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“There’s something I need to tell you.”
David frowns at the reflection of Patrick in the bathroom mirror. “Uh-oh.”
“No, not like that. I just need to warn you about something.”
David turns to frown at the actual Patrick standing next to him. “Uh-oh.”
Patrick laughs. “It’s not bad, I promise.” His face scrunches up. “I mean, it’s not bad for me. For you, it—no, it’s fine. I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Okay,” David sets down his night cream, “you have exactly three seconds to put me out of my misery I swear to god—”
“I love you.”
David stops. He closes his mouth with an audible click.
God, it’s only been a few hours and Patrick is already weaponizing this against him. David feels hot, sweat instantly pricks the back of his neck, his chest tightens, and he can’t, he’s not ready, his mouth is dry—
“And I want to give you a fair warning,” Patrick continues, still focused on his own face in the mirror, like this is something he’s allowed to just do, “that I say it a lot.”
David blinks. “O…kay.”
One corner of Patrick’s mouth twists up. “A lot, David.” He rubs moisturizer across his forehead, down onto his nose (it’s not enough, he still skimps on it, but he’s been making progress). “I always have. And it’s with everybody: family, friends, relationships, all of it. I’m very… vocally expressive.”
David should make a joke about that. Patrick obviously wants him to with that clear setup, but David… doesn’t remember how jokes work, right now.
Patrick pauses, with his lotion-covered fingers hovering over his cheeks. He looks at David in the mirror. “And I know that’s not how it is for you.”
“What’s not?”
For a moment, Patrick smiles at him. Softly, like it’s a little secret between them.
Then he goes back to his skincare. “I know saying it isn’t easy for you. And I want to make sure you know that I know that, and that it’s okay. You don’t ever have to say it back. I would have been fine if you never said it, and I’ll be fine if you never say it again. I don’t ever want you to feel pressured.” He glances at David, and the hint of teasing is gone from his eyes. “I promise: when I say it, I’m never doing it because I want to make you say it to me.”
He looks back to the mirror.
So David looks back, too…
But his only options are looking at Patrick, and looking at himself. And neither of those are gonna work for him right now.
He looks down at the sink, instead. He takes a breath. He swallows. He doesn’t… He’s never understood how Patrick can say exactly what David needs to hear without David even knowing he needed it until it’s said.
“Well.” David tosses his head. “That is very considerate of you,” he says, as sarcastically as he can manage.
Patrick smiles, and puts his ‘regimen’ back in the medicine cabinet (only toner and moisturizer so far, but David is confident that he’ll be able to wear him down into an under-eye serum in another month or two). Then he gets his toothbrush, and David pointedly scoffs in disapproval, like he does every time. And—like every time—Patrick grins as he starts to brush his teeth after finishing his skincare, despite how many times he’s been told how incorrect it is.
Patrick brushes his teeth for a responsible two minutes, and David applies his night cream. And they stand on the rug in Ray’s bathroom, pressed too close together at the little counter, and they get ready for bed. It’s not the first time they’ve done it, and it’s enough to feel familiar. Practiced. They bump and brush against each other as they passive-aggressively fight for counter space, and they catch each other’s eye in the mirror, and…
No one’s ever done their skincare with David before. No one’s ever been with him in the mirror.
Patrick sticks his mouth under the running faucet to rinse out his toothpaste, and he wipes his chin with a hand towel, thoroughly and utterly negating all the careful attention he’d just paid to his skin.
David rolls his eyes. There’s a learning curve.
“I’m not kidding, though,” Patrick says, as David re-packs his toiletry bag. “I know it probably sounded hyperbolic, but I meant it. It’s gonna be constant.”
David scoffs. “Whatever you say.”
Patrick turns off the bathroom light. And down the hall, David turns on the bedroom light. And their practiced routine continues.
“I’m just trying to prepare you, David.” Patrick opens his closet and starts thumbing through nearly-identical shirts. “I’ve barely been able to restrain myself, and now the floodgates are open. I have a hell of a backlog to work through.”
David tucks his toiletry bag back into his overnight. “Okay, calm down. It’s been five hours, you don’t have a ‘backlog’.”
“David.” Patrick looks at him over his shoulder. “It’s been five hours since I told you.”
David frowns as he gathers his discarded clothes from off of Patrick’s chair. “And?”
Patrick picks a shirt, and slips it off its hanger. “I didn’t figure it out today. I’ve been loving you for a while.” He holds out the empty hanger, and there’s a small, unbearably playful smirk on his lips. “Haven’t you noticed?”
David—
He looks at Patrick, careful, because he doesn’t…
He doesn’t know what to do with that.
He takes the hanger.
They switch places. Patrick lays out tomorrow’s clothes on his chair. David hangs up his Valentino in the closet so it won’t get creased in his bag.
“Why—mm.” David swallows (for normal reasons, not because his throat feels tight). He spends a bit longer than necessary making sure the sweater is perfectly situated in the closet. He picks a piece of lint off of the sleeve. “Why did you wait? To say it?”
Patrick laughs, and it’s loud and… goofy. Stupid. “I couldn’t do it right away. It was too soon. And not like a charming too soon; unacceptably soon.”
David makes sure his face is doing something perfectly normal and unaffected, and he turns around. “Are you trying to pull some ‘at first sight’ bullshit? Because I’m not falling for that,” he quips, like this is easy.
Patrick smirks. “Don’t flatter yourself.” He goes to his side of the bed, and pulls back the covers.
David goes to his side of the bed, and arranges the pillows. And it feels a little safer like this, like their usual little game. Sharp, and teasing, as they tuck themselves into bed. It almost feels like a normal conversation, like it’s a conversation David has ever had. It’s… comfortable.
Comfortable enough that David asks, “So, when was it?” as he gets his phone from the nightstand. “Was there like a—how did—” he shakes his head, trying to find the least pathetic way to fish for this. “What made you… realize?”
Patrick chokes on a laugh, and he turns his wide-open grin toward David. “Absolutely fuckin’ nothing.”
David flinches back, wrong-footed by the glee in Patrick’s tone as much as the rogue f-bomb. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Patrick leans over to turn off his lamp. “Exactly what it sounds like: nothing happened to make me realize. Not a damn thing was happening.” He settles back against the headboard, and they sit side-by-side under the blankets, like any other night. Cozy, and simple, illuminated only by their phones—Patrick playing his nightly game of sudoku, David doing his nightly eBay once-over. “It was a while ago,” Patrick continues, tapping numbers into his screen. “You stopped by the store on your day off. So I wasn’t expecting to see you, and then I turned around and you were there, and. And I just thought, ‘Oh, this is how it’s supposed to feel’. And that was it. Nothing fancy.” He glances over at David with a lopsided shrug. “Guess it doesn’t make for much of a story. Sorry.”
David blinks.
Sorry.
Sorry, like it’s disappointing.
He clears his throat. “Yeah, I’d—mm. I’d appreciate it if you could come up with something a bit more cinematic. The next time you tell it.”
Patrick nods. “I’ll workshop it.”
“Thanks.”
David stretches out his legs. He keeps looking at his phone, but he’s not sure he really knows what he’s looking at. He’s… distracted.
So he’s not sure if it’s a minute or an hour later when Patrick says, “It was still pretty nice, though.”
“Hm?”
“When I realized. I had never really—” Patrick makes an uncertain noise, then starts over. “Before you, I always had to think about it so hard. Anytime I felt anything good, I’d… I’d always pull it apart and analyze it, and put it with all the other good feelings to see if it… added up, y’know? I’d take everything I felt and try so hard to figure out, ‘Is this it? Can I call it love, now? Am I wrong?’ And, honestly, I don’t know if I was ever really sure. Not as sure as I… wanted to be, anyway.” He breathes out a little laugh. “And then, that morning, all I did was look at you. And I knew. Haven’t questioned it once.”
David closes his eyes.
He should probably… make a joke. He should tease him. It’s very teaseable, after all. It’s gooey and Hallmark and people don’t say things like that, and David should point that out. Patrick deserves to be shamed for it, a bit.
But, maybe it’s also… nice. Maybe there’s a small, embarrassing part of David that doesn’t mind, so much. Maybe David doesn’t hate hearing these soft, frightening things. Maybe he actually likes it. Maybe David likes that Patrick loves him.
And really, that—well. That actually works out rather nicely, doesn’t it? Patrick likes to talk about loving David, and David likes to hear it. It’s a nice coincidence. A sort of serendipity.
David blinks at his phone again. He thinks he’s looking at that McQ he’s been keeping tabs on all month, but the screen’s going fuzzy. So he gives up the pretense and puts his phone away for the night. Patrick is still a good half-hour away from even trying to sleep (he insists on playing the Expert level, even though he freely admits that he prefers the mindlessness of Beginner—because Patrick Brewer must compete, even if it’s only against himself). But David doesn’t mind, because he’s still comfy. He scoots and shifts and shimmies until he’s tucked under the blankets up to his nose, curled on his side, with his head resting in Patrick’s lap. Patrick immediately buries his free hand in David’s hair, scritching lightly at his scalp. David hums without meaning to. Because it’s nice. It’s Patrick’s fingers and the smell of laundry detergent and their feet knocking together under the covers and… the rest of it, too.
David puts a hand on Patrick’s knee, feeling the overworn, overwashed flannel under his fingertips.
And he realizes something.
“So, the—” David flounders a moment, trying to find the right way to phrase this. “During the… the Rachel, stuff? With us. Did you… you w—you kn—”
“Yeah,” Patrick answers the question David doesn’t know how to ask. “I already knew. Had for a while.” He huffs. “Yet another one of the many reasons to be pissed at myself that week. I was afraid I wouldn’t ever get to tell you.”
David shakes his head. “But why—no, you didn’t, you. Why didn’t you say it, then?”
He can feel Patrick shrug, and he can feel the awkwardness in it. “I didn’t think it was fair. You were mad, and you had every right to be, and I didn’t… I don’t know, I didn’t want to make it seem like I was only saying it to… fix things. To make you not be mad, anymore. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to sweet-talk you into forgiving me. I messed up, and you were hurt, and I didn’t want that to be how I told you.”
David has to let that sit, for a moment. He tries to parse through it, but—
“I don’t know what I would have thought,” he admits. “I don’t know if it would have fixed anything, or. Made it worse.”
“Well, I’m glad I didn’t take that chance. I’m glad we got something nicer.”
David tilts his head so Patrick can see his deeply incredulous look. “By ‘something nicer’, you mean how you used it to bully me today?”
“Yep,” Patrick says pleasantly, gently tugging David’s hair. “I’ve been waiting a long damn time for a moment that perfect.”
“Mm. You’re so sweet.” David tries to make it sound mocking. He’s not sure he gets there.
He tucks his face back into Patrick’s lap, and he falls into the rhythm of it: Patrick’s stomach moving as he breathes, Patrick’s fingers in his hair, the (very) occasional tap of Patrick adding a number to his game. It’s soft. It’s easy. David likes it more than he’d care to admit. He feels heavy, he feels good, he feels…
“Wanna hear something embarrassing?”
“Hm?” David wasn’t asleep, but it still takes a moment to recalibrate.
“Something really, really embarrassing,” Patrick clarifies.
“About you? Always.”
Patrick makes an unimpressed noise, but he’s not deterred. “It was—shit, this is terrible. Do you, um. Do you remember after we got back together, there were a couple of days where I didn’t…” he clears his throat, and it’s cuter than it should be. “I kinda didn’t want to have sex, for those first few days?”
David frowns. “Yes?” He abso-fucking-lutely remembers that, he could never forget it, how he’d psychoanalyzed and catastrophized every one of Patrick’s gentle, polite refusals, every time he’d carefully rearranged their hands to stay over their clothes. David had never really ‘made up’ with someone before, but he’d always assumed his best method of reconciliation would be copious amounts of make-up sex, so it had really thrown a wrench into his plans.
Patrick chuckles awkwardly, and David can practically hear the blush creeping up his neck, reddening his little ears. “Yeah, I, uh. I didn’t want—I was already barely able to control myself, and I knew that…” He sighs. “I knew that if we had sex, I was a goner. There was no chance I would have been able to not say it, while—um. During. And I wasn’t ready to say it yet, so I couldn’t risk it.” He squirms. “Fuck. It sounds so much worse, admitting it out loud.” He laughs, but it’s forced. Because he’s honestly embarrassed. He thinks it’s embarrassing.
And it is. Obviously. Like he said, it’s embarrassing to admit that he had to intentionally turn down sex for a while because he was afraid he’d… say that. He should be very embarrassed, because it’s ridiculous. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous to think that anyone would be afraid to fuck because they knew they’d accidentally say ‘I love you’. To think that someone didn’t want to fuck David because… To think that Patrick didn’t want to have sex with David, because he was too in love with him.
It—
“Yeah, that’s. So humiliating for you,” David mumbles. His voice only breaks a little.
He takes a moment to breathe. He breathes out against Patrick’s hip. He breathes in through his nose, and it’s not a sniffle at all. “But. I don’t think I would have minded. If you’d said it when we were fucking.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s romantic, don’t you think? Getting… swept up in it? The passion, and all that.”
Patrick hums. “When you put it like that, it does sound nice.” He hums again, sharper. “Would have made the part where you ran away immediately after I said it a little awkward, though.”
“At this point, it’s nothing Ray hasn’t seen before.”
Patrick laughs—a loud, surprised cackle of a laugh.
(David tucks away the sound, and the little flicker of warm pride he feels for being the one who made it happen.)
Patrick leans away, and David can hear him plug in his phone and leave it on the nightstand. David glances up as he’s dislodged from Patrick’s lap. “That was fast.”
Patrick shifts down onto his pillow. “It was taking too long. I’ll finish it in the morning.”
“Or, you know you could just play easier ones, instead?”
“Right! And you could just put your mohair pieces in the machine instead of hand-washing them.”
“Hilarious.”
“Exactly.” Patrick finds David’s hip under the blankets and paws at him greedily. “Get over here.”
“Bossy,” David chastises the order as he immediately obeys it. He tucks himself under Patrick’s outstretched arm, settling onto his shoulder and hitching a leg over his thighs. He rests his hand on Patrick’s chest, and fiddles with the neck of his 5-pack t-shirt. David’s not much of a fan of actually sleeping all cuddled up like this, but it’s nice for a moment or two. A little indulgence.
It’s dark. It’s quiet, with only the faint, steady thump of Patrick’s heart beating under David’s ear. Everything is slow, and comfortable, and easy. Patrick runs his fingers through David’s hair, but it’s a little clumsy, like he’s already more asleep than awake. His breathing evens out, and gets heavier… and heavier…
“You said you would have been okay if I’d never said it back,” David says, quietly, carefully. “Did you… were you just saying that, or. Do you mean it?”
Patrick hums—and David feels it rumble against his cheek. “I mean it.” He puts his hand over David’s, sloppily playing with his fingers. “Don’t get me wrong, I like it a lot better that you did say it. Thrilled about that, absolutely over the moon.” He makes a soft, sleepy noise. “But, yeah. I would have been fine if you didn’t.”
David watches their fingers twine together. “Why?”
Patrick pauses, like he’s considering. “Because it wouldn’t… It wouldn’t change how you are, y’know? Even if you didn’t see it that way, if that’s not how you categorized it, that wouldn’t change how you treat me. Even if you didn’t call it ‘love’, I still…” he squeezes David’s fingers. “I feel so loved by you. I have for a long time. As far as I see it, the words are just a bonus.”
David closes his eyes. And then—when that isn’t enough—he squeezes, until he can hear the strain of it thundering in his ears.
He needs to say something. When you hear something like that, when someone holds your hand to their chest and says that, you say something back. David can’t not respond to it. Patrick says things so fucking easily, things like this, like ‘I love you’, like he wants to say them, like it’s easy, and David—
Doesn’t. It’s so hard for him.
And Patrick knows that. That was the point of this whole… thing . That’s what Patrick meant. He knows. He knows, and it’s okay. He understands. David can’t say anything, right now. Patrick said such lovely, loving things to him, and even if David knew how to respond, he wouldn’t be able to get the words out.
And he doesn’t have to. It’s okay. Patrick made sure he knows that.
David lets out a quiet, helpless noise.
Patrick pulls David’s hand up to his lips, and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “I love you, David Rose,” he says against his skin.
David starts to feel it again: the flash of panic, the confusion, wondering if he misheard, wondering how he’ll ever manage to say it back without crawling out of his skin. He feels hot, he feels unprepared, he…
He takes a breath.
He feels loved. And it’s okay.
“I know you do,” David whispers. “I can—I can tell.”
Patrick rests David’s hand on his chest again. And he’s fine. David didn’t say it back, and Patrick is fine. Patrick loves him, and it’s okay.
David doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to get used to it. Honestly, he’s not optimistic. Right now, he can’t fucking imagine a version of himself that’s able to just accept this. He can’t imagine hearing this, feeling it, and being able to… know it. Like it’s easy. Like it’s normal.
Then again, if Patrick’s warning was honest, it sounds like he’s going to give David plenty of chances. It sounds like he’s planning on reminding David, often enough that he’ll have no choice but to believe him, eventually.
David squeezes Patrick’s hand, and he figures that the least he can do is let him try.