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David is always moving. Patrick is aware of this; he's always touching things, waving his hands about to illustrate his thoughts, swaying and shimmying, practically dancing all the time. When he is still, it's always very deliberate, and it's usually because he's not happy — beyond that, actively unhappy.
Patrick has greatly enjoyed learning this about David, cataloguing his movements, trying to figure out what they mean. He shimmies his shoulders when he's flirting. His hands move in tandem when his mouth when he explains things. He waves them constantly, but pulls them in close when he's feeling awkward or nervous; he'll say something strange and Patrick will watch regret flit into his face, a blush rising, and he'll draw his hands to his hips or his face, or he'll cross his arms across his chest and fold his shoulders forward, like he's trying to fold in on himself.
For months, Patrick tells himself that anyone would notice those kinds of things about someone they work with regularly. A few times a week, rising to a full forty hours and beyond as Rose Apothecary draws nearer to its opening day. Patrick is proud of the work they've done, of the way he's written proposals and applications and cut everything into straight lines of numbers on a screen that translate to shelves and product, to relationships with local farmers and craftsmen (craftspeople?). And by the time they hold their semi-firm opening event, which he flatters himself is a smash success, he's done convincing himself that his internal encyclopedia of David is platonic, and halfway convinced that David feels the same.
As the opening rolls towards David's birthday and their working relationship cracks into a regular old relationship, Patrick delights in discovering the ways David's constant movements live in his space. David's fingers, always dancing in the air like…masculine butterflies, if such a thing exists, start finding their home on Patrick's shoulders when they talk. And then he gets braver; he'll stand behind Patrick and rub his arms, work the fabric of Patrick's sleeves between his fingers. (He only does the latter when Patrick has a sweater on; his poly-blend button-ups practically give David hives.)
They're nearing their one month mark when Patrick first sees David move like that independent of speech or touch. He's just gotten off a long, tense phone call with a vendor, and he lets a low, frustrated noise blow between his teeth as he hangs up. He sets his phone on the counter and silently stalks across the floor, hands in the air.
There's an urgency to the motion; he's not illustrating his ideas, drawing pictures in the air that only he can see, the way he does when he's talking. It's more like he's slapping the air over and over, little sharp motions that puncture the space in front of him.
When David passes by on his third silent loop around the sales floor, Patrick reaches out and snags him by the sleeve. David startles, tugging his arm back sharply, but he stops pacing. His hands are still flying, flapping like hummingbirds, and it looks so uncomfortable that Patrick is desperate to reach out and take David's hands and still them, but something tells him that David wouldn't like that.
So instead he swallows every year of socialization that's told him to let it go, to look away politely, to pretend every deviation from the norm isn't happening simply because it isn't nice to acknowledge it, and he gestures lightly towards David's hands and says, "What's going on here?"
David's hands slow their frantic motion the tiniest bit as he turns a confused glare on Patrick. His stress is so palpable in the air around them, and Patrick wants to take it away, wants to understand. "I don't — what?" David says, looking around like he thinks the source of his confusion might lie elsewhere. "It's — I'm stressed, okay? I'm stimming."
Patrick feels his brow furrowing, knows he's making his problem-solving face. Not that David is a problem…he just wants to understand. "I don't know what that means," he says. It's practically their shared catchphrase — Patrick isn't sure two people who understand one another less have ever been such a good pair.
"Self-stimulation? It's." David sighs. His hands aren't stopping. "Like. How I equalize sensory input? And emotions?" They speed up a little. It's clear that Patrick's question has upset David, or frustrated him, at least; he feels guilty and knows that he shouldn't, knows that it's okay to ask about things he doesn't understand, that the fake-it-till-you-make-it model isn't sustainable in a relationship. David has been helping him to learn that.
How I equalize, David said, and Patrick thinks of gas density, of floating and balloons and the working hovercraft his dad helped him make for his sixth-grade science fair. And then he thinks of how David always seems tense, stressed, and those things click together easily in his mind: David is always floating a little higher than the rest of the world, and this thing with his hands in the air helps him stay glued to the earth.
Patrick reaches out lightly, projecting the move, and puts his hand on David's shoulder: David's hands don't still at all, but he allows Patrick to reel him in and then grab him by the hips and help him hop up on the counter. "Is there anything I can do?" Sitting on the counter, David is a little taller than he usually is and Patrick has to look up at him more than usual.
He shakes his head, looking at Patrick's eyes but not into them, somehow. "I'm fine," he says.
Patrick hesitates more, but he has questions. Last week, when David looked away, blushing, and told Patrick that he was autistic, he also told Patrick that autism isn't the same for everyone (which Patrick knew; he has two autistic cousins about his own age) and that he should feel free to ask David questions. When he said it, it seemed forced, like he felt that he was supposed to say it but didn't want to. But now Patrick wants to ask David a question, so he sets a gentle hand on David's knee and looks up at him and asks, as David's hands start to slow and shift and migrate towards Patrick's shoulders like there's a homing signal there that only reaches David's fingertips. "Does it hurt?"
David pulls one hand back from Patrick's shoulder to flap it lightly, demonstrating. "What, this?" Patrick nods, and David's back to picking at the seam along the shoulder on his shirt. "No, not at all."
"Does it…feel good?"
"Yeah, sometimes." David's mouth twists. "I do it when I'm happy, too," he volunteers.
Patrick suddenly wants to see that; the image is so soft and tender in his mind, the idea of seeing David so overcome with joy that he physically can't keep it inside, has to let it out with motion. He wants to make David that happy.
Instead of saying that, because it's too sappy and too soon and guaranteed to overwhelm David in a bad way, he says, "Do you feel better now?"
"Mm," David says, settling his palms flat on David's shoulders. "Yeah, I do."
"I love learning about you," Patrick says, nearing the edge of David's tolerance for emotional vulnerability and absolutely unable to help himself.
"I…love learning about you too," David says at length. He reaches up and runs light fingertips over Patrick's brow. "You make me feel better," he says, painfully softly, twisting to look away.
Patrick feels like his face is cracking, and instead of letting any of the warm soft too-much too-soon feelings welling up in his chest roll out, he kisses David's temple. "I know it's not the same thing," he whispers against David's hairline, "but you make me feel better too."