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This is not how David expected his evening to go.
He thought he’d be enjoying some rare privacy with Patrick while Ray was in Elmdale for a business dinner. Instead, he’s standing in Roland’s living room, surrounded by very questionable decorating choices and holding the most horrifying fucking piñata he’s ever seen in his life.
“Where do I put this fuckin’ thing,” he mutters to himself, glancing around. Almost every surface is covered in balloons or porcelain figurines or Roland’s grandfather’s ashes. Even the kitchen table is full, crowded with appetizers that Jocelyn apparently made even though David specifically told her that he had already curated the perfect snacking experience (in which a Dorito-covered ball of plastic-looking cheese has no place).
“Seriously, where can I put this?”
David casts his eyes around for Roland so he can hopefully convince him to take it out back and burn it, but Roland has disappeared. Maybe Jocelyn could do it? But she’s sitting on the couch, gazing around the room, and looking mildly enamored whenever the piñata comes into her view, so he definitely can’t trust her. He stares hard at Patrick instead, using his eyebrows to broadcast “please come save me from this mutant baby.” Patrick, thankfully very fluent in David’s eyebrow language, gets the message, whispers something to Jocelyn, and comes over to David.
“What do I do with this fucking thing?” David whispers. His voice is only slightly panicked, which is honestly impressive given the situation.
“Maybe it could sit on the couch?”
“No, Patrick. No. Then people would see it. I don’t want people to see it.” His voice is rising in pitch and he wants to flail his hands around, but he can’t because he’s somehow still holding this piñata and he doesn’t want to end up with a mouthful of paper mache baby.
“Okay, okay.” Patrick reaches out to hold David’s arms, but he can’t quite grip them both with the piñata in the way, so he shuffles a bit to the side and rests his hand on David’s back instead, rubbing gentle circles between his shoulder blades. “What do you need me to do?”
“I don’t know what can be done. This whole thing is a disaster. She made pickle corn dogs, Patrick. Pickle corn dogs. In what universe do pickle corn dogs go with the selection of soft cheeses that we brought?” Patrick looks like he’s about to reply, but David barrels on. “And the decorations! They’re horrible and—”
“David, listen to me,” Patrick says softly. David meets Patrick’s eyes and they’re big and round and earnest and David knows he’s about to say something painfully sincere. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you. You can take all this—” Patrick glances around the room, then fixes his eyes back on David’s “—and make it beautiful. You always do.” Patrick smiles, and David has to glance up at the ceiling because those are very nice things that Patrick just said and if he looks him directly in the eye, he might combust.
“Okay, um, that was a very lovely thing to say.” David blinks rapidly at the ceiling before daring to look at Patrick. His face is even louder than expected, soft smile curving gently upwards and wide eyes sparkling with something David can’t quite put his finger on. “But it’s literally impossible to make this room beautiful in the given time frame. Maybe if I had eight days and a much larger budget and if the Property Brothers hadn’t blocked my number after—”
“Hey. You can do it; I know you can.” Patrick pauses, blinks once, and steps in a little closer. “And I don’t want to add more stress to the next hour, but I love you.”
David almost drops the baby piñata.
It’s just—it’s very overwhelming. Part of David has known they’ve been heading in this direction for a while now. He feels it bubble up in his chest when he first sees Patrick in the morning, standing proudly behind the register of Rose Apothecary. He feels it when Patrick remembers his very specific lunch orders, and when Patrick carefully arranges the facial cleansers in the exact way David taught him, and when he falls asleep nestled in Patrick’s arms, feeling safe and secure in a way he never has before. It doesn’t stop the other part of him—the broken part, the part that’s only said “I love you” three times in his thirty-something years—from being surprised that he’s actually hearing those words.
Also, he never thought he’d have a major romantic milestone in Roland Schitt’s living room, so. It’s a lot to handle.
“You just said that to me for the first time. While I’m holding this— ” David wiggles the piñata in his arms as if there is a possibility that maybe Patrick didn’t notice he was still holding it, “—knowing that whenever I think of this moment in the future, I will also have to think of this horrifying baby.”
“That is correct.”
Patrick’s smile is simultaneously teasing and sincere; it’s infuriating and adorable, and David either wants to throw the piñata on the ground and kiss Patrick or throw the piñata on the ground and make a run for it. In his confusing war of emotions, it’s nice to at least have one constant.
“You don’t have to say it back until you’re ready,” Patrick says. “I just wanted you to know.”
David just stares at him for a moment. He wants to say it back, he really does, the words are on the tip of his tongue, but it’s hard to push them out when they feel so foreign. Plus, the piñata is starting to tickle his face (which is very distracting and can’t be good for his complexion) and it’s really hard to say “I love you” when he’s still fucking holding something that he completely, utterly despises with his entire being.
“Why don’t I find a place for that while you finish up the rest of the decorations?” Patrick asks, seemingly reading David’s mind and taking the piñata from his arms. And, okay, maybe he could have put David out of his misery a little sooner, but he has just voluntarily taken on the burden of the baby and David loves him for it.
He could say it back now. He wants to say it back now.
“I— ” The words catch in his throat and what comes out instead is, “I, um, thank you. For taking that from me.”
“Any time, David.”
Which is a nice sentiment, but David has already spent far too much time in the company of this piñata and he’d rather not entertain the thought of having to see it again.
“Make sure you put that somewhere no one can see it.”
“Dangling in the middle of the living room, got it.”
David rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling as he heads into the kitchen to set up the soft cheese station.
The party is a success. Everyone has a great time playing “Sleepy Mommy,” most of the soft cheese station gets eaten, and the baby piñata is nowhere to be found. David is helping Patrick pack up the last of the decorations when Roland comes strutting into the room, carrying the subject of David’s future nightmares.
“Pat! Dave!” Roland calls out, a big, toothy grin on his face. “I found baby in the bathtub. Thought you might want to take him home with you.”
“Mm, no thanks,” David says, putting his hands in front of him to ward Roland off. Roland apparently misinterprets this gesture and suddenly David’s arms betray him and he’s holding the piñata again. What the actual fuck.
“Bye boys!” Jocelyn says, appearing at Roland’s side. She ushers David and Patrick out the door before David has a chance to give the piñata back or drop it on the floor or ask them what exactly it is about his general attitude towards this piñata that makes them think he’d want to take it home.
“Aww, David, it’s like we have our own baby,” Patrick teases, once they’re standing on the Schitt’s front porch.
“Okay, we literally just confessed our love for each other, we don’t need to be talking about babies.”
Patrick’s eyes widen and a grin slowly spreads across his face. “We confessed our love?”
Shit. “Mhm.”
“I don’t think that’s how it happened.”
“Okay, okay. I — ” This would be so much easier to say if the piñata’s arm wasn’t scratching his face. “I, um, I feel the same way.”
“Oh, good. So you agree that’s not how it happened?” God, Patrick is the worst. David loves him so much.
He takes a deep breath and meets Patrick’s eyes over the baby’s head. “Iloveyou.”
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“Oh my god, I love you, okay? Now can you please take this fucking thing away from me?”