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Johnny watches David rush out of the café in a flurried panic, hurrying to get to Patrick, desperate to sort everything out. He barely spares a glance for his father as he brushes past, but Johnny can’t blame him.
“Um.” Stevie stares at him. He doesn’t think the horror on her face is directed at him so much as the whole situation, but... he can’t be sure. “I’m gonna... go back to the motel. Roland probably shouldn’t be left there on his own.” She’s gone before Johnny can say a word — not that he knows what he’d say in any case. He sinks down into the nearest seat, his heart still hammering even though his breathing has long since returned to normal from his mad dash to the café just ten minutes ago.
He shouldn’t have butted in.
He shouldn’t have assumed.
He knows he didn’t do right by David, all those years ago when David came home from college with a blonde woman on one arm, a dark-haired man on the other, and a defiant tilt to his chin. He just didn’t understand — and while it shames him to think about it now, he didn’t try. Between the almost aggressive way David had kissed both his... paramours in front of them, and the anger with which he’d told them both to deal with it, Johnny had assumed...
Well. He’d assumed David was acting out. Trying to shock them. Multiple partners and pansexuality just weren’t things Johnny was equipped to deal with, let alone from his son. And though he’s ashamed to think about it now, he hadn’t tried to understand. He’d dismissed it as college rebellion and art school experimentation, and he’d waited for the day David would grow out of it, pick a gender, settle down.
Of course, it’s not as though he and Moira didn’t attend the odd Eyes Wide Shut party over the years. But at the time, he’d thought that was different. It’s not until they came to Schitt’s Creek that he got to know his son — really know him, understand him.
He’s sure he fails at that more than he succeeds, even now. But he’s trying.
“Mr Rose?” Twyla interrupts his thoughts, hovering anxiously at his elbow with a glass of water. “I couldn’t help but overhear... try not to worry, okay? I’m sure David and Patrick will sort it out.”
Johnny nods in acknowledgement. “They always do.” He takes the glass, gulping down half of it in one long swallow before setting it back on the table. “Thank you, Twyla.”
She smiles sweetly at him before heading back to the kitchen, and Johnny stares down at the glass between his hands.
He hadn’t been sure about Patrick at first. Some stranger getting his hands on the financials of another Rose family enterprise had touched a nerve he didn’t even know was still exposed after everything that happened with Eli, and he’d worried. But after everything had come out about David’s galleries back in New York, David had refused to discuss Rose Apothecary with his parents until after it was officially open, so Johnny had no opening to voice his concerns. And he’s glad he didn’t, really, because Patrick has proven himself to be nothing but steady and loyal to both David and the store; the kind of dependability that Johnny can see now they never gave David growing up, though they certainly made up for it in other ways. Even with the odd bump in the road, like that little redhead Patrick used to be engaged to turning up and disrupting all the fine grilling Johnny had been doing, Patrick has been good for David.
A good partner in romance and in business.
What was he thinking, saying that to the Brewers?
He just wanted them to know that their son is respected here. Cared for. That’s all any parent wants for their child, and sometimes he lies awake at night wondering how the hell he and Moira missed the way neither of their own kids had that in their life before. All he was trying to do was assure the Brewers that Patrick was happy here, and instead he dropped a bombshell on them that none of them saw coming.
The Brewers seem like good people. Kind people. Surely the people who raised Patrick must be kind? But Johnny’s not stupid; he knows what the world can be like for gay men — or pansexual men, or... whatever — outside of this little town. He saw the flicker of fear in David’s eyes, when he realised exactly what had happened.
What Johnny had done.
He feels that same flicker of fear deep in his own chest, thinking about what might happen at the party tonight if the Brewers aren’t... if they don’t...
He gets to his feet. He just needs to go see the Brewers, that’s all. Lay it all out there. Tell them that he knows what it feels like, to find out your child isn’t straight. To not quite know what to do with that knowledge. To worry about them, even when they’re grown.
He thinks the Brewers will understand. And if they don’t... well. If they don’t, Johnny will make damn sure Patrick knows he has all the family he needs, right here in Schitt’s Creek.