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“No, no, no,” David says, shaking his head vehemently. “Absolutely not.”
“Aw, come on, David! It’s my first game as a coach!” Patrick pleads.
“I’m not going to sit and watch a children’s baseball game alone like some pervert!”
“I don’t think it makes you a pervert if your husband is the coach.”
“Mm, but no one in the audience is going to know that I’m not there to watch their children’s performance.”
“It’s called a game, David, and it’s Schitt’s Creek. I think everyone knows we’re married by now.”
“What if I don’t go, but I’ll let you tell me all about it in excruciating detail when you get home?”
“David,” Patrick admonishes.
“What?”
“Stevie said she’d go.”
“How the fuck did you convince Stevie to go?” David knows Stevie and she’s as adverse to large groups of children as he is, and he doubts she’d agree to spend one of her precious few days off at a Little League game without some sort of bribe.
“I may have promised her a hefty discount on a case of that pinot noir she likes.”
“Oh, sure, when I do it, it’s ‘that’s not sound business practice, David’” David argues, “but it’s fine for you.”
“Well, I am the numbers guy, after all.” Patrick pushes off the counter he’s been leaning on and sidles over to where David is perched on one of the stools at the kitchen island, wrapping his arms around him and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
“Mm, well, Mr. Numbers Guy, what are you planning to bribe me with?” David leans into Patrick despite himself. “Because a case of wine isn’t going to do it.”
Patrick kisses a trail from David’s cheek to his neck and nips lightly at his earlobe in a way that makes David whimper.
“I’m sure I can think of something,” he breathes and David shivers, shifting on the stool to try to get his hands on his husband. Patrick moves down, grazing his teeth along the skin of David’s neck, sucking and nipping hard enough to leave a mark. At least, David hopes it does.
Just when David is really starting to feel the low, urgent buzz of arousal, Patrick pulls back and gives David a cheeky grin. David tries to follow him but Patrick puts a hand on his chest.
“After the game,” he says with a terrible wink.
David groans, briefly blinking in confusion until his brain starts working again.
“You’re a tease,” he grumbles. Patrick just laughs and presses a chaste kiss to David’s cheek.
“Well, I have to keep you motivated somehow.”
David picks his way across the field, cursing the dirt that’s going to make him have to clean his Rick Owens later. He pulls his jacket tighter around his body as the chilly March wind bites at him. Patrick pointed him in the direction of the bleachers where the rest of the spectators are gathered. Most of them seem to be family members–parents, grandparents, disgruntled siblings–but he spots Stevie huddled in a thick plaid jacket, eyeing the rest of the crowd warily. David raises his hand briefly in greeting, and she looks both irritated and relieved to see him.
“Please tell me you brought snacks,” she says by way of greeting.
“Hi Stevie, it’s nice to see you, too,” he replies, settling down next to her on the cold metal bench. “Of course I brought snacks. Have we met?”
As it happens, his inside coat pocket contains a bag of trail mix that one of their vendors makes (the good kind with the chocolate bits, not the weird bird seed version Patrick likes to take on his hikes) and a bag of gummy bears. He pulls the gummy bears out and tosses them onto Stevie’s lap. In response, she pulls a metal flask from inside her coat and passes it to him. He opens it and takes a sniff, the pungent smell of the whiskey making his eyes water.
“Bless you,” he says, taking a sip and coughing at the burn in his throat.
The crowd is bigger than he expected; he recognizes some of them from the store or the cafe, but there’s plenty others he doesn’t know.
“Who are these people? Do they not have anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon?” David hisses as an unfamiliar blonde woman pushes past them.
“Well, we are starved for entertainment around here now that the rest of your family left,” Stevie deadpans and David gasps in offense. “But I think some of them are the parents of the other team.”
David is still struggling to think of a snappy comeback when a line of tiny humans makes its way on the field followed by Patrick, who David has to admit looks like he’s having the time of his life. It’s sweet, to be honest. He makes his way down the line, offering each one of his players a high-five before taking his place at the end. The other team–Elm Grove, their uniforms say–files out too. They all start to say some sort of pledge or something, but David can’t really understand the words because they’re all mumbling. Clearly, none of these children ever had to go through elocution lessons with the Sunrise Bay on-set vocal coach.
David and Stevie make their way through all of the gummy bears and most of the whiskey without incident. The actual game is even more boring than the games he’s watched with Patrick on TV, but David is surprisingly charmed by the way his husband is with the kids. He’s always known that Patrick is Good With Kids. But David has never seen him like this. He’s in his element, offering tips and encouragement to each child who steps up to bat.
David would be lying if he said that it didn’t warm his cold, cynical heart just a little bit.
It’s somewhere towards the end of the fourth part (David knows there’s a word for it, but despite Patrick’s endless attempts to teach him baseball terminology, it hasn’t stuck) when he overhears the conversation behind him.
“Oh, the new Schitt’s Creek coach is darling, isn’t he?”
“I wonder if he’s single. I should introduce him to my daughter.”
“He’s so good with the children. I wonder if he has kids of his own?”
“I hope so. He’d be such a good father, I can tell.”
David ignores the way Stevie is staring at him and takes another swig from her flask. It’s not the first time he’s heard something like this. Roland and Jocelyn both have said it after Patrick looked after Roland Jr for the afternoon. When they hosted that youth summer arts program at the store (Patrick’s idea, obviously), half the mothers flirted with Patrick and told him what a good dad he’d be and asked if he wanted to meet their single sister/cousin/best friend. Without fail, Patrick would flash the gold wedding band and point out David as his husband and they’d laugh about it after.
He’s even heard it from Patrick’s family. Not from Marcy and Clint, of course, who have been nothing but understanding since the day he and Patrick first told them they weren’t planning on having kids. But in Patrick’s seemingly endless supply of aunts and uncles and cousins, at every family gathering, there always seems to be someone who wants to know why they don’t have kids yet.
David’s patience for explaining their choice has long since waned but Patrick always graciously explains, because he’s a better person than David could ever hope to be. He always says the same thing, too; he says it was a choice they made together. Which David knows is true, but in his darker moments, there’s a voice in the back of his head that says he never gave Patrick the chance to choose.
He’s not drunk, but he is just tipsy enough that his normally sparse ability to filter his thoughts is even more lacking than usual, so he turns around, plasters his fakest smile on his face, and says:
“Actually, I’m pretty sure the Schitt’s Creek coach is married.”
“Well, his wife sure is a lucky lady, then,” the woman on the left says, straightening a stray artificially-blonde curl.
Stevie snorts. “Did you hear that, David? You’re a lucky lady.”
The woman looks between them, clearly confused. “Do what now?”
“Mmkay.” David throws his hands in the air, narrowly missing smacking Stevie in the face. “Patrick is my husband and we’re very happy, thank you so much!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear, I didn’t realize,” the woman says, shooting an uncomfortable glance at her friend. “Which child is yours?”
“What the fuck,” David mutters. He stands and tugs on the sleeve of Stevie’s flannel to get her to follow him. He does not need to put up with this harassment.
“David, wait,” Stevie says, trailing after him as he stomps away from the field. She grabs onto his sleeve when she catches up to him with enough force that he worries for the integrity of the cashmere of his coat.
David knows there’s no real reason to be mad. They didn’t know any better. But he’s so fucking tired of people assuming they’re planning on having kids. He’s tired of people’s assumptions, generally. He’s been dealing with them most of his life. People have always made judgements about him based on the way he dresses and the way he carries himself, but this feels different. Maybe because it’s not based on anything other than some idea that having kids is just the default.
Stevie only tightens her grip on his sleeve, pulling him toward the picnic table. He grimaces at the thought of the damage the battered and splintered wood will do to his coat, but she doesn’t give him any other option than to sit next to her on top of the table.
“Hey,” she says, giving him that look that means she sees him way more than he’s comfortable with. “Fuck ‘em. They don’t know anything.”
He sighs heavily. “I know.”
“Then what’s all this?” she asks, waving her hand at his face.
“I’m just tired of having to explain, you know? It’s no one’s business. I can’t even come to a children’s baseball game to support my husband without some fucking senior citizen questioning my life choices.”
“I mean, I think if you’re at a Little League game, people are going to assume you have a child,” Stevie replies. “But I see your point.”
“It’s like people can’t even fathom the fact that someone might not want kids.”
“Try telling them that you don’t want a romantic relationship, which seems to be everyone’s metric for defining success.”
And she’s got him there. He watched her try to explain aromanticism to his dad after one too many attempts to set her up with his business associates. Considering his dad only recently fully grasped the concept of pansexuality, it didn’t go particularly well.
They sit on the picnic table, picking their way through the rest of the snacks and watching the game through the fence. They can’t see as well from here as they could in the bleachers but David can still hear the way Patrick cheers equally loudly for every kid. It does something funny to David’s chest that makes it a little hard to breathe.
When the game ends, Patrick lines the kids up and instructs them to high five the other team. David shudders at the thought of all those sticky hands, and when Patrick follows the line, high fiving the other team himself, David checks his pockets to make sure he has hand sanitizer.
Stevie sticks around until the field clears out and most of the parents have carted their offspring away, hopefully for a much-needed bath; David has never seen so many muddy children when there isn’t actually any mud around. When she does leave, it’s with an affectionate but none-too-gentle punch to the shoulder and a promise to text him tomorrow before she comes over for brunch. She learned the hard way not to just show up at the cottage without checking in first.
After Stevie disappears, David makes his way across the field towards his husband, once again grumbling about the dirt that seems to be clinging to every item of his clothing. He’s not completely certain that Patrick’s team won, but when he catches the way Patrick is beaming from ear to ear, it gives him a pretty good idea. Patrick picks up his bag and spots David, eyes lighting up brighter than the ultra high powered theft-prevention floodlights Roland installed after the net was stolen from Ronnie’s Rec Center last time.
“Hey!” Patrick exclaims, bounding over and planting a kiss on David’s cheek.
“Okay, no,” David replies, ducking out of Patrick’s reach. “I saw you touch all those germy child hands.”
Patrick looks at him both confused and adoring in equal measure, and holds out his hands for the hand sanitizer he knows David has in his pocket. Once Patrick’s hands are properly sanitized, David tucks himself into his side and lets Patrick lead him back to the car, chattering about the ins and outs of the game and how proud he is of all the kids. The warm feeling it gives David almost makes him forget about the incident with the Little League Grandmas.
Almost.
It’s not until later, after Patrick kept his promise and fucked David into the mattress, after the boneless bliss that follows, that the anxiety starts to creep back into David’s chest. Patrick is wrapped around him, breath warm against his neck, and by the steady rise and fall of his chest, he’s asleep, or nearly so. David thinks about the pure joy on Patrick’s face when he talked about how the kids play and suddenly his ribs feel too tight.
Patrick would be a good dad, he thinks. And what if he’s the one keeping Patrick from knowing what it’s like to have a child?. Patrick has always been adamant that he isn’t giving up anything by being with David, that he never particularly wanted kids in the first place, he just felt like it was expected of him. And David believes him. But what if coaching these children makes Patrick realize what he’s been missing out on? What will happen then?
David tries to ease himself out of Patrick’s grasp, aching to get some air to try to stave off the oncoming torrent of anxious thoughts, but Patrick shifts, gripping him tighter and nuzzling his face deeper into David’s neck.
David isn’t going to change his mind about kids, he knows that. No matter how many times people say he’ll want them when he’s older (isn’t he old enough now to know?), he won’t suddenly change his mind. But if Patrick does, what will he do? The thought of losing Patrick because of this hurts so much that it knocks the air from his lungs, so he shoves the thought away.
“David?” Patrick’s sleep-rough voice breathes against David’s neck. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” David replies, but he knows Patrick knows him well enough to see through that.
Patrick pulls back just far enough that he can see David’s face, blinking at him slowly in the dim light.
“No, you’re not,” he says, brushing an errant curl off of David’s forehead. “What’s going on?”
“What if you change your mind about having kids?” David blurts out.
“What?”
“What if you decide you do want kids after all?”
Patrick studies him thoughtfully for a moment. “Are you going to change your mind?”
“God, no.”
“Then why do you think I will?”
“Well, because you’re around all these children! And you’re good with them.” David can hear the pitch of his voice rising with his anxiety but he’s powerless to stop it. “And you like them.”
“David, there’s a difference between liking kids and wanting them.”
“I know, but—“
“No,” Patrick says, cutting David off. “David, baby, listen to me. You’re right, I really like coaching those kids. But when I’m done, I get to send them home to their parents and I get to come home to you, just you, and that’s all I want.” He props himself up on his elbow and stares down at David. “I told you before that I’m happy with our life, and that’s still true. I love our life together and I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
“Are you sure?” David knows he’s sure. He can see it in Patrick’s wide eyes, radiating the kind of sincerity that used to make David want to hide. But anxiety is a fickle bitch and he needs to hear it to be certain.
“I am absolutely, one hundred percent sure, David.”
“But are you–”
“David, if you say ‘are you sure?’ one more time, I will never suck your dick again.”
“That’s an empty threat,” David counters. “I know how much you love my cock in your mouth.”
“Fine, I will make you go to every single baseball game wearing that Jays jersey my aunt bought you last Christmas.”
David gasps, the memory of that itchy polyester nightmare still fresh enough to horrify him. That’s much less of an empty threat. “You wouldn’t.”
Patrick just laughs and leans down to press a kiss to David’s forehead.
“Are you going to tell me where all of this came from?” he asks, settling back on the bed and opening up his arms to David, who goes to him willingly, settling his head on Patrick’s sturdy chest.
“Some senior citizen at the game said you looked like you’d be a good dad.” David trails his fingers idly across Patrick’s collarbone. “She said your wife was a lucky lady.”
Patrick snorts out a laugh then kisses the top of David’s head. “I’m the lucky one.”
“Ugh, you know you can’t just say things like that,” David protests. “I already did my skin care and tears will ruin it.”
As he settles into the warm comfort of Patrick’s arms, David marvels, not for the first time, at how much easier it’s become for both of them to have these conversations. Piece by piece over the years, they’ve dismantled each other’s defenses and given access to the deepest, darkest parts of themselves. He supposes that that’s what marriage is—taking out the most tender and vulnerable pieces of your heart and handing them over to each other for safe keeping. He finally drifts off to sleep, feeling like he’s right where he was always meant to be.