Work Text:
“Favorite sports team?”
It’s midnight. Or at least it was the last time David checked his phone. He had arrived at Patrick’s (well, "Ray’s, apparently, from the looks of it. Why didn’t you tell me you lived at Ray’s? ”) just before 10 PM. It had been 12 hours since they had officially discovered the lice outbreak at the motel.
They’d been at this for almost an hour. A comfortable back and forth that started out rather simple and agreeable but was quickly starting to venture into uncharted territory.
David wrinkles his nose. “Definitely don’t have one of those. And I honestly don’t know or care enough to ask you what yours is.”
He’s lying on the couch in Ray's living room. His head is propped up against a stack of pillows on one end, his feet curled against each other, socked toes peeking out from under his blanket at the other end. Patrick is sitting on the armchair across from David. His head is leaning lazily to the right against the back of the chair, one leg pulled up over his knee.
“That’s fair,” Patrick says.
“Favorite season of Sex and the City?” David counters.
Patrick lifts his head and considers him carefully. “Season 4,” he answers flatly.
“Really?” David sits up a little straighter in surprise. “Why?”
Patrick mirrors his movements, sitting up tall in his chair. “I just think…” he pauses like he’s weighing his response. “... I just feel like the City was really good that season. You know? The Sex? Not so much. But man, exceptional work from the City. Truly the best I’ve ever seen from any City, like, ever.”
He’s grinning. Annoyingly self-assured, endlessly smug.
David has a very sudden but very fleeting urge to kiss him. It’s gone before he can make anything of it.
He yawns into his fist then and, seeing this, Patrick lets out a long sigh.
"Okay, David, please just go upstairs and get in my bed,” the words fall breezily off his tongue.
“No,” David protests. “Plus,” he says through another stifled yawn. “Not sleepy yet.”
“Maybe you would be if you had some sleepytime tea,” Patrick reaches over to the coffee table and brings his cup up to his lips. He takes a loud, exaggerated sip.
“I told you, I’m not drinking anything called sleepytime tea especially with that… cartoon bear on the box just mocking me with his pantslessness and the... ease in which he’s able to fall asleep.”
“The ease comes from the tea,” he says against the lip of the cup. "And do you want to be pantsless?"
David blinks. He burrows himself stubbornly into his blanket, sinking further down into the couch and frowns at Patrick.
“Well, no,” he says soberly. “And no, for the hundredth time, I’m perfectly fine sleeping here. That's your bed. You sleep in it,” he waves his hand up at the staircase.
“David, I already told you. I'm not sleeping in my bed tonight,” Patrick says, resolute. His grip on his teacup tightens and he takes another sip. “So either you sleep in it, or no one's sleeping in it."
David fixes him a hard gaze. Patrick licks a drop of tea off his thumb.
"Oh my god, fine!" He grabs his things and stalks toward the stairs with a huff, all but tripping over his blanket in the process. Three steps up the stairs, he turns sheepishly back toward Patrick.
"Thank you," he calls out quietly to him before walking up the stairs.
Patrick chuckles and gets up to walk toward the kitchen. He puts away the remaining dishes on the dishrack, careful not to make any loud noises. He places a bowl in the cabinet above him and shuts the door soundlessly. He switches on a small radio (something Ray had found for $1 at an estate sale) and moves the dial to one of the only two stations it catches. Soft, indiscernible jazz music filters through the room, the perfect pitch to lull him to sleep.
"I can't…" David’s voice startles him from behind. Patrick turns around to see him standing at the bottom of the stairs. His blanket is wrapped around him, his feet hidden under the heavy fabric draped down to the floor. "I just… I can't sleep up there knowing you're down here sleeping on this. So…" he walks back to the couch and drops his pillow and blanket with a soft thud. He slumps back down into the cushions. “You go.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Patrick says, padding back into the living room. “But, I said what I said.” He sits down onto the armchair with an even heavier thud and pulls out a blanket from the ottoman. You go, he says with an unwavering stare as he settles into the chair.
"What are you doing?"
"I told you, David, I'm not sleeping in my bed tonight."
"Oh my god,” he rolls his eyes. “You are incorrigible."
Patrick beams a toothy smile at David and stretches his arms out in a comical yawn.
"Okay, whoever falls asleep first has to take the bed," David suggests.
"That... makes no sense, David."
"Okay, then whoever falls asleep last has to take the bed,” he says, and who can disagree with that sound logic? He shuts his eyes immediately and feigns sleep like an eager child waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve. Patrick quickly does the same, but not before imitating an obscene snoring noise.
David laughs, an unexpected sound that seems louder in the still of the night.
“Ha! You’re awake, David. Okay, upstairs you go.”
“You’re still awake too -- ugh!” he pulls his blanket over his head. From under the covers, he hears Patrick laugh delightedly.
They both lie like that for a while across each other on their respective makeshift beds. The music from the radio, long forgotten, now the only sound in the hushed room.
“Favorite Mariah Carey song?” David speaks up after a moment from under his blanket. His voice is muffled.
“Dreamlover,” Patrick’s answer sounds far away. David lifts the blanket up and peeks out across the coffee table. Patrick’s head is turned to the side, away from him. His blanket is pulled up around his chest and David watches the steady rise and fall of the soft crochet fabric against his body.
“Where did you grow up?” Patrick asks him next.
“That’s not the game,” David pulls his blanket completely off his head now. His hair is noticeably disheveled.
“Oh, I’m sorry, there are rules to this game?” he turns to face David, eyes heavy-lidded but somehow still bright and shining in the darkened room.
They continue their ruleless game, picking right back up where they left off. David hoists himself up urgently at one point to object when Patrick deems Ryan Reynolds his favorite Ryan (the answer is, obviously, Meg Ryan). At another later point, David asks Patrick about the scar on his eye and Patrick tells him the story of the time he hit his head on his parents’ dining room table while trying to ride their family dog around the house.
The back and forth is familiar and easy and continues well into the early morning until David, drifting in and out of consciousness, is vaguely aware that a long time has passed since he last heard Patrick’s voice. The room is dark except for the dim light of the lamp near Patrick’s desk. He huffs out a small, sleepy laugh as he realizes he’s the last one to fall asleep, but he’s too far settled into the cozy warm glow of the living room and the slow, gentle sounds of Patrick’s breathing now to ever want to be anywhere else.
The next morning, in the cool, dusky light of the waking day, as the 6 AM chill seeps in from the outside, Ray walks downstairs to find David curled up on the couch and Patrick folded tightly on the armchair across from him. There are two near-empty mugs of sleepytime tea on the coffee table. He carefully picks them up and takes them to the kitchen, switching off the radio with a short click. The cups rattle together under the soft sounds of the kitchen sink and David stirs momentarily in his sleep, pulling his blanket in just a little bit tighter.