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The learning Patrick is doing in his relationship with David is obvious. The unlearning, less so.
He doesn’t realise how many little parts of a relationship are ingrained in him until he has to start challenging them. The first time he initiates a kiss with David is also the first time they kiss while standing up, and he has a momentary flash of wait, weird when his neck tips back instead of forward. When his hands slide around David’s waist, there’s a tiny little does this make me the— before he stamps that down to unpack later. But when his lips meet David’s there’s that sense of utter rightness that he felt for the first time in the car last night.
They have a conversation about it a few days later, when Patrick tries to pay for their second date like he did their first. David is patient and sweet and not at all condescending, and that overrides all the swirling confusion about how to know who does what in a relationship if he doesn’t have gender roles to fall back on.
David will guide him, he thinks. He’s looking forward to it.
It comes up a few more times, including twice at Stevie’s, but it doesn’t unsettle him until the night in the store when David is calling Patrick his boyfriend and then clambering into his lap. David has several inches and (although Patrick would never say this to his face) a few pounds on him, but he doesn’t seem to think twice before putting himself there to kiss Patrick with aplomb. And suddenly, suddenly he understands what David has been trying to tell him for weeks, about letting go of expectations and doing what makes you feel right.
He thinks about how he feels every time David’s arms are wrapped around him, and he wonders.
Following the open mic night, David thanks him for his song in a particularly inventive way on the couch in the back room. After cleaning up in the bathroom Patrick comes back in to find David sitting, one arm already spread out along the back of the couch waiting for Patrick to settle in at his side. It’s how they always sit and Patrick loves it, but after the emotional wringer of serenading his boyfriend in front of the whole town (not to mention said boyfriend’s mother) and the physical wringer of the orgasm David just gave him, he needs to be closer. He lets himself hesitate for just a fraction of a second longer before giving in to it, climbing into David’s lap before he can second guess the impulse.
David makes a soft little sound in the back of his throat that makes it clear he’s well aware of how momentous this feels to Patrick, but that he won't make a big deal about it unless Patrick wants him to. Instead he just slides one arm around Patrick’s shoulders and the other up his leg to his thigh, large hands stroking small circles there as he presses a kiss to Patrick’s temple.
Patrick loves him.
Given the song he just sang, very publicly, it shouldn’t hit him with such a shock that he nearly tumbles right off David and onto the cold floor, but it does; he barely remains upright under the force of it. He almost blurts it out, but it’s been a long, emotional day for both of them, so instead he lets himself lean fully into David, letting the soft kisses and the whispered words wash through him.