Chapter Text
“Ta-da!” Jocelyn cheers, unveiling the brand new sign that hangs in the high school gymnasium, amongst the smells of sweat socks and jockstraps and general teenage malaise.
SCHITT’S CREEK FIRST ANNUAL BLOOD DRIVE AND STROKE-A-THON is emblazoned on the enormous fabric banner strung from the rafters, and David’s face looks like it’s going to crack under the pressure of suppressing his reaction.
“Wow, Jocelyn,” Patrick starts slowly, searching for words, knowing Jocelyn has only the best of intentions. “That is...wow.”
David squeezes his hand so tightly that Patrick is worried one of the bones in his fingers might snap. “Mmm, this is very…” David tapers off and Patrick wonders if he and David are experiencing the world's first documented case of shared aphasia, except that he can clearly identify what he doesn’t want either of them to say.
“Sweet. Well-intentioned. I’m honored.” That last one’s a lie, because he’s not sure he’s ready to engage in town wide masturbation to promote awareness about stroke prevention and detection. “No one will actually be touching anyone else, right?” Patrick asks, scratching his head. “Or themselves?”
“No, why would you…” Jocelyn looks at Patrick quizzically, then up at the sign, and back at the two red-faced men standing stiffly beneath it. “Oh goodness, I didn’t...It’s a talent show to raise money and get the word out...oh no.”
“Well, I like it.” David says chipperly, and Patrick knows he’s lying. He can tell by the way David’s biting his lip and his cheek dimple sort of ripples, not to mention how David never likes anything that he's not expressly responsible for creating. “It’s very...it paints a picture...very vividly.” He nods, blinking rapidly as if that will somehow cleanse his mind of the mental images. “Thank you so much for this, Jocelyn, really. We-we’re touched.”
Patrick snorts, then covers his mouth and nose in horror. David jabs him with a sharp elbow to the ribcage. “I just hope we don’t rub anyone the wrong way, you know, bringing this to the forefront.”
“Oh, no, we’re happy to help.” Jocelyn says obliviously. “Everyone was so worried about you, Patrick. And the fact that you’re doing so well is such a boon to us all, so the town council decided they wanted to do something special for you.”
David is still nodding like a bobble-head, his hands now resting on his chin. “This is very special. Yes. Such a release.”
“It’s just, we can’t thank you enough for working it out for us, Jocelyn. I mean, the whole event.” Patrick stuffs both of his hands in his pockets then realizes what that might imply and quickly removes them, careful not to meet David’s eyes as he awkwardly jockeys around.
After Jocelyn leaves, Patrick looks at David and they both burst into hysterical laughter. David is clutching his sides and Patrick has tears running down his cheeks and the entire situation is so absurd that it could only happen to them.
“This is all your fault, you know.” David says through a hiccupy laugh.
“I'm sorry I had a stroke, David, I’ll try not to do it again.”
David’s face quickly turns serious. “No. Don’t ever do that again. Ever.” Patrick still wakes up to find David just watching him, even a year later, his eyes watery and his mouth turned down. He usually just presses himself to David then, holds him; they don’t have to talk about it. Patrick thinks he knows what his illness did to David, knows that there aren’t words. “No, not that. But no, don’t.”
“Okay.” Patrick agrees and slips his hand into David’s. “So tell me why this is my fault, please.”
“So you didn’t have the bakery write Happy One Year Stroke-iversary on a giant cookie? That wasn’t you?”
“No, uh, it was definitely me.” Patrick has to bite the inside of his lip to keep from smiling again. It’s been that way a lot, recently. That he has to fight back the happiness, the relief that he’s coming back to himself. Even though there are still times when he has to struggle to find a word, or when he says the wrong one, he’s grateful he has the chance to look for it at all. “David, I’m getting better. I wanted to celebrate.”
“You didn’t think I’d get you a cookie?” He sounds hurt.
“No, I know you would have. But I wanted to make sure that I was the one that acknowledged it, to make it...okay for other people to, so I guess this is my fault in a way.” He lifts David’s hand to his mouth, kisses the knuckle of his ring finger. Sickness and health, he thinks, and he stops so that he can square up with David, rests his hands on his waist. “Someday, I’d like to talk about it with you. When you’re ready.”
David runs a hand up Patrick’s side, rests it on his shoulder. “I’m...getting ready. I promise. I don’t think I’m there yet. Soon, maybe. But you, you should talk about it. Whenever you want.”
“Thank you.” Patrick kisses that spot on David’s neck, the one that belongs to him. “You’re planning some other kind of surprise, aren’t you?”
David’s face and shoulders fall. “How did you know?”
“Well, first of all, my parents still aren’t good actors. And the last time I texted with Julia, she said ‘see you soon.'”
“I need to start hiring actual actors to play your family and friends, because no one can fucking handle keeping a secret anymore.”
“Anymore? No one we know has ever successfully kept a secret.”
“That’s true.” David agrees and crosses his arms. “So you know they’re all going to be here tonight, then? And that Julia’s bringing Eric and it sounds like they might be...getting serious?”
“Now that was the biggest shock of all, and yes, I already knew.”
“Dammit.”
“I’ll act surprised, I promise.”
“But you’re not that good of an actor.”
Patrick pretends to pout until David kisses it away and then reaches down to loop his arm through Patrick’s. When he first got home, they’d needed to walk like this fairly often because Patrick wasn’t quite steady yet - so often dizzy from blood thinners - but they’re still doing it because they like the intimacy of it, the proximity. They can bear some of each other’s weight. Patrick’s started calling some of their newer rituals stroke gifts, because without the stroke, he isn’t sure he’d have them.
David and Patrick stroll through the gym arm in arm, admiring the decorations and joking about the myriad ways they could privately celebrate a stroke-a-thon, until it’s time for guests to begin arriving.
Patrick’s parents arrive first, because they are perpetually early for every event, always. “Well, it isn’t a party unless your Mom is crying,” his dad jokes as his mother dabs at her eyes, Patrick still in her arms.
“They’re happy tears, Clint, leave me be,” she sniffles. “And what is the name of this celebration again?” She points up at the sign, causing David and Patrick to exchange knowing looks.“It’s a good thing all the cousins won’t be here tonight. We wouldn’t hear the end of it.”
David makes a face, “Mmm, there may be some cousins here.”
“David, what did you do?” Patrick asks. He’s seen that face. He’s had to come out of the closet because of that face.
“In my defense, it was for a good cause.” David holds his hands in the air as he protests. “I may have invited everyone in your mother’s address book.”
“My third grade teacher?” Patrick asks as a woman who looks strikingly like his third grade teacher enters the gym looking lost.
“We asked everyone we knew for their blood. Inviting them for some cheese and crackers seemed like the right thing to do.”
Patrick leans against David, presses a kiss on his cheek. “It is. Thank you.”
After an evening spent reacquainting himself with the more social half of his mother’s address book and being aggressively hugged by nearly every citizen of Schitt’s Creek and the surrounding Elms, Patrick is tired, and he can’t locate his husband.
He finally finds David sitting along the back wall of the gym at a table with Julia, who Patrick has barely seen all night. She and Eric had trickled in with one of the cousin caravans and Patrick hadn’t been able to swim upstream through the sea of well-wishers to carry on much of a conversation with any of them all night.
Patrick settles himself onto David’s open lap and plants a kiss on the top of his forehead, grazing some newly sprouted gray hairs with his lips. “I missed you,” David says into Patrick’s neck, and it’s a moment before they both remember they’re not in their own little world. “The Mother Folkers were actually...great. That new arrangement of Dream Lover was beautiful,” David remarks as he smiles into another kiss.
Patrick blushes. He’d had that in his head since the hospital, and it had taken months to perfect. “The rest of the show had its moments. I had no idea that Ray was so into One Direction,” he deflects. “Or that he played the marimba. I lived with the guy for a year and he still manages to surprise me.”
“I think Ray’s more of a Harry fan, but hey, whatever works.” David slides a hand down the line of Patrick’s spine, leaving his warm hand on the small of his back while they talk. “Ray is Patrick’s old roommate,” he says to Julia and Eric, who are nursing their Juice Boxes, the specialty drinks that Jocelyn had decided were on theme for the blood drive.
“I like to think of him as my former landlord. You’re my old roommate.” Patrick ducks instinctively, but David only rolls his eyes. “Ray is great, though. He’d give you the shirt off his back.”
“Or the car off his lot.” David reminds him, voice a little low. It took ages for Patrick to piece together what happened while he was in the hospital, and there are still things he’s unclear on about who was responsible for what; about how everyone banded together and supported both him and David without question. Their freezer overflowed with casseroles and stews for months from the dinner train Ronnie organized; Patrick can’t walk down the street without Darlene’s cousin offering to give him a ride somewhere. And the two people sitting at this table with David; he knew in the hospital what they’d done for him, and he hasn’t forgotten.
Giving David one last peck, Patrick hops off his lap to drag his own chair over from a nearby table and pulls it closer to Julia and Eric. “Listen, I just wanted to say—”
Julia smiles, with the same kindness in her eyes that she had a year ago, when she’d noticed that something was wrong and had actually done something about it. Not everyone can say that a stranger saved their life, but Patrick thinks that he can. “Hey,” she holds up her hand, “I brought you a present.”
“You didn’t need—”
She rummages in her large purse, brings out a navy blue gift bag stuffed with light blue tissue paper and hands it to Patrick. Next to her, Eric smiles. Inside, is an enormous glass jar full of green gummy bears. “I figured that you could use those, since I haven’t been around to supply them to you during boring lectures lately.”
“Ha, thanks.”
“I must warn you against gummy tummy if you eat too many at once, however. I won’t be here to save you from that.”
Patrick toys with the F.A.S.T. placard that is part of every table’s centerpiece. Julia really had saved his life, and all because she’d noticed that his speech was off. He didn’t have any other noticeable symptoms, really, and she’d paid enough attention that he was able to both survive and thrive. He knows now how lucky that is, and that not everyone has that. “I just—I just wanted to say one thing, though. It’s been bothering me since that day.”
Julia looks at him with concern. “What’s that?”
“When we were playing that game, you asked me when my wedding anniversary was, and I couldn’t tell you. And thanks to me, you probably lost out on a really fantastic door prize. So I’m sorry for that.” Patrick takes a deep breath and releases it, then glances over to David, who looks away quickly, but Patrick knows that David is still listening. “Our wedding anniversary is July 2nd. We were married at the botanical garden because David loves the cherry blossoms and I love David, and I wanted him to have whatever he wanted.” The fact that Patrick is able to say any of it, at all, is because of Julia, so it feels right that she hears it. Looking around the table, Julia’s eyes are welling with tears, David is sniffling, and Eric is staring down into his Juice Box. Patrick feels strangely buoyant. Lighter, somehow, that he could finally say what he’d wanted to, almost a year ago today.
“Thank you for giving me my life back. I know can’t repay you, I really can’t even begin to show you what it means to me, but I just...I’m really glad you picked the seat that you did at that conference.”
“God, me too.” Julia throws her arms around his neck, squeezes, and gives him a small kiss on the cheek. “But I’m putting caution tape around you next year, so people know what to expect when they sit next to you. No more surprises.”
David’s hand appears on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. We’re putting a moratorium on conferences, symposiums, and solo travel of any kind. Anywhere you go, I’m going, like a new puppy.”
“Great.” Patrick clasps his hand over David’s, where it’s still busily smoothing at his shoulder. “Because there’s a Maximizing Excel for Small Businesses seminar next week in Thornbridge and next month, I’ve signed up for Capital Budgeting in Toronto. Oh, and there’s a fascinating one on pivot tables that I don’t think we should miss—” Patrick is interrupted as a hand with four gold rings clamps lightly over his mouth. He sticks his tongue out to lick it, and the hand drops as David says ew under his breath. “You’re gonna love Don’t Cell Yourself Short, it’s all about spreadsheet analytics.”
From the look on his face as Patrick stands to challenge him directly, it’s clear that David probably won’t love the seminar. But David pulls him closer, their foreheads touching, and whispers, “Listen, I know I said anywhere…”
This time, Patrick is the one smiling into their kiss.
It’s late when David drives them home from the party, and he disappears into the bathroom to begin his nightly regime of skincare the second they walk into the house.
Patrick tidies up in the kitchen, puttering around packing lunches since he has a doctor’s appointment in Elmdale at noon and he doesn’t know when David will have a chance to get away from the store. “Do you want to take the rest of that lemon butter risotto I made for lunch tomorrow? I don’t think it will be good much longer.” Patrick shouts in the general vicinity of the bathroom.
David pops his head out of the door; his face still smeared with cleanser. “Oh my god, that zucchini was amazing. Yes.”
Patrick smiles. That amazing zucchini is from his garden; the garden that he began cultivating at the recommendation of his occupational therapist; another stroke gift. He packs the rest of David’s lunch; the risotto, an apple, and a chocolate chip cookie that his mom had foisted on them and that David can’t seem to resist. He writes a little note on the napkin - Eat the cookie first. I love you - and shoves the lunch bag in the refrigerator next to his.
David meets him in the bedroom smelling like toner and face lotion and they collapse into bed, exhausted from the events of the day. David didn’t say much on the ride home, hasn’t said much most of the evening, actually. There had been a lot of people, making a lot of inappropriate jokes at the signage, and while David had been laughing at first, Patrick started to notice that his smile wasn’t always meeting his eyes.
Turning out the lights, they tuck themselves into bed the way they usually do; David stretches out, Patrick curls around him, a leg tangled between David’s, an arm over his midsection, hand rubbing gently at his side.
Patrick props his chin on David’s chest. “You’ve been quiet.”
“Mmm.”
It sounds like agreement, so Patrick runs a slow fingertip down the bare skin of David’s arm, stopping at his wrist and encircling it with his hand. “Do you think that maybe tonight was hard for you?” Patrick hears what he just said. “I did not mean that as another stroke-a-thon joke, I swear.”
David doesn’t respond.
“I know you’re not ready to talk about what happened. I get that. I want you to have your space. You deserve that and I don’t want to take it from you, at all.”
“Okay.” David says very slowly.
“I just feel like maybe it’s because you think I’m not ready.” Patrick shifts so that he’s lying on his back, but still pressed along the seam of David’s body. “And I just wanted you to know that I am. Whenever you are.”
“Patrick.” David’s voice is like a plea.
“Is it okay if I tell you what I remember about that day?” Patrick asks carefully, as if he’s easing his way through barbed-wire.
“Of course.”
“It’s mostly a blur, really. But what stands out to me is that all I could think about was you. I mean, I thought a lot of things, but in those moments, when they wanted to me to make a decision, even though there were other people in the room, I was totally and utterly alone. I was the only person I could count on, and I didn’t...I didn’t want to just count on me anymore. I wanted you.”
Wordlessly, David reaches over and takes his hand, squeezes.
“I remember that I kept...I would say your name. It was the only thing I said, I think, but it only came out of my mouth every hundredth time I thought it, maybe every thousandth. Because I just kept saying it in my head, over and over, I don’t know, maybe because I thought you might hear it?” In the darkness, David sniffles. “Did you hear it?”
“No, I don’t think so.” The pillow rustles as David turns to face him, moonlight washing over his profile. “I wish I could have, though.”
“Yeah. Me too.” They’re both quiet as Patrick listens to David breathe. “I was right that I could count on you, because you came and took care of me. And then I came home, and you took care of me. And then I got well, and you’re still taking care of me.”
David rolls over so that he’s practically covering Patrick like a blanket. “But I was so scared. I’m still scared.”
Wrestling his arms out from underneath David’s weight, Patrick tightens them around his back, and they shift so that David is contained more on Patrick’s chest, his cheek against Patrick’s heart. “I know, David.”
“What was I going to do if you didn’t get that shot on time? Or if Eric didn’t have the right blood? Or if you weren’t you anymore?” Patrick can hear the strain in David’s voice as his emotions tighten like a razor-wire, sharp and taut.
“But those things...they worked out. I’m still here.”
“You are. Yes. I guess I just don’t trust that it’s over yet. The other day, when you said cereal instead of silverware, my heart dropped into my feet.” Patrick can admit that he’s frightened and panicky in those moments too, when the words come out wrong, or when he still needs to hunt for the right one. “Or when you had that headache last week, I almost drove you back to the hospital right then.”
“Hey, I know it’s scary, but now, now we know what to look for, and I don’t...I don’t think it’s going to happen again. I mean, I can’t promise that, but I’m doing everything I can to make that true, David.” Patrick’s drags his fingers through David’s thick hair, scratches his blunt nails against his scalp, drawing a pleased sound from David’s lips. “Let me take care of you now. I’m ready to take care of you.” Please trust me.
“You do take care of me.” David’s voice is barely audible as he laces his fingers through Patrick’s. “And I will try to trust that we’ll keep getting to take care of each other. You’ll pack my lunches and I’ll tell you how I feel and nobody will have to be alone with this. I don’t ever want you to feel alone like that again.”
“I don’t want that for you either.”
“Okay,” David says, like he’s willing it to be true. Patrick knows that David’s still thinking about what they could have lost, but maybe eventually, he’ll see what they’ve gained. “Deal.”
“Deal,” Patrick repeats as he tugs on the soft strands of David’s hair, sealing their pact without words, because he’s beginning to learn that maybe not everything has to be said aloud.