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David was getting ready for bed at Patrick’s apartment when the discussion he’d been avoiding all night sneaked up behind him while he was performing his nightly cleansing routine in the bathroom.
“You weren’t at all comfortable with the idea of me going out with Ken, were you?” Patrick asked from behind him, that snarky little smile that’s usually reserved for mocking David reflected in the bathroom mirror.
David looked at him in the mirror, and it was tempting to fall into his old habits of projecting and denial and sarcasm. But he was trying hard not to do that anymore. All his anxiety projecting ever got him was a broken heart and hurt feelings, and sometimes actual physical pain… and he didn’t want to be like that anymore. Not with Patrick. He wanted to be open and honest, like Patrick was with him, even though the idea of opening up to Patrick caused him actual heart palpitations when he considered the possibility of Patrick leaving once he discovered exactly how fucked up David Rose really was.
“I was… at first,” David put down his facial wipe and turned to Patrick. He wrapped his arms around Patrick’s neck and pulled him close. “But then… I got insecure about it.”
“Yeah?” Patrick pulled his head back slightly, with an adorably concerned frown on his face.
“Yeah. At first, I was confident about it because I do trust you, even if it doesn’t seem like it at times,” David said softly. “But then Alexis got into my head and convinced me that I did have to worry about you choosing Ken.”
Patrick looked ready to argue but seemed to change his mind once he focused on David's face.
David pulled out of the embrace and gestured towards himself, “I don’t know if you’re aware, but I’ve spent most of my life as a metaphorical train wreck.”
David took a deep breath and stepped back against the bathroom sink. He bit his lip to keep from rambling or blurting out something that Patrick didn’t need to know about him and really thought about what he wanted to say.
Like he’d told Stevie, historically speaking, whenever David had revealed anything about himself to the person he was dating, they became less interested in being with him. And over time, he’d learned not to be himself to keep people from walking away. The therapist he used to see regularly had always thought that David’s early lack of a relationship with his parents had been part of the reason why he tried too hard to be loved by other people, and David could see some sense in that theory. He now knew that it wasn’t that his parents hadn’t loved him, because they clearly did. It’s that they’d allowed there to be so much distance between themselves and their kids that they weren’t sure how to show their love. And subsequently, maybe David had never learned how to show love either. Except for the kind that drove people away from him, over and over again. Mariah Carey obsession aside, there are reasons David has always had trouble with the words, ‘I love you’.
Patrick was looking at him quietly, with those eyes that seemed to look right into him, and David watched him relax against the door frame, hands clasped behind him, obviously waiting patiently for David to get to his point. That was another thing David loved about him. He took the time to wait for David, like he instinctively knew what David needed was the time to form his thoughts.
“Okay… so… the thing I said about me being damaged goods. I meant that. I panic at everything good that happens for me because I’m convinced that it’s only a matter of time before I lose whatever good thing I have.”
“David,” Patrick said softly.
“I can’t stop it. Literal years of therapy haven’t stopped it,” David could feel the tears forming in his eyes and blinked as he turned away. It was easier if he didn’t look at Patrick because the man always looked at him so earnestly, as if David was the most important thing in his life at that moment, and sometimes it was too much for David to handle.
He kept his head turned as he continued, and he cleared his throat to stop sounding so hoarse, “People don’t choose me. Historically speaking. If given a choice between me and literally anyone else… the people in my life have always chosen the anyone else. It’s not easy to accept that kind of thing about yourself… that you are the kind of person that nobody wants around.”
He was reminded of when he was little, when he often felt like not even the nannies wanted him around, even though they were literally paid to care for him. David had always been difficult for them to handle, and his therapist, the one he saw when he was older, theorized that it had just been David acting out to get his parents’ attention, a trick that, of course, had never worked. One of these days, he needed to sit down with Alexis and talk about these things because he knew she had gone through the same thing as a kid. It might even make his relationship with his sister better than it was now… which was already a better relationship than they’d had years ago. It’s also the reason he clung so tightly to Stevie. She was the first person he’d met that had wanted to keep him around after the sexual aspect of the relationship was over. When he’d invited her to come to New York, it had been because he couldn’t face the idea of leaving behind someone who, for once, hadn’t left him.
David felt Patrick’s hand slip into his and he squeezed those strong fingers back in reassurance as he stopped to gather his thoughts again. He turned to Patrick and smiled, but he knew it wasn’t the kind of smile that Patrick would be happy with.
“David, I love you.” Patrick looked desperate to stop the thread of this conversation.
“I know you do, and I love you too. The problem is that there are times when I don’t know how to handle that, and to be honest… telling you this has me terrified that you’ll see how much of a train wreck I really am and then plan your eventual escape.” David breathed out slowly, his anxiety spiking again.
“Never,” Patrick said firmly.
“I really thought, when I suggested that you go out with him, that it was a good idea. I love you, and I want you to be happy. And I want you to have the experiences that you didn’t get to have when you were younger. If you want them, of course. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. But then, after you told me what time you were meeting him, I started to get worried. And thanks to Alexis, I wondered if the conclusion you would come to wasn’t about how good you have it with me. Because, like I said… people don’t usually think what they have with me is good. You’re the first person who ever even suggested the idea of living together, and yeah, I know now that you needed to do that on your own. But it was nice, for a while, to think that you wanted me here permanently,” David confessed, and he pressed his lips together firmly to avoid tearing up again.
He had told himself he wasn’t going to tell Patrick about how that miscommunication had left him feeling.
David looked back at him, but Patrick looked devastated, and that expression was never a look David wanted to see on his face. He reached forward and cupped Patrick’s jaw, “It’s okay. I never blamed you for how I was feeling at the time. You have every right to want to be on your own. That was all me.”
Patrick shook his head, “No… no it wasn’t. I made you feel that way?”
“No, I just misinterpreted what you said,” David insisted.
“But I caused that when I said we needed to find a new place,” Patrick took David’s hand and kissed his palm. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need you to apologize for that,” David said softly.
“Well maybe I need to do it… for both of us,” Patrick replied. “I promised myself I wouldn’t hurt you again after the Rachel Crisis, and then I did it. Even if I didn’t mean to do it... that doesn’t erase the fact that I hurt you, and I’ve never wanted to be just another person in your life who hurt you.”
“And I love you for that,” David said as he tried to compose himself again because he sometimes couldn’t believe how Patrick could know just the right thing to say to him at the right time. It was a trait that David wished he had in return. “You have no idea how much.”
David looked at Patrick, who was still tearing up at David’s confession, and David wanted to kick himself for putting that look on his face.
“You chose me, Patrick,” David said softly. “You fought to get me back after the Rachel Crisis and then you chose me over another man. Nobody does that for me. I’m sorry I took advantage of that after Rachel, but I’ve literally never had anybody want to get me back. I didn’t know how to handle that. And when I opened the door tonight and saw you standing there, I was terrified that you were about to tell me that Ken was great and that you realized you wanted him.”
Patrick looked as if he was about to argue but David continued, “I know… as much as I found it hilarious that you were jealous about Ted, the idea that you were going to leave me nearly paralyzed me emotionally. And I do realize that I did that to myself by suggesting you go out with him.”
“You had good intentions. And I love that you care enough about me to worry about me having the chance to spread my wings. It’s just that I realized, maybe not soon enough to stop you obsessing over it, that I don’t need to do that,” Patrick reached out to hold his hand again.
“There are times when I wonder what you see in me,” David said softly. “I know it’s me and my insecurities. But when you learn over and over that you’re dispensable to other people, it makes you wonder… it made me wonder… what it is about me that’s so intolerable. I’ve been cheated on, and I’ve been left behind, and I’ve been used by people who just wanted access to the Rose fortune. Every time I’ve started to feel something real for someone, that person has turned out to want something else or someone else… or just not me. Never me.”
“Sweetheart,” Patrick whispered as he cupped his face, and David smiled at the endearment because Patrick had never used it before.
“My mother told me once that you see me for all that I am, and she’s right, and that terrifies me because what if who I really am is the part that you’ll eventually find intolerable?”
Patrick stepped forward and wrapped his arms around David’s waist, “That is not going to happen.”
David raised his hands to grip Patrick’s arms where they encircled him. “I know you think that, and I love that you think that. But you don’t know that for sure.”
“Nobody knows how the future is going to go, but I can tell you something about the present and the recent past, David. I chose you because I’ve wanted you since the moment I met you.”
David looked at him again but stayed silent. He wouldn’t know what to say to that anyway.
“You walked into what was supposed to be my office, and you were so beautiful. You were snarky and standoffish, and you clearly thought I was making fun of you.”
David raised an eyebrow, “Because you were. You were literally making fun of me.”
Patrick laughed, “Okay maybe a little. But in my defense, you are so easy to tease.”
“I take it back. You are not nice,” David glared.
Patrick left one hand on his waist but raised the other to stroke David’s face, “Once I saw you, that feeling I told you about… that feeling of finally being right started. I saw you and a voice in my head said ‘Oh, so that’s what’s different about you,’ and I knew that I wanted to see you again. I wanted to see you so much I inserted myself into your life and stayed there. I mean, who does that, David?”
David smirked, “Stalkers do that, Patrick. Stalkers.”
Patrick closed his eyes and sighed with obvious regret at ever having met David.
“I’m sorry. Do go on because I have a feeling I’m going to like the end of this story,” David conceded.
“I don’t know what I have to do to convince you that I’m not going to leave you, but I will do whatever it takes,” Patrick promised with a look of furious intent on his face.
“My insecurities are not your responsibility, Patrick,” David replied. He knew he needed to work on that on his own, before he really did something to sabotage the best thing that had ever happened to him. “They’re mine. But I’m going to work on them because I love you. Nobody has ever made me feel the way you make me feel, and I don’t ever want to lose that.”
Patrick kissed him softly, and David always loved the way Patrick kissed him. Patrick always gave him the sweetest ‘heart eyes’ before he stepped in close, and his eyes always dropped to David’s mouth, like he was imagining kissing David before their lips ever met. It was sexy, and it made David feel wanted like nothing else ever had.
David bent his head to brush his forehead against Patrick’s. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too. Now will you come to bed?”
“Yes, I will. If you will make me breakfast in the morning.”
Patrick laughed, “I will but you have to get up early for that.”
“Do I, though? After all, you did try to go out with another man tonight.”
Patrick's expression turned incredulous, “You’re the one…”
“That’s not how I remember it,” David interrupted with a grin. “Now go wait for me in bed. I will be right there.”
Patrick sighed and left the bathroom.
“And don’t you start thinking about Ken or Ted while you’re in there,” David called out as he finished his skin care routine. “I don’t care if they do go to the gym.”
“David.”
He grinned at himself as Patrick’s voice took on that high tone of frustration.
David peered out of the bathroom, “See… I’m not the only one who is easy to tease.”