Chapter Text
It was a crisp Autumn morning when the Rose family unceremoniously arrived in the town of Schitt’s Creek.
The twenty-four hours leading up to their arrival had been an auditory whirlwind of Moira’s shrieks, Alexis’s frantic phone calls with thirty of her closest friends, and Johnny’s directions choked out to anyone within earshot. Doors slammed, bags zipped shut, and suitcases were dragged first along the smooth marble floors of their family home, then hours later along the gravel parking lot of this ratty motel they were now forced to inhabit. Throughout all the chaos David found himself barely able to think. It was mid-afternoon by the time they’d finally pulled everything from the moving truck and sorted it into the correct rooms.
David chewed his lips while he unpacked only his essentials: his knits were stored and accounted for, and now he lined his skincare supplies up neatly along the painfully small counter in their shared bathroom. When he finished, he clustered the rest of his unpacked suitcases along the wall away from the active disaster zone happening on Alexis’s side of the room. He then flopped into his new bed, pulling the covers directly over his head, in a desperate attempt to muffle the noise from the rest of his family. He felt so suffocated by the tornado of sounds still encircling him that he barely scoffed at the stench of cigarettes baked into the sheets.
Every sound, loud or quiet, felt like a scissor blade scraping slowly across his eardrums. At least under the blankets he could cover his ears without a snarky comment from Alexis, but even the relief that provided was minimal; he could hear his own heartbeat in the palms of his hands and he nearly sobbed in frustration realizing he couldn’t even escape the sound of his own pulse. Still, he wouldn’t cry.
The last thing David needed was for Alexis to see him cry over a bit of noise despite being well into his thirties. He always strived to be an emotional rock for his sister (though he could never admit such a thing out loud). On a physical level, if she was determined to frolic around the world with a shady crowd of people, David was determined to provide her with a safety net and (quite literally) a get-out-of-jail free card. Emotionally, though, Alexis and David didn’t often connect - but David promised himself he’d be ready if the day ever came that she needed someone to be there for her that way, too. Lord knew their parents wouldn’t do it. Anyway, David refused to let her hear him cry.
This fury of sounds continued for hours and David was so stunned and overwhelmed that he felt powerless to do anything but lie under those smoky blankets and plead with the universe for silence. He would need to find his earplugs soon, especially given his new prison-like proximity to Alexis, but for the time being he couldn’t imagine unlocking another suitcase and hearing the sound of yet more zippers tear through his ears.
At last the sunlight coming through the moth-eaten curtains dimmed and the door connecting them to his parents’ room finally closed. For the first time all day, Moira and Johnny’s voices faded into the background. Alexis now sat on her bed across the room, no longer yapping to someone, but instead frantically texting. The rhythmic taps of her fingers against her phone’s screen were soft and almost soothing. David unclenched his jaw for the first time in hours, and though he still refused to poke his head out from under the blankets, he finally felt anchored enough in the lumpy, smokey bed to let his mind give way to sleep.
David wakes with a splitting headache; somehow, though, the room feels quieter than yesterday.
Okay, maybe it actually isn’t quieter - he can pick out a lot of the same offending sounds, but today they don’t feel like they’re scraping through his ears and into his skull. Alexis is already on the phone by the time he opens his eyes, and the pipes squeak from what he assumes is his mother attempting to shower next door. Honestly, thinks David, this headache is a welcome tradeoff for the amplified hellscape of yesterday, and hopefully it’s nothing a large cup of coffee can’t fix... though he isn’t sure where to get one just yet.
Johnny lets himself into the room - oof, that’s going to take some getting used to, thinks David, squeezing his eyes shut again - and immediately begins chattering away to the two “kids” about making the most of their day ahead. “I took a walk through town early this morning, sort of a preliminary scout of the premises, and the Café Tropical seems like our best bet for a substantial breakfast,” says Johnny, clapping his hands together like he’s giving someone - himself, perhaps? - a pep talk.
“Yeah, it’s just that I refuse to be seen near any small town eatery striving for a ‘tropical’ aesthetic, much less one based in the rural armpit of southern Ontario,” says David.
“Ew, David.” Alexis momentarily pulls her phone away from her ear. “Could you make this whole situation sound any more gross?”
“Well David, I trust you put some of your money from those galleries in New York toward a cooking class, then, because option two for a restaurant in this town doesn’t seem to exist,” says Johnny.
“Mhmm,” says David. “Well thankfully I never invested my earnings in anything quite that frivolous. Anyway, I can just order from the next town over. With the magic of the internet I plan to avoid any direct human connections for the foreseeable future.”
“We’ll be having breakfast together as a family today,” says Johnny sharply before turning from the room.
“And I will not be going,” David calls before pulling the sheets back over his head. They still reek of cigarettes, but whiffs of his cologne had weaved their way into the stench overnight.
“Oh, come on David!” Alexis pouts. I think it’s going to be fun. You know, this town is honestly kind of cute.” He can’t see her, but David can just imagine the nonchalant little shimmy she gives her shoulders as she says this.
“Excuse me?”
“Think about it! The Café Tropical? That’s like, SO optimistic for this place. It’s like, they really just want to give people some hope. I think it’s so sweet.”
“What is wrong with you?” David groans.
“Maybe Dad’s right! I just think we should try to like, look at the bright side here, okay?”
David presses his fingers against his forehead. Voices and sounds aren’t grating today, thank god, but the continuous stabbing of this headache is making it hard to keep his eyes open. He needs coffee, but straggling along with his sister and parents to get it seems a bit extreme. David sits up, squeezing the sides of his head to dull the motion pain, when it dawns on him: “Oh my god Alexis. Someone’s coming to get you, aren’t they? Who is it? Who’s picking us up? Is it Stavros?”
“Uhm, no silly. Nobody’s picking us up. I’m just... making the most of this little blip in our lives.” She averts her gaze back to her phone.
“How very un-Alexis of you. Frankly it seems astonishingly out of character.”
“Ugh, David! Fine. If you must know, Stavros is flying in on Friday; it won’t be for us, though - at the moment it’s just for me.”
Of course. Had David really expected Schitt’s Creek of all places to be the one she’d finally stay put in? “You’re a monster, Alexis. That’s what you are. A monster.”
“Oh my god, David. Maybe if you picked up the phone and called some of your friends you’d have a ride out too, but instead you’ve just been acting like someone is holding you hostage in that disgusting bed!” Alexis stands up and swings her purse over her shoulder, then steps toward the parents’ room.
“Unlike your friends, most of mine are working professionals and therefore extremely busy,” David mutters.
“Okay well, tough. Anyway, I’m just gonna sit with our parents, order a smoothie, and think fondly of where I’ll be three days from now.” She flicks a stray lock of hair away from her face. “And by the way, if you order your breakfast from anywhere outside of this town, I’ll be shocked if your coffee doesn’t show up lukewarm,” Alexis scoffs.
Fuck. She’s right.
An hour later David has managed to guide himself through his 9-step skincare routine with the bathroom lights off. He dresses quickly, having already mentally planned today’s outfit the moment he woke, then steps out the door into the crisp autumn sunlight. He’d chosen one of his softest sweaters - cashmere - and now he pulls the sleeves over his hands, fingers gripping the fabric from within like it’s the only thing anchoring him to the ground. Coffee. He just needs a cup of coffee.
David pokes his head nervously into the lobby of the motel office. It’s dimly lit, but the fact that it’s illuminated at all is unmistakeable: the lights are so loud that David wonders how in the hell anyone could stand to be in the room for longer than the five minutes it takes to check in. There’s only one person here - thank god - and although she’s got a book in her hand she looks up instantly when the bell above the door jingles to announce David’s arrival. Her hair is long and black and she’s wearing a worn flannel that David suspects she didn’t put much thought into selecting this morning. “Hi,” she says. She looks directly at him, but notably her face doesn’t change. “Can I help you... Mr. Rose?”
“Uh, hi,” says David. “I need coffee.” The woman continues to stare at him like she wants more information. “Judging by the general state of this place I’m guessing you don’t do room service, so...”
“Astute observation,” she says.
“Right... so... coffee. Where can I get it?”
“Rough night?”
David is starting to feel like she’s messing with him. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry, it’s just that you just seem so... alive this morning,” she smirks.
“I think you’re kind of rude.”
“Thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment. And uh, as for coffee, the café is all we’ve got unless you’re looking for a grocery store, so...”
“And where is the café?”
“Make a left down the road into town. There’s only one main street, you can’t really miss it.”
“Mhmm,” nods David. He considers asking for the woman’s name, just for reference of course, but then remembers that he’s strictly not making connections with people at this time. “Great. Okay. Thanks for your help... I’ll just... go. Bye.”
“Have a good day Mr. Rose,” she says. Once again David notes that her face doesn’t change and her eyebrows never move. As he closes the door behind him he sees her shake her head before cracking her book open again.
Mission finally accomplished, David sips his coffee as he walks back to the motel. The throbbing between his eyes mellows out as he drinks, and he feels comforted just having something hot in his hands to focus on.
The Café Tropical had proven to be almost exactly what he expected: far too much yellow, and a little inconsistent in its theme with all the fake palm trees, pastel beach murals, and a black and white checkered linoleum floor. The waitress was tall and extremely cheerful. David had to make an active effort not to remember her name after she introduced herself, but the prominent name tag on her blouse made this hard.
If he was being honest, he’d felt extremely uncomfortable in the space, and it wasn’t just because it was tacky. The whole time David couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been stripped of his anonymity the moment he walked through the door. Sure, no one except Twyla - dammit! - had been there, but it felt like there was an unspoken assumption from her that he’d be back soon, and he didn’t like that. He didn’t know the rules of the space. All he wanted to do was avoid being part of it, but instead it sucked him in against his will and stripped him down completely. Despite his valiant attempt at nonchalance, he’d been seen.
As he walks, David reasons that he just hasn’t conveyed the right message yet. Rather than someone entirely uninterested in the local social scene who stops into the café out of necessity, he seems to have presented himself as something much less desirable: a fresh face in need of a warm welcome.
He thinks back to the New York gallery circuit; sometimes he’d wanted to hate-visit a gallery just for his own amusement. Over the years he’d devised a pretty successful dress and social code for himself that ensured he could judge something mercilessly while remaining unnoticed and uninterrupted by staff and fellow patrons. The first step was of course to wear an expensive (yet understated) outfit and browse the space alone. He learned quickly that crossing his arms over his chest drew attention because for some reason it led people to believe he wanted to share his thoughts, so instead he would keep his arms at his sides and occasionally force a subdued smile to creep across his face. A smile gave the distinct impression that he was simply enjoying his time and basking in his solitude.
Anyway, thinks David, it had taken him a few hate-visits before he really nailed down his technique, so he can allow himself to be soothed knowing he probably just needs to workshop his approach at the café a few more times before he finds that sweet spot.
A nagging thought in the back of his mind reminds David that he’s never met another person who needs to literally strategize simple social encounters.
He takes the last sip of his coffee. He’s always known his approach to life is a bit more cerebral than most, but this is the first time he is realizing that this might truly present a problem. In New York, whenever people had pointed out his high-strung and overly-cerebral nature, he could always brush it off with a joke because there was no way anyone would leave him behind... not when he was the one fielding the tab.
In Schitt’s Creek, David has no such safety net.
He tosses his coffee cup in a roadside bin and pulls his sleeves back over his hands. Until he finds a way out of this town, he’ll have to be okay - like, really be okay - with flying completely solo.