Work Text:
“I always thought I was slow to trust.” David stops reading from the iPad Patrick handed him. “Okay, I’m not sure I’d say I always thought that.”
“David,” Patrick sighs. “It’s the first sentence. Can you maybe read a bit more before we get into notes?”
“Mm. Fine.” David shifts to sit up taller on the bed. From where he’s perched at the other end, Patrick feels the slight bounce of the mattress beneath them. “You know, a—”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Don’t continue, start over.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious, there’s a rhythm to good writing. You have to hear it. Start over.”
David rolls his eyes so far back that his head tilts up to the ceiling. Patrick averts his gaze away from the flash of exposed throat, out toward the open door of his hotel suite and the common area beyond. Patrick’s sharing with Mutt and Mike and Eric and he was careful not to close the door when he invited David in here. Don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. Not that there’s any wrong idea to give. Senator Rose asked Patrick to write a speech for his son, to write David a way out of the scandal swirling around him. That’s all they’re doing. Everyone knows exactly what’s going on here. Nothing. Writing. That’s it.
David starts over.
“I always thought I was slow to trust. You know, a typical millennial. Never let anyone get close to me.” David glances up, his lips twisting in a silent wince. He doesn’t stop reading. “But now that my past has been printed all over the front page of every newspaper in America, I’m reading a different story. I’m not slow to trust. I trusted the wrong person.
“When I turned 18, I got as far away from my parents’ world as I could. I moved to New York and tried to be anything but the son of that senator and that TV star. But as much distance as I tried to put between me and my family, there were plenty of people waiting to take advantage of my connections on the other side of the country too. One of them was Sebastien Raine.” David’s still looking down at the screen, but the next words he says aren’t Patrick’s. “You bet I trusted him. I let that whole pseudo-intellectual vagabond chic thing blind me for three wasted months until I found him in bed with—”
“Okay, whoa. You can’t say that.”
“Why not?” David gestures wide, the iPad in one hand, the other empty and expressive. “He would.”
“Yes.” Patrick takes a deep breath. “But this whole speech is about proving you’re a better person than he is.”
“And who says I’m a better person?” There’s that raised-eyebrow challenge that Patrick’s seen a lot of in the past three weeks. He’s started to dream about it.
“David.”
“What?”
“Keep reading.”
David squints, presses his lips together, sets his jaw. “You sure I shouldn’t start over again?”
“No. You can keep going.”
“But what about your precious rhythm?”
“Oh, my rhythm will be fine.”
David’s eyes go slightly wide, then drop to his lap where the words are. Yeah, okay, so they both heard that, that suggestive confidence in his tone. Patrick’s face heats up as David clears his throat, and they both try to forget about hearing it.
“One of them was Sebastien Raine. He wasn’t looking out for me then and he certainly wasn’t looking out for me later when he dug up these stories I’d told him in confidence just to make a few bucks in the press.
“The stories don’t really bother me. I’ve never been that worried about my reputation. Like any kid, what I worry about is disappointing my parents. I mean, look at them. Talented, accomplished, still in love. The next president of the United States. How do you live up to that?” David looks up, frowning. “Laying the hero worship on a little thick, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” Patrick’s already reaching for his laptop, “Might have snuck in some projection there. I’ll dial it back. Make it sound more like you.”
“I mean you’re not. Too far off?” David suddenly gets very interested in a loose thread in the bedspread. “I admire my parents a lot. I don’t want to be in the way of them getting what they want.”
“Okay.” Patrick types out a note.
“But I don’t worry about living up to their example. I don’t want the same things they do.” David’s eyes flick up to catch Patrick’s gaze. “Not all the same things, anyway.”
“We’ll rework it.” Patrick wants to reach out and touch him. He doesn’t. “This is your story. We’ll get it right.” He motions for David to continue.
“I was terrified of that first call—” David breaks off again, his mouth stretched to make a comment.
Patrick waves a hand, already typing another note. “I know, not terrified. I’ll change it.”
“I was... not looking forward? To that first call with my father. After the headlines broke. I thought he was going to tell me I had to apologize, that I needed to lay low and not pull focus from his campaign, that I was an embarrassment.” David pauses, but stays fixed on the screen. “Okay, maybe I was a little concerned about that.”
“I know. You told me.”
Every great speech starts with a good conversation. They sat first in the lobby or on the bus, Patrick listening and watching. He learned quickly to pair his questions with a joke or a tease or a muffin. Whatever it took to surprise the honesty out of David. It wasn’t easy, but Patrick loves a challenge. This has always been his favorite part of getting into someone’s head, seeing the issues through their eyes.
Over the course of the last week, they’ve moved past simple history and platform. Patrick doesn’t need to bring the muffin anymore, but he still does, to see the look on David’s face, want and relief. The conversations spill past the already-late hour they get dumped back at the hotel, Stevie and Alexis joining for a round at the lobby bar, Patrick staying for two or three rounds past a sensible bedtime. He never regrets it the next morning. He wakes up sure of what he’s doing out here on the campaign trail, giving himself over to making a president happen. He’s spending time he’ll never get back and doesn’t want to.
Getting into David’s head has meant seeing more than just the issues. Patrick’s seen a man and his past, a son and his father. He’s seen himself. Finally. He sees himself. His conversations with David have broken open his world. He just hopes the speech can measure up.
David tilts his head. “Did I actually tell you all that?”
Patrick doesn’t hide the growing smile behind his hand; he lets it through.“Well. Maybe I read between the lines. Keep going.”
“Let’s be honest, it’s not like I stayed out of the tabloids before this. I’ve been a PR nightmare waiting to happen for years. I’m not easy, politically speaking. I’m pansexual. I wear skirts. I’m picky and opinionated and don’t bite my tongue.
“When I answered that phone call, though, my father just asked me how I was holding up, and said, ‘come join us. We want you here.’
“We want you here.
“We want you.
Patrick gets a split second of eye contact before David reads on.
“In worrying about being seen as an individual, in worrying about making my own way in the world, I forgot about the people who loved me—Okay, did I say love?”
Patrick grins. “You did. I can show you where I wrote it in my notes if you don’t believe me. I underlined it a bunch.”
“Ugh, no thank you, let’s just get this over with—I forgot about the people who”—David looks up, really leans into the L—“loved me before I had any words for who I am. I decided they wouldn’t love me if they knew who I had decided to be. But all they wanted was me, whoever that was.
“You. Whoever you are. Whoever you become, however you might change. That’s a real act of trust.”
Patrick squeezes his eyes shut. He refuses to let his own words bring him to tears, it’s tacky. But he has plans for these words. He formed a plan around them. David is scheduled to deliver this speech on Friday, the day after tomorrow. The day after tomorrow Patrick will call his parents and tell them to turn on the TV. He’ll tell them to call him back after. And when they do, he’ll tell them why he wrote this. He’ll tell them what he wants them to know about their son. He’ll tell them.
Patrick keeps his eyes shut and listens.
“What good is a government that asks you to qualify your existence to meet their standards? You can vote, but only if. You can have healthcare, but only if. You can get married, but only if. If if if.
“The power we as voters have inside of that booth, when we fill in that little circle, is a stamp of our trust. Who do you trust to keep your health, safety, and prosperity in mind while they lead this country? Who do you trust to not tack on criteria to justify your right to exist? Your right to job security. Your right to medical care and fair housing. Your right to choose who to love and how to express it.
“You know what? Maybe I do have trust issues. Maybe we all do, because for so long we have been asked to put ourselves into boxes just to be treated with the most basic levels of respect.
“Put your trust in the candidate who won’t ask you to do that, the father who never asked me to.
“Put your trust in Johnny Rose.”
Patrick keeps listening, and for a long time all he hears is the traffic outside, the vacuum down the hall, the ice machine next door. He blinks his eyes open and finds David twisting one of the silver rings on his right hand.
“So, that was…” David starts, then starts over. “You really see my dad through rose-colored glasses, huh?”
Patrick chuckles. “That’s a good line. Maybe you should write for the opposition.”
“Mmm,” is all David says.
Patrick tries again. “Look, I can’t say what kind of father he’s been to you all your life. But I can say I’ve worked on plenty of campaigns where children in crisis get treated like liabilities. Your dad could’ve done that. Heck, he probably had people advising him to do that. But he didn’t. Instead he called you here. He’s giving you this platform. He’s letting you tell your own story.”
“Okay, but isn’t this you telling my story, though?”
Patrick shrugs. “I’m here to help.”
David moves on to twist the next ring.
“It means something,” Patrick goes on. “To me. Getting to write this speech with you.”
David lifts an eyebrow, and it lands somewhere between disbelief and curiosity.
“I’m gay.” Patrick thinks it doesn’t even sound like the first time he’s said it. He hopes it doesn’t sound like he’s practiced. “That’s—I only figured it out recently. So.”
David studies him, nodding slowly. “Okay.”
“Yeah.”
“Well. Good.”
“I think it is.” Patrick breathes out a wide smile. “I think it is good.”
Their eye contact lasts a little too long. Maybe. If there is such a thing. Patrick isn’t sure anymore.
David looks away first, saying, “It’s a good speech.”
“It needs some work.” Patrick takes back the iPad. “I mostly just wrote a bunch of stuff I needed to hear.”
“Well. Chances are someone else needs to hear that stuff, too.”
Patrick wonders what kind of stuff David needed to hear growing up. He wonders what kind of stuff David needs to hear now. He wonders what else they can write together, whether they will run out of things to say. Patrick can’t see that happening. He has so many questions left he wants to ask.
David beats him to it. “Now is it time for notes? Because honestly, that font…”