Chapter Text
Rain pelts the windows as Patrick dumps his bag by the door and toes off his wet shoes, running a hand through his hair and shaking off the excess water. He’d forgotten an umbrella and hadn’t bothered to check the weather report. Luckily his office isn’t far from his apartment, but unluckily, it’s not far enough away to justify a cab ride. He pads in his socks to the bedroom, unbuttoning his sodden shirt as he goes. He’s still dripping on the hardwood floors, but it’s nothing a towel won’t take care of.
Just another riveting Friday night in the big city.
Toronto is a far cry from Schitt’s Creek, but it’s both too close to and yet not far enough away from the things he’s running from. And yes, he is most definitely running. (Or being run out, his mind unhelpfully supplies.)
He peels his soaked pants from his body (at least his briefs were spared) and pulls on a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt. He’s craving comfort food, pizza sounds nice, but he feels bad making a poor delivery guy come out in the monsoon battering his windows. He glances out and can barely see Lake Ontario, the view that made him rent the place to begin with.
Schitt’s Creek had many things, but never a view like this.
With a heavy sigh, he pulls a beer from the fridge and collapses on the couch, tossing his phone on the coffee table and leaning his head back against the cushion. It had been a long day of crunching numbers and his head hurt. Everything seemed to hurt these days, his heart included, though it had tempered from a sharp roar to a dull ache. It was constant, though. No doubt about it. It was like someone had carved part of him out with a spoon and left it back in rural Canada for him to pine after like a character in those Jane Austen novels Rachel used to love.
Rachel.
His heart clenches but not because of the reasons it used to after their many breakups. No, that little organ inside his chest is weighed down with guilt and hurt and anger and hopelessness, not because he walked away, but because she came back.
“Rachel, what are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here? I’ve been texting you for two days.”
With a frustrated grunt, he reaches for the remote and turns on the television, mindlessly flipping through the channels until he happens on a basketball game that looks semi-interesting. He hasn’t been keeping up with any sports since he moved to Toronto almost seven months ago, which, for him, is odd. Just one of the many ways Patrick Brewer is no longer the same person he once was. It’s as if his life has been separated into three distinct parts: Patrick after Rachel, Patrick after David, and Patrick after Rachel and David collided. He’s knows which part he’d pick to revisit if given the opportunity.
“It’s your name on the building. I’ll go.”
“But I don’t know how to run this business.”
“You’re a smart man, David. You’ll figure it out. And if not, well, you have my number.”
But David had never used it. In the beginning, Patrick spent more time than he’d like to admit googling Rose Apothecary, trying to see if there was even a mention in the local paper on how it was doing.
Stevie reached out from time to time, just a perfunctory how are you? via text, maybe a snarky dig in jest, but he didn’t dare ask her. David had gotten her in the divorce, but she still checks in with Patrick because, as she says repeatedly, David’s an idiot.
His phone vibrates across the glass coffee table and he glances over to see Stevie’s name on the screen. Speak of the devil. He supposes it is typical weather for ghosts from his past to come haunting him. Picking up his phone and thoroughly ignoring the way his heart starts to pound, he holds his thumb over the home button and waits a moment for it to unlock.
please don’t panic.
He frowns and quickly types back:
A wonderful start to any conversation.
The ellipses appear and disappear for a moment before her next text comes through:
have u heard from david?
His stomach swoops.
Stevie, what’s wrong?
Her next reply is immediate:
just have u heard from him?
He wants to say, No, not since that day when he ripped my heart out, but even he knows that's a little dramatic for a Friday evening, so instead, he merely offers a succinct:
No.
okay. well, if u do, can u let me know?
Fuck this. He hits Stevie’s name in his contacts and listens to the phone ring before the call connects.
“What’s going on?” he demands without even waiting for her greeting.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal? You don’t know where David is!” He doesn’t know at what point he stood, but he’s pacing the apartment from window to door.
“That’s not entirely true,” Stevie says after a pause. “He’s in New York.”
“What?!”
“He’s been going there every so often,” she says, her guilt at even revealing this information evident in her tone.
“He left the store?” The question sounds entirely too small leaving his mouth. Rose Apothecary was the one thing they had left that tied them together, even though he was no longer a part of it. He poured not just his blood, sweat, and business acumen, but also his heart and soul into making David’s dream a reality.
“He comes back every week,” Stevie murmurs. “Alexis and I run the store on the weekends when he’s gone.”
“But why is he in New York?” The business was everything to him. To them. And more importantly - “You wouldn’t be calling me if you weren’t worried about him. Why are you worried about him?”
“Technically, you called me.”
“Stevie - ” he clips, in no mood.
A harsh sigh gusts across the connection. “He - he met someone.”
And thank God there’s a chair in the corner, because Patrick’s legs give out and he collapses into it, dropping his head in his free hand and pinching the bridge of his nose. His throat is tight and his eyes sting, but his voice is at least even if hoarse when he asks, “He did?”
“Look,” Stevie begins, sounding like she hates every word coming out of her mouth, “just if you hear from him, please let me know?” Stevie doesn’t say ‘please.’
“And what makes you think he wants to talk to me?” he spits out more bitterly than he means to.
But Stevie doesn’t reply.
David asked him to leave and he did. He respected David’s wishes in a way that Rachel never respected his. But David has met someone. Someone that has Stevie worried.
He swallows hard and clears his throat. “Will you let me know if he’s in touch? I just - I need to know he’s safe.”
She’s silent.
“Stevie, please.”
They’re breaking their rule. When they speak, they don’t speak about David.
“Of course,” she whispers and it’s that, of all things, that makes a tear finally fall to his cheek.
“Is it bad?” He doesn’t want to know, but he just can’t help himself.
She breathes. “It’s not good."
He nods, even though he knows she can’t see him.
“Goodbye, Patrick.”
“Bye,” he murmurs, hanging up and pressing the phone to his forehead hard enough to leave a mark. He’d really like to throw it across the room, but that won’t help anything. And if, on the off chance, David does actually reach out, he wants to have a clear line of communication.
Worry and stress gnaw at him, chipping away at the defenses he’s tried so hard to build up over the last six months, two weeks, and three days. Slowly crumbling the wall he’s built around his heart and letting loose the pain of just missing him that he’s bricked up behind it.
But beneath that worry and stress and pain is something he hasn’t let himself feel in far too long: hope.
And because of that, he does the one thing he swore to himself he wouldn’t do.
He texts David.
xxxxxx
The E is wearing off and David’s head is pounding in time with the bass blasting out of the club’s speakers, but the weed is going strong and a hot stranger just stuck his tongue down his throat so, all in all, he’s had worse evenings.
James fucked off to get him another drink, but that was like, an hour ago so who knows where the hell he’s gone to. His libido is rivaled only by his anger management issues, if the bruise David can barely feel blossoming on his face is anything to go by. James is handsy by nature and when he’s drunk, his hands don’t quite know the weight they carry.
David’s ass vibrates and he pulls out his phone, squinting through the strobing lights and the haze of rye manhattans to read the words on the screen.
Are you okay?
He hates the way his heart kicks up to the speed of a horse in the Kentucky fucking Derby. He wants to fire back a Why do you care? but then the semi-sober fraction of his brain helpfully reminds him that he was the one who forced Patrick to go.
“You stood in front of me and told me to trust people.”
He shakes away the memory but it only makes the room spin more.
who told you
Stevie.
David frowns. Patrick used to be more teasing than that - would type back I’ll give you three guesses but you’ll only need one or some shit like that, but he supposes they’re beyond that now. They’re beyond a lot of things.
traitor
Are you okay?
There are a myriad of ways he could respond. (Ooh, myriad. That’s a good word.) Instead, he does what he usually does with Patrick. He tells the truth:
I want to go home
When he sobers up, he’ll blame his pathetic vulnerability on the whiskey, but Patrick’s response is immediate:
Where are you?
He gives a cursory glance around, but the venue looks like any other club he's been to: two floors, an abundance of booze, and a distinct lack of clothing.
I don’t know
He truly doesn’t. He doesn’t remember how he got here or where James fucked off to or what time zone he’s even in (eastern standard, please God), and suddenly the panic is rising. Christ, how did he reach this point again?
I’m coming to get you.
The panic begins to recede, but he can’t help giggling because Patrick is in Canada. Patrick has a fiancée. Patrick isn’t coming to get him.
“My truth is that I am damaged goods.”
He had said that to him once and it wasn’t a lie. He looks down at himself, at his whiskey- and sweat-stained Jean Paul Gaultier sweater. That may be coke on his shoulder but this doesn’t feel like a cocaine buzz, but that is definitely James’ cum on his sleeve from the blowjob he had given him in the bathroom earlier. He doesn’t deserve Patrick Brewer swooping in to save the day.
don’t bother
David Rose, activate the GPS on your phone. Right now.
He snorts because, right, like he knows how the fuck to do that.
no can do, button
The phone vibrates in his palm again, but this time, it’s a call, Patrick’s name flashing across the screen and causing tears to gather in David’s eyes. He always forgets how emotional weed makes him. Or maybe it’s just the man calling. He tells himself he doesn’t want to answer, but he’s lying. He does want to answer, but it’s too loud in the club to hear anything anyway. Probably for the best. He made his bed. Now he has to lie in it. Even if said bed belongs to a guy probably fucking someone else in the men’s room.
The DJ starts a remix of Tina Turner mashed with a new song he doesn’t know and he yells a slurred “Fuck off!” in his general direction, before grabbing a cocktail waitress passing by with a tray of shots.
“Hey, do you know how to activate the GPS on my phone?”
She looks annoyed at first, but then she gives him a once over and her expression turns pitying. It’s infuriating.
“Don’t move,” she instructs. “Let me put this down.”
So he doesn’t, because if Patrick Brewer tells him to activate his GPS, he’s going to activate his GP fucking S.
xxxxxx
Patrick continues pacing, guilt and elation creating a heady and nauseating combination in his gut as he waits to see if David responds. Because David told him not to reach out. Patrick offered to leave and David didn’t stop him. Maybe Schitt’s Creek really was just a pitstop on his way to something else.
He knows it wasn’t, but that's what he tells himself so he can sleep at night.
The phone vibrates in his hand and he nearly drops it in his haste to look at the incoming message. He's never been so happy to see David Rose's name on his screen.
who told you
Patrick can almost hear his petulant whine. It makes him smile.
Stevie.
traitor
He has him talking so he asks again:
Are you okay?
He flicks off the basketball because he truly could not care less. His hands are shaking with the adrenaline coursing through him and he takes another swig of beer just to settle his nerves. Come on, David.
I want to go home comes through a moment later and Patrick is up and grabbing a bag from the hall closet before it even registers that he should probably respond. Or at least find out where it is he’s going. Because, obviously, Patrick is coming for him.
Where are you?
He throws a shirt and extra pairs of underwear and socks into the bag, just in case. The jeans will survive a day or two. He'd love nothing more than to arrive and get David back on the first flight out, but he'd rather be prepared for whatever contingencies will inevitably pop up.
The phone vibrates in his pocket again and he pulls it out, his heart sinking when he reads the message.
I don’t know
Shit.
I’m coming to get you. he promises before he can think better of it. He’s made promises before, promises he hasn’t been able to keep, but if David asked him for the Titanic, he’d start dialing James Cameron.
don’t bother
Nope, they’re not doing this again. David once told him to go and Patrick didn’t fight. He should have. He should have fought with everything he had in him.
David Rose, activate the GPS on your phone. Right now.
no can do, button
The text is so utterly David, he can’t help but smile, even as his eyes sting.
“Alexis was right. He’s a button.”
He taps David’s name, heart already yearning for the sound of his voice, but Patrick doesn’t expect him to answer. Of course he doesn’t and, despite the low bar he’d set, the disappointment is keen.
He leaves a voicemail, trying not to sound too desperate or worried, as he tosses some toiletries haphazardly into the bag and leaves it by the door, before proceeding to grab his laptop off the coffee table and pull up flights. Even with the weather delays, he’s already missed them all, so he books the first flight out the next morning - one on Porter leaving from Centre Island, practically walking distance from his apartment. He’ll land in Newark, which he hears is closer to downtown Manhattan, rather than LaGuardia, though he’s never been.
Patrick doesn’t know much about David’s former life in New York, but he remembers enough to know that most of it revolved around the downtown arts and club scene: Chelsea, Tribeca, Soho, the Meatpacking District. Newark will at least get him closer to the area. And if he has to go door to door once he gets there, so be it.
David still hasn’t responded, but he remembers Stevie and he pulls out his phone to fire off a text to her.
He’s texted me.
Her response is immediate:
oh good, he’s alive.
interesting that he responds to u immediately and not to any of us who’ve been trying to reach him for 2 days.
Jesus, two days. Patrick runs a hand over his face and tries to remember how to breathe. He shouldn’t ask, but he just can’t help himself.
Who’s this asshole he’s seeing?
never met him. name’s james.
James. He hates the name.
He closes his eyes and tips his head back against the couch, mentally tallying what else he needs to pack. Since he won’t be leaving until the morning, he’ll throw his toothbrush and razor in then when he’s finished with them, though he doubts he’ll get much sleep tonight. Which means he should probably pull out his passport tonight so he doesn’t forget in the sleep-deprived wee hours.
His phone vibrates again and the alert pops up on the screen:
David Rose is now sharing his location
He gasps as he scrambles to tap the map icon, showing a pulsing blue dot somewhere in the Meatpacking District. If he zooms in, it looks like he’s on 10th Avenue between W. 17th and 18th. A quick google search tells him David is most likely at a trendy club called Avenue. He presses the phone to his forehead again before sighing deeply and bringing up the text chain again.
I’m coming for you.
He thinks for a moment before adding:
Be safe.
Only David Rose could be both the life and death of him. Christ, he can’t wait to see him again.
Thinking of the others he left behind, he opens his contacts, trembling finger hovering over her name. Before he can think better of it, he pulls up a new message:
I’m going to find your brother.
The ellipses come immediately, though the message is shorter than he expects. She must have started and deleted multiple iterations, which in itself is something. Alexis Rose doesn’t choose her words carefully.
But when the text comes, he finds himself blowing out a wet breath, unable to keep his emotions in check any longer.
bring him home. <3