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“What’s all this!” Patrick’s voice is excited, his smile growing as he stepped into their kitchen. The smell of lasagna filled the air as soon as he opened their front door; he couldn’t set down his things quickly enough.
“Dinner,” David replies nonchalantly, tucking a smile between his lips.
Patrick steps up to him, giving him a chaste kiss on the lips before taking in the scene. Lasagna is served on two plates at their windowside kitchen table, along with bread and salad. The kitchen lights are down low, a few candles placed around the kitchen for light, instead. A bottle of wine from one of their favorite vendors - one that Patrick didn’t even know they even had in their possession - is placed in the center of the table. Most surprising of all, their kitchen is clean: no smoke or burnt pans, no fires or spills, nothing.
Wrapping an arm around David’s waist, he asks “Did you make all this?”
David twists his face in a way that never fails to make Patrick want to kiss it away. “God, no, could you imagine? I thought about texting your mom for her recipe, but the last time I tried to cook something even remotely complicated Jocelyn almost needed a new kitchen.”
Seeing the gears start to turn in Patrick's head, David brings up his arm around Patrick’s back to rest a hand on his shoulder. “I picked it up from that new place in Elm Glen that we like.”
“But I had the car?”
“I borrowed Stevie’s,” David explains like it’s nothing. Seeing that Patrick didn’t really believe that it was as simple as just asking to borrow Stevie’s car, he elaborates. “Okay, well, I may have fought her for the keys.”
Patrick smiles. “That sounds about right. So then, what’s the occasion, and more slightly more pressing, what do we owe Stevie? There’s not an anniversary or anything that I forgot, right?” he asks slowly, fearing that he did, in fact, forget an anniversary.
David flails his arms a little bit. “Patrick, you gave me monthly anniversary gifts when we first started dating. I don’t think you’re capable of forgetting special occasions. And no, Stevie owed me a favor.”
He definitely has more questions about Stevie, but he wasn't going to press it. “Well if there’s no special occasion, then what’s all this for?”
“Well. It’s not not a special occasion.”
“It’s a Tuesday, David.”
“Mhmm, special things can happen on Tuesdays,” David responds quietly.
By the way he doesn’t quite lean into the teasing like he normally does, Patrick can tell something is up, that David’s nervous about something. His voice is gentler now. “Indeed they can.” He absentmindedly rubs small circles across the small of David’s back as David softly taps at Patrick’s shoulder.
He wasn’t quite sure what was happening. When David was in the mood and wanted to, you know, prepare for the evening, he would be more overt about it. Patrick would walk in and just about immediately know where the night would lead them.
Tonight definitely is not that kind of night; he has no clue what is about to happen. But it’s cute to see David all nervous like this.
“Right, so…” David nods firmly and gestures for Patrick to sit down.
Instead of immediately digging into his food, David takes one of Patrick’s hands across the table, breathing in deeply and formulating words in a speech he’s already written. And rewritten. And then rewrote a few more times for good measure. Looking at Patrick and never breaking eye contact, he breathes out, “I want to tell you everything.”
Patrick tilts his head, not quite sure what David means. He knows it’s not anything bad, but it’s important to David, so it’s important to him, too.
He gives David’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “You can tell me anything.”
David quirks the side of his mouth up, a smile that Patrick can never seem to get enough of. “It’s just always… has felt weird that Stevie knows more about my exes and failed relationships than my own husband. So I want to change that.”
Patrick smiles, easing tension he didn’t know he had been holding. He was right in believing that nothing is wrong; confirmation is still nice to have, though, especially when you come home to your husband being a bit of a nervous wreck. “David, it’s fine that Stevie knows more than I do.” He reaches across the table to grab David’s other hand, the one that’s all balled up close to his chest. He rubs his thumb over the gold rings. “I trust you. That’s your past and it’s your choice who you want to share it with, husband or not.”
“I know, but I- I want to tell you. I want you to know. I’m not worried about you leaving me quite yet - that’s years down the line.”
“Oh is it? Because I have a date set for the 23rd of next month, but whatever you say, David.”
David tucks a smile into the side of his mouth and swats his left hand at Patrick. “ Anyway - I’m trying to be vulnerable and honest with my husband.”
“Yes, yes, my bad. As my husband was saying.” And with a flap of his hand he grabs back on to David’s. God, he swears he will never get tired of hearing David call him husband . Patrick could say it all day. David, this beautiful fucking masterpiece of a human was his husband. Damn that never gets old.
David takes a quick breathe, a smile still plastered on his face. Anxiety over this conversation subsides, because what else would Patrick be but sympathetic and loving?
It’s not like Patrick didn’t know anything about his past - he most certainly did. He just knew the funnier ones, the ones where David could look back at and laugh about, not spiral into his own head over. Like the birthday clown or Anderson Cooper.
David knows it will pain him to hear about his past, but only because it had hurt David , not because he wants to pretend it never happened. Patrick is like that, loving and accepting of all of David, not just the pretty, perfectly curated and put together parts. He could relax and not have to worry about holding his guard up around his husband. As much as it irritates David to say so, his mom was right about his relationship what felt like a lifetime ago: that Patrick saw David, for all that he is. And slowly but surely, that became less and less intimidating and terrifying, and more and more comforting.
Patrick’s love never seems to dwindle. If anything, David knows this conversation will bring them closer. He desperately wants that. For once in his life, what he feels for someone is reciprocated in its entirety. He doesn’t need to fight to keep their attention, or dawn a new personality to keep them interested, or give them his body for their own desires to get them to stay. Patrick wasn’t going anywhere, because he loves David , not just what he can give him. It’s so safe and warm and unlike anything he could have ever imagined for himself. So he’s going to commit. He wants Patrick to have all of him, not just the pretty parts.
“Yes. So, where to start? Um, I guess- are you actually going to eat? Because if not we should probably put this all away,” David says, gesturing at all the food in front of them.
“I wasn’t really planning on it, no. But, if you were-”
“Oh God no. I would throw it right back up.”
“Got it. I’ll just throw it in the fridge real quick then.”
“No! Patrick! Sit! This is supposed to be a nice thing for you. It was your day at the store, let me do the work.”
“Uh, I wasn’t the one driving to Elmdale,” he says as he sits back down, watching David begin to grab their plates.
Putting a plate down to free his hand, he places a ringed finger on Patrick’s lip. “Shhhh. There’s no need for that.” Patrick rolls his eyes, a smile on his face.
“Hey, do you think this is more of a wine conversation or a whiskey conversation?”
David stands at the fridge, thinking for a moment. “Maybe both? We’ll start with the wine and see where that takes us. Ease our way into things.”
Patrick nods and pours them both generous glasses.
David sits back down and holds the edges of the table. Patrick holds his hands once again, moving his feet to play footsies underneath the table.
David leans back into his chair, rolling his eyes. “What are you? Thirteen?”
Patrick just shrugs. “Maybe. Am I not allowed to play footsies with my husband?”
Leaning forward again and stifling a grin, David responds with a less than clever, “You’re a child, Patrick Brewer.”
He brings up David’s left hand to kiss it, hiding his growing smile behind it.
“Speaking of, there was this time in Miami when I was seventeen at some resort while Alexis was doing a photoshoot for some teen magazine- Do I want to start there? Yeah, I’ll start there.”
Hours passed by. They finished the wine at the table and moved on to another, deciding against the whiskey after all. Sometimes Patrick laughed at a funny remark or circumstance, but mainly his heart hurt for David. It ached knowing that he didn’t have anyone before to help alleviate that hurt. He had Patrick now, though, and it was his intention to soak up all of David’s past pain and heartache. Throughout the evening, he would plant kisses on David’s hand or bring them up to hold against his own chest.
And David was right. By the time they made their way up to bed hand-in-hand, just a little bit tipsy, Patrick had never loved David more than he did in that moment.