Archive of Our Own ^beta

Everything had been going so well until suddenly it wasn’t.

When his dad came panting into the café with his catastrophic news about accidentally maybe possibly definitely outing Patrick to his parents, David put his brave face on. Well, okay, no, first he had a minor panic attack in the café’s washroom, counting out his barely controlled breaths as he leaned against the stall door and desperately clawed back his spiralling thoughts. But after that was dealt with, he put his brave face on and went to spoil the surprise for the sake of Patrick’s autonomy.

Surprise spoiled and support provided, David put together a quick gift basket at the store and dashed over to the motel before his brave face failed him. He knew he was moving on inertia and if he stopped, he’d stay stopped, and there was just far too much to do before he could stop, party notwithstanding. And the party was absolutely not notwithstanding – if David was going to throw a non-surprise surprise party for his boyfriend, it was going to be the best goddamn version it could be.

Bracing himself, he knocked.

Awkward, awkward, so awkward. Why was the universe so cruel, making the first time he ever got to meet a partner’s parents happen in such a singularly unpleasant way? This wasn’t what he envisioned.

“I just wanted to come here and apologize for a very unfortunate miscommunication.”

Mr. Brewer had piercing blue eyes; David felt pinned to the wall by his gaze. “So you’re not in a relationship with our son?”

“Oh, no, I very much am.” The Brewers exchanged a look and David ploughed on. “Um, I was talking more about how you found out.”

“Was it something we did, David?”

David’s stomach plummeted. “I’m sorry?”

“Honey, stop!” Mrs. Brewer cut in, sounding alarmed.

“No, I wanna ask.” Mr. Brewer was a tall man, broad in the shoulders, and he filled the room when he stood. David wanted to take a step back, but there was no space. “Do you think if we’d done things differently, that Patrick would still come to us about important things? That he’d understand he wasn’t alone?”

Oh, okay, not as dark as he’d initially thought, good. “He wasn’t alone,” David said quietly, uncertain whether pointing out that Patrick had a community of people who loved him in Schitt’s Creek was a helpful thing or not. “But you’d have to ask him about why he didn’t tell you about us, or about himself. I can’t answer that – clearly, since I assumed you knew and that certainly wasn’t accurate.” He let out a little self-deprecating huff of laughter, unsure what to make of the expressions on the Brewers’ faces.

Then his father appeared and disrupted the tableau by babbling gracelessly at them in a clear attempt to assuage his understandable but mostly unwarranted guilt.

“Dad, it’s fine.” David cut him off before he could keep them in conversational hell for any longer. “Everything’s okay.”

“Oh. Oh, good.” His father looked relieved and checked in with the Brewers, who merely blinked at him in turn. “Good, then no one really has to feel bad about how this information came out, then, huh?”

David decided to let that one go. “So Patrick knows they’re here,” he said to his father, then turned to address the Brewers. “He knows you’re here, and he’s planning on telling you tonight. So I think the best birthday gift we could give him at this point is to just… keep him in the closet until then.” His brain did a record-scratch. “I know that came out wrong, but we all understand what I’m saying, right?”

Mr. Brewer nodded slowly and Mrs. Brewer made a vague gesture that David interpreted as agreement, so he let out a relieved breath. Not the most forward and talkative of people, Patrick’s parents, but David was used to being on the other end of that scale so it was fine, he could adapt.

Hindsight being 20/20, David wished he’d better understood the Brewers’ body language, their silence and their shared glances and their careful words. Any warning he could’ve given Patrick would have been better than letting him walk, completely unsuspecting, into what happened later that night.

“What if they don’t react the way I think they will?”

“Then I will be here, and we’ll get through it together.”

The surprise part of the non-surprise surprise party had gone off with minor fuss, Patrick acting his part admirably and his parents perhaps less so, but not everyone was made for the stage, so it’s fine. It’s fine. David managed to remember not to kiss Patrick when they hugged, because everyone knew but Patrick didn’t know everyone knew and really, David had had just about enough subterfuge to last him for the next twenty years, he was so ready to be done with it all. So he sent Patrick off to a confab with his parents with a sense of respite mingling with satisfaction and then turned to find Stevie in front of him, carrying a glass of wine that was likely intended for her but quickly became his own.

The other Roses had congregated at the back end of the counter, so David and Stevie (with a newly refilled glass) made their way over to join. Alexis winked both eyes at him like the freak she was and his father gave him a questioning thumbs up, which David couldn’t help but nod at with a smile. Then, almost as one, all five of them turned to watch Patrick and his parents.

From their vantage point, David could see Patrick’s face, bright-eyed and tense with nerves and determination. Mr. and Mrs. Brewer, however, had presented him with the back of their heads and their right ears. That was okay, though – David felt confident in his ability to read the conversation through Patrick’s expressions.

For example, David could tell Patrick was working up the nerve to actually say the all-important words, playing with his fingers as his gaze roved around the room. He knew when Patrick finally said them, his face going serious with an undertone of happiness glowing through. David’s chest filled with warmth as he watched Patrick’s earnestness, his big eyes flicking between his parents as he waited for their response.

Then Patrick’s face fell, slackening with surprise. David was supposed to make that look happen, it was supposed to be a good thing, followed with a beaming smile and loud incredulity and a party surrounded by all their friends. But this, this expression was followed by Patrick moving his gaze to the table between his hands, his shoulders curling in. David was intimately familiar with that look; he’d embodied shame enough times to know how it exhibited itself. He’d only seen it once before on Patrick, though, after the barbecue and Rachel and their bump in the road.

Seeing it now felt like a stab to the gut.

Patrick’s naturally pale face faded further, going an unpleasant almost-grey colour that made him look ill, and his eyes moved between the table and his parents, the movement unsure and uneven, and David didn’t know it was possible to feel this much pain vicariously.

“Oh my God,” David whispered. His chest was tight, his face hot. “Oh my God.”

“David.” He looked down to his mother, who wore an expression of placidity that was betrayed by the tension around her eyes. “You mustn’t enumerate your poultry before they emerge.”

The chickens had pretty clearly come home to roost, though. Patrick’s facial expressions were screaming distress and anguish and disbelief, and David couldn’t breathe. He spared a glance at Stevie, whose face was even paler than normal, and Alexis, who met his gaze with a flat, concerned mouth. His father’s impressive brows were furrowed together, eyes sharp and sad beneath them, and David couldn’t breathe.

A touch at his wrist startled him into looking down; his mother’s fingertips brushed him, and he took the subtly offered comfort, wrapping her small hand in his own and squeezing as tightly as he dared. Letting out a slow, shaky breath, David refocused all of his attention on Patrick and the heartbreak he was broadcasting to the entire café.

Patrick’s complexion had swung from the pallor of shock to the ruddiness of anger, a flush spread over the tops of his cheeks and down the length of his neck. His gestures got wider, sharper, more guarded as he spoke, and his eyes glinted with what could have been impatience but was more likely repressed tears. Mr. Brewer shifted forward in his seat to rest his forearms on the table, and Patrick leaned back in response, recoiling from his father with a look of such pained betrayal that David couldn’t help but make a noise of distress.

“That’s not true.” Patrick’s voice, not a shout but firm and loud enough to be heard over the music and chatter of the party, rang with a note of distinct outrage. The noise in the café dimmed and then recovered, reacting to the first angry words most attendees had ever heard from the guest of honour’s mouth. David jerked with an almost taken step, held back by his resolution to not intervene because this was Patrick’s narrative to control, to set the terms for, and David hadn’t been invited. Then Patrick shook his head firmly, his shoulders set in a rigid line, and his mouth clearly shaped the word ‘no’. His parents looked at each other, said something to him, and shifted out of the booth. Mrs. Brewer’s handbag went with her and they didn’t look back at Patrick as they made their way over to the refreshments table.

It’s not intervening if they already left, right? Releasing his mother’s hand, David made frantic eye contact with Stevie, who looked as shocked as he felt, and then headed over to Patrick.

“Hey,” he whispered, sliding into the booth beside his distraught-looking boyfriend.

Patrick swallowed, didn’t look up. “Hey.”

David tentatively touched Patrick’s lower back, firming the contact into a stroke when Patrick didn’t protest. He slowly ran his hand along the line of his spine, up and down in an even rhythm that Patrick started matching with his breathing.

“So that...” David trailed off, unsure of what to say.

“...Did not go well,” Patrick finished for him.

“Okay. Okay, remember what I said? I’m here and we’ll get through this together, okay?”

Patrick nodded faintly, staring down at his hands as he picked at his cuticles.

David kept half an eye on the Brewers, making note of where they were in the room as they moved around. They wandered for another ten minutes or so, making small talk with Ray and Twyla and Jocelyn and, conspicuously, not a single Rose. They ate some canapés, drank a glass of champagne each, and then, with a complete lack of fanfare and barely a glance at Patrick, they left.

Patrick closed his eyes when the café’s door shut, the little bell underlining his parents’ departure. David pressed a kiss to the ball of his shoulder and desperately fumbled for something, anything to say.

“Patrick...”

“Get me out of here, David.” Patrick’s voice was wobbly, uneven, and David’s eyes stung in sympathy. “Please.”

“Yup, okay, let’s go,” David said immediately, quickly climbing out of the booth, one hand cupped against Patrick’s tricep as he followed. He saw Stevie watching them and she tilted her head, asking an unformed yet distinct question, but David just shook his head in response as he guided Patrick out through the café’s entryway.

The moment they left the café, David regretted not asking Twyla for use of the delivery door. Patrick’s parents were still out front, climbing into their car. Making a quick decision, David put himself between Patrick and his parents’ car and simply walked them past, head tilted towards Patrick and firmly ignoring everything but the sidewalk in front of them. Patrick didn’t seem to notice and his parents didn’t say anything, so David took the small win for what it was and kept Patrick moving.

“The apartment?” David asked quietly, not wanting to make things worse with an incorrect assumption. He’d messed up enough recently by assuming. Patrick’s answering nod was jerky and he leaned more heavily into David, who slid his arm down to wrap around Patrick’s waist in a half hug, half support.

Patrick’s apartment was only a few short blocks from the café, maybe a fifteen-minute walk at the slowest, but David was silently bemoaning their lack of a car. He’d come with his family in the Lincoln and Patrick had walked, likely under the assumption he’d be drinking at the party, and while those were both perfectly reasonable things to have done, the walk that stretched before them currently felt infinite to David. Patrick had started shaking just a few minutes in, quivering in fits and starts that he seemed to be trying to suppress – it was a losing battle, though, and David picked up their pace, fully aware of how little Patrick wanted to break down in public. But the façade he’d put on at the party was slowly shattering and a single kilometre’s walk had never looked so long.

Ugh, right, the party. That was still a thing that was happening, despite Patrick no longer gracing it with his presence, and it was a thing David was technically responsible for, despite his own absence. David pulled out his phone and typed a text to Stevie with one thumb, his other hand still firmly rooted around Patrick’s waist.

[David] we’re not coming back so can you look after things there? rope my fam in to help
[Stevie] is he ok?
[David] very no
[Stevie] don’t worry about the party, we’ll handle it

Sending a small thank you to whatever powers may exist in the universe for intersecting his path in life with Stevie Budd’s, David tucked his phone back into his pocket and squeezed Patrick a little tighter.

When the little walk-up loomed into view, Patrick was almost catatonic, barely responding to David’s nudges and murmurs, so David fished the keys out of the pocket of his jeans and got them inside. It wasn’t until they were behind Patrick’s locked door, standing together in the quiet calm of the apartment where they shared so much time together, that Patrick let out a sound that wrenched David’s heart out of his chest.

David didn’t do well with tears, never really had done. Despite being an easy crier himself, other people crying made him uncomfortable and on edge, unsure of what to do with a physical outburst of emotion that wasn’t his own. Plus, other people’s bodily fluids were gross and to be strictly avoided if there were no orgasms involved. But Patrick’s first whimper prompted David’s arms to wrap him up in a hug before David even asked them to, pulling Patrick to him and holding him tightly like he could stop the heartache through touch alone. Patrick buried his head at the join of David’s neck and shoulder, his arms coming around David’s ribs and squeezing in a way that might actually leave a bruise. He cried hard and loud, desperately sucking in air between sobs, and David rubbed one hand along his back and murmured soothing things, avoiding the shushes he himself hated and leaning more into the I know, it’ll be okay, I’m here genre of comforting words.

Pressing gentle kisses to the side of Patrick’s head, his ear, his neck, David fought back his own urge to cry in the face of so much unexpected and overwhelming grief. Patrick wore happiness well – it sat on his shoulders properly, balanced and even, like it belonged there. The same could be said for a hundred other emotions and states: love and teasing and humour and determination and enthusiasm and passion. But this? This hell where Patrick gasped for breath as he wept inconsolably into his boyfriend’s arms? This didn’t fit. David kept thinking of the time he saw a guy fall down the stairs at a house party and dislocate his shoulder – looking at the bulbous joint while they waited for the paramedics had generated an intense feeling of unease, of inherent wrongness; it didn’t belong there. Sorrow didn’t belong on Patrick. It didn’t fit his face, his character, and maybe David could acknowledge that that was likely just his overly positive view of the man he loved, but it still felt like the world had turned upside down and inside out because Patrick shouldn’t have to bear this.

Eventually, Patrick’s tears slowed and came to a stop. He was trembling, fine shivers running up and down his entire body that occasionally peaked into a shudder, and his breathing was still erratic, but the sobbing and tears had faded into nothing. David pulled his head back slightly from where his nose was buried in Patrick’s hair, attempting to get a look at his face, but Patrick stayed resolutely tucked into the crook of David’s neck. The shoulder of David’s sweater was drenched, he could feel it, sticky and damp and heavy, but for quite possibly the first time in his entire life, he didn’t give half a damn about his clothing. It could be washed, and if it couldn’t, so be it.

He did want to take it off, though, because there had to be some limits and marinating in snot and tears was a hard no. Patrick was starting to feel a little unsteady at the knees anyway, leaning into David more heavily as time went on, so David made the tactical decision to move them to the couch. Stripped of his sweater and left in a white tee, David drew Patrick into his side where they sat and then tugged the throw draped over the back of the couch around their shoulders. Summer be damned, they were in need of comfort and Patrick’s A/C worked reasonably well.

In the wake of his forceful tears, Patrick became unsettlingly calm, his eyes half lidded and staring at nothing in particular from where his temple rested against David’s shoulder. His breathing had slowed and deepened, picking up an almost meditative quality that David wasn’t sure was deliberate. If David hadn’t been beside him since they left the café or if Patrick were a different sort of person (a Rose, for example), he would’ve suspected some sort of pharmaceutical intervention, but David had and Patrick wasn’t, so this result was slightly disconcerting.

David said his name, throwing a question mark on the end to prompt a reaction, but got nothing. Worried but not enough to push the matter, David simply brought his hand up to Patrick’s back and started the long strokes he knew Patrick found comfort in.

It was almost thirty minutes later when Patrick finally spoke.

“They—” he said suddenly, his rough voice startling David out of his thoughts. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Um, they think you turned me gay.”

A chill swept down David’s spine, seeping into his stomach. “Excuse me?”

“They said you did this to me. They kept asking me to go home with them. To get away from your influence.” He was almost monotone, his voice quiet and dull.

David knew his mouth was hanging open, knew his hand had stopped its steady path back and forth across Patrick’s back, and yet was unable to rectify either error for a long moment.

“Oh,” he finally said, full of elegance and grace as always.

“'We’re okay with gay people',” Patrick continued, clearly quoting one of his parents. “'But you’re not gay.'”

“Jesus,” David muttered, kissing Patrick’s hair. He wasn’t expecting the denial route. “That’s so fucked up.”

Patrick nodded, slow and stilted. “Yeah.”

Despite his best efforts, David felt his brain take a dive into the deep end. Did he turn Patrick gay? Did he coerce him into a relationship, taking advantage of his loneliness and confusion? No. No, of course he didn’t. That’s not how things work. But what if he did? Oh God. David slammed on the brakes, refusing to let himself spiral when Patrick was sitting beside him with actual problems that weren’t invented by his stupid ass brain.

“You didn’t,” Patrick said into the silence.

“No, I didn’t,” David responded, pleased that he sounded far more confident than his inner turmoil would suggest he was.

“They weren’t surprised, though. By us.”

David grimaced, hating literally everything in the world for conspiring to make this situation happen the way it had.

“They knew what I was going to tell them. They already knew.” Some of the dullness disappeared from Patrick’s voice, revealing a spark of confusion underneath. “They had... arguments prepared, and this whole theory explaining everything. I don’t...” He faded away, shaking his head slightly.

Yeah, so this was quite possibly the worst thing ever? David didn’t know what he did in a previous life to have earned this, but he was clearly an evil person at some point.

“Okay,” he started, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. “Okay, my dad might’ve told them?” Patrick’s breathing stuttered and David hurried to continue. “But he thought they knew. He didn’t mean to out you, Patrick – he just mentioned it in conversation with them at the motel. He thought they knew.”

He bit down on further explanation, desperately trying to avoid implying that Patrick was to blame for not telling people he wasn’t out. David meant what he’d said to Patrick earlier, that coming out was something he should do on his own timeline, and while maybe they needed to have a conversation about keeping secrets from each other, now definitely wasn’t the time for that.

“So they did know.”

“Yes, they did know.” David shifted uncomfortably, Patrick’s head bobbing slightly where it lay on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Patrick. I wanted you to be able to tell them yourself. And when I went to see them this afternoon to smooth things over, they seemed fine. They just asked me about why you hadn’t told them, nothing else. I didn’t think—” and David’s voice wobbled and he hated everything.

“If I’d had any idea that that was how they felt, I would have warned you, love.”

Patrick was quiet for a long moment and David would’ve sacrificed his top five favourite shirts for a glimpse of his face. But then Patrick sighed, nodded, and said “Yeah, I know. It’s okay.”

David blinked. “'It’s okay'?”

“I might be mad at you later, I don’t know, but I just can’t care right now, David.” Patrick sounded absolutely wiped and David nuzzled into Patrick’s hair as he mentally tabled the topic for another, less fraught time in the future.

Patrick turned into the nuzzle, pressing his face into David’s collarbones. “Can we lie down?”

“Um, yes, of course,” David babbled, suddenly thrilled for the opportunity to fulfil a direct request and not bumble around in search of ways to help. He let Patrick maneuver them down and together, moving as directed until Patrick settled in, seemingly satisfied with what he’d arranged. They ended up with David on his back and Patrick on his front, Patrick’s chest wedged between David’s thighs and his head resting on David’s stomach, moving gently with the swell of his breathing. Patrick’s arms wiggled their way into the space at David’s lower back to form a loose embrace and he nestled his face into the soft fabric of David’s shirt like a cat, heedless of the tears that had started silently streaming down his face again at some point.

Clearly more comfortable in their new position, more pieces of what happened between Patrick and his parents that evening started spilling out of him in fits and starts, long silences interspersed with bursts of words that seemed to crawl out of his mouth without his permission. Slowly, a picture of the conversation formed: his parents’ worried disbelief that quickly slid into incredulous cajoling before boiling over with patronising shock, adamant the entire time that their beloved son was being duped. David listened intently as he smoothed his hands repetitively over Patrick’s shoulders, his head propped up on one of the decorative cushions and only a teeny tiny percentage of his brain space dedicated to worrying how much of a double chin this angle was giving him.

“I just don’t, I don’t understand, I don’t—” Patrick swallowed and took a shuddering breath, visibly collecting his thoughts. “I don’t understand where this came from. They’ve never been anything but nice about gay people. Never heard anything bad growing up, no remarks or comments or anything.”

David hummed in response. He knew what things could lurk behind gently positive, serenely non-threatening, utterly neutral support, what dangers lay in the assumptions of passive acceptance. How many of his relationships – platonic, romantic, or otherwise – had crumbled in the face of David being all he was, too outrageous and nonconforming for an ally that hit their limit? He’d tried not to share those stories with Patrick, newly out and still wet behind his little gay ears, had tried to protect him from some of the less savoury aspects of being queer. Maybe that was the wrong choice. Maybe he should have peppered those stories in along with his other tales of the Before Times, should have slowly inured Patrick to the possibility of disappointment from all quarters, even (especially?) those where it was most unexpected.

But maybe it was impossible to avoid. Maybe that disappointment, more than anything else, was the unifying factor across the rainbow.

Fuck, what a depressing thought.

Patrick was speaking again, slow and muddled. “They kept insisting that they were okay with gay people, but that they just knew I wasn’t gay. That I was confused, or that you’d tricked me.”

David grunted a little noise of sympathy. “I think, babe, this might be the difference between tolerance and acceptance.” At Patrick’s quiet inquisitive sound, he continued. “They tolerate gay people from a distance but can’t accept it in their son.”

Patrick let out a single sob, just the one, and nodded his head against David’s stomach. David squeezed his knees together slightly in a modified hug and stroked his hand down Patrick’s head to the nape of his neck.

“Patrick?”

Patrick turned his head to face him, his chin digging into David’s navel in an almost ticklish way. “Mm?”

Tracing his thumb over Patrick’s eyebrow, David cupped his cheek. “I love you,” he whispered, making sure to stuff those three words with as much adoration as he could. He knew he looked a mess, that he had tears on his cheeks, his eyes hot and sore from trying and failing to stop their escape, and he didn’t care. He didn’t care even harder when Patrick closed his eyes at his words, fresh tears spilling over to run down and soak into David’s shirt. “I’m so sorry, Patrick. I’m—” David swallowed, blinked his eyes clear. “I’m so sorry they did this. You deserve so much better. I love you and you deserve so much more than what they gave you.”

Patrick dissolved into sobs again, almost silent ones that puffed hot through David’s thin shirt to his stomach. David let himself cry a little too, releasing the valve a crack and embracing the absolute shittiness of the night for a few mutually misery-filled minutes.

Slowly the tears faded away, as they always do. Patrick seemed to be done talking and David was content to lie there in silence, running a hand gently through Patrick’s hair and letting his mind drift aimlessly through all manner of emotionally charged thoughts without getting stuck on anything in particular.

When he felt himself nodding off, he squinted at the clock on the microwave. It was one... something. Regardless of the other digits that David couldn’t make out, one anything was well past either of their bedtimes. David was tempted to move them to the bed, knowing without a doubt that if they stayed on the couch for the night, they’d have regrets in the morning. But Patrick’s breaths had gone heavy and deep with the rhythm of sleep, the slight burr at the back of this throat catching on his exhale, and David just didn’t have the heart to wake him.

Tomorrow’s regrets would be manageable.

Carefully, carefully, so as not to wake Patrick, David wiggled his phone out of his back pocket. He had a text from his sister waiting for him, sent about an hour ago.

[Alexis] ?

Right. His family would be concerned, would want an update. Pressing his fingers against his puffy eyelids, David briefly let himself think of what everyone else saw tonight – how many people had likely understood what was happening in that conversation between Patrick and his parents, how what should have been a private conversation was held in front of basically everyone they knew. But he shut down that line of thought before it unspooled too far, aware that it was too much to deal with at the moment – his capacity was maxed until the morning. Instead, he responded to Alexis, using an emoji to shorthand the thousand words he didn’t have the energy to write out.

[David] 👎
[Alexis] ☹️
[Alexis] hug him for us
[David] i will, thx

Turning his phone to silent, David placed it on the coffee table and stroked his hand through Patrick’s hair, closing his eyes to begin what became a long and mostly fruitless attempt to sleep.

Patrick didn’t leave his bed for three days.

Three days for David would have been edging into ‘slightly concerning’ territory but wasn’t out of character – languishing dramatically in his pain was his method of dealing with it, for better or for worse. However, for up-at-5am-to-hike, Cabaret-rehearsal-three-nights-a-week, hey-David-let’s-try-crossfit Patrick Brewer, three days was way beyond concerning. Three days was a five-alarm fire. Three days was a coma. Three days was going to give David a heart attack, albeit a small quiet one where he just died unnoticed in a corner somewhere so as to not steal focus away from his boyfriend who was clearly more in need of care and attention, see: the aforementioned three days.

Adding stress on top of stress, Patrick also wasn’t eating. He’d had a piece of toast after David’s voice broke while trying to convince him to just eat something, please on Day Two, but David stopped pushing quite so hard when Patrick had almost vomited it up again. He did bully tea into him a few times a day, though, and if it was more heavily sweetened than it normally was, it was just because David knew that a body needs some form of energy to keep functioning, even if the most activity it was doing was turning the pillow over to the cold side.

David managed to split his attention between Patrick and the store and left basically every other aspect of his life by the wayside. They had planned to close the store for the day after Patrick’s birthday, predicting hangovers and family lunches, so that was fine, but the subsequent days were saved by Stevie and Alexis stepping up – they both offered to work half days at the store for the next while, leaving David with more time to hover, cuddle, and fret over Patrick.

He postponed vendor meetings, fielded concerned questions from their friends, made teas Patrick accepted and food he didn’t, and cuddled Patrick through his silent bouts of tears. Then, on the fourth day, Patrick got out of bed.

That’s not to say he was operating at full capacity, though. Day Four was out of bed, sure, but he stayed in sweatpants and an undershirt. Day Five brought jeans and a fitted tee and a fully eaten meal. Day Six was the first day he left the apartment, popping over to the store to see David for an hour and hiding in the stock room whenever someone else came in. On Day Seven, David awoke to an empty bed and immediately panicked until he saw the note left on Patrick’s pillow that read gone hiking xx. They had words when Patrick came back, though, because he’d left his phone on his bedside table where it had been since Day One, and what if he’d fallen off a cliff and died in a crevasse somewhere because he didn’t have his phone?? There were limits, Patrick.

But David did understand why Patrick was pretending his phone didn’t exist, and why he was avoiding all human contact that wasn’t David. It was... a lot to deal with at the moment.

The first non-Patrick person David had seen after the party from hell was Alexis, who’d shown up the next morning to bring him some clothing and his journal that he’d forgotten on their bedside table and a macchiato. She’d shoved the tote bag and the takeaway cup at him, flailed her hands around under her chin for a hot second, and then hustled her way into his personal space for a hug that started out clumsy and full of angles but ended warm and tight and a little teary on David’s side of things. That interaction had been understandable – Alexis was his sister and she was close with Patrick so her offer of comfort, no matter how awkward, fit neatly into a slot in David’s brain. The rest of the compassion that seemed to pour out of the community, however, startled him.

The morning after the party, David woke up (on the couch and incredibly stiff, as predicted) to Patrick’s phone buzzing with messages from various people around town. The texts kept up, steadily trickling in throughout the day as word got around that Patrick’s parents had not reacted well to his coming out. Patrick didn’t answer a single one of them, though, staunchly ignoring his phone until the battery ran out, so it was David who was pelted with texts the next day. Astonishingly – maybe not, maybe David really needed to stop thinking everyone was like the people he used to know – not a single message was gossip hounding. Every last one expressed the sender’s concern regarding Patrick’s health and well being, and offered their commiserations. Jocelyn suggested she could make some dubious sounding comfort food for them, Ted sent increasingly incomprehensible puns, and Ray unexpectedly shared his own rough experience coming out to family and offered a friendly ear. David even got a short text from Ronnie, which he stared at for a solid minute before responding with his honest gratitude and a promise to pass on her words to Patrick.

Even without this incredibly touching show of support from the people of Schitt’s Creek, David’s phone would have been overwhelmed by texts from his mother. Patrick missing Cabaret rehearsals was, apparently, poor conduct regardless of personal matters that may be plaguing him. David ignored most of her texts, responding to just one with he’ll show up soon, i’ll let you know and then setting her to silent notifications. Stevie promised to run interference and seemed to succeed, given the reduction in texts. And Patrick did go back to rehearsals starting on Day Eight, tired and wan but needing an outlet and unable to deal with the feeling of disappointing more people than he already had.

According to Stevie, his acting was as good as ever.

David wasn’t sure what to make of that.

About two weeks after the party, Patrick started accepting his parents’ communication attempts. They’d started on Day One with a missed call and subsequent voicemail from his mother, followed by a missed call and subsequent voicemail from his father on Day Two. Both voicemails, and the others that had followed, had made Patrick cry when he listened to them on Day Nine and David had never wanted some sort of omnipotent ability more than he had at that moment simply so he could... erase all of this, make it stop. Make them stop. Make the world stop.

However, that’s not how life works, and David had to try to make things right the old-fashioned way.

Unfortunately, the old-fashioned way included comforting Patrick when he listened to all their voicemails, read all their emails and texts, and started answering their phone calls. David didn’t think opening the lines of communication was a particularly good idea, personally (hence unfortunately). It was too soon, and Patrick was still too raw – he had yet to start eating properly again and his sleep schedule was still completely out of whack. But Patrick was determined.

So David bit his tongue and sat on his hands and hugged Patrick when he cried, because David was fully aware of two very important things:

One – He had no fucking clue how normal, non-capital-W-Wealthy families functioned. Like, at all. He knew that Mr. and Mrs. Brewer were being homophobic assholes, fine, but the entirety of David’s experience with homophobic assholes could be summed up as telling them to shove it and then departing the situation, which was probably not how families worked? Maybe? If Hollywood had taught him anything (and it definitely had), then families were supposed to try and work through things together, which seemed fake but what did David know?

Two – The accusation that David had manipulated Patrick away from his parents and family stung more than he would ever admit. Objectively, David knew that’s not what happened. Patrick had flirted with him first, not the other way around. David had kissed Patrick first, yes, but only after Patrick (sort of) took him on a date. Patrick was a capable adult with decently healthy boundaries and a good understanding of how to form relationships, even if he only got a solid D grade in How To Not Keep Important Secrets From People Who Should Be Told Things 101. But there was still a niggling doubt – planted there very effectively by the Brewers – that David, in all his damaged-goods glory, had somehow trapped Patrick without either of them even realising it. They’d poisoned the well of his mind and now he was reluctant to do anything or suggest anything that could be construed as driving a wedge between parents and child.

That being said, David was only human.

There was only so long he was going to be able to put up with Patrick trying to explain over and over again that yes, he was gay, and no, he wasn’t confused, and yes, he’d had male crushes in the past that he hadn’t recognised, and no, he didn’t want to try dating a non-Rachel woman before he snapped, because these conversations literally always ended with Patrick in tears and another call the next day, forming an infinite cycle worthy of the deepest level of hell.

So when Mr. Brewer called on Day Twenty-Four, right on time for their daily six o’clock argument about Patrick’s sexuality, David had already taken a few ibuprofen to pre-emptively dull the headache he knew he was going to develop.

They would be talking for a while, Patrick and his father. Well, ‘talking’ may have been a generous term – wheedling and stonewalling, respectively, may have been more accurate. Regardless, Patrick was already pacing around the apartment and getting more and more worked up under the thin veneer of his calm and rational voice.

“Dad, I really need you to accept this, okay? Please, please just... stop arguing with me about it. I’m gay.”

David, close enough to hear Mr. Brewer’s voice at this point in Patrick’s pacing pattern, flinched at his reply: “Kiddo, you’re not.”

Patrick’s face crumpled and David made an executive decision that, while rash, he didn’t think he would regret – he plucked the phone from Patrick’s hand and tapped the end call button. Tossing it onto the couch, he stood and reached for Patrick, who tilted forward into the wrap of his arms like he couldn’t hold himself up under his own strength anymore.

“Okay, Patrick, honey, I know I’m not exactly a paragon of healthy choices or habits and anything I have to say on the matter should understandably be taken with a rather large grain of salt, but I really think you need to stop doing this.”

Face pressed into David’s shoulder, Patrick just huffed a morbidly amused breath that came out a little damp.

“I’m serious.” David tapped his fingers against Patrick’s back. “You don’t have to continue being a part of conversations that are hurting you.”

“David, he’s my dad.”

“Yes,” David almost whispered. “And your dad’s hurting you.”

Patrick’s voice went a little high and definitely sticky with tears when he gritted out, “Fuck, he really is.”

“He really is,” David echoed.

“If he’d just listen to me—”

“Okay, but he isn’t, Patrick. He hasn’t been. Neither of them have been.”

Patrick sighed sharply, his frustration clear. “So what do I do?”

“I don’t know,” David answered softly, pulling away slightly to frame Patrick’s face with his hands. “But you can’t keep doing this. It’s not... sustainable. You’re going to wear out your tear ducts.”

As intended, Patrick huffed out a laugh, and David resettled his arms around his shoulders, playing with his rings as he watched Patrick’s face slowly shift from pinched intensity into something softer, cooler.

Then Patrick’s phone started ringing from where it was wedged between the couch cushions, tinkling out the distinct ringtone set for his parents’ landline. David tensed, and felt Patrick do the same. The ringtone cycled over once, then twice, and cut off halfway through the third round, and Patrick let out a long, slow breath that wavered a little too much for David’s liking.

Clearly, a distraction was in order.

“How about we go out for dinner, hm? Take a walk, catch a movie.”

The look Patrick gave him was knowing, but David wasn’t trying to be coy so whatever. He just raised an eyebrow in return.

A tiny smile crept over Patrick’s face. “Supper would be nice, David.”

“And your phone stays here.”

“And my phone stays here,” Patrick agreed and pressed a kiss to David’s neck.

Patrick was still avoiding the café when possible, so they drove the thirty minutes to Elmdale to get supper at their favourite restaurant, which was generically Asian fusion but had surprisingly edible pad thai and a decent selection of local wines. Slightly tipsy, they checked out the little two screen cinema to see if there was anything decent playing (there was not), and made their way down to the river park to people watch until David, who’d had far less of their split bottle than Patrick had, was sober enough to drive them home again.

Soon they were re-ensconced on Patrick’s couch, digging into the pint of toasted almond ice cream that David had picked up from the little late-night ice cream shop. Speed was playing on Patrick’s laptop, because Keanu and Sandra made an excellent compromise movie, and they actually managed to finish both the movie and the ice cream before they tumbled onto Patrick’s bed, giggling into kisses and sliding hands under shirts.

The phone remained abandoned between the couch cushions until Patrick tugged it free on Day Twenty-Five.

After Patrick told his parents in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t be continuing to have pointless conversations about his sexuality with them – in a two-draft email complete with links to GLAAD and PFLAG Canada no less, because he is nothing if not consistent – things got slightly better.

Slightly, of course, was the operative word there. He was still quiet, more reserved than he had been before, and he clung to David in his sleep like his unconscious mind was afraid he’d disappear in a puff of smoke, but the number of times David found him with silent tears running down his face had decreased. David both despised and revered Cabaret for how incredibly busy it was keeping Patrick; he missed actually ever getting to, y’know, see his boyfriend outside of work but he also knew that the immensely busy schedule and exhausting rehearsals kept Patrick from doing too much thinking and obsessing over his relationship with his parents.

So when David’s family requested he join them at the motel for a family dinner night that landed on one of Patrick’s nights free from Cabaret, David almost said no. He wanted to bask in Patrick’s presence, watch a lazy movie, and, notably, keep Patrick distracted, none of which could be accomplished in his parents’ motel room on the other side of town. It wasn’t until David did the math and realised that he hadn’t been at the motel for more than a few hours at a time for over a month that he hesitated. He had been keeping up with Alexis, mostly through text and somewhat through her visits to the store, and his mother occasionally requested his presence for lunch, but he suddenly became aware of the rather novel fact that he missed his family.

Anyway, he was getting bored of the clothing he had at Patrick’s and could use the opportunity to grab some new outfits.

Such it was that on the evening of Day Thirty-Five, Patrick was set up on the couch with his laptop playing a baseball (?) game, the other five of a six-pack of Man’s Best waiting for him in the fridge, and David hovering anxiously over him.

“You could invite Stevie over? Just for the company...” David trailed off as he realised just how much it sounded like he was trying to get Patrick a babysitter. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Patrick would be okay by himself for an evening, it was just that he’d feel better if he knew he’d be okay.

Patrick raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think Stevie likes watching sports any more than you do, David. Plus, I’m pretty sure she’s sick of looking at me – I wouldn’t inflict myself on her on her night off.”

David winced. Right, Stevie would not appreciate doing him that sort of favour tonight, though she would actually do it if he asked. “Okay, yes, but is there anyone—” And Patrick interrupted him by reaching up and tugging him into a kiss, hand curled around the back of his neck.

“Thank you for being worried,” Patrick said simply. “I appreciate it. I’ll be fine. It’s just a few hours.” He punctuated each sentence with a short kiss and David felt his heart going a little melty on him.

David’s phone, clutched in his hand, buzzed with a text; Alexis had arrived to take him to the motel. He gave Patrick a tight look and Patrick kissed him, slow and affectionate.

“I’ll see you when you get back. Tell everyone hi for me.”

With a small sigh, David gave in. “I will,” he said, pressing one last kiss to Patrick’s smiling mouth and heading down the three flights of stairs to the Lincoln in the parking lot.

Alexis had the pizzas (from the good place in Elmdale, yay) strapped into the front passenger seat and David debated making a fuss about being relegated to the backseat like a child, but instead simply played up the chauffeur angle until she made inarticulate noises and threatened to deliberately roll the car.

Ah, sibling love.

However, she’d gotten over herself by the time they’d pulled into their spot at the motel and democratically took half the pizza boxes, leaving the other two for him to bring in, his stomach rumbling at the smell that wafted up from the still surprisingly warm cardboard.

The fanfare when he entered the room was likely only about fifty percent for him and fifty percent for the arrival of the pizza, but David was used to scrounging approval where he could and preened slightly as his father came to greet him with a clap on the arm.

But oh, no, his mother’s wig choice did not bode well – Clarita only came out on particularly high-strung days. David grimaced, then schooled his expression when his mother descended on him in a cloud of Chanel and nail polish vapour.

“David, sweetheart, how serendipitous it is that you could join us. You do look terrible, though. Have you been using that undereye elixir I suggested? I can write the name down again if you’ve forgotten it.”

“...Wow, thanks, Mom,” David managed, air kissing her cheeks automatically when she leaned in. He dropped the pizza boxes on the little table and opened the top one, stripping a piece out and taking a bite as his father started making a fuss about plates and napkins.

They settled down at the table, Alexis diving for the anchovy pizza before anyone else touched it, and his father offering David a beer for the eighty millionth time. David, of course, turned the offer down for the eighty millionth time before getting distracted by his mother, who was dabbing theatrically at her spotless mouth with a paper napkin and looking at him pointedly.

“Young Patrick seems to have recovered from his little familial tête-à-tête admirably! His output during rehearsals has been exceptional of late.”

David exchanged a look with Alexis, who rolled her eyes eloquently. He didn’t know exactly how much she knew – he’d been sparse on details for Patrick’s sake, suspecting Alexis was texting with Patrick herself anyway – but she definitely knew enough to be exasperated by their mother.

At least his father caught the look. “Uh, Moira, darling, I’m not sure that’s—”

“Johnny, I’m just attempting to create a little dialogue. Our prodigal son has returned and I’m certain we’re all keen for an update on the state of his liaison after so long without a communiqué.” This was accompanied by a slightly wide-eyed look. Clarita was definitely out for a reason, goodness.

“Oh my God, can we not? Can we not?” David gesticulated with his pizza. “Patrick and I are fine. Patrick is doing well. Consider yourself updated. Now let’s talk about literally anything else, okay?”

His mother looked ready to argue but Alexis, bless her obnoxious little soul, jumped in with an update on the whole Galapagos situation, which carried them nicely through at least two slices of pizza each. Then his father started talking about a roast he participated in for Roland, which sounded very... special. David made a mental note to ask Ronnie for the unvarnished version of that particular story. The pizzas had been reduced to crumbs and smears of grease by the time they got around to his mother talking about Cabaret, which opened in less than a week and was, David learned, brilliant and formidable and possibly dreadful and horrendous and definitely all Jocelyn’s fault. Which, if Patrick’s stories could be any metric, sounded about right. At least it seemed that his mother hadn’t found out about Patrick and Stevie taking dance lessons on the side – that would’ve likely warranted dusting off Maude, not just Clarita.

David was unsure how long he spent marinating in the ridiculous interactions of his ridiculous family, laughing and teasing and poking each other’s semi-soft spots over their glasses of mid-shelf wine, when he glanced at his phone for the time – whoops, far later than expected. Cursing softly, he drained the rest of his glass and stood to rinse it out in the sink.

His father turned in his chair to watch him. “Are you staying here tonight, son? You haven’t in quite a while.”

“Um, no, I’ll go back to Patrick’s. He’s... yeah. I’m staying at his again.”

“Oh.” David hated making him look like that – stunned and a little downtrodden – but like, his boyfriend was still in a situation right now? His family, his father, could survive without him for a bit.

“Then do you want a drive over there? I could take you.”

A half-hour walk or five minutes in the car with his father? Tough choice. But then Alexis gave him a look, so he gave her a look right back before saying “Sure, if you don’t mind. Thanks, Dad.” Alexis looked smug, tugging on the end of her braid with a little smirk, and David just blank-faced her until she ughed at him.

Once in the car, it only took about half a minute for the silence to get awkward.

“So.”

David waited for the rest of the sentence. It didn’t come. “So?”

His father cleared his throat, glanced at him nervously.

“Dad. What?”

“How’s Patrick doing?”

David opened his mouth, fully prepared to give a quippy response and brush him off, then stopped and gave his father a long look. Johnny Rose was not a particularly subtle man, David knew. None of them were – it simply wasn’t a Rose family trait – but Alexis could fake it and David could pretend and while his mother wasn’t exactly known for keeping her head down or her emotions in check, she was an actress and could usually turn things on and off when the occasion truly required it of her. But his father? He wore his heart on his sleeve, always had. And right now he looked... earnest. Sincere. Concerned. For Patrick. For his son’s boyfriend.

Not once in his entire life had David ever thought he had good parents. They loved him and Alexis, sure, but their myriad flaws came into a harsh light in the face of raising children. Inattention was the number one culprit, followed shortly by impatience, immaturity, conceit, and apathy, all of which combined to raise one child to constantly bounce between hideously abusive relationships and the other to travel the globe like she’d die if she stood still.

But when David came home that day from college with his (honestly, disastrous) throuple situation, his parents just... believed him. His mother balked for a few minutes, having previously thought he was gay, but came around shortly, and his father just blinked a bunch, nodded, and asked if the housekeeper had been informed of how many extra places to set at the table. It wasn’t indifference, David had soon come to realise – it wasn’t that his parents didn’t care and therefore didn’t react. It was that his sexuality wasn’t an issue because he was their son and they were going to love him, in their deeply flawed ways, no matter what.

And now here sat Johnny Rose, a fallen king living in a rundown motel and driving a car older than his marriage, expressing awkward but genuine concern for his only son’s boyfriend, who had just been rejected by his own seemingly Hollywood-perfect parents because they couldn’t be bothered to open their minds far enough to understand the child they claimed to love and oh fuck, David was going to cry while trapped in a car with his father, wasn’t he?

David let out a shaky breath and his father shot him a worried look.

“He’s, um,” David managed, fully cognizant of the water in his voice. “He’s struggling.”

His father nodded, his brows coming together into a single impressive line. “I’m sorry to hear that. He’s a good kid.”

“From your lips to his parents’ ears.”

“That bad?” There was a note of guilt there that David wasn’t sure how to handle.

“Worse.”

They fell into silence again, David staring out the window as he methodically tamped all his welling emotions back down into the box where they belonged. The streetlights had all flickered on, painting the streets sodium orange as they drove through the twilight.

“Your mother’s worried, too, y’know.” David glanced at his father, a doubtful veer to his mouth. “No, David, she is. She puts up a good face about it, but she knows what it looks like when someone throws themself into a role for... unhealthy reasons.”

She would.

“Think about talking to her, okay? She’s very fond of Patrick.”

“Okay, Dad.” Maybe once Clarita was put back on her nail. Maybe after Cabaret was wrapped.

When they pulled up to Patrick’s building, David unbuckled his belt before he realised that his father didn’t just put the car in park, but also turned it off. Biting down on a sigh, David settled back into the seat and tilted his head at his father, who was chewing his bottom lip in a rather unpleasant manner.

David’s patience hit its limit about fifteen seconds in.

“Mmkay, whatever it is you want to say, can you please just say it? Patrick’s expecting me and I don’t want to spend the night twiddling my thumbs in the Lincoln.”

His father startled, opened his mouth, closed it again. Then: “I feel like I had a hand in causing this to... all come about.”

David stared. “What?”

“Patrick and his parents. I’m the one who told them.” He looked down at his hands and David just couldn’t deal with him looking so goddamn sad, oh my God.

“Okay, Dad, you didn’t – you didn’t do anything wrong.” He chanced a look at his dad, who was frowning out the windscreen. “Like, can you imagine if you hadn’t spoken to his parents and we hadn’t found out that they didn’t know? If Patrick had walked into that party completely unprepared to see them and then had to have that fucking atrocious conversation on top of it all? Don’t get me wrong, it was bad. But it could have been so much worse.”

“I suppose. I just feel like I put my foot in it.”

“Oh, you did,” David laughed. “But your foot wasn’t the problem. His parents were. They...” he trailed off, searching for what he was trying to say. “You didn’t make them who they are. They were going to react like that no matter what.” The last few words just made it out without cracking, and David damned his inability to fucking control his emotions as the box he’d just shoved everything into broke open again. He stared hard at the roof of the car, blinking furiously.

The hand on his shoulder startled David, forcing a small sound out of his throat that just got louder as his father wrapped his arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug and successfully managing not to get caught up in his seatbelt’s jerk lock this time. David stiffened, instinctively tempted to rebuff the attempt at familial affection and uncomfortable in a fundamental way, but that box was still open and his emotions were lying strewn all over the floor of his brain, so he threw disdain to the wind and took the offered comfort. He relaxed into the hug, turning to face his father properly and return it, his arms feeling awkward as they maneuvered their way around his frame for the first time in... a long time, David realised. Too long, probably. That was unfortunate – it was a good hug and deserved to be brought out more often.

David recognised a few seconds too late that his father had loosened his hold in a signal to come out of the hug, and he had missed it, still draped and clinging. He jolted with embarrassment and started pulling away, but before he managed to get more than a couple centimetres between them, his father clearly picked up on whatever it was that David was feeling – David didn’t even know – and reeled him back into a hug even tighter than the first. David’s breath went unsteady, huffing hot against his father’s shoulder, and he farewelled whatever scraps of dignity he’d managed to hold onto as he dug his fingers into the smooth jacket of the Tom Ford and held on as he quivered, suddenly overwhelmed.

Words pressed against David’s throat, his soft palate, his tongue, threatening to spill out all over his father in the quiet space of the car; words he wasn’t ready to share yet, didn’t know how to wield; words he was slightly afraid of; words of appreciation and gratitude and love, too heavy for his still hesitant relationship with his father to carry just yet. So he bit them back, swallowed them down with the rest of his tears, and released his hold on the hug.

They settled back into their respective seats, clearing throats and straightening clothing and various other minor actions designed to dispel the heavy emotion swirling around them.

“Thank you. For the ride, I mean,” David fumbled, wiping his wrist under his eyes even as he reached for the door handle.

“Of course,” his father responded, sounding slightly worse for wear himself. “For the ride.”

“See you later, Dad.”

“Goodnight, David. Bring Patrick next time, if he’s available?”

David paused and leaned down through the open window to meet his father’s knowing eyes. “If he’s available, yeah.” They nodded at each other, suddenly awkward again, and David tapped the car roof in a send off as he turned and headed up to Patrick’s apartment.

The lights over the sink were still on, as was one of the floor lamps near the bed, which was such a sweetly Patrick thing to do in the era of ubiquitous phone flashlights and it made David feel all gooey in his general chest region while he got changed, blitzed through his nighttime bathroom routine, and snuggled up on his side of the bed.

“Mmph, hello,” Patrick murmured, blinking slowly at David.

“Mm, hi.” David leaned in for a quick kiss. “Go back to sleep, it’s late.”

“’Kay.” Digging his face into David’s chest, Patrick let out a long breath. “How’d’t go?”

“My family sends their love,” David said, fairly confident in his interpretation from Rose to English. “They miss you.”

Patrick hummed sleepily, which didn’t really let David know whether he’d understood or even heard what he’d just said, but that was probably fine. David had said it and that was enough for right now. He could try for comprehension tomorrow.

When Cabaret opened on Day Forty-Three, Patrick got hugs from all four Roses and maybe, just maybe, David noticed that his father held on a little longer than anyone else.

It was a lovely mid-autumn day (One Hundred & Fourteen) when Patrick suggested a picnic, dragged David up a mountain, punctured himself with a stick, and then proposed with four gold rings.

David was stunned.

“Are—are you sure?”

“Easiest decision of my life.”

David’s mind whirred, thoughts jumping all over the place as he tried to corral them into something sensible, something he could verbalise. He took too long, though, and could see Patrick’s beautiful button face falling in chagrin, and words rushed out of his mouth without his permission.

“Okay, pause, no—no! Not no!” David waved his hands frantically as Patrick’s expression basically crashed to the earth. “Definitely not no! Oh my God, stop thinking whatever it is that you’re thinking because it’s wrong. Just give me a sec.”

The little corners-down smile that David loved so much made a small appearance on Patrick’s otherwise very confused face and David rallied himself, starting with the most important point.

“Okay, I am in no way saying no, Patrick, oh my God, I would love to marry you.”

Patrick stood from his kneel, eyes on David’s the entire way up. “But?”

Tucking his lips between his teeth, David attempted to keep eye contact with Patrick. He mostly succeeded. “I just – we haven’t been together that long and then this summer was a mess and... I just want to make sure you’re not doing this to spite your parents,” he blurted out with a wince, but Patrick was shaking his head before David even finished his sentence.

“No, not even close.” He took David’s free hand, entwined their fingers. “Not even close, David. I can understand why you’re concerned but I wanted to marry you before my birthday – how long do you think it took me to get those rings made? I was going to do this before Cabaret opened, but like you said, the summer was a mess.”

“It’s still sort of a mess now,” David hedged, flicking his gaze between the rings and Patrick.

“I think it’s going to be a mess for a while. I’m going to be a mess for a while. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to marry you. My parents,” Patrick sighed, looking down at his feet, “they’ve just reinforced everything I know about myself, everything I feel for you. Sometimes being presented with an opposing argument doesn’t cause doubt, but just highlights everything you know is true. Them challenging our relationship strengthened my confidence in it.” He shook their hands slightly in emphasis. “I know how wrong they are.”

David took that in, mulled it over. “So this isn’t like a rebellious teenager thing that you’re going to regret after I spend half a year’s profits on a wedding?” he asked quietly, cautiously hopeful despite his probing.

Patrick shook his head, smiling softly. “I might regret the half a year’s profits, but I’ll never regret marrying you. Never.”

Concerns appeased, David let the full force of his joy wash over him. “Then yes. It’s a yes,” he managed through the tears welling in his eyes. “I love you.”

The smile that bloomed across Patrick’s face was blinding in its brilliance.

On Day One Hundred & Ninety-Six, Patrick confessed, “Mom sent me an email.”

David stifled a sigh. Mrs. Brewer’s emails were... difficult, to say the least. “Did you read it?”

“No.” Patrick poked at his spaghetti, moved the pasta around his plate with lethargic movements. He’d been in a blue mood all afternoon and now David understood why.

“Are you going to?”

Patrick shrugged, frowning. “What if something bad happened?”

This was a common refrain. While Patrick had blocked his parents on most communication routes until they stopped trying to convince him he wasn’t gay, he still wanted at least one option to stay open in case of emergencies – a hospital stay, a death, those sorts of things. But that option also meant that his mother was able to send him emails designed to guilt him into a response. Patrick found them hard to deal with, often sinking into a depression for a couple days after reading one, so David was willing to try something new this time, a tactic he’d read about online.

“Do you want me to read it?”

Patrick looked up and met his gaze, clearly confused by the suggestion. “Why?”

David put down his fork and gave Patrick a careful look. “Because then I can tell you whether there’s anything in it that you’ll actually want to hear, rather than you getting upset by wading through more of her nonsense.”

Patrick’s eyes shot down again and David winced at himself – too much, too aggressive, too strong a word. No matter how much pain they were causing and how much David resented them for it, Patrick still found criticism of his parents difficult to swallow. Easing his tone into something gentler, David continued. “She doesn’t upset me as much, Patrick. I can read it and let you know if you should read it, too, give you a buffer.”

When Patrick didn’t say anything for a long minute, David cupped his hand along the back of Patrick’s neck, rubbing his thumb through the short hair there.

“Okay,” he said finally, sounding slightly ashamed. “Okay, read it. Please.”

David held out his hand for the phone, which Patrick pulled from his pocket and handed over before turning his attention back to his food.

The email was decidedly unoriginal. It was like she followed a form letter each time she sent one of these things, using the same basic structure but switching between various placations and gentle accusations and poorly disguised wheedling. As per usual, this one started with a long-winded we miss you without mentioning the reason why Patrick hadn’t contacted them in months, then followed with a slightly rambling story about something that had happened recently and which addressed nothing of importance, and rounded everything off with an invitation to come ‘home’ whenever Patrick so wished, the implication being that he do so alone.

At least this one didn’t casually mention a lovely young woman one of them had recently met through church or work or curling. David found those emails particularly heinous.

“Same old thing,” David said as he backed out of the email screen. “Nothing of note. Want me to delete it?”

Patrick stared at his phone in David’s hand, his lower lip tucked between his teeth. “Can you archive it?”

David tapped the phone a few times. “Done.”

Letting out a whooshing breath, Patrick bowed his head and clasped his hands over the back of his neck. “I hate this, David.”

That was very evident to anyone paying even the slightest amount of attention. Patrick had lost weight from stress, consistently over exercising and under eating. He’d jumped every time the store phone had rung, afraid his parents were circumventing his and David’s blocked phones by calling the landline, until David had eventually done some research and bought a call blocker. It was taking him longer to do mentally demanding tasks, his concentration clearly fading in and out as he clicked away at his laptop. He hadn’t picked up his guitar in months despite his (shiny and brand new) therapist’s recommendation. The wedding guest list was still a work in progress because even thinking about who to invite, and therefore who might turn him down or ask uncomfortable questions about his parents, had already sent Patrick into at least two panic attacks that David knew about. And to top it all off, they’d just come out of the first holiday season where Patrick hadn’t just not gone home but felt unable to.

It was a lot for anyone to bear. Hell, it was a lot for David to bear, and his burden was mostly second-hand. He just did what he could to comfort and support, hoping it was enough.

“I know you do, babe. I know.”

It was an unseasonably warm afternoon in March (Day Two Hundred & Seventy-Three) when the cops showed up at the store looking for David.

Patrick was at the cash to greet them, all polite how can I help you, officers? and he’s in the back and perfectly presented wholeheartedness. When David emerged from the stock room, one cop took him outside to talk while the other stayed in the store with Patrick, much to their mutual confusion.

That confusion was cleared up pretty quickly. It seemed that Mrs. Brewer had been calling the Elmdale OPP branch and making enough complaints about David abusing Patrick that they finally drove out to Schitt’s Creek to take a gander at the situation. David was split between horror at how long it took them to act on claims of abuse (two and a half months??) and blinding anger at the accusation itself. He explained the situation, going into his relationship with Patrick and the Brewers’ disapproval and the escalating tension between parties as Patrick continued to refuse to leave him, and he knew he sounded like every abusive asshole out there in the world, making up complicated excuses to brush off an allegation, but he didn’t know what else to say.

The cops convened in their car for a few minutes to discuss what they’d heard, then emerged again to tell David and Patrick that they believed them – Patrick’s stored supply of vaguely aggressive emails from his mother had cemented their story, which was ultimately believable by itself anyway. They said they’d make a note in the file to call Patrick personally in the future before moving forward on any abuse complaints made by anyone with the last name Brewer.

Patrick thanked them and saw them to the door, which he locked behind them. David had half a second to wonder at that action – they still had three hours until closing – before Patrick tugged him into a tight hug. It was about then that David realised just how badly he was shaking, his hands trembling as they came up to cling to Patrick’s back.

They stayed like that for a long few minutes, Patrick firmly smoothing his hands up and down David’s back as David shook through the wave of emotions that overtook him. Of all the things he’d been prepared for and subsequently experienced since the Brewers started showing their true colours – verbal homophobic abuse, whisper campaigns around town, straight up bribes to leave Patrick – he’d never expected to be accused of abuse, to have the cops sicced on him for loving someone without parental approval, and the accompanying shock was staggering.

“Okay, that’s it.”

David turned his head out of Patrick’s shoulder so he could say “What?”

“That’s it,” Patrick repeated, his voice shot through with anger. “I’m done with this. They don’t get to just do that, throw you under the bus like that. The fucking cops – who does that? That’s not how decent people act.”

David had stopped thinking of the Brewers as decent people about eight months ago, but he kept that to himself. “Patrick, you don’t have to do that just because they—”

“Because they what, David? Tried to get my fiancé arrested on false charges? Because they can’t just leave us be? Because they’re so delusional that they thought this was going to work?” David had never heard this tone from Patrick before, cold steel just barely hiding a blistering rage below the surface. “How dare they?”

Pulling out of the embrace slightly, David met Patrick’s eyes in a long, careful look. “Patrick.”

“You’re not asking me to do this, David,” Patrick said, smoothing his thumbs over David’s eyebrows as he returned the look seriously. “I’m telling you that I’m doing it.”

At some point in the last few months, Patrick had gotten wind of David’s deep, irrational fear of manipulating Patrick away from his parents, and had taken it upon himself to dispel it as often as opportunities presented themselves. David wasn’t fully on board with this plan, because maybe it too was the result of him accidentally manipulating Patrick, but he also realised that there was only so much any one person could do in the face of a determined Patrick Brewer – the man could be a bulldozer when he had an idea.

“Okay,” David acquiesced, tilting his face into Patrick’s hand in a gentle nuzzle. “If you’re sure.”

“Extremely sure. I feel like I don’t even know who they are anymore, and even if we were able to make up in the future, how could I ever trust them again? How could I look at them the same way, knowing what they’ve stooped to? Calling the fucking cops, Christ.” It was the second fucking in less than five minutes, plus a bonus blaspheme, that really solidified for David just how livid Patrick was. Something important had finally snapped.

Later that evening, Patrick spent an unusual amount of time tapping around on his phone for someone who was exceedingly vocal about preferring his laptop to the phone’s tiny keyboard. Eventually he asked David to proofread an email for him, which turned out to be essentially a Dear John letter to his parents. It was curt and to the point, requesting that his parents cease all contact and not attempt to connect with them again. David didn’t see anything wrong with it besides the necessity for its existence in the first place and told Patrick as much. So he then watched as Patrick, with just a few small movements of his thumb, sent the email and immediately blocked his parents’ addresses with a lingering sense of finality. David leaned over and kissed his cheek, which Patrick leaned into with a sigh.

For the next hour or so, Patrick proceeded to go on a bit of a social media blitz, reviving his Facebook and Instagram and Twitter accounts to post a series of updates about his life – Schitt’s Creek, Rose Apothecary, gay revelation, David, his parents, engagement – all the major plot points of his life over the past couple of years laid out in concise but informative tidbits. David’s phone had a mini meltdown as all the tag notifications came in, and then continued buzzing occasionally for the rest of the night as Patrick’s friends and family responded to his info dump.

There wasn’t much else Patrick could do, really – there’s only so many ways to cut off a relationship and he’d already done most of them before tonight, with that single email address persisting as the last holdout until now. But as they lay in bed, Patrick unusually quiet and disconcertingly dry eyed where he was curled up against David, David couldn’t help but suspect that the big difference between that day and all the previous ones wasn’t the email access and lack thereof, but rather Patrick’s sense of hope. Until those cops had shown up at their door, Patrick had held a small (if foolish) flame for the idea that his parents might change their minds, might still be brought around to accepting him and his relationship, and that they would be able to brush all that had happened since his birthday under the rug in the classic Brewer way.

Now, however, as David kissed the top of Patrick’s head and breathed in the comforting scent of his shampoo, he knew that little spark of hope had died a swift but agonizing death.

Day Four Hundred & Forty was their wedding day and it absolutely pissed down rain.

Luckily, they’d rented a tent. David truly didn’t want to imagine what would’ve happened if they hadn’t.

David was pacing in the motel room and freaking out because rain and Fabian cancelling and oh God, what on earth was Alexis wearing?? He simmered down a little after Stevie trapped his face between her tiny little hands, which were so cold, wow, and told him that he absolutely could not break down because if anyone was allowed to freak out today, it was Patrick, who was getting married without seventy percent of his extended family, his parents, or their approval (which he still desperately craved on a fundamental, unshakeable level).

She had a point.

If he was following the schedule, Patrick was at his apartment, hopefully getting ready and not completely disintegrating over his family situation, which wasn’t as dire as they’d first thought it might be but also wasn’t anywhere near as good as what Patrick had hoped for.

The fight that had broken out amongst the Brewer clan after Patrick had exploded back into the social media scene while trailing rainbows in his midst was, by all accounts, spectacular to behold. It hadn’t been Patrick’s intent to cause a rift in the family, which had split evenly between those who supported Patrick and those who supported his parents, but David didn’t see how there could have been any other outcome – anyone who wasn’t a total jackass could see how terribly Patrick’s parents had behaved over the past year, and Patrick’s family wasn’t entirely made up of total jackasses.

The end result was: ten family guests on Patrick’s side of the aisle, plus another six who had to send their regrets due to distance and availability at such short notice. Fifteen invitations went unsent, including those for his parents, all three grandparents, and most of his older relatives. Helping keep the average age of Patrick’s guest list fairly low were several of his hometown friends that had bombarded him with congratulations on Instagram as soon as he posted his first picture in two years – a selfie of him and David at Rattlesnake Point just minutes after David put on his new rings for the first time. David had no idea who any of these friends were yet, familiar with names but not faces, but he knew he could rely on Patrick to fill him in as needed at the reception.

Assuming, of course, that Patrick successfully kept it together until then.

David was tempted to shoot him a quick text, just to check up on him and maybe calm himself down a little too, but he knew that Patrick had surrendered his phone to Rachel the moment she’d shown up at his apartment that morning, so it would be a futile thing.

Rachel herself was still a bit of a wonder, and David kept doing mental double-takes every single time he thought about her presence at their wedding. She’d completely astonished David (but not Patrick) when she’d come around into full acceptance of Patrick’s sexuality after having taken several months of distance after the barbecue incident to heal, contemplate, and examine her past with Patrick through a different lens. She’d eventually texted Patrick last year, about a month prior to the Birthday Disaster™, and explained fairly succinctly that a) they were both complete idiots for not realising he was gay earlier, b) she missed him, and c) she would be willing to rekindle their friendship if he was up for the challenge. Patrick had never met a challenge he wasn’t up for and they’d been in regular contact ever since.

Post-Birthday Disaster™, Rachel had been outraged on Patrick’s behalf and offered all the sympathy and support she could over such a long distance, rapidly climbing up the ranks of David’s mental list of Good People. Her initial reaction to the engagement was positive but maybe a bit muted, which was understandable, and she proved increasingly enthusiastic as time passed, exchanging texts and calls with both David and Patrick as they dug into the planning process.

However, the golden moment, the pièce de résistance, the point where Rachel reached the previously nonexistent first place status in David’s ranking, was when she gently offered herself as Patrick’s best person for the wedding. She knew he had always planned for his father to take that role, she’d explained into the stunned silence as Patrick and David had stared at each other over the phone, and since that wasn’t an option anymore, she thought she’d throw her hat into the ring as a possibility for them to consider. One round of teary acceptance later, David had sent Rachel Patrick’s wedding task spreadsheet in a group chat with Stevie and the rest just fell into place.

Because, David was learning, Rachel was nothing if not frighteningly competent. No wonder she and Patrick kept ending up together again and again despite, well, everything else – they were a power couple to be feared. Stevie loved her, which made David leery because Stevie didn’t like anyone normal (with the possible exception of Patrick), Alexis was just vaguely confused about how her boy-advice-motel-friend-slash-Patrick’s-ex had become involved in the wedding, and Rachel simply embraced being the odd one out with a level of aplomb that David envied. More than once, after Rachel had done something unexpected and perfect – such as long-distance compiling a heavily notated list of local florists for them to check out – David had looked at Patrick with wonder, and Patrick would just chuckle and nod. “That’s Rach,” he’d say, and David still didn’t quite know what that meant but he was getting a pretty good idea.

Long story short, Patrick was almost definitely incommunicado and David really needed to reign in his wandering brain to focus on his personal task list, which involved a lot of grooming products, champagne, and lint brushes.

By the time the guests started to actually arrive at the motel, the rain had finally stopped. The grass was soaked and the path between the parking lot and the tent really needed to be fucking carpeted or something to save everyone’s shoes, but that was not a David problem at the moment. That could be a Stevie problem. Or, more likely, a problem for his father or Roland or Ronnie and her church flood salvaged merlot runner. David, on the other hand, was very busy trying to remember how to breath like a normal human being instead of a skin suit full of anxiety.

“David.”

“Stevie.”

“If you don’t calm down, I’m going to get you a joint and you’re going to end up getting married while high.”

David paused in his obsessive hair check and squinted at her through the mirror. That might not be the worst idea he’d ever heard.

“No, David. You don’t want to get married while high. That was supposed to be a threat.”

“Get better at threats, Stevie. Now I want weed.”

Stevie shook her head, mouth set in a line that looked severe but really meant she was laughing at him. “You’ll never forgive me if I let you do that. C’mon, it’s time to go. I’m going to miss my cue.”

Someone had actually put down carpet from the parking lot to the tent and if David wasn’t mistaken, it was absolutely Ronnie’s church flood salvaged merlot runner. Reaching for the zen of a high that he apparently wasn’t allowed to have, David just absorbed that fact like it wasn’t completely horrifying as he made his way up to the waiting area at the entrance of the tent. Stevie handed him his bouquet and squeezed him in a tight hug before linking arms with his father and disappearing through the tent’s flap.

Then Alexis was at his side and seemed to be doing her level best to make him cry before he even set foot on the aisle because she was the absolute worst person and picked terrible moments to decide to be sincere and lovely.

The singing from inside changed, sliding into a crooning version of their song, and David’s heartrate kicked up into triple time as the flap was pulled back and he and Alexis walked into the tent. Okay good, the lighting was acceptable, the flowers were as promised, the guests’ attire was... manageable, given prior expectations. Rachel and Stevie both looked sharp as hell, contrasting beautifully in their coordinated suit-and-dress ensemble. But oh my God, who approved his mother’s outfit? She looked like an anemic raccoon pope, how was that appro—

And there was Patrick.

Oh.

Oh, he was radiant.

David’s gaze flitted around the room, nodding at his father and smiling at Jocelyn and just generally taking everything in, but he kept coming back to stare at Patrick; Patrick and his glorious little button face that was lit up like the sun and the tense line of his shoulders under his perfectly fitted tux and his completely unwavering eyes that watched as David came closer and closer.

That’s when it really hit him – he was going to marry this man. This incredible, impossible man who had almost buckled under the expectations life had placed on him and yet found the strength to not just stand again, but to shed the weight and move forward. This man who had cracked himself open for an introspective look long after the normalised days of teenaged self-exploration, and who had embraced what he found with both hands, embraced his new identity, embraced David and all his eccentricities and peculiarities and truly fucking annoying quirks that had driven everyone else away. This man who had faced his worst fear, had let down the people he had spent his entire life trying to please, and stood firm against their disappointment. And despite all this, he’d still come out the other side brilliant and beaming and fucking untouchable.

And David was going to marry him.

Like, right now.

David didn’t think he was designed to hold this much joy. His chest felt fit to burst, his feet ready to lift off the ground and float him into space. Alexis’ hug helped him stay tethered to the earth, and then there was Patrick and his mother (seriously, that hat) and right, he needed to pay attention. He had cues to follow, vows to recite, rings to exchange – a marriage to ignite.

The rest of the ceremony was a blur, lost behind a rush of love and tears. Well, except for the bit where Patrick sang Mariah because he was a perfect, gorgeous jerk who knew exactly how to say I love you without actually saying it.

But then they kissed and that was it, a done deal. The rest of the day – the reception and the cake and the food and the dancing and the mortifying speeches from friends and family – were all just the garnish, the cherry on top of the fact that David had married Patrick, and Patrick had married David, and they were going to take on the world together, hand in hand.

The phrase time heals all wounds had always felt a little too convenient for David, a little too permissive or lax about what harm can do to a person. It carried this unfortunate implication that if enough time had passed, a person should simply return to baseline, which was such a bullshit expectation to place on someone. Instead, he preferred the idea that time helps scars form – a scar is a healed wound, sure, but it’s different than the normal tissue, more tender, more sensitive, more prone to further damage. Time doesn’t erase history, but it does help to soften the edge history can carry.

David saw his theory in action with Patrick, who moved through life more and more easily as time passed, flinching away from reminders less frequently as they dulled with each month, each year.

The first Mother’s Day after the Birthday Disaster™, Day Three Hundred & Twenty-Four, saw Patrick watching stupid mindless movies in the apartment while David, after a tense argument about potential profit versus caring for sad fiancés, grudgingly worked the store. Fathers’ Day came and went in a similar manner. The next year, however, Patrick managed a half day on each holiday, tapping out and going home when he started sagging around the edges. The third year saw him stay through both days in full, exhausted by the end but determined to prove himself resilient. David banned him from working on the fourth year, concerned by Patrick’s insistence on stressing himself out, and Patrick miraculously didn’t argue. David wondered why he hadn’t thought of that tactic earlier.

They never promote either holiday, though – no signs, no sales, no advertising, nothing. One day was bad enough for their combined nerves, let alone staring at unambiguous reminders in the store for two weeks prior.

The box of Patrick’s childhood things that Rachel had managed to scam out of the Brewers (see: frighteningly competent) and brought down for the wedding, while much enthused over and appreciated at the time, remained firmly closed up in the hall closet for almost a year before Patrick screwed up the courage to open it (Day Seven Hundred & Sixty). It was closed again almost immediately, shoved back into the closet as Patrick retreated to sweatpants and David hugs and cups of oversweetened tea.

His second attempt on Day Eight Hundred & Fourteen was more successful, a careful sifting of the memorabilia interspersed with short bouts of tears and quiet storytelling for David’s sake. David, sitting tailor style on the bed and taking everything in with a sense of awe, couldn’t have loved him more than he did in that moment.

On the third anniversary of Patrick’s coming out to his parents, his thirty-fourth birthday and Day One Thousand & Ninety-Seven, they left the shop in Grace’s capable hands for a few days and went to Toronto for Pride. It was exactly as hot and sweaty and peopled as David remembered it being. Patrick, however, was enthralled with the entire song and dance – both literal and figurative – so David shut up and bore it and maybe let himself enjoy it a little in a way he hadn’t since he was twenty-five.

Patrick’s loud gasp when he saw the “Dad Hugs” and “Mom Hugs” people during the parade, a little troupe of middle aged folks holding their bright signs and marching among the rainbows and streamers, prompted David to wave one down while pointing frantically at Patrick. The Dad who approached, a kindly looking man of about fifty, opened his arms to Patrick in offer and Patrick lunged into the hug, his enthusiasm almost knocking over the barrier keeping the crowd from the parade route.

It looked like a good hug to David, warm and solid, and he could see the Dad’s lips moving as he spoke words only Patrick could hear, could see Patrick’s shoulders jerking with suppressed emotion. The parade had moved on by the time they let go, the other Moms and Dads having shifted further enough up the route that Patrick’s Dad, having left him with a kind smile and gentle cheek cup, did a little jog to catch up with them. Patrick’s face was a mess of tears and David pulled him in for another, less familial hug as one of their neighbours offered a travel pack of Kleenex with a sympathetic look.

Shortly after Patrick’s cousin James became a father on Day Thirteen Hundred & Forty-Seven, David and Patrick packed up the car and made the eight-hour trip to visit the new baby. Her name was Ada and she was eleven days old and she was hideous in a way that James assured them was universal among such young babies, and since David had promised Patrick that he wouldn’t provide any commentary, he bit his tongue very hard.

Having just enough child-related etiquette to know that one shouldn’t burden a newborn household with guests, David and Patrick stayed over at his cousin Dana’s house, a situation which rapidly turned into a mini reunion as the word about their visit got around to all of the Patrick-friendly relatives in town. David was thrilled, meeting the family members who hadn’t been able to attend the wedding and reacquainting himself with those who had, while Patrick flitted between quiet moodiness and bubbly effervescence, clearly unsettled but trying to hide it.

Late that night, slightly tipsy and cuddled together under the IKEA duvet in Dana’s spare room, Patrick confessed to David that he was terrified someone unfriendly was going to show up and ruin everything. David did his best to chase off that fear, reminding Patrick of how much his cousins loved him and supported him, that they wouldn’t let anything slip on purpose and if it happened accidentally, they’d have his back. They didn’t sleep well that night, nor the night after, but before they left on the morning of the third day, Patrick dropped the idea to Dana of him and David hosting a holiday in Schitt’s Creek – perhaps Easter, which was coming up in a couple months. The suggestion was received exactly as enthusiastically as David had suspected it was going to be, and a rough outline of dates and logistics was sketched out right there at the kitchen table over eggs and toast.

David was smug the whole drive home.

In the sixth year of their marriage, long after David had lost count of the days since Patrick’s parents had shattered his heart, Patrick started volunteering for an LGBTQ+ teen helpline.

David found the idea... quaint at best, a phone number for queer kids to call for advice – what teenager even used their phone for calls anymore? – but he was also fully aware of the fact that his teen years were decidedly unusual in both their exposure to and protection from the world at large, and that had likely had an effect on his perception of a helpline. Regardless, David delighted in the idea of Patrick giving advice and counsel to baby queers; his late blooming gave him a perspective that was often missing from the pamphlets and webpages, plus the hotline gave him an outlet for those lingering paternal instincts his heteronormative upbringing had so eagerly encouraged and their various nieces and nephews hadn’t yet managed to quash.

Despite this, when David came home from a vendor visit late one evening and heard Patrick talking in the office, the first thing that came to mind was a scheduled work call. It wasn’t until he’d crept up the stairs and picked up a few words on Patrick’s side of the conversation that he remembered that he was on shift tonight, having swapped with another volunteer who wasn’t available. David paused, knowing he really wasn’t supposed to be listening in – Patrick had drilled him on the privacy regs when he’d first started volunteering – but eventually his curiosity got the better of him and he leaned on the doorframe to watch his husband.

Patrick tilted his head, clearly listening to whatever was being said down the line. “Well, if they don’t react the way you’re hoping, it’s going to suck, bud. I won’t sugar coat that for you – it’s really going to suck. But you’ve said you have friends who know and support you, right? And you have somewhere to go if you feel unsafe at home? Right, so the good news is, even if everything goes wrong and it really sucks for a while, you’ll get through it.”

David shifted where he was leaning, letting a smile curl onto his face as he realised just what kind of advice Patrick was doling out at the moment.

“You will. You’ll get through it. First, you’ll figure out how to breathe again, then you’ll go on from there. You’ll survive and then you’ll thrive. It’s hard, it’s so hard, I can’t oversell how hard it is, but you’ll make it through.” Patrick looked up and saw David watching him, and he smiled his patented Patrick Rose smile as he threw a wink in his direction. “I did.”