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The first time it happens, David barely notices. It's a normal morning: they're in the store, David is reorganizing the bath salts and Patrick is humming and quietly singing One Direction's What Makes You Beautiful.
The thing is, Patrick sings to himself all the time—pop songs while he does dishes, slow songs while he runs inventory reports for the store, songs that David doesn't know how to classify while he cooks—at this point, it's just background music. David finishes up the bath salts and moves on to the bath oils, and Patrick leaves on his lunch break.
When Patrick comes back from lunch, he's singing again. This time it's Drag Me Down. Patrick doesn't usually stick with an artist David knows for two songs in a row, so this time David notices. It doesn't help that Patrick is singing about twice as loudly as before—quiet enough that customers won't notice, but David can definitely hear the whole song.
It is, quite frankly, adorable, and David has to escape on his own lunch break to avoid embarrassing himself by either singing along or inappropriately kissing Patrick's face (he fucking loves One Direction and he fucking loves Patrick, okay?)
After lunch, David comes back to the store and Patrick is still singing. David thinks Patrick possibly watched some music videos while he was gone, because he's really running through the 1D discography at this point.
And yes, David would know, having spent at least a year of his life very invested in the music and also lives of the One Direction members.
Of course, that bit of information is going with David to the grave so it's irrelevant (except for that Patrick is so cute and the songs are so catchy that by the end of the day David is having a very difficult time not singing too.)
The next morning David catches himself humming Story of My Life at work. It's utterly mortifying and he has to quickly look around to make sure no one has heard.
Patrick is still on his own 1D kick, occasionally even dancing a little to whatever song is in his head which is extremely unfair, especially since David can't admit he likes the songs without risking the discovery of his terrible secret. All he can do all morning is watch Patrick's little dance moves and try not to sing along or smile too much.
Which is, of course, when Alexis walks into the store.
"Get out." Unfortunately, horribly unfortunately, Alexis is the only other person in the world who knows his terrible secret. Also she is exceptionally talented at reading rooms. She's already looking at him with too much interest.
"David, there's literally no one in here. That's not very good for business." Alexis makes a show of examining the cheeses very carefully.
David scowls. "What do you want."
"Um, I was invited to a housewarming party, David, so you can stop being all—" she makes some sort of strange hand gesture. "I have to bring a gift. "
"I love housewarming parties!" Patrick says, thankfully not paying attention to the journeys David's face is going on. "You should bring wine—actually, we just got a new vendor, I can pull a bottle out of the back if you want to be the first to try it."
"At least one of you is helpful," Alexis says. "I'd love to try it."
David had been looking forward to being the first to try their new wine, so he glares even harder at his sister as Patrick goes to find it.
"Okay, what's going on?" Alexis leans over and whispers as soon as Patrick has disappeared. "There was a very cute look happening when I came in."
"Nothing," David grumbles. "None of your business."
"Obviously something, David, you're not usually this defensive in the morning."
From the back they can very clearly hear Patrick singing Kiss You as he opens boxes of wine. Alexis's eyes widen. David sees his life flash before his eyes.
"Do not say anything to him —" David hisses. "I swear to God —"
"I love that song!" Alexis says as Patrick comes back into the room.
"Oh—" Patrick looks a little embarrassed. "Sorry, I don't even realize I'm doing it."
Alexis's mischief face is in full force. "I love One Direction, their songs are so good—have I told you about the time I met Harry Styles in Barcelona?"
"You haven't!" Patrick looks suspiciously interested. "I've, uh, been listening to some of their stuff this week, it's pretty good."
"I'm surprised you haven't bonded over that, David." Alexis shoots him a glance. "With you so smitten over them during their—"
"Shut up, Alexis—"
"Wait, what? " Patrick is very interested now. "Really?"
"It was nothing," David says, cutting Alexis off before she can dig his grave any deeper. "Their music is good and I liked their style. That's all."
"Um, you definitely liked Harry Styles," Alexis smirks. "Didn't you have the chance to meet him once? And then didn't, because you were nervous?"
"I was sick!" He knows he's flailing his arms around but the situation is escalating. "It was an extremely intense show where I got incredibly drunk and I didn't want—"
"You were nervous," Alexis taunts. "You had the biggest crush on Harry Styles I've ever seen."
Patrick looks like this is the best news he's heard in his life.
"I was not nervous," David says indignantly, using his hands to convey just how ridiculous Alexis is being. "Yes, I admire him for his fashion choices and the direction he's going with his music—but— and I would have gladly met him if I hadn't been sick."
"I dunno David, that sounds like a crush to me." Patrick and Alexis are now sporting identical smirks.
"You can shut up," David points threateningly at Patrick, and then Alexis. "And you can get out of here immediately."
"But I haven't paid for my wine!" Alexis says innocently.
"I'll ring you up," Patrick offers, elbowing David out of the way. "Tell me about Harry Styles."
"Oh, he's very sweet." Alexis smiles angelically. "So polite and friendly, we talked for like, hours—he thought it was so cute when I told him how much my brother liked him."
David makes a noise like a boiling teakettle.
"Anyway, I have to run, have to get to the party!" Alexis takes her wine and waves at Patrick. "Let me know if you want to hear more about him—although I'm sure David knows more than I do!"
Patrick is laughing as she leaves, and laughs even more when he sees David's face. It's unfortunate that he's so cute when he laughs, because David now has to break up with him and then go murder Alexis.
"You could have just said you liked the songs I was singing." Patrick says, still smiling, coming in for a hug.
David doesn't hug back. "Tonight I will be jumping off a bridge and also going to prison for murder."
"She probably didn't really say that to Harry Styles."
"She definitely did," David says hollowly. She definitely did.
"I bet you could get Harry Styles if you wanted him," says Patrick, laughing into David's sweater.
"That's disgusting, I'm like ten years older than him," David says, but that does mollify him enough that he hugs Patrick back.
"He is a very beautiful man," Patrick says. "I don't blame you."
"I knew you were watching videos," David says, leaning out of the hug to watch Patrick's face.
Patrick doesn't even look embarrassed in the slightest. He shrugs. "Their music is catchy, what can I say?"
Since it doesn't seem like bridge-jumping is quite as imperative now, David relaxes slightly. "I'm still going to kill Alexis."
The rest of the day passes uneventfully, and David marvels that such a fact about himself can be discovered and Patrick will still like him.
Patrick is actually now singing quite loudly as he unpacks the rest of the wine. David hums along a little and isn't even 100% embarrassed about it. It's nice.
"Tell me about the other embarassing things you liked at inappropriate ages," Patrick says as they're closing up.
"Um, no," says David. "It's definitely your turn."
"Wait a minute," David says again, affronted. "Why are you so sure there were other things?"
Patrick just laughs. "Unfortunately, I only ever like age-appropriate non-embarrassing things… there's no dirt here."
David narrows his eyes. He still can't always tell when Patrick is bluffing but he feels that there is definitely dirt there and he will need to find it at some point. "Hmm."
"Anyway," says Patrick, "don't kill Alexis. I feel like she brought us together through this somehow."
"Oh," says David, "I definitely wasn't killing her for our sake. It would be in revenge for dooming my and Harry's relationship."
"Oh, of course." Patrick looks at him very fondly. "Revenge."
"Yes, revenge," says David, coming to put his arms around Patrick. "It's the biggest might-have-been in my life."
"Your and Harry Styles' relationship," Patrick clarifies, looping his arms around David's waist and pulling him in.
"Yes." David can't quite contain his smirk but he tries. "I'm a little older than him, but I think we could have made it work. Now I'll never get the chance to see."
"That is unfortunate." Patrick laughs and kisses David's smirk.
"I know," sighs David, giving up on containing his smile. "If only I had an extremely cute and friendly and polite boyfriend who was very good at singing."
"Hm, if only." Patrick looks like he's going to say something else, but then pulls David's ear down to his mouth. "Baby, you light up my world like nobody else…"
"Tell me more," says David, and flips his hair.