Work Text:
"Your hands are always in the air," Patrick says softly.
David still isn't used to this — pillow talk. Not yet. He's never been in the kind of relationship where it's warranted. Where after, you sit and talk and bare your soul, where you fall asleep or watch the other person fall asleep. Traditionally, David rolls over and passes out, or showers and gets the hell out of dodge.
Not with Patrick, and that — that strong awareness of the line between Patrick and everyone before Patrick, is what makes David feel safe enough to say what he says next: "Well, I'm queer and autistic, so if I don't wave my hands in the air when I talk, I'll die." It's a soul-baring admission wrapped in a joke, so that it doesn't have to be a big thing. Patrick can brush it off if he wants and it won't be weird.
Patrick — Patrick doesn't brush it off. His eyes are shining in the moonlight — he never closes the blinds, but his room at Ray's looks over a greenbelt, so it's fine — and his mouth curves just slightly. "I didn't know that you were."
"I feel like I've made it quite clear just how queer I am. Repeatedly. In this very bed," David says easily, running a hand over Patrick's hip over the covers.
Patrick huffs, the one-syllable laugh that means so many different things, things David is just learning to catalogue. "I didn't know that you were autistic," he clarifies. The word rolls out of his mouth like it's just any normal word, and that's…novel, David thinks is the word. No one ever says it easily. Without being judgey or grossed out. One time, when David was nineteen, a girl rejected him because sleeping with someone of his mental state seemed abusive. After that, he stopped telling people. It was no one's business, he justified. But he was afraid — afraid that people wouldn't think he was sexy, or smart. Or that they wouldn't treat him like an adult.
Patrick isn't like that, David knows. He's pretty sure. But still…
"Is that…does that bother you?" He asks, biting his lip like he can draw the question back in.
"What? No." It's the same tone Patrick used when David asked if he'd regretted their first kiss, the same tone David has heard countless times since, a sort of surprise/sadness combo that never fails to knock David's wind right out. Patrick's care for him, his willingness to be sad on David's behalf, is heavy. Heavy like a weighted blanket — a comforting pressure, there to wrap David up and protect him. "I just…I guess I don't really have a great grasp on what that means? Or if I need to be…aware of anything I should be doing for you?"
David is still shocked at the intensity of the rush of affection he feels every time Patrick says something like that. Like it's easy to care for him. "There's nothing…" He says softly, and then he decides to be brave, to spill something out between them and see how watertight this whole thing is. "Do you remember, um, that time you moved the lip balms, and you put plungers in the front of the store?"
Patrick smiles warmly through the darkness. "You called me your boyfriend for the first time that night. And I called you mine."
"Yes. That. Um…it's just that it didn't like, it didn't bother me because I'm petty? Or shallow?" David frees his arms from the blankets so he can gesture into the air above them.
"I know you're not," Patrick begins, and David hushes him gently.
"No, just…it was because I really, compulsively need the store to be a certain way, or it's like…it's like my brain is full of static, or full of tinfoil just crumpling and uncrumpling when that gets messed up. It's like a whole. Processing thing. And like, deviation from my expectations." David is totally not quoting from the self help books his therapist used to make him read in his twenties. Except that he is.
"David…" Patrick's whole sympathetic/sad/surprised thing hits maximum frequency. "If I had known, I wouldn't have done it. I thought we were just playing."
"No, I know! And I didn't say anything. It was just…it was too early. I wasn't ready for you to know, you know?"
"…Not really?"
David sighs; he's going to have to be super vulnerable here, huh. He squeezes his eyes shut and braces for impact: "It's just…I wasn't sure yet how real this was, and I didn't want to be your autistic ex, you know? 'I dated my business partner and he was autistic and one time he had a meltdown because I rearranged the store a bit.'"
"David," Patrick says so, so gently. "I wouldn't…" And then, before David is forced to formulate a response to that: "Wait. Do my mountaineering shoes make your brain go static, too?"
David laughs sheepishly, self-deprecating. "No, then I was just being petty."
Patrick, because he's better at putting David's pieces together than anyone he's ever met, says, "So you use the high-maintenance schtick to help you…mask? Is that the word?"
And how David has never put that together in his mind before; the facts click together like a seatbelt latch, the high-maintenance routine and the general…need for routine. "Um. Wow. Yes, I think so," he whispers.
"Well, you don't have to do that with me, if you don't want to," Patrick says. "It sounds so tiring, putting on a show all the time. I want you to be comfortable."
David shifts, shoving his head back into the pillow, stretching his neck. "Noted."
"David," Patrick whispers, as gentle and soft as David's ever heard him. "This doesn't…it changes the way I see you, because it's a new thing to know about you. But it doesn't change how I feel about you. You're Jewish and pansexual and autistic and I can't wait to learn what else because I — care about you. So much."
David covers his face with his hands, overwhelmed by Patrick's acceptance, his gentleness, and by the declaration he just almost made. No way is he ready to hear that yet, although he suspects sometimes that Patrick is just about ready to say it. But all of this — he feels naked.
And he's so glad that he did it. That he trusted Patrick enough to tell him this. "Thank you," he says, reaching out to cup Patrick's cheek gently.
"It's nothing to be thankful for," Patrick says back. "You don't have to be grateful."
"Well, I am." David cuddles right up to Patrick, bunching a hand in the soft cotton jersey of his sleep shirt, savoring the smell of powder Tide and Patrick's shower gel. It's clean and bright and completely Patrick, and David already loves it, already finds comfort in it.
"Thank you for trusting me," Patrick whispers. "I get the feeling that this isn't something you share with a lot of people, and I'm honored that you're trusting me with it."
David pushes his nose into Patrick's sleeve and inhales deeply. "It's not like it's a secret," he says, the unspoken but lingering between them. "I mean, people can…people who know what to look for can tell, you know? Other neurodivergent people can usually tell…"
"David." Patrick's voice approaches a normal speaking volume, and David brushes a hand down his arm. Jersey giving to warm skin. David knows for a fact that Patrick doesn't use moisturizer — he used three-in-one with a bar of Dial for his face before they started going out — but his skin is always soft. "You don't have to explain anything, okay?"
"Oh, okay."
Patrick's hand comes up around him to card through his hair in the way that fuzzes out his mind a little. "I'm glad you told me."
"Me too," David whispers. It's a bit before he can fall asleep, but he feels lighter than he has in awhile. Now that he's opened this little secret door in him and let Patrick in.