’s happy, Patrick is happy, nothing else around them matters. 

Patrick is smiling and it’s making him clumsy, kissing with too much teeth. David just laughs, cupping his hand around the back of Patrick’s head, guiding him where he wants him, making sure they’re both getting what they need. 

And this definitely feels like what Patrick needs, making out like a teenager in his old room, repainting and repurposing this space just for them. He nips at the divot of David’s collarbone, inhaling the cedary scent of his warm skin and the remnants of his aftershave, not really caring if he leaves marks, hands slowly climbing under his sweater, until David gently maneuvers him away. 

“We still have dinner and I don’t think it’s by candlelight,” David scolds, but there’s no heat behind it. The only heat is in his mouth and his tongue and his hands, and in the press of him low against Patrick’s stomach, and Patrick is fine with allowing the fiery warmth to consume him.

“But how will they know you’re mine?” Patrick asks, palming the base of David’s head and pulling him back in, so he can work his tongue against the divot of his throat. David gives in, allows himself to be led, until he decides he’d rather be in charge again and he drags Patrick’s mouth back up to his. 

They’re panting and breathless and David’s lips are dark pink and kiss-swollen when they finally pull apart. Patrick feels a hundred times lighter, even though he’s still half-hard, his shirt is both untucked and embarrassingly wrinkled, and he's fairly certain that he’s covered David in tiny red bites that will soon turn into bruises. He suddenly feels very powerful, being able to leave a mark, something that lasts, and he has to remind himself that he’s here, in this room, in the present.

David is holding Patrick’s face as if he’s trying to divine Patrick’s mood through his touch. “Hey, I’m sorry things aren’t how you left them, and I’m sure they just forgot to mention it. You know how things can get—” He drops one hand to flutter it in explanation. “—busy.” 

Everything is still foggy and he’s still a little floaty, pheromones and endorphins bouncing wildly out of sync, but still, something finally feels real and right and true. He isn’t sure what David is referring to anymore, but he agrees with a sigh and lets David drop one last kiss on his forehead.

Above him, David stretches and collects himself and attempts to smooth the indentations Patrick’s fists have made in his sweater. It reminds Patrick of the early days of their relationship, when even the stockroom felt like too many feet to travel to get their hands on one another. 

David cranes his neck looking out the window. “Um, did you forget to tell me that you guys have a guest house?”

Patrick knows even before he stands that David is referring to the treehouse that he and his Dad spent the summer building when he was nine. Well, his dad and uncle Gary, the contractor, built it while Patrick handed them nails and brought them lemonade, but it certainly felt like a joint effort at the time. “I guess I did kind of forget.”

“How? It’s enormous.”

“Well, when you’re a kid, everything sort of looks bigger, right?” From the vantage point of the bedroom window, it is a bit oversized, but when he’d needed to go hide in it, it always felt sort of small. But maybe that was more a reflection on his mood than the space itself. “Yeah, my dad may have gotten a little carried away.” 

“It’s a modest Craftsman home. In the air. Has Architectural Digest seen this?” He likes when David is impressed with something like this, even if he’s only indirectly responsible. It gives Patrick a little thrill, like he’s achieved something rare.

“You should have seen all the blueprints and plans they made just to get everything right. Everyone thought they were out of their minds since I’d outgrow it, but even when I was older, it was a place to get away when I was...brooding.” His parents used to call them Patrick Pouts and he’ll be voluntarily sharing that information with David over his dead body. “That was a fun summer, though, building it with my dad.”

“I bet you were an adorable tiny lumberjack.” David leans in to kiss him. “Did you use a... saw? Tell me more about the wood. Was it reclaimed?”

Patrick rolls his eyes but allows David to pull him back into his arms. He’s happy to follow David like he’s the sun, orbit him whenever he can. 

These kisses are slightly less urgent than the earlier ones—maybe David is distracted actually thinking about the wood—but they’re making Patrick feel more centered. Like he can start to make sense of things again.

Patrick is about to go in for another kiss to test his hypothesis when his mother shouts from downstairs, “Boys! It’s Turkey-Lurkey time!”

Chapter Text

“Oh my god.”  David’s face undergoes a rapid succession of emotions, each one more potent than the last: secondhand embarrassment, horror, merriment, intrigue.

Patrick had also completely forgotten about Turkey Lurkey time, which is probably just his brain’s way of protecting him and all of humanity from the spectacle. There’s an entire song that accompanies it, which he prays his mother doesn’t start to sing or demand he play on the piano, even though he’s witnessed Moira and David performing The Number and really, the shame quotient is about equal. David comes very close, his nose brushing Patrick’s, eyelashes lowered. “Does this involve a costume change or are we allowed to remain in our current wardrobe?”

Patrick is refusing to meet David’s eyes when he hears Moira’s now familiar trill coming from outside the door. “You never said there would be birds!”

“Moira, it is Thanksgiving dinner. Of course there are going to be turkeys,” Johnny intones calmly. If memory serves, there are turkeys embroidered on the napkins, painted on the china, and his mom uses paper ones to serve as placards. There is no escaping them, if one would need to do so. Which, to date, no one ever has. Except for Uncle Bill, who had lost a pinky toe in a rather violent pecking incident, and even he’d managed to endure the Thanksgiving table. “The turkey is a central theme of the entire holiday.”

“Well, that may be, but I would think at least a little sensitivity to my plight is in order,” Moira responds as Patrick and David join them in the hallway. Moira’s changed from the car: she’s no longer in her wigs, and despite her avian-related protests, the belt of her new dress appears to be comprised entirely of black feathers.  

It’s clear from her tone that he and David have just stepped into an audience participation-based theatrical performance, but instead of remaining the unsuspecting couple in the third row who were given tickets by a coworker, they’ve been pulled right up on stage.

“I finally felt as though I was coming to a place of acceptance about Crows and here again it’s assailing me from all sides.” 

Now doesn’t seem like the time to interject that his parents don’t subscribe to the trade papers, and even if they did, Variety hadn’t picked up any news about The Crows Have Eyes III being shelved. 

“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Rose. I don’t think my mom realized how difficult—” David’s hand has navigated to Patrick’s shoulder and he isn’t sure if this is meant to encourage or discourage his current line of reasoning, “—this would be for you.” He only just manages to bite back the word ‘still.’

“So many months later,” David says under his breath. To his mother, he says, “And it’s a fairly loose association, really. Turkeys and the other...birds aren’t even the same species. So I think we can all agree that no one is purposefully assailing you with anything right now. Other than with the urge for you to go downstairs and enjoy the meal that Mrs. Brewer prepared for us, so we can all get to know each other better. Please.”

Moira glances at Johnny for a moment and then straightens her...plumage. “Yes, of course, David. The family is a haven in a heartless world.”

“I don’t know about you boys, but I am very excited to dig in. Everything smells delicious.” Johnny says, gently prodding all three of them toward the stairs.

Patrick’s parents are already seated in the dining room as they enter en masse, Moira hesitantly walking to sit behind the paper turkey that bears her name in his mother’s careful penmanship. Normally there would be fifteen people at this table—aunts and uncles and cousins—but Patrick felt like inviting everyone would be too much, too fast, too soon, and would greatly increase the likelihood of David folding in on himself like a dying star. As it stands now, David is next to him, and something warm kindles in his belly when he sees the David and Patrick name cards sitting side by side on his mother’s Thanksgiving table. 

“I do hate to be an imposition but is there any way we can dine without any further mention of our main course?” Moira swiftly turns her placard face down on the table, and then repeats the gesture with Johnny’s. When she spreads a cloth napkin over her empty plate, Patrick’s parents exchange a look but say nothing, quietly plastering on awkward smiles.

Something in Patrick’s stomach solidifies and sinks. 

His mother always serves Thanksgiving family-style, and usually, you can’t hear yourself saying, “Pass the salt,” over the din of cousins arguing about the Maple Leafs, or Uncle Gary shouting about the prime minister, or Aunt Linda demanding that one of her children eat a vegetable. This year, there are six adults sitting at the table, and the room is quiet, other than polite banal remarks about the food and the clink of the serving spoon against his mother’s fine china. Patrick is suddenly very aware of every small breath and sigh, every chair leg as it scrapes the wood floor, and he isn’t sure how people as verbose and expressive as the Roses have suddenly become actors in a silent film.

After the last dish of sweet potatoes is passed and Moira’s plate remains empty but for a tiny spoonful of butternut squash in the corner, Patrick’s mom finally ventures to break the silence. Patrick is relieved and apprehensive, all at once. 

He remembers how at his birthday party, she’d been fairly gobsmacked by Moira’s and Johnny’s former notoriety, and had spent most of the evening staring at them as if they’d just fallen out of her television screen. He couldn’t blame her; he still feels that way sometimes and he sees them almost daily. But apparently now his mom is so comfortable with the Roses, she sounds like she’s interviewing them on a morning show. “Moira, why don’t you tell us more about Cabaret. David sent us a beautiful shadowbox with the program and a photo of Patrick in his costume—” David feigns innocence as Patrick mouths what? “—but I’d love to hear from the director herself.” 

Moira sits up straighter in her chair, adjusting the chainmail shoulder caps of her dress. “When you bring together a group of amateur performers for a boutique theatrical run, you can never be quite certain what you will achieve. I never for a moment doubted dear Patrick’s abilities, but there is always that small moment of fear right before everything falls together, and you see what you’ve really accomplished.”

“Hmm, the Elmdale Chronicle called it an ‘auditory cornucopia of debauchery and licentiousness,’” David adds, and Patrick remembers the night David read him that review, arms loose around his neck, David’s breath hot against his ear. It had been two days after they’d gotten engaged, and Patrick can't think of a single moment from those first few days that he would alter, all of them laced with joy and ease and soft touches.

“It was an excellent performance,” Johnny agrees, gesturing with his fork full of dressing. “Couldn’t have been prouder of all the kids, and Moira, for their hard work.” Moira throws Johnny a look. “And their god-given talents, of course.”

Patrick’s dad glances over at Patrick’s mom, whose lips are slowly disappearing into her face, and then back to Johnny and Moira. “So it sounds like Patrick managed to hit all the right notes then?” he asks lightly.

“He hit every note brilliantly.” Moira says, her tone definitive.

His mom’s face brightens slightly, “Patrick, after dinner, what do you say we sing Turkey-Lur—”

Patrick can feel his skin flushing hot with pending embarrassment when his dad gently intervenes. “Marcy, I think it might be time to retire that tradition, don't you? He's old enough to claim a marriage exemption now.” 

“Of course, honey. It's just...Patrick has always been very musically gifted,” his mom responds, taking a bite of her mashed potatoes. Patrick has barely looked down at his plate, he realizes, and he’s not even holding his silverware. He isn’t sure why his leg is jiggling under the table. “I was always after him to try out for the musicals in high school, but he didn’t want to give up his baseball.”

“Well, it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?” Johnny offers. “Funny how you ended up doing both this year, Patrick. And winning the championship, no less.”

“Geez, between David hitting a home run and Patrick learning how to dance, I’m starting to feel like I missed everything,” his dad says, and when Patrick turns his head to look at his mom, she’s too busy pushing gravy around her plate with a piece of turkey to meet his eye.

Johnny raises his wine glass to his lips. “Don’t feel bad, Clint, I missed the serenade, so we’re in the same boat there.” 

“The serenade?” his mother asks, poking briefly at her salad. “What serenade was that?”

David chokes on his wine and Patrick has to pat him on the back to help it clear his airway. “Arms up.”

“Marcy, your son arranged and performed a beautiful ballad for David, under the guise of an Open Mic Night—”

“—No, it was actually an Open Mic Night to help get people in the store. I didn’t watch Bob perform beat poetry for no reason,” David rasps, only barely recovered.

“Either way, by the time it was done, I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house. What a declaration.” Moira touches Johnny’s shoulder. “Where had you gone that evening? You should have been there.”

“Well, no one told me it was going to be a pivotal moment in David’s relationship, Moira. I thought it was just another Tuesday night.” Johnny takes another spoonful of cranberry sauce and looks toward Patrick’s parents. “Kids. They never tell you when they’re about to have a pivotal moment.”

Patrick’s mother nods, “No, they don’t seem to, do they?” and passes the basket of rolls to his dad, who hasn’t asked for one. 

Johnny and Moira exchange worried glances—Johnny’s eyebrows go haywire the way that David’s sometimes can and Moira wiggles her mouth disapprovingly—and then Johnny says, “You know what sounds like fun? What if we tell each other what we’re thankful for?”

David’s foot hits Patrick’s under the table.

“I can start,” David says after a few beats, and Patrick realizes that he was probably supposed to go first. He is the one degree of separation to everyone around this table. 

He takes a deep breath. “No, David, I’ll start.” 

“No, Patrick, allow me,” Johnny cuts in, and David’s head swivels so quickly that Patrick feels it in his own neck. 

“Patrick is going to start.” David says, jaw half-clenched. The other half of his face is trying to smile reassuringly at Patrick’s parents, who are looking on as if they’re watching a tennis match (half-bemused, his dad), or a car crash (half-horrified, his mom). 

Meanwhile, Patrick’s lungs are starting to feel as he’s been trapped in a jar with holes punched in the lid as everyone’s gazes bear down on him. After David gives his arm a gentle rub, he finally gains enough oxygen to speak.

“I’m grateful for David, and for his family, who have been very welcoming,” he starts. Johnny and Moira beam a little, and David’s eyes start to look a little glassy, so Patrick tries not to look at him directly. He has the passing thought that he might never make it through his vows without resuscitation if David radiating this much love temporarily stops his heart during dinner. “And I’m thankful that I finally had the opportunity to bring David home.”

He finally catches his mother’s eye and she immediately looks down, her thumb and her forefinger pulling at the skin of her opposite hand. 

“I feel like I already covered most of my topics in my engagement speech—” David looks pointedly at his mother, who shrugs. “But Patrick changed my life, and I’m glad I have the chance to show him what that means to me. Every day. For the rest of our lives.” 

“David—” Patrick starts, but David is shaking his head because he can’t enumerate too many emotions at once, and that’s okay. He doesn’t have to. Patrick settles for placing his hand on David’s and giving him a little squeeze. He tells himself he’ll fill in the blanks later, when their parents aren’t watching.

Moira takes the pause as an opportunity, dabbing her mouth with her napkin before she speaks even though she hasn’t picked up her fork or put anything in her mouth that wasn’t wine. “As the terribly prescient Flan O’Connor said, a good man is hard to find, and I do believe that our David has found one of the best. Don’t you, John?”

“Absolutely, Moira.” They sound as if they’ve somehow scripted their Thanksgiving table banter, and Patrick is tempted to check under the table for the camera. “I, for one, am very thankful for this opportunity to get to know our future in-laws better in their beautiful and welcoming, comfortable home. And that David is the happiest that we have ever seen him, thanks to his relationship with your son.” He nods to Patrick’s parents. “Which you both know about now, so that is a relief.”

His dad reaches to give his mom a comforting pat but freezes midway when Moira begins making a dramatic rocking motion. She sways, holding tightly to the sides of the table. “Did anyone else hear the thundering footsteps of a pachyderm exiting the room?”

“Okay, thanks so much.” David says quickly. “Should I go again?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before he says, “I’m thankful for appropriate Thanksgiving dinner conversation topics.”

Patrick has grown accustomed to Rose family antics - he usually relishes them - but watching the mortified looks form on his parents' faces makes him feel as if the success of this dinner is slowly slipping out of reach.

Johnny makes a broad gesture with his arms, nervously scanning faces around the table, and it’s clear Moira has just gone off script. “Well, the motel is doing better than expected. We’re making our second quarter projections, and looking at some new marketing strategies since these Airbnbs are sneaking in—“ 

“—you’re drifting.” David cuts in. “That’s sort of a lot of work talk.”

“But, son, I’m thankful for my work. And for all that it’s given us. Including our partnership with Stevie.”

“Okay, that one is nice. I’m thankful for Stevie, too.” David’s shoulders relax. “I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Brewer, we seem to be a little...wordy, tonight, and we’re taking up all the air in the room. What about you?”

His dad clears his throat. “There is so much for us to be thankful for this year, and every year, really. But today, I think I’m most grateful that my boy is back in this dining room, smiling.” Patrick knows his dad can’t sustain earnestness for too long at a clip, so he’s not surprised when he gets that glint in his eye. Patrick’s been willing victim to that teasing glint his whole life. “And I’m thankful that somewhere there’s videotape of Patrick dancing, because I know what we’re doing next year at Christmas.”

His mom relaxes a bit, her hands finally still. “I’m so glad you’re finally home, honey, and that David and his family have made you so happy.”

After that, things start to even out slightly, even though Moira starts singing snippets from Danny Boy. The Roses and his parents seem to be at a more even keel by the time they’ve had seconds, and David starts recounting Patrick’s feud with Ronnie over bathroom tiles and their subsequent baseball face-off.

“Oh, Clint, tell them about the time you and Bruce Applebaum got into that argument about his privacy fence and our maple—”

“That fence was an eyesore, Marcy. And it was three feet over our property line. Our leaves were not falling into his yard, either, even though he was certain that they were. I offered to help him rake, but he just wouldn’t listen to reason.” His dad’s face reddens from the wine and the decades old argument.

“So you built Patrick that treehouse that looked directly into his yard, over his sad little yellow fence.”

“Oh, yellow. No.” David looks appropriately scandalized.

Moira gives a musical laugh. “Well, the apple certainly didn’t fall far from the treehouse did it?”

“Better than that, Bruce couldn’t get much privacy with a bunch of rowdy ten year olds having water balloon fights and cannonballing into his azaleas,” his dad tells Moira and chuckles. “You should have seen the look on his face every time another baseball landed in his yard.”

“Wait,” Patrick interrupts. Wait. “Do you mean that you built that entire treehouse out of spite?” Patrick keeps the rest of the series of questions that start lining up like soldiers in his head from advancing, as if his throat is conditioned to keep those kinds of inquiries contained. 

“No, of course not, sweetie. Your dad loved building that for you and you spent so much time playing in it that it was absolutely worth it.”

“But it didn’t start out that way.” Patrick toys with his fork, spinning in his hand like it might be a time turner he can use to undo the past few hours, or at least put back the one uncomplicated memory he had left from childhood.

“I don’t think it matters how it started,” David says softly, and Patrick finds himself loosening his grip on the silverware. “It’s still a very impressive structure.”

Patrick is still smiling at David when Johnny reaches for his fourth spoonful of cranberry sauce and Moira stills him with a hand on his arm. “John, please, be mindful of your condition.”

Patrick’s mom raises an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, Johnny, is everything all right? Patrick didn’t tell us anyone had any dietary restrictions.” His mom shoots him that same look she would give him when he was a teenager and had failed to mention a school obligation or a rescheduled baseball game; like her day was now completely thrown off.

“Oh no, Marcy, it’s just a bit of reflux from time to time, nothing to worry about.” 

“Yes, so little to worry about that you ended up in the emergency care department of our local hospital.” Moira casts a glance toward Patrick’s parents. “You know how these men always want to appear so brave and hold things in, until they begin to barrel out, one way or the other.”

His mom laughs and pats his dad’s hand. “I completely understand. Clint’s had a few procedures now thanks to ‘walking it off’ when he should have been calling a doctor.”

“What do you mean ‘a few procedures’?” Patrick asks and he can feel David’s arm as it winds around the back of his chair. 

“Oh, I just had a minor sinus surgery and last year, I got a stent put in.” 

He starts to count off on his fingers, as his mom blithely adds, “And don’t forget, you had that biopsy on your kidney.”

“What?” Patrick yelps. David finds his wrist, stroking along the tendon of his forearm, perhaps in an effort to provide an ounce of calm in this moment. This moment that is passing like a muscle spasm, quick and painful and still somewhat inexplicable. 

“It’s all fine, Patrick. It was just a cyst.” 

“Just a cyst.” He repeats. “But surgery? And a stent?”

His mom glances over at his dad, her eyes flickering with something unnameable. “Dad had that surgery when you were in business school; it was ages ago, sweetie. A minor outpatient procedure, just like the stent.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” He can feel the heat rising from his chest and overtaking his whole face; his brain is buzzing.

“We didn’t want to worry you, and it’s such a long drive…”

He hears his voice as it hardens, and cracks. “I would have made the drive if I knew that Dad was sick, Mom.”

“I’m healthy as a horse, Patrick.” His dad knocks three times on the dining table and Moira jumps a little in her seat. “Knock on wood, of course.”

Patrick feels sick, even though he’s barely eaten. Heat rises up his chest, settles in his neck. “It would have been nice to know, though, at the time.”

“I don’t know what you would have done, except worried. And you have so much on your plate already.”

“I would have made room on my plate.” 

“You have a brand new store and you live six hours away, sweetie. And everything turned out fine.”

“But you didn’t know that when you didn’t call to tell me.” He drops his napkin on the table. “Surgeries, home renovations, neighborhood feuds… is there anything else you’ve kept from me? You guys on the lam now? Living a life of crime?”

His parents exchange nervous looks. 

“What?” He hears his own voice go high and thin but his stomach drops somewhere near his knees. He’s reasonably certain that his parents aren’t spending their weekends doing bank jobs, but he doesn’t know what else is possible, considering everything he’s discovered in the past few hours.

“Well, I’m sure you noticed all the changes around here, and we’ve hired a realtor—“

“—We’re going to sell the house, son.” His dad finishes for his mom, who’s already starting to tear up.

He’s up from the table before he can blink, his chair scraping against the floor and his head full of static. He hears David saying, “Patrick,” and his parents saying, “It’s okay, let him go, he deserves some space,” and he feels just like he did when he woke up twelve hours ago, confused and disoriented in the middle of his own kitchen. Maybe now he’ll wake up again as David guides him back to bed.

He stands at the patio door that opens to the backyard, willing himself awake, but after a few moments, he’s disappointed to find that he already is. 

Chapter Text

A walk. He should go for a walk. He slides the patio door open, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s climbing the ladder to the treehouse. Touching the weathered slats of the ladder feels exactly like it did when he would drag his guitar up here, when he was sixteen and angry and thought he should be...older somehow, or smarter. He’d sneak beer and write sad, probably (definitely) terrible songs, and feel wiser, stronger, not so confused. 

He’d always felt safest under the canopy of this maple tree, and he’s relieved to find that hasn’t changed.  Someone, probably his parent’s new realtor, has hung strings of twinkle lights both inside and outside the structure, bathing it in a warm, ethereal glow. The built-in bench is lined with throw pillows that were definitely not part of its previous decor, and what’s probably an air mattress is set up in one of the far corners, covered in flannel bedding to look as if someone could use this space to camp in their own backyard. Home away from home.

The ceiling is high enough that Patrick can still stand at his full height at the tallest point of the roof, and unlike most of his parents’ house right now, he doesn’t feel as if he’s being pushed out of it or having it papered over.  It’s spacious, but cozy, probably the most comfortable and familiar place—besides with David—that he’s been all day.

Patrick doesn’t know what it says that he’d just assumed that everything would be just as he’d left it. He also doesn’t know why it matters, since he was the one who had physically picked up and moved. He knows that he doesn’t deserve any consideration in these changes but he’d like some, and he doesn’t know what it says that he can’t trust the space between.

And that space...he’s never allowed himself room to consider that he’s the architect of it, or that there’s a sequence to it, a cause and effect that starts with a secret, or a set of secrets, and ends with him feeling as if he and his parents are now separated by a pane of glass.

The patio door opens and a familiar figure emerges, stepping tentatively onto the deck and making his way to Patrick’s hideaway. David is juggling two wine glasses and pie plates and forks and it tugs at Patrick’s gut, how much David has to carry when he can’t seem to hold things up on his own. 

Patrick meets him halfway to accept the plates so David can get his bearings.

“You know, after the tree walk incident, I didn’t think we were doing heights anymore.” It’s hard to see David’s face clearly in the shadow of the maple, but his voice is soft and warm.

“You don’t have to…” Patrick starts but David cuts him off with a quick and forceful shake of his head. Once he’s entered, David inspects the room with wonder, then quickly inquires about the likelihood of splinters, and spiders, and the possibility of the fairy lights attracting moths. 

“And, next time you disappear into an enchanted forest, do you think you could do so when I’m not wearing Dries van Noten?”

“I will certainly try.” At this point, Patrick is just trying not to disappear.

David arranges the plates and wine glasses on the fold-down desk that’s attached to one wall. There are wooden boxes lining the opposite wall that used to contain Patrick’s plastic pirate swords and his Nerf guns and later, any contraband he wanted to hide from his mother, who had reservations similar to David’s about coming into the treehouse. They sit on the bench closest to the door, hips touching. “Was this your hideout? Mine was my mother’s walk-in closet, amongst her shoes.”

“That tracks.” David’s expression is one of begrudging acceptance as he nods, and Patrick is amused for a moment until he remembers why he just made David follow him into a tree. “It was good for more than just creating a nuisance once, I guess.”

“And now, according to the realtor, it’s listed as an arboreal she-shed, so…” David’s look shifts to something more sympathetic. “I brought you pie.” 

“Did you bring me pie or did you bring you pie?” Patrick teases. He can’t help it; it’s his default setting. Banter is like breathing and he watches David exhale, as if he was hoping for this result but wasn’t sure he’d achieve it.

“I brought sufficient pie for two people to enjoy and I do not like what you’re insinuating.”

“I’m not insinuating anything, David. I’m sorry.” Patrick sighs and rubs frustratedly at his face because he doesn’t care about pie and David doesn’t need to be made to feel badly about trying to do something kind. “So, is everybody talking about how I’m off throwing another Patrick Pout?” 

David shakes his head, which somehow morphs into more of an assenting nod. “Yes, but not...no one is poking fun.” He stops, the corner of his lip curling. “Um, hi. Did you just say Patrick Pout?”

“Shit.” Patrick wiggles his fingers and toes absently; nope, still awake. So David knows that bit of truth, now. “Yes. It’s...uh, self-explanatory.”

Even though David is completely within his right to poke fun, he doesn’t, and it makes Patrick wonder if dinner hadn’t actually gone worse than he’d thought. David touches his arm, something light and almost tentative. “Hey, are you okay?”

It’s a simple question, asked innocently enough, but it almost breaks Patrick wide open, spilling all his thoughts like candy from a piñata. Being back home now feels the way it did before he left, when Patrick was caught between having what he wanted and wanting what he had, and he didn’t know what was out there waiting for him. 

But then he looks at David, at the open, loving, accepting look in his eye, and it’s hard not to want to lay everything at his feet. “Listen, when I brought you and your parents here, I didn’t expect, uh—” This shouldn’t be hard to say, but it feels as if he has molasses on his tongue and the words keep sticking. “I didn’t expect this.”

“No, I know. Seeing my mother carrying her headshots, I had a very vivid flashback to our dinner with the Kennedys when Alexis was dating one of the cousins. It was...unfortunate and like so many others, that relationship did not survive.” David picks up Patrick’s hand from his lap, gives him a look of such genuine warmth it actually heats Patrick from the inside. “You seem like you’re having a hard time.”

Patrick nods, feeling tears prickling behind his eyes, bubbling to the surface. “Yeah.”

“Is there something I can do?”

He could wrack his brain for days and the only answer he can think of is that just coming up here and asking if he’s okay is plenty. “Not yet.”

“Okay.” David says and looks around, tracing a finger down the vein on the top of Patrick’s hand and bringing it up to his mouth. He kisses the top of a knuckle, then the inside of Patrick’s wrist. It’s too much, right now, having David be so tender when he still feels so raw. Patrick gently pulls his hand down and away, and David caresses the top of his thigh as if he isn’t quite ready to let go. He watches David’s hand as it pauses on his leg, gold rings glinting in soft light. “Do you know why I never asked you about your past relationships?”

Patrick can’t open another box right now. He just can’t. “David, I don’t think—”

But David continues anyway. “I didn’t ask you because I didn’t want to hear the answer. Because I was afraid that I couldn’t handle what you might tell me.”

“So what you’re saying is that my parents think I have a hard time dealing with things.” Which might be true, based on the events of today. Patrick examines one of the throw pillows more closely, as if it might hold an answer in its durable fabric.

“No. Not even a little. It’s not about what you can handle hearing, it’s about what they can handle admitting. Like how sometimes if I don’t have to tell you something, then I don’t have to deal with it. On any level.” 

“I can see that.” Patrick thinks about keeping the truth about Rachel from David, keeping the truth about David from Rachel and his parents, and how he thought he was protecting something by doing so. Protecting them, from him. Or himself, from their reactions. The vicious cycle. In all the emotional buffering designed to keep them closer, he’s only managed to drive deeper wedges. 

The length of David’s thigh is warm against his own. It’s strangely bolstering, knowing that after all of those things, he’s still here, knowing that this gap isn’t wide enough to fall into; that it might not swallow them whole. “Can I tell you what I think?”

“I would love that, David.” He has discovered that he always wants to hear what David thinks. Even when it hurts, even when it wounds, if it belongs to David, it feels imperative.

David takes a breath. “I think that your mom calls you every Sunday at six p.m. and you put me on the phone. I’m delightful, but I think sometimes your mom and dad might want to talk to you, by yourself. Not a delicious David sandwich with a side of their only son.”

“That’s...maybe true.” He puts David on the phone because he wants David to have what Patrick has with the Roses. He puts David on the phone because he wants his parents to know who David truly is, and accept him and love him the same way they had Rachel. There are the more self-serving reasons too, but. “A delicious David sandwich though?”

David studiously ignores the question. “I think your parents could be worried that they could somehow...that you might be slipping away from them, a little bit. Like they think they’re losing you?”

Where would I go? he thinks, but then he remembers he’s already left. “That’s not...They’re not going to lose me.” 

David stops and looks at Patrick as if he’s just announced that the sky is magenta. “Do they know that?”

“I...I don’t know.” Patrick feels out of his depth, like David wants him to talk about period costumes from the Victorian era or the Valentino spring collection, or about anything Beyoncé’s doing. “They should.”

“I don’t think it works that way.” David swallows, bites the edge of his lip. “I’m not an expert in this, like at all, but you know that my parents and I haven’t always been close.”

“Separate wings of the house, I know.”

“Separate lives,” David murmurs. 

“You guys...you talk to each other now. I can tell you’re honest with each other.”

“Now. Not always. I mean, my parents once forgot to tell us that my grandfather had passed away, and my Dad signed birthday cards from him for years.”

“David, that’s—”

“—dark, I know. But it’s true.”

“But they told you. Eventually.”

“Yes, five years later, during an argument.”

“We never really had arguments.” Just another way he’s mistaken silence for peace of mind. “Except with neighbors, apparently.”

“But you have to admit that building an enormous playhouse in a tree is sort of an ingenious way to torment someone. It sounds like…”

“Something I would do. I know.” He is his parents’ son. Patrick knows he is, has always known that he is the sum of their parts. Patrick also knows that his parents find consolation in silence because, for years, he’s been equally uncomfortable speaking his truth. 

David’s eyes are full of the night sky, shining and a little wet, and they see Patrick for all that he is. Apparently Moira said that about Patrick, that he sees David that way. It just seemed to Patrick like something Moira would say to sound wise and maternal. A poetic thing, but not necessarily something true. He hopes it is though, that something about him is that easy for someone else to see.

“My parents bought all the art at my gallery because they thought they were doing the right thing. You left home and didn’t tell anyone why because you thought you were doing the right thing. Your parents—“ 

“—thought they were doing the right thing.” Patrick finishes for him. “But at a certain point, they had to know…”

“Don’t make me remind you of the persuasive power of your Pound Puppy eyes. They’re offensively loud.” David’s own eyes crinkle but the corners of his mouth don’t move. “I just...I know that with family, it’s never too late. To start over.”

“Maybe.” He hopes that’s as true for him as it has been for David, who he would never have met if it weren’t for two, completely independent of one another, fresh starts. He moves closer, knocks their shoulders together. “I’m sorry I’m ruining your Thanksgiving.”

“What are you talking about? This is one of the best I’ve ever had.” David stops for a moment, head tilted as he considers. Patrick knows about rehab Thanksgiving, which this has to outrank, but maybe that one on the Shakespeare at Sea cruise ship snuck in under the wire. It’s hard to tell with David sometimes, the things that matter, until you’re one of the things. And then you know. “No, it’s definitely the best.”

He's learned to trust David’s face and Patrick knows that whatever he reads there—in this case, unabiding care and concern, deep love, and brutal shimmering honesty—is true. Patrick loves David an uncontained amount and he wants him to know, hopes that he knows all the time, without question.

Patrick leans over and kisses David then, soft and slow. David’s a good man, and he makes Patrick want to be better. “I still think you could have had a better holiday.” Patrick says as he pulls away, his thumb still skimming David’s cheek. “And that’s...that’s on me.”

David blinks a few times, processing. “Maybe it’s on everybody,” David says as his hand slides down the back of Patrick’s head and settles on his neck. “You know, this really shifts a lot of things into focus.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“In a way that they make more sense.” 

“Okay.” Patrick is too tired to examine all the ways he’s failed David so far because of this clearly learned behavior, but he knows they’re there, lurking in the shadows. They’re going to have to figure out how to do this, have a life together, without pretending conversations have already happened. “I’m glad things make more sense.”

David toys with the denim that covers Patrick’s knee.  “Of course, I’m going to have to put a homing device on you now, like a wayward pigeon.”

“Wait. What? How did…Why?” Patrick stammers.

“You sleepwalk more often when you’re feeling...off. Like when we switched the inventory software and it was glitchy. Or when I was upset about Alexis leaving with Ted. Or when we found out the wedding venue we wanted was already booked.”

“But I didn’t—”

“You’re not always like you were this morning…. You don’t always know it’s happening, I don’t think. Sometimes you’ll talk to me about nonsense, but you seem to think you’re really getting your point across. It’s like conversing with a dramatic reading of Mad Libs.”

“Great.” Everything Patrick has ever learned about himself during these episodes always feels as far off and as impossible as exploring outer space; these enormous black holes that he might get pulled into if he isn’t more vigilant. If David isn’t there. “I’ll talk to my parents. You won’t have to chase me, I promise.”

“I’m holding you to it. Probably literally.” David raises an expressive brow. “So what’s next?”

Patrick looks out at his parents’ house, thinks about what he still isn’t quite ready to say, even though he knows now it needs to be said. “I think...I know you wanted a family Thanksgiving but I’d like to stay out here for a little bit, if it’s okay.” All of his nerves still feel like they’re on the outside of his skin, exposed and sensitive; easily chafed.

“My mother is most likely a bottle of wine deep into a diatribe about Joyce Dewitt, so...” He trails off, and the loose gesture David makes with his shoulders to indicate his decision to stay outside floods Patrick with relief. “We could eat our pie,” he mentions, falsely non-committal.

Patrick can’t remember tasting a single bite of food this entire evening and since he’s already counting regrets, he doesn’t want to add to them. His mom’s pumpkin pie is fairly legendary, but her apple tart is even better, and David wisely seems to have grabbed a generous helping of each. 

He directs David toward the air mattress, where they settle in, facing one another, legs bracketed. Balancing the plates on his outstretched thigh, Patrick magnanimously cuts each dessert in half for equitable distribution then hands David his plate. “Trust me, you’re gonna want both.”

The face and pleased sound that David makes when he takes his first bite of the apple tart is positively pornographic, and when Patrick tells him so, David kisses him and laughs and wants to know where in the treehouse he used to keep the real porn.

Patrick slowly licks a crumb off his fork and David’s mouth sort of drops open, causing Patrick to lick another crumb, even more slowly. He could probably do this all night, if it means David keeps looking at him that way. “I don’t think you’d want any decades old porn, if I had any decades old porn to give you.”

“That sounds like a terrible first draft of an O. Henry short story.” The side of David’s mouth quirks in mock disapproval, his eyes soft.

“Yes, I read the Porn of the Magi in grade seven and got an A on the book report. Such a twist ending. Never saw it coming.” Patrick says and leans in to kiss away at least a small portion of David’s deserved exasperation. “Anyhow, I never really kept any around.”

“My god, you poor innocent thing.” 

“I mean, looking back, I guess my Jays posters were my porn.” Patrick briefly flashes back to the poster on his bedroom wall. “Oof. The thighs on Carlos Delgado.” 

“Nice.” David gives Patrick’s knee an encouraging rub. “But you had to have had some kind of teenage acting out...shenanigans.”

“Uh...my cousins and I used to steal packs of smokes out of my grandmother’s carton and I’d hide them right over there,” he says and gestures toward the boxes David is sitting nearest. 

David’s lips press into a line of barely contained laughter. “Okay, James Dean, you were quite the rebel.”

He wasn’t; not even a little. He’d always been afraid to inhale and had spent more time pretending to smoke than actually smoking.

Patrick shrugs. “I guess I just...” Patrick shifts so he’s sitting cross-legged, facing David, still in the vee of his legs, knees balanced against knees. David is diligently working at his pie, face thoughtful. “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but I was pretty good at following the crowd.”

“You won’t even follow me through the Farmer’s Market.”

“David, I think you know I’d follow you anywhere.” He protests. David’s face softens from teasing to exceedingly fond and Patrick pauses. “I think I liked the idea that I might be able to just sort of fade into the background.”

“Hmm. I had the opposite reaction, I think.”

“Yeah, and I think that might be why I’m marrying you.” Patrick touches David’s hair, pushes it back even though it’s not in any way out of place. “Maybe if sixteen-year-old Patrick had known who he was…”

“Honey, none of us really knew who we were back then. You can’t blame him.” David puts down his plate and rests his hand on Patrick’s forearm. “I’m still figuring it out.”

He thinks about David in the concrete wasteland of the gas station along the highway, or David standing in his parents’ driveway amongst boxy, almost nondescript houses, or David in Ray’s overstuffed office sitting behind a collection of random souvenirs from places other people had gone. The further removed he is from the world he’s designed for himself, the sharper the contrast. The clash of the surroundings always bring David into sharper relief.

“Me too,” Patrick says.

Somewhere on his drive from Blind River to Schitt’s Creek, Patrick had decided he was going to start taking charge of his life and stop letting it be dictated by what other people expected of him.  For most aspects of his life, it was easy to execute a plan. It was easy to pick up and move. It was easy to cut his hair and iron his shirts and buy jeans that fit. It was easy to fall in love with David.  

What hasn’t been easy is realizing that his plans only get him so far. That replacing one set of rules for another hasn’t made him better at some of the things that really matter. 

“Hey, you know you can be anybody with me.” David says, taking his hand as if he’s reading Patrick’s mind. 

“I don’t want to be anybody. I want to be better than anybody.”

“First of all, that’s a very Kanye thing to say, but it’s also very sweet.” David regards him carefully. “And you’re desperately wrong.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to be better than anyone. I mean, you’re better than lots of people, if we’re comparing, but that’s not really...I feel like you need everything to be perfect.” David is right. Patrick has felt that his whole life, from himself, from his parents; this need to constantly tidy up the way that people saw him, the way people saw their family, the way he saw himself. “For what it’s worth, I think I might love you even more when the cracks start to show.”

“Yeah?” It’s almost as if he can feel the mask slipping, the softer edges peeking out.

Patrick looks over at David, tucked with him under the protective reach of a hundred year old tree. He inhales, and like with his grandma’s cigarettes, his breath stutters in his chest. He starts there, with that story about how he couldn’t even effectively smoke them. It gets easier then, starting with something silly and inconsequential, and Patrick finally tells David all the words that have felt too sharp on his tongue. About how lost he was when he still lived here, how he’s afraid he’s left too much distance between himself and his parents, between here and home, in Schitt’s Creek. About how he’s been having a difficult time deciding what to keep, but he knows now that he doesn’t have to choose. He can have all of it if he wants, and David can help him find the balance.

Chapter Text

David’s lips are kiss-bitten, Patrick somehow has leaves stuck in his hair, and the sheets on the air mattress definitely require laundering by the time they are ready to descend from their lofted perch.

The house itself is dark except for a light in the kitchen, and they don’t encounter anyone as they make their way to the second floor.

David and Patrick take turns in the shower, although there is a brief moment of soapy overlap that Patrick enjoys more than he should while within such close proximity to both of their parents. Afterward, Patrick pulls on pajama pants and one of David’s t-shirts because there hadn’t been room for his in the suitcase, while David stays in the tub for a second and more goal-oriented “get the spiders off” shower. 

And though he’s practically asleep on his feet, Patrick finds himself standing in the empty kitchen, staring into a sink full of dirty dishes. 

Patrick has the dishwasher loaded and is about to walk upstairs to find arachnid-free David when he hears his mother’s voice behind him. “Sweetheart, do you have a minute?”

She’s in her blue robe and nightgown and fuzzy slippers and she’s wearing her glasses instead of her contacts and for the first time, he sees his mother as...her age, and tired, and maybe even a little uncertain. “Sure.”

He joins her at the new kitchen island, leaning against the countertop. Patrick realizes that this is the first time he has been alone with his mother in two years, and she feels like a stranger. There are probably customers at the store with whom he’s had longer, more personal conversations recently.

Her eyes are watery already and he has to take a deep breath in order to attempt to push the weight off of his chest. His mom reaches up and touches his ear, at the space behind it that she used to rub when he couldn’t sleep, when he was upset, even just while they watched a movie together; the spot that always made him feel better. She used to twirl his curls around her finger and was forever tucking them behind his ear, complaining when he’d let them get so long they’d fall in his face. “I didn’t know how much I’d miss those curls.”

He rubs a hand self-consciously over his shorter hair. It’s actually pretty long right now; it’s long enough for David to get his hands in. Maybe he wouldn’t mind growing it out again. “It’s easy this way.”

“I bet,” she says and tugs on the belt of her robe. He’s never seen his mom so tentative with him like this before, and he hates it. He wants to tell her she can say what she needs to say, he can take it, you’re not losing me. “I have something to show you,” she says instead.

Patrick follows his mother into the remodeled laundry room off the kitchen, where she pulls a wrapped package out of the closet there. “I had Millie Byers make this for you and I was saving it for Christmas, but I think you might like to have it now.”

“It’s okay, Mom, I can wait.” He wants to say, I’m not four, you don’t have to pacify me with presents when I throw a tantrum anymore, but he just bites the inside of his lip. 

“Open it.” Her tone doesn’t really leave him room to argue, so he does as he is told. The box is unwieldy and pretty heavy, and he tears into the foil paper a little haphazardly. Inside is a corrugated cardboard box like the stock for the store comes in, and it’s taped closed. “Is this a present inside of a present thing?” His parents had once wrapped a single box of Smarties inside about seven layers of wrapping paper and increasingly larger boxes like Russian nesting dolls, resulting in a hilarious Christmas morning for them and a frustrating one for Patrick. 

“No, I did that with your Christmas socks,” she says dryly. “And Dad wrapped David’s.”

“Oh he’s going to hate it.” Patrick smiles, thinking about what kind of gymnastic feats will take place on David’s face as he wraps layer after layer of lopsided paper...talk about Christmas morning. Patrick finally gets the tape off the box and wrestles the sides open. Inside is a blue blanket which he extracts with care. “It’s...it’s all my old t-shirts.”

His mom helps him finagle it open, spreading it out on the counter where she folds laundry. “It’s your old uniform shirts...baseball and hockey, and here, your MathOlympiad t-shirt from grade 9 and debate club…”

“My Rose Video uniform.” He says with reverence, touching the familiar emblem.

“I had David send me some from home, too.” His mom shifts the quilt further into the light, angling patches that look like the logo from his Cafe Tropical baseball shirt and the prototype from their Rose Apothecary tote bags toward him. “Don’t worry, David promised he left your jersey intact. I think this one was his?”

“I’m sure it is,” Patrick says, something twisting in his chest. So this is what David and his mom had been conspiring about. “God, this one from our old Open Mic nights, and these were my Jays shirts.” 

It's hard not to think about the person he was when he left these shirts behind, when he decided he wasn't going to wear faded t-shirts in public anymore, when he thought wearing button ups and sweaters would make him steady and dependable and not a mess. Even though at first he still felt like a mess. And his parents had no idea either, they just thought he was Messy Patrick who wore baseball hats and baggy jeans and acted like he was perpetually fourteen. And the person he is now, maybe he is still a bit of a mess sometimes, but he knows who he is, and who he loves, and who his family is.

“I didn’t think you’d mind, since you’d outgrown them and when you left, you left them all behind...here.” 

“No, I don’t mind.” Patrick says quietly, his hand caressing the soft, quilted version of his childhood. “Mom, this is—I love it and I’m sor—”

His mom shakes her head. “There’s something else in the box. It was a bit heavy, so I had to put it in first.”

Patrick digs down underneath the quilt until his fingers touch another smooth wrapped rectangular object. 

This one is wrapped in more than one layer of paper and several layers of cling wrap. His mom’s lip curls in a smile. “Sorry, your dad insisted.” 

He finally gets the third layer of paper off and finds that he’s holding a black and white framed portrait of David and himself, flanked by his parents and the Roses, including Alexis and Stevie, standing on either side of them, from the night of the surprise party. Patrick is speechless.

“Do you think David will approve of the frame?” His mom asks in a small voice.

Patrick sniffs. “He’ll love it. He might hate it at first but eventually he’ll come around.” Or he’ll never come around, and Patrick will have to teach his mother the complex and unparalleled taste level of one David Rose. Either way, it’s a win. ”It’s perfect.”

“I know we’ll get a better one at the wedding, but I like this one a lot. I like that it’s your whole family.”

He can feel the tears coming in earnest now and he doesn’t do anything to try to stop them. He doesn’t want to. “I’m sorry, Mom. I wanted...I didn’t…”

She’s smaller than he is now, but her hugs are still deep and warm and home, and he’s wrapped in her arms, face buried in her robe, sobbing in a kitchen he doesn’t recognize, missing a life he doesn’t actually miss. “You will always have a space here with us, Patrick. Always.”

“I know.” He wipes at his face with the back of his hand, like he is seven and crying over not being able to keep a stray cat because he’s allergic, and his mom is rubbing his back in concentric circles the same way she always used to when he was sick or sad or upset. “I’m sorry if it feels like I’m…”

“Sweetheart, you’re a grown man, starting a family. You weren’t going to live in that treehouse forever.”

“I mean,” he sniffles, a little thickly, “I think we could, thanks to all the new amenities, but David could never get used to the open air concept or the ominously looming moth population.” 

She hands him a Kleenex from the box on the counter and starts getting supplies out to brew tea, then opens a box of cookies, the shortbread kind he has always liked. “Do you still take yours with sugar?”

He shakes his head. “Sit down, Mom. I’ll get it.” Patrick heats the kettle and waits for it to boil while his mom arranges the cookies neatly on a plate, as if she’s still having company over. “You don’t have to do that, either, it’s just me.”

“There’s no such thing as just you, Patrick.” She takes a bite of cookie and makes a face at the taste, setting it back down on a napkin. 

“They’re better with the tea. I promise.” The kettle sounds and Patrick moves to get the tea bags and settle them into the mugs of steaming water he has just poured. He hands her the blue mug he made for her when he was at summer camp. He’s not great at pottery, it turns out. It definitely isn’t perfect; the handle is lopsided and he’d painted Marcy on the front in his loopy childish handwriting, but she drinks her tea out of it every morning, still. 

“Also, everything from your old room is all boxed up and waiting for you in the garage. I wasn't sure if you’d want it, but I didn’t want to make that decision for you.”

“Thank you.” And he means it. Until today, Patrick wasn’t sure if he wanted any of it either.  Maybe he just wanted to touch them to see if the memories still burned, or if they’d disintegrate like dust under his fingertips. It turns out they are more benign and more resilient than that; he can keep them without losing something else. 

“Honey, I’m sorry we didn’t tell you about selling the house sooner.” She plays with her teaspoon. 

“Hey, I’m not...you don’t owe me an explanation. I was just...surprised.”

“We shouldn’t have surprised you. We made a mistake.” She says, then pauses. He has seen this look on his mom’s face; this reluctant, hopeful, open look and he knows she’s about to either break his heart or knit him back together. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes, I think.”

“No, Mom—”

“Patrick, I’d like for you to be able to tell us what’s happening in your head, and your heart, and your life.” She shakes her head, eyes glittering, voice breaking. “If we haven’t made it safe enough for you to do that, I want to change. I want us to do better. And I don’t want you to feel like if you don’t have something easy to say then it’s better not to say anything at all. Maybe we taught you the wrong lessons there.”

His memories of home are starting to look different—the rules and the silences and all the ways he wanted to please his parents—so much that he missed something crucial about himself. He wishes sometimes that it made him angry instead of sad. He wishes that it had made him act sooner or faster or better, but if he’d changed any of it, veered off course even slightly, maybe he wouldn’t have David. And he can never be angry or sad about finding, and loving, David.

Patrick clears his throat, a litany of unspent words ready to tumble out, but his mom stops him.

“I’d just...I’d really like it if we could get to know each other again.” Her hand trembles on her mug of tea and Patrick immediately reaches out to still it. Her skin is papery under his fingers and he’s forgotten what it is like to hold her hand, how he used to need to when they were crossing a busy parking lot. “Maybe while you’re here, you can tell me about what we’ve missed.”

At that, Patrick is off his chair and gathering his mom in his arms. Crouched over her, he wonders why they couldn’t have done this six months ago, or six years ago, but he is thankful that they’re finally doing it now. “I’d like that a lot,” he says, feeling a bit lighter and hopeful they might be able to start again.

Two years is a lot of ground to cover, but they have some time, and an abundance of leftovers. Patrick is halfway into a turkey sandwich and his tree-walk adventure with David when Moira glides into the kitchen. “Well, this is a welcome sight. There is nothing quite like the love between a mother and her son. Or a mother and her nightcap. Might we still have an open bottle?”

Moira’s second wind and third glass of wine results in enough commotion that David wanders downstairs to investigate Patrick’s absence, which then evolves into all six of them crowding into the den to play charades in the wee hours of the night. The game is both an unmitigated disaster and some of the most fun Patrick has ever had with his parents in his adult life.

Despite being the former owner of the second best video chain in North America, Johnny Rose has not seen a movie released since Casablanca, apparently, and is hopeless when it comes to deciphering or relaying clues about the medium that made him his millions. Moira has her own struggles as she refuses to adhere to several basic tenets of the game, including attempting to use verbal directives while giving her clues and not actually performing the prompt that she’s drawn from the fishbowl (though David somehow identifies her rendition of Not Without My Cousin just from a well-executed eye roll). Patrick’s mother cannot correctly identify a single actor or actress, and when she attempts to wink while acting out Eyes Wide Shut, David shouts, “Oh my god, it’s hereditary!” confusing everyone but Patrick, who laughs so hard he manages to snort tea up his nose. David is the night’s charades victor because he has the distinct advantage of speaking both Patrick’s and his mother’s shorthand, and by the time he and David finally fall into the guest bed, their sides are aching from near constant laughter. 

It’s mid-morning when Patrick wakes to find a still sleeping David drooling on his shoulder, hands fisted tightly in the hem of Patrick’s borrowed t-shirt. 

“Hey, no. Stop.” David mumbles sleepily as Patrick extracts himself from the bed. He bends to drop a quick kiss on David’s forehead, intending to slip out to track down his mom’s favorite scones and make up for the travesty of the subpar shortbread. 

“Hey. It’s okay, I’m up. I’m awake. No wandering.” 

David makes another noise into the pillow as if he accepts this explanation and allows Patrick to go on his way.

After a comfortable, quiet conversation at breakfast, probably because they’re all a bit hungover, everyone piles into two cars to go sight-seeing. They mix it up a little; Patrick rides with his parents and David follows with his. The site of Rose Video 785 is now a Shoppers Drug Mart, but Johnny and Moira still want to pose for a picture in front of it, so they do. Patrick kisses David against the painted cinder block of the building while their parents decide where to stop for a late lunch near the baseball field and the coffee house. 

The coffee house isn’t exactly the same, either. The new owners replaced the old stage area with more seating, but there’s still a piano, and it’s in tune. At Moira’s urging, Patrick uses it to play a modified version of “The Best” while the lunch crowd dwindles. He is singing to David, who stands over where the stage used to be, in the spot Patrick remembers sweating under house lights as he waited to play a song he’d written in front of a room full of strangers. Today, he is no less nervous in a roomful of family, and midway through, David has his arm around Patrick’s mom, and Patrick realizes he isn’t just singing to David anymore. His voice is strong until his mom starts to cry and then Moira joins her, which makes stoic Johnny turn misty, and David basically a puddle. His dad is the only one not wiping at his eyes until Patrick tears up. His dad jokingly blames Patrick and his song for what he terms the “chain of weeping,” which they recover from through copious hugging and varying amounts of alcohol, because the coffee house now thankfully has a liquor license.

Patrick cries again when he says good-bye to his parents; it doesn’t feel at all like the last time he left, when it seemed like he was spending his waking hours walking through soup and he couldn’t remember what it was he actually wanted out of life. He has cried more in the past two days than he has in a long time, probably since the time he almost lost David, and before that, it was probably the time he almost lost himself, right before he arrived in Schitt’s Creek.  It’s just this time, it doesn’t feel like the end of something, it feels like a beginning.

The drive home is uneventful, although Patrick does veer slightly off-course so that Mr. Rose can witness the Sudbury Superstack firsthand, because it was on his list. When David realizes what Patrick is doing, he gazes at him fondly enough that it’s worth the extra miles and the extra time. Patrick holds David's hand the rest of the way home.

That night, David directs Patrick where to hang the new family picture that they’ve been gifted and folds Patrick’s new quilt neatly at the foot of their bed, arranging and rearranging it. 

David straightens a corner, trying it diagonally first, then horizontally. “We shouldn’t use it, should we? Maybe it’s more of a statement piece?”

Patrick stands in his pajama pants and David’s t-shirt, because why not, with his hands on his hips as he contemplates. “I don’t know, it’s sort of irreplaceable, you know?”

He catches the look in David’s eyes, the way he's holding his lips to the side when he wants to say something, and doesn’t. Patrick wants him to say it, whatever he’s thinking, but he can already see David’s thoughts shining behind his eyes, something proud and kind. “Then we won’t use it,” he smiles, encircling Patrick in his arms and pressing his lips against his temple, then his cheekbone, and finally, when he is still enough, against Patrick’s lips. 

Except, later that night, it’s cold and he is woken out of a sound sleep for the third time by David’s freezing toes brushing his calf, so Patrick pulls the quilt up over both of them. David’s breath is rattling through his nose - too many hours spent in the fresh air with Patrick, for Patrick -  and at a certain point, the rhythm becomes meditative. In the darkness, still and content, Patrick’s mind drifts, picturing the nights he used to spend feeling aimless, feeling left behind, while everyone else was moving forward. That even in sleep, his body was willing him to go and build a life in the spaces between. 

When Patrick’s alarm sounds, he and David have reversed positions. He is now enveloped in David’s arms; his own hands are fisted at the small of David’s back, as if he’d been attempting to pull David closer as he slept. David makes a bleary, sleep-deprived sound as Patrick kisses his throat to tempt him awake, but when he doesn’t rouse, Patrick just settles in closer. 

Pulling the corner of the quilt back over David’s shoulder, Patrick finds himself nestled comfortably amid his past, his present, and his future. No longer living under its weight, he is both rapturously, indescribably happy, and entirely wide awake.