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“David?” Patrick’s voice is rough and he coughs, clears his throat, tries again. “David?”
He opens his eyes slowly, blinking as his vision adjusts. Disorientated, he frowns, confused by the light coming in on the wrong side of the room and the thinness of the pillow cushioning his head. The smell’s wrong too – David’s taken a recent liking to a particular lemongrass scented reed diffuser, so much so that he has one in every room in the cottage and it pervades the entire house. The smell is absent here and Patrick sniffs instinctively, trying to locate it and, along with it, the sense of closeness to his husband it brings.
Nothing. He blinks again and the room resolves itself around him. Ice blue walls, a cream ceiling above. In the gap between the grey curtains he can see a dull sky, snow falling softly and gathering on the windowsill and on the wall over his head, darker patches of paint show where a teenaged Patrick once hung posters of his favourite sports team.
His childhood bedroom. His parents’ house.
Patrick’s frown, and confusion, deepens as he struggles onto his elbows on the single bed and he looks around. How did he get here? They didn’t have a trip to visit the Brewers planned and he’s sure he wouldn’t have forgotten a three-hour drive…
“David?” he calls again.
“What’s that, sweetheart?”
The door cracks open a few inches and his mother’s head appears in the gap. “Did you say something, Patrick?”
“Mom. I… er…” Patrick casts a glance over her shoulder at the empty hallway. “Where’s David?”
Marcy steps more fully into the room, tilting her head in curiosity.
“David? Is that someone from work? I didn’t know you were expecting anyone,” she says before rushing to add: “But it’s not a problem! I’m doing pork chops for dinner, there’s plenty to go around.”
“What? No, mom, David.”
“Yes, I know, I heard you. Patrick, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t…” Patrick shakes his head, eyes skittering over the room as he tries to catch up. He can’t remember how he got here. He can’t remember coming in here to lie down. “Mom. I, um… how did I get here?”
A shadow of concern clouds over his mother’s eyes. “Did you drink too much last night? I told your father–”
“No. No, I’m okay.” He thinks so anyway. If he were hungover, he’d know about it. As he’s gotten older, the aftereffects of alcohol seem to take much longer to pass out of his system, his head sore for the better part of three days. There’s a faint headache at the base of his skull but it’s not a hangover type of pain.
Marcy doesn’t seem convinced. She chews on her lower lip as she regards her son on the bed. “Patrick… I know things have been hard these past few months. Since the break-up…”
Wait, what?
Patrick’s heart plummets to his feet, taking his stomach along for the ride.
“Break-up?” he croaks.
David…
No. No, no. He’d remember, surely he’d remember something as monumental, as soul-shattering, as the love of his life leaving him. His heart stutters, his mouth filling with the metallic taste of blood and for a moment he thinks he’s going to be sick.
Marcy approaches the bed, perching on the edge as she looks at him with more than just a trace of concern now. “Yes…” she says slowly. “You and Rachel? Remember?”
Rachel? A flood of relief, closely followed by further confusion. That was years ago, a lifetime. He’s moved on, he’s married, he’s happy. Why is his mom bringing up Rachel now?
“Of course I remember. But… that was years ago.”
His mom shakes her head. Her hair – with fewer greys than the last time he saw her – brushes her cheek with the movement. “No… Eight months. Nothing really, when you were together so long.”
Eight months?
No. That’s wrong. Eight months after his and Rachel’s final break up, he was in Schitt’s Creek, living with Ray, flirting with his business partner as the two of them edged towards their happily ever after. He wasn’t taking daytime naps in his childhood bedroom.
Marcy reaches out and lays a hand on his forehead, testing his temperature as if he were a child. Her palm is cool and soft, and he can smell the floral hand lotion she uses clinging to her skin. It feels real, as much as his mind rebels against the idea.
It can’t be real; it has to be a dream, perhaps, or a hallucination. Although a hallucination is concerning for reasons of its own so he hopes it’s just a dream.
The longer he’s silent, the more worried Marcy looks. “Are you feeling alright, Patrick?”
Mentally, Patrick shakes himself. Dream or hallucination, his logical mind tells him it won’t – can’t – last, and in the meantime, he’s always hated that anxious look on his mother’s face. “Me and Rachel. Right. No, sorry, I was confused. Still half-asleep I guess. I remember now.”
Marcy stares at him a moment, his mother’s incisive eyes boring into him while he holds her gaze and gives her the most reassuring smile he can manage. “Really, mom. Everything’s okay.”
She doesn’t seem to completely buy it but he can see her decision to accept his word flash across her face as she nods slowly. “If you’re sure…”
“I am.”
“Okay.” She pulls her hand away from his head and uses it to pat down her hair before letting it fall to her lap. “I know things have been tough for you, Patrick, with Rachel taking the apartment and you moving back in here. Not that your father and I haven’t loved having you, of course!”
“Yes. Um… thanks, mom. For everything.” It’s all he can think of to say when his mother is looking so expectantly at him and his bemused brain is still scrambling to make sense of what the hell is happening here.
Go along with it, he decides. It’s a habit he’s managed to more or less overcome in the last few years – long gone are the days of him lying to himself and everyone else in his life about how he feels and what he wants but there’s no point in making things more complicated for himself, not when he’s certain this is in his head.
Dream or hallucination, he tells himself. It has to be.
It’s either that or consider the possibility that this is reality and everything else – Schitt’s Creek, the store, David – is the hallucination. And that is not something Patrick is willing to think about.
There’s no way he could have dreamt up anyone as brilliant and beautiful and hypnotising as David Rose.
--
His resolution to ride it out is all well and good but he doesn’t remember ever having a dream that felt this long. He goes downstairs and makes small talk with his parents over his mother’s pork chops, evading their pointed looks and gentle sympathetic words. What should, had he had David by his side, been a pleasant family meal turns into a minefield of references he doesn’t get about events that he has apparently lived through in this weird alternate reality where instead of running away to Schitt’s Creek, he retreated instead to his childhood bedroom.
“Alan stopped giving you grief at work?” his dad asks and Patrick hums, circling his fork in the air to indicate his chewing and to buy himself time. Who the hell is Alan?
After chewing his mouthful many more times than necessary, he swallows and nods. “Um. Yep. All fine.”
“Really?” Marcy questions. “Last you told us he was being very unreasonable about the Lovage account. What happened?”
“Oh. You know, the usual,” Patrick hedges. He directs his eyes down towards the plate and pokes at the boiled potatoes, neatly slicing one in half while feigning more concentration than the task really requires. “He… we sorted it out.”
“That’s good! After you were so worried about it, that must be a weight off your mind,” Clint says, smiling at his son.
Patrick nods. “It's like it never happened.”
They fall silent and Patrick’s eyes roam around the kitchen he knows so well, the table that has been the site of so many family meals when he was growing up, the wall behind the door where his growth is charted with a series of fading parallel pencil marks. The window over the sink that looks out over the garden where his father used to pull him around on the fresh snow in a toboggan while his mother took photographs of her bundled-up only child. The darker patch on the ceiling where a pipe in the bathroom above burst and leaked through the plaster, prompting a week of showering at the neighbour’s house.
It all looks so familiar, so real, that he can’t help staring around and goggling. The details are so true to life, it’s almost perfect.
Almost. The chair beside him is empty.
Patrick’s attention is grabbed by a flash of metal, like sunlight bouncing off four shining rings and his head snaps round, his heart leaping in a response almost Pavlovian.
It’s his father’s fork, glinting as he lifts it to his mouth. At Patrick’s sudden movement, he pauses, surprised.
“You alright there, son?” Clint’s eyebrows draw together as he regards Patrick in concern.
Patrick swallows. “Yep.”
No.
--
It has to end soon, he tells himself over and over. It has to.
He's tried everything he can think of that should work in situations like this. Although he isn't sure there's ever been any situations like this. He's never experienced one like it anyway.
The night before he’d been sure he'd drift to sleep and wake up back in reality, curled up with his husband's solid, warm body pressed to his back, David's arm draped around his waist and his deep, steady breaths tickling the back of his neck. He'd tell David about the weird dream he'd had, they'd thank the universe that it was only a dream and that they'd found each other, and maybe they'd even have time to fool around a little before getting up.
But when he awoke this morning to the radio of an alarm clock he left behind years ago flicking on, still in his old bedroom down the hallway from his parents and David-less, Patrick had been bereft.
So he tried anything he could think of to snap himself out of it. Sticking his head under the cold tap to shock himself, pinching his thigh, shouting as loud as he can (drawing an alarmed Marcy to his door and causing Patrick to pretend he'd stubbed his toe.) As soon as she'd left he'd taken the quieter route of closing his eyes and willing with everything inside of him to wake up. Anyone who knows him would agree that Patrick Brewer has a lot of willpower but still... nothing.
So he'd had to carry on playing along. According to the radio it's Monday, so Patrick is forced to dress himself in one of his old suits, grab one of his (many) navy ties and try not to think about how David's eyes might glimmer teasingly at the sight of Patrick's 90% blue wardrobe, even while dancing his fingers up Patrick's biceps appreciatively before wrapping his arms over Patrick's shoulders and kissing him until Patrick's knees are shaking.
He misses David's kiss. And the rest of him.
After dressing he eats breakfast with his parents, plastering a smile on his face as he chews his toast, and then leaves to go to work at a job he quit so long ago that he barely remembers some of his colleagues' names.
Or, he realises as he sits down at what he thinks was his desk, any of his log in details. Cue a visit to the IT department and an irritated technician called Ian (unfortunately Patrick remembers him. He was too rude and unpleasant to forget) who, with more sighing and eye-rolling than necessary, gets Patrick back on the system.
The job is more or less as Patrick remembers: boring and repetitive. There's still the odd flash of what he used to enjoy shining through the tedium. A friendly moment with Kate, one of his favourite former colleagues with whom he still keeps in touch, brightens his morning, and is followed by a mid-morning visit to the breakroom to find that another workmate, Owen, has spent the weekend baking and brought some cookies in to share around. Then later on an email lands in his inbox from a client sincerely and effusively thanking Patrick for helping them achieve their dreams. It's kind and it makes Patrick smile but the spark of pleasure is quickly gone again and he remembers that, in his role helping others achieve their dreams, he'd neglected his own. Back then (now?) he hadn't even known what his true dreams were, let alone that he'd been ignoring them.
That had all changed when he left this place and found himself in Schitt's Creek. When he'd walked into a room in a house owned by a wonderfully kind, if somewhat unusual, man from whom he'd been renting a room, and met someone who would upend his world and transform his life.
He can picture that moment so clearly when he’d turned the corner and set eyes on a tall, handsome stranger with his hair swept high and a warm, firm handshake. The low timbre of David’s voice as he’d introduced himself echoes in Patrick’s soul, along with the memory of the way he’d looked as bemused as Patrick had felt when overhearing the directions Ray was giving to the couple with the tennis racket.
In his mind’s eye he can still see David’s hands circling in the air as he explained his idea and recall the glow he’d had felt building in his chest, the odd little skip his heart had given as David proceeded to charm him and leave him breathless in a way that he’d been analysing late into the night for weeks to come.
Every moment is seared onto Patrick’s memory, something precious and beautiful to take out and examine whenever he needs a lift or to remember the important things.
"Are you alright?" It's Kate. Her voice startles him out of his reverie and his head snaps up from where he's been staring at the computer monitor without seeing it.
The light from the screen has left bright spots on his retinas and he blinks, the aftereffects fading until he sees her concerned face peering at him.
"Patrick? You were miles away."
Miles and years.
He sighs. Hesitates.
He’s reluctant to say anything to freak her out or have her gently suggesting that he seek help but then, he reminds himself, if Schitt’s Creek is real (and it is) then she isn’t. Not here, anyway. In reality, while he’s happy in Schitt’s Creek, Kate wound up marrying Owen and moving to Ottawa to open a bakery, combining his passion for baking with their joint business management knowledge.
“This is wrong,” he tells her after a quick glance around to check they won’t be overheard. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Kate looks confused but tries a light chuckle. “Me neither. I kind of feel like I should be sunning myself on a beach in Italy instead.”
When his face remains serious, hers sobers. “Okay. Um… we’re both probably due for a break. In the café across the street?”
Patrick nods, grabs his suit jacket off the back of his chair and follows her.
--
If this were real, they would both definitely have been hunted down and possibly fired by an irate boss by the time Patrick is done with his story. Kate leans back in her chair, hazelnut latte forgotten on the table in front of her, and lets out a long, low breath. She doesn’t look like she completely believes him, but nor is she running to call the men in the white coats so he thinks he can count that as a win.
“So…” she says slowly. “You’re saying… that this timeline doesn’t exist?” She waves a hand around, indicating the café around them, the waiter bussing a table close by, the couple having a whispered argument about whether they’re going to his parents or hers for Christmas, the twinkling lights and tinsel adorning the walls, the faint hum of a dishwasher just about audible underneath the bouncy pop music.
The detail is incredible but it isn’t real. It can’t be.
David isn’t here.
And Patrick refuses to accept a reality without him.
He nods. “Correct.”
Kate tilts her head as she stares at him. “And in the correct timeline… you’re in a place called Schitt’s Creek where you’re married to a man named David and running a store together?”
“Yes.”
“Fulfilling career, loving marriage, finally able to be yourself.”
“Yes. All of the above.”
“Happy?”
“Very. Unbelievably. Beyond imagining.”
Kate falls quiet. There’s a sugar pot on the table which she reaches out and turns thoughtfully, rotating it in circles on the table.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” Patrick says after the silence stretches out too long. Kate looks up from the sugar pot and, to his surprise, there’s a smile playing around her lips.
“Patrick you’re missing something here.”
“I… what?”
She leans forward over the table towards him, her black hair tumbling from behind her shoulder like a waterfall.
In a stage whisper, she carries on, “I know.”
At the look of shock on his face she leans back into her chair once more and laughs. “I’m sorry,” she giggles. “Your face! But… Patrick, you’re telling me nothing I don’t already know.”
“You…” Patrick looks at her, nonplussed, before the penny drops. Surprise quickly gives way to relief. He was right! “Because you’re in my head.”
Kate’s green eyes sparking knowingly. “Right now, yes. Out there I’m off living my life. It’s been a while since we caught up though so who knows what I’m up to. Maybe call me more often?” She gives him an admonishing look and he dips his head in acknowledgement of this thought. After all, it’s his own in the end; lately he has been thinking that perhaps he has been neglecting his friendships.
“All that aside,” Kate says, brushing loose sugar off the table with the flat of her palm and then leaning over the table towards him. “You’re missing something else. Why are you here, Patrick?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Come on. I know why I’m here. So do you.”
“Because I’ve been thinking about you. About calling.”
“Mmm. So what else have you been thinking about?”
Patrick takes a moment, forehead creasing as he retreats into himself a little, taking the time to consider it.
Why is he here? Why did he wake up in his own past, in his old room? What’s been on his mind?
Then, in a burst of clarity, it hits him.
He looks up at Kate. She smiles.
“There it is,” she says.
--
He doesn’t go back to work. What would be the point? Instead he heads back to his parents’ house, where this whole thing began.
Why did he wake up there? Why was the first person he saw his mother? The second his father?
If Kate was a representation of his desire to stay in touch with old friends, then he has to face up to something else that has been preying on his mind – that as much as he wouldn’t change his time in Schitt’s Creek, he wishes he hadn’t disappeared quite so much from his parents’ lives.
He’s their only son, and as much as they’d never say it, he knows that they were confused and saddened in those months after he ran to Schitt’s Creek. He didn’t understand what was going on himself at times, and he certainly wasn’t ready to come out to them, not then, but he could have picked up the phone a little more, reached out, met them halfway.
They’d always supported him. Through his baseball competitions, his exams, the times when he’d argued with his friends, and when he’d failed his first driving test. And when he’d finally come out, there had been nothing but love and support from them then too.
So yes, lately it’s been something he’s been thinking about – how he could have handled that relationship with his parents better and not let their connection falter quite as much as it had.
Now he has the chance to, if not to change the past, then to soothe his own regrets a little by offering them something of himself. Even if it’s not real, it will mean something to him to say it.
When he runs, panting, into the house, his parents are sitting in the living room and look up at his entrance.
“Hello, son,” his father says. There’s no surprise in his face at Patrick’s appearance and why would there be?
But even if this isn’t real, there’s things that Patrick wants to, needs to say.
“Hi.”
“You’re early,” his mother comments and Patrick takes another step into the room, shrugging out of his jacket and folding it over the back of the armchair.
“Am I?” he says. “I’ve kind of been feeling I was late for this.”
Clint’s blue eyes sparkle kindly at him. “It doesn’t matter. Early or late, we’re here. Whenever you’re ready.”
“I know.”
He rounds the chair, takes a seat, and looks at his parents sitting side by side on the couch, waiting for him.
“I guess you guys already know what I’m going to say,” he begins. “But I think I have to say it.”
Marcy nods at him. “And we’ll listen.”
Patrick takes a breath, gathering himself. He knows he’ll have to do this again whenever he gets back to his life but, for now, this will have to do.
“I want to start by saying I’m not sorry I left,” he tells them. “But I am sorry that I didn’t keep in touch more.”
“You were going through a lot,” Clint says.
“Yes. But I didn’t have to put you through the worry and confusion that I did. I could have called more often. Visited on weekends.”
“We understand.”
Even in his mind they’re making excuses for him, seeking a way to reassure him and his heart swells with love for these two wonderful people he’s lucky enough to call his parents.
“I could have told you... maybe not everything right away but that I was okay. More than okay, happy. That I’d found a job that fulfilled me. Friends. That I was falling in love.”
He looks down at his lap, smiling as he remembers those days, the giddy, heady rush of David Rose and their romance.
“You must have been worried about me,” he says.
When he looks back at his parents, they’re watching him with such care and love – the way they always have.
“We’ll always worry,” Marcy replies quietly. “It’s part of being a parent.”
“Yes but I wish I hadn’t added to that. I wish I had told you that everything was okay. That I was going to be fine. No,” he corrects himself with a soft laugh. “More than fine. That I was going to be happier than I ever thought was possible. And that I would marry someone who made me feel the way I always hoped I would with my partner. Like I can’t hold it all inside me. Like any moment not with him is wasted.”
There are tears in his eyes by now and through the blurring he can see his ever-loving, ever-patient parents across from him, their proud smiles.
One more breath, one more thing to say.
“His name is David and he’s everything to me. I love him. And I miss him.”
Marcy leans forward and lays a hand on Patrick’s knee, squeezing in comfort.
“We know you do.”
“I will say all this to you two again. When... when I see you. I’ll come visit soon, I promise.”
“We look forward to it. But now...” Marcy looks back towards her husband who casts his eyes towards the clock on the mantelpiece.
“Yes. It’s time to go. He’s waiting for you, Patrick.”
“What..?” Patrick starts but before he can finish the question a shooting pain darts in the back of his head and he flinches, closing his eyes.
The light fades to black behind his eyelids and suddenly there’s the sensation that he’s falling, harsh, cold wind rushing over his skin. Then nothing.
--
“Patrick! Oh my god open your eyes!” A panic-stricken voice grows louder and there’s the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, another stroking over his face, down his cheek, onto his neck. “Baby? Fuck, fuck, what do I do?” Two fingers probe under his jaw, tentative and trembling as they press down on his pulse point. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
It’s David’s voice, high with stress and fear, David’s hand shaking his shoulder. “Please, Patrick.”
Patrick’s body aches, feeling bruised and tender all over, his head throbbing as he manages to crack his eyelids open a sliver. Bright light sneaks in through the gap and he winces, hissing. Above him, David catches his breath and then the sun is blocked out by the shadow of him looming over Patrick.
“Oh my god! Patrick! Can you hear me? Honey?”
“Urgh.” Patrick croaks. He’s cold, dampness seeping in through the back of his coat and he shifts, moaning again as a stab of pain arrows through his skull. “What happened?” he whispers.
“You fell.” Backlit by the sun, he can’t make out David’s features but the wobble in his voice is all too telling. “Slipped on the ice and hit your head.”
“Hit everything by the feel of it,” Patrick manages. He blinks to try and clear some of the blurriness from his vision and as he becomes used to the light, David’s face appears above him. He looks pale and shaken as he peers down at Patrick. He’s beautiful, perfect, and Patrick tries a smile. “Hi, handsome. I missed you so much.”
“Oh my god, you’re concussed.”
“I was…” Patrick starts before stopping himself. There’s too much to explain and he gets the idea that attempting to start talking about the dream he had will only make David worry more about his state of mind. He will tell David another time but not now.
“Never mind.” Slowly, gingerly, he raises himself up on his elbows, offering David a reassuring smile when he tries to protest and push Patrick back down.
“No! Don’t! You shouldn’t move.”
“I’m okay.”
“You have a head injury. You knocked yourself out. We should get you to hospital.”
Another throb of pain has Patrick closing his eyes, dizzy. He’s sure he’s okay – the pain is already lessening – but he nods slowly, humming in agreement. Couldn’t hurt to check it out.
“Yes, but it’s faster if we go to the car and drive there. Can you help me up?”
David edges back and it’s only at this point that Patrick registers that he’s been kneeling in the mud at Patrick’s side. A jab of love darts through him and he smiles at David.
“I love you, David.”
David still looks concerned but at this he smiles and reaches out to take Patrick’s hand.
“I love you too.”
Patrick carefully raises himself to his feet with David’s help.
“Watch the ice,” David warns as he guides Patrick away from the treacherous frozen-over puddle partially hidden beneath sodden leaves. “That’s where you slipped.”
David doesn’t let go of his hand even after he’s led Patrick away from the ice.
“What are we doing next weekend?” Patrick asks as they begin to pick their way down the path through the small forest.
“Nothing, I think,” David replies. The path narrows and he has to release Patrick to walk single file. David ushers Patrick ahead of him to keep an eye on him; Patrick can feel him hovering close behind him, the brush of David’s steadying hand by his elbow. “Why?”
“I want to go and see my parents,” Patrick replies. “I’m due a visit.” And there are things he needs to say.
“We can do that. I’d like to see them too.”
The path widens again and David is at his side in an instant, his fingers threading through Patrick’s.
“How are you? How’s your head?”
“Fine,” he answers and then, remembering that he’s been trying to break the habit of hiding too much from the people he loves, he amends: “Well, no. I have a bit of a headache to be honest.”
“I’m not surprised,” David tells him. “You hit the ground hard. It was horrible.”
“I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sure I’ll be okay.”
“We’re still going to the hospital.”
“Yes, David.”
They’re at the bottom of the forest path now and take a turn onto the road that leads to where they left the car. The walkway is wider and more level here, with well-trodden paths through the snow dusting the ground so Patrick begins to feel steadier and more confident with where he’s placing his feet.
“I’m driving,” David tells him as they approach the car. Patrick agrees and digs his keys out of his pocket to hand across to his husband.
“Thanks. And Patrick?”
“Yes?”
“Next time you suggest a winter walk, the answer is going to be no.”
Patrick smiles as he rounds the car to the passenger side door.
“Yes, David.”