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It was supposed to be funny. A joke gift! Good for no more than a few chuckles before it gets tossed in a drawer to be lost and forgotten for years to come, only to be found while cleaning and earning no more than a huffy laugh until the cycle repeats itself.
But here Patrick is, torn between clutching it in his hands and treating it with precious reverence, crying.
David is making his husband cry. On Christmas Eve.
This isn’t even his real gift! There is a very nicely wrapped box containing a beautiful handknit sweater by one of their vendors tucked carefully underneath the tree, not to mention the certificate for a weekend away at a wine tasting event in his stocking. But it’s this, the last minute joke gift, that’s making Patrick tear up.
No, not tear up; Patrick is crying crying. Like, full on tears streaming down his face crying. His husband doesn’t cry, not unless it’s under very specific circumstances, that’s just not how he expresses his emotions. Somewhere between buying the frame and tying the bow, David fucked up. Massively.
“David,” Patrick croaks out, eyes unmoving from the frame. “Why— how. I can’t— You’re—”
David gingerly scoots closer to him where they’re both sitting on the floor. “Look, honey, I’m sorry. I can just— throw it away and we can pretend it never happened.” He places a gentle hand on Patrick’s knee.
“Is it. Is it real?” he asks quietly.
David winces. It’s very real. He could have faked it, but he didn’t, because he’s an idiot. He yelled at his dad for this exact thing, for fuck’s sake. “Yes… but I can talk to Roland again and get it all sorted out!” he’s quick to reassure. God, he fucked up.
“You went to Roland to do this?”
There is only so much David can gather from Patrick’s voice. He sounds upset, which is bad. That’s very, very bad, because this is Christmas. It’s supposed to be happy! It’s supposed to be happy and lovey and joyous, especially when it’s only their fifth Christmas together. But David went and did this. Is this the precedent he’s setting? Awful, horrific, grief-inspiring gifts?
They only open one gift on Christmas Eve, and David thought it would be a perfectly dandy idea to give Patrick the one non-serious gift in the lot. If he had only waited, had given him one of his actual gifts, they could have just laughed it off and moved on to another present. But no. He really thought he was doing something here, setting this tone for the holiday.
Oh god, what if he’s turning into his dad? Fuck.
“Yeah. He’s the, um, only one who has the authority to make it official? Twyla notarized it. I mean, I’m not stupid enough to have asked Ronnie…” he trails off with a nervous chuckle, trying to salvage something of the previously light, happy night.
Patrick’s hand clamps down on his, and only then does David realize he was rubbing his thumb quite intensely on the outside seam of Patrick’s pajama bottoms. Patrick squeezes, hard. And then he — finally, thank god — looks up at David and— oh. Oh god.
That’s his David, I’m so very fucking in love with you face.
David likes that face. He likes that face a lot.
It accompanies very sweet declarations that are sure to short-circuit his brain if his husband’s eyes haven’t already. It makes his stomach flip and his chest fill with warmth and butterflies and goodness. This time is absolutely no different, and Patrick hasn’t even spoken a single word. His eyes are all round and wide, the brown bright and glowing with the sheen of tears over them. The red on his cheeks and over his nose is kissable and sweet, the downturn of his lips doing nothing to hide their slight tremor. David very, very badly wants to hold him.
“You really put my name on the town deed?” he asks hoarsely.
David just nods, lips folded into his mouth, the hand not clutching onto Patrick’s knee tucked under his own thigh, physically restraining himself from scooping his husband up into his lap.
And David didn’t think it was fucking possible for Patrick’s face to melt into something even softer. He didn’t even know someone could look that in awe and in love at someone else, let alone David of all people. But someone very much is right now, and it’s Patrick fucking Brewer. It shouldn’t be surprising. David shouldn’t be taken aback, not after five and a half years of existing under the precious love and care of Patrick, but he is. He is, and it’s wonderful and breathtaking and all-consuming still.
“David,” he breathes, and it sounds like a revelation, like Patrick found another layer of his husband to uncover, to love and protect and keep forever cherished in the safe folds of his heart.
He very carefully sets the sleek black frame, not unlike the one in their hallway that holds that fateful receipt, to the side, and David has a brief moment to read “David Rose and Patrick Brewer” on the paper declaring them owners of Schitt’s Creek before he receives a lapful of his husband.
“Oof— hi.”
“Hi,” Patrick says into his neck.
“So you don’t hate it?” he asks with a grimace. David’s pretty sure he doesn’t hate it. Like, 87% sure Patrick is still looking at him like that not in spite of David’s perhaps increasingly subpar gift giving skills.
Patrick pulls back, and he looks almost offended. “Hate it? David, I— you gave me a town. This town.”
“Okay, I did do that. It’s just that when I got this town, I laughed for about ten seconds and then immediately moved on. Forgot about it for twenty years.” He rubs circles into Patrick’s hips, and he’s not too sure who he’s attempting to soothe.
Patrick smiles at him with fondness, mouth downturned, and David can’t possibly be held accountable for the little kiss he presses to his bottom lip. “But that was before, you know, we met. And this town gave us, well, everything, really,” Patrick says, the flush on his face and down to his neck growing with each passing word — and, oh yes, David is still unbelievingly in love with this precious man weaving nervous little paths through his hair with his fingers, the occasional brush of his wedding ring sending sparks through David’s veins.
“It did, didn’t it?” he agrees softly.
Patrick meets his eyes, and David sees it, the silent understanding that they’re on the same page, that they both hold precious what this town means to them. He leans their foreheads together, lips ghosting over his. “Yeah, it did,” he whispers.
David smiles into the kiss. It’s chaste, all things considered, but he still feels it down to his toes. Maybe that’s a marriage thing, or more likely just a Patrick thing. Patrick tries to pull back, but David is definitely not having that right now, so he follows Patrick forward, planting quick little pecks across his lips, and then all over his face when his laughter makes it difficult. He wraps his arms around Patrick’s middle fully, tugging him in closer and closer until he can feel his husband’s heart thumping against him, can feel the rise and fall of his chest grow more and more erratic as his laughter becomes brighter.
He finally decides that, okay, maybe they need to breathe a little, but he just buries his face into Patrick’s neck, refusing to allow any space between their bodies. He feels Patrick’s chin digging into the top of his head, and he knows the sentiment is shared.
“So what do we owe Roland?” Patrick asks with a smirk David can’t see but he knows is there, nonetheless.
“Um,” he begins. “I may have promised we’d throw their anniversary party?”
Patrick pulls back to look down at David. His little eyebrows are scrunched up, and David has to try very hard to pay attention to the words coming out of his mouth and not how much he wants to kiss him there. “Only? Jocelyn asks you to do that every year.”
David rolls his head back, tilting it from side-to-side. “Okay, I maybe agreed that we’d watch Roland Jr for their next three couple’s massages. But that’s it!”
Patrick just chuckles and smacks a kiss onto his forehead. “I figured as much,” he says good-naturedly. “It’ll be fun.”
“For you, maybe,” David grumbles. Patrick loves babysitting, if only to see what becomes of David when he’s suddenly responsible for a tiny half-person. A tiny half-person who is just as bratty, particular, and opinionated as him, only David has to be the bigger person. It’s stressful.
“Oh, for me, definitely.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re having a wonderful Christmas!” he exclaims, tossing his hands up to really sell the point.
But Patrick just looks back at him, a soft little smile on his lips that’s completely unfair because David loves that smile. Taking David’s face in his hands, thumbs rubbing lovingly through his stubble as he brings their face closer together until he can gently knock their noses together, he says sincerely, “I am, baby. Thank you.”
It is not David’s fault that he melts under his husband’s hands. It’s the only possible response he’s capable of having when Patrick goes and does that. It’s rude, is what it is. And lovely and special and something David knows with absolute certainty that he will never get enough of, obviously. So David kisses him again, a little deeper, a little intenser, just to shut him up, no other reason at all.
“And I can’t believe all I got you for tonight is chocolate,” Patrick huffs self-deprecatingly against his cheek.
“Excuse you,” David says, sincerely affronted. “You know chocolate is the one true way into my heart.”
“Oh? Was I not already there?” And fuck him with his cute little smirk and the glint and mirth in his eyes.
David rolls his eyes. This man. “Well, yes, obviously. This just further cemented it. But don’t go fishing for compliments, I’m not trying to give you a big head.”
“Damn, I was really hoping I’d get some type of head tonight. It is Christmas, David.”
And, really, Patrick deserves the shove off of his lap. Though, the full-belly laugh suggests he didn’t really mind. He does manage to tug David down with him, tangling them together in a mess of limbs and smiles and giggles and kisses, and David’s heart is full. It is so, so full.