Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

ALEXIS

So like, it’s totally not sad that Alexis is hanging out alone in her hotel room at 11:30 on a Saturday night. In fact, it’s the super adult thing to do considering she has a brunch meeting with the producers of a new Interflix romcom situation tomorrow. And even though Farah found those two cuties at the hotel bar who were looking for a fun night out, it’s not like depressing or whatever that she’s declined the invitation. If anything, Alexis is being a super good boss by giving her assistant the night off and the option of choosing whichever hottie she likes best out of the two.

Obviously, Alexis thinks as she sits back in her bed and turns on the hotel TV, staying in tonight is really the right thing to do. For Farah. And it’s not at all because Ted posted a precious turtle picture on Instagram today that made her stomach all cold and heavy.

Nope. Not at all. 

“Ugh!” Alexis groans dramatically and channel surfs until she lands on a home reno show she doesn’t really care about. 

It’s just that...well it’s just that it’s not fair that Ted and his stupid kissable face and his stupid cute turtles are living rent-free in her head still after more than a year. And anyway, pining after an ex is totally not a good look for her! Alexis is a boss bitch with an assistant, and an apartment in Manhattan (well a glorified shoebox, but she made it cute as hell okay), and she has better things to do than–

Her cell phone rings and the screen is lit up by a picture of her brother-in-law’s face. Thoughts of Ted, and turtles, and hot guys from hotel bars are put on the back burner as she answers with a bright and bubbly voice that she’s not really feeling. She's just happy for the distraction.

“Patrick! Are you just loving New York?! Did you guys go to that cocktail bar I told you about? If David is making you call me about how I left my bathroom, you can tell him that everyone else in the world keeps their beauty products on the counter, and like where am I supposed to put it all anyways? And yes I do need all those hairsprays!”  

There’s a pause on the other end and when Patrick finally speaks, his words are weirdly choked off.

“Alexis, uh– um, can you…? David…we...”

Alexis sits up straight, reaching out to mute the TV. Her brain switches from chatty to crisis mode like the flip of a switch.

“Patrick, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer her right away, just sounds like he’s trying to catch his breath and keep from crying all at once.

“We’re...at the...um, the ER and...and David, he’s…god…”

Her hands are shaking now. She buries the fingers of her left hand into the duvet and wills her body to remain still. Keeping her cool during a hostage situation on international waters is one thing, but the words David and ER somehow seem to be damaging her calm. Her right hand clutches painfully tight to her phone. Details. Alexis needs details.

“Patrick, what happened to David?”

But that seems beyond Patrick’s ability to tell because suddenly he’s crying in a way she’s never heard from him before, or like...maybe from anyone if she’s being honest. Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and walking to the bathroom, she begins to throw the makeup that’s been strewn across the counter haphazardly into her makeup bag.

“Which hospital?” she asks when he doesn’t respond, returning to the main room to throw the bag and the rest of her belongings into her suitcase without any care.

Over the phone she can hear Patrick repeat her question to someone nearby, when he speaks again his voice is a little clearer. “Lenox Hill...or Health? In Manhattan.”

The name is familiar and she thinks it might not be too far from her apartment. Alexis nods to herself and pulls up flights from Toronto on her laptop. It will be faster to fly out from the island instead of Pearson Airport. And the brunch meeting, well Farah is a total badass and Alexis thinks she can probably handle it...

“I didn’t know who to call.”

The admission sounds soft and lost, and Alexis has to stop her search and blink back unexpected tears. Whatever is happening, Patrick—cool, collected, button-up Patrick—must be super shaken to have thought of calling Alexis first. Then again, if anyone knows New York it’s her...

“I’m coming back. I’m changing my return flight now, just...Patrick, how bad is it? Like, really?”

“Bad. Alexis, it’s bad.”

Bad is not good, she thinks taking a fortifying breath, but it could be worse...things can always be worse.

Later when she’s in an Uber, emailing the pitch documents to Farah and texting instructions for the meeting, Alexis wonders if this is what David used to feel like every time she’d called him in a crisis. If he’s familiar with this tightening in her chest and the adrenaline pumping through her body with no where to go, making her arms and legs ache.

It’s horrible and it’s painful, and the sound of poor Patrick’s voice over the phone runs on loop in her head.

Bad. Alexis, it’s bad.

This is going to be the longest two hour flight of her life.

Chapter Text

JOHNNY

After coaxing a distraught Moira into bed for a pharmaceutically assisted nap, Johnny is surprised to find Alexis sitting at the hotel bar when he makes his way down for a weary drink. He hadn’t expected her to jump into the taxi with them after they’d all left the hospital and thought for sure she’d have gone on to her apartment, but here she is. 

“How’s Mom?” she asks, and even Johnny—who can admit he’s never been great at reading either of his children—hears the edge in her tone.

“Oh,” he clears his throat and takes a seat beside her, “she’s fine, just fine. Asleep. She just needed a rest after...well…”

Seeing their son looking so vulnerable is bringing back a lot of memories for Johnny and he knows Moira is struggling with the same ones. It’s a miracle she’s in bed right now and not currently holed up in the closet after their dramatic exit from David’s bedside. He’s half tempted to crawl inside it, to be honest.

Suddenly, Johnny is feeling very old and very tired. The chaos of the last thirteen hours is catching up to him, and he wonders if maybe he could use a nap too instead of a drink. But then the bartender is asking for his order and a brandy feels like the more immediate solution. Gone are the days when he wouldn’t have blinked at a six hour cross-country flight from LA for a last minute sojourn to New York City. Not that this is a regular visit. No, he’s been up since Alexis called at 3AM, leaving him and Moira to spiral with worry and the memories of receiving a similar call when David had only been a boy. The helplessness threatens to weigh him down all over again, like it has so many times when it comes to David.

Johnny loves his kids; fell in love with them fiercely the second both of them came into the world. But the truth is, before Eli had robbed him blind and life forced them all together for the first time, he’d never really felt like fatherhood fit him properly. Being a father had always felt like he was wearing a suit tailored to someone’s else’s body. In his day, parenthood had been this thing that people just did. You got married and had children, there was never really a question about whether you wanted to or not. And since Moira hadn’t been keen on having kids either, they’d put it off for a long time. Of course he wouldn’t give David or Alexis up for anything in the world, he loved them more than he ever thought possible. But...well, in the beginning, David had been a surprise and Johnny had felt somewhat detached from the entire pregnancy and the prospect of impending fatherhood.

It wasn’t until he had come face-to-face with the struggling premie, born two months too early, that he felt that paternal love for the first time. The love and the fear. Because David had looked so fragile, hooked up to IVs and beeping monitors as he was. And as much as Johnny had wanted to, the thought of holding him and hurting him had been too much. Even Moira had put distance between herself and the newborn almost immediately. Johnny remembers holding her hand while they both marvelled at David’s impossibly small toes and the rapid beating of his insistent little heart under his tissue-thin chest. But whenever a NICU nurse would offer them the chance to hold him, neither could do it. And so they'd been hands off with him almost right from the start, hiring a nanny who could give David what they were both too terrified of getting wrong. 

Alexis had been different of course. Perpetually late and a week overdue, ultimately being a remarkably easy-going infant and a huge departure from their experiences with David. It had felt easy to fall in love with her bright blue eyes and independent nature. Still, they couldn’t help but slip back into that trauma and fear associated with David’s infancy. It had felt safer to hand Alexis over to the nanny’s care too. 

Fatherhood had just felt more manageable from that distance. Before moving to Schitt’s Creek, it had always been this thing that Johnny could pick up and participate in whenever he had the time or the inclination. Only, he could never get the rhythm of it quite right. Case and point, the St. Michael’s decision. Sending the then fourteen-year-old David to that school had been the one and only time Johnny can recall trying to be a true disciplinarian, and he’s regretted it every day since. The thought brings to mind the memory of young David lying beaten and broken in a hospital bed (IVs and monitors again) and the thought of it makes Johnny’s stomach churn. He’d felt helpless then too.

Worse, he’d felt like a failure.

Things are different now though. He’s different and being a father has been fitting him a lot better these days, now that they all feel like a real family.

The bartender interrupts his thoughts to hand him his drink. Johnny turns to Alexis in an attempt to push the image from his mind of David hooked up to goddamn IVs and machine for a third heartbreaking time. Beside him, she is surprisingly still. She’s staring ahead, but he can see her tight-lipped anger reflected in the mirror behind the bar. 

“David’s tough,” he says to try and fill the tense silence between them. It sounds a little lame even to his ears but he presses on. “He’ll get through this, and...and Patrick too.”

He got through it once before, Johnny thinks. But a needling voice in the back of his head adds, barely.

“Yeah, well that’s not enough this time,” Alexis snaps, and tosses back the rest of her whiskey sour and gesturing to the bartender for a second.

The ferocity of her voice startles him. “Alexis–”

“No, I’m serious. I refuse to go through this again, to let him go through this again, acting like it never happened. Like everything will totally be okay. He’s not tough, Dad. He’s David. Or...well, he is tough but he shouldn’t have to be. If you want him to get through it, you have to be there for him. Like, actually be a parent and be there.”

Johnny bristles at the vehemence in her voice, and at the accusations she’s levelling at him. He’s about to remind her about everything he and Moira went through in the days after the attack. Of the anti-semetic undertones in the response they’d gotten from school officials and the parents of David’s attackers. All of whom saw Johnny, not as an equal, but as new money and other and David as some kind of predatory sexual deviant who was a threat to their boys. Of how small they had made Johnny feel, leaving the Dean’s office after his threat of a lawsuit had landed on unconcerned ears protected by lawyers the likes of which even he couldn’t afford. He thinks of the ways Moira had begun self medicating to navigate her own guilt and to forget the whole experience. He wants to point out to Alexis that, while party drugs may have been a part of their lives already, pills hadn’t come into the picture until after Moira had walked into David’s hospital room and collapsed at the sight of him. But Johnny doesn’t say any of this because in that moment, he remembers that Alexis had only been a child at the time. And how would she know any of this if Johnny and Moira were never around to explain it? How could she not blame them for how things turned out?

How could he not?

The closet up in his hotel room is calling his name again, and Johnny wants to disappear into it. The thought makes his chest tighten with guilt. Alexis isn’t even wrong, which is the worst part. Johnny knows he let David down years ago and that his son’s life has suffered for it. It hadn’t been enough to send him to therapy and pray that a professional would do everything right just to protect David from Johnny potentially doing things wrong. It was like handing off his sickly baby to the nanny all over again, because he had simply been too terrified to mess things up and hurt David more.

Johnny rests his elbows on the bar and sinks his head into his hands. Every choice he’s made in David’s life prior to their move to Schitt’s Creek feels like it’s been the wrong one. And not just wrong but demonstrably wrong.

There’s a soft huff from beside him and he looks up to see Alexis shift uncomfortably, a look of guilt tugging at her perfectly shaped eyebrows. She looks so much like Moira did at that age...

“I’m sorry,” she sighs quietly, the venom gone from her words entirely. “I know you guys were trying today and we’re not kids anymore, it’s just like...sometimes David and I need you to be the parents. It was too big for us to handle back then, and...and I’m scared it’s going to be too big for David this time. And too big for Patrick. Ugh, Dad Patrick's just like so...”

She spins a hand around, struggling to find the right word, but Johnny thinks he understands. Like his daughter, Johnny wishes he could preserve Patrick’s naivete when it comes to this kind of pain in a way he never could for his own kids. Johnny reaches out and takes Alexis’ hand in his. She lets him hold it and stares back at him with shining eyes. She’s afraid, he realizes, for everyone this darkness is touching. Afraid she’s going to be left alone to handle it.

“No, I’m sorry Alexis. I’m so sorry. Your mother and I, uh...” he starts, and has to swallow a few times before his voice is strong enough to continue. “Your mother and I didn’t handle things well last time. There were reasons for that. I’m not trying to make excuses, I just think you deserve to hear why…”

And so they sit there at the bar, her delicate hand protected under his, as Johnny haltingly explains the days that had followed David’s first attack, and then back tracks to the day David was born, because that's really where this all started. And he eventually tells her about the school, the other parents, and the pills. He explains and also makes his promises for how things will be different this time. How things have to be different.

He’s not sure how yet, but Johnny is determined to make these amends.

Chapter Text

RONNIE

She’s on her way back from a job site when Ronnie spots an unfamiliar SUV sitting in David’s driveway with a sheet of plywood sticking out from the open rear door. She slows down just in time to see a familiar figure come out of the cottage to eye the front steps warily.

Ronnie has only ever seen Clint Brewer twice, once at the Thumb’s surprise party and then again at the wedding. Even from this distance he looks like he’s aged about a decade in the year since then. And no wonder, she’s had a hard enough time sleeping at night since hearing about the attack and it’s not even her kid or son-in-law stuck in a hospital in another country.

She sighs and puts her truck in reverse before pulling up onto the property. She can only guess what Clint Brewer is up to, and by the looks of the toybox of a toolkit at his feet he’s going to need all the help he can get. Hopping out of her truck, she sidles up to him to eye the oversized piece of wood. 

“Uh, hello,” Clint says slowly. 

She cocks an unimpressed eyebrow. She knows he doesn’t remember her, and it doesn’t really matter—he’s got more important things going on after all. Still, Ronnie is contractually obligated to keep any Brewer man she meets on his toes.

“Are you planning on building something with that?” she asks without preamble, nodding to the plywood.

“What? Oh, yes. I’m sorry, can I help you with something?”

Ronnie crosses her arms. “Seeing as to how I’m the only contractor David trusts to touch this cottage, I should be asking you that.”

A flash of confusion and then relief crosses Clint’s face. “Ah, right. You might be onto something there. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. Clint Brewer, I’m–”

“The dad, I know,” she cuts him off, firmly shaking his outstretched hand. “Ronnie Lee. So, what’s all this about?”

He hesitates for a moment, and Ronnie has to tamp down her annoyance and remind herself that sometimes it can be hard for people passing through to see the difference between small town support and nosiness (of which Schitt’s Creek has an abundance of both). She decides to cut Clint a bit of slack.

“Stevie told me what happened to David and Patrick,” she says, knowing whose name will be the most effective to drop in order to prove she’s not just here to gossip. “I’d like to help the boys out if I can.”

She can almost see the weight lift off of Clint’s shoulders as he runs a hand through his close cropped hair.

“Honestly, I could use all the help I can get,” he flashes her a grimace. “What do you know about building ramps?”

Her stomach tightens. Ronnie has heard bits and pieces of information from Stevie and Twyla, who still keeps in close contact with Alexis since she left town. Nevertheless, both women have been fairly tight-lipped on the subject, ever wary of the town rumour mill. Aside from the basics (David and Patrick had been jumped in New York and were recovering there), the details of the hate crime going around town have been slim which is probably for the best. Except that Ronnie hadn’t realized anyone’s injuries were so bad a ramp would be necessary. She wants to ask which of the two men needs it—a jolt of panic runs through her regardless of what the answer is—but she stops herself.  

Ronnie needs Patrick in one piece so she can beat his ass at baseball. And David...that kid has been through enough as it is, if their Wednesday Wine Nights at the Wobbly Elm have taught her anything.

She clears her throat, “Enough to get us started.”

Most of what she needs is in the back of her truck, but she’ll need to get her circular saw and a few other things from home. Not to mention she needs to do some research on standard guidelines for ramp angles. They both decide it makes more sense to start the project tomorrow since they’re losing light as the evening wanes. They swap phone numbers and plan a start time.

“I’m covering the morning shift at the store but I’ll be back by...” Clint says, consulting a folded piece of paper that he pulls from his back pocket. It’s a schedule with handwriting Ronnie recognizes as Jocelyn’s. “...noon. I’m sure you’ve got other jobs going on, so feel free to come by whenever works for you.”

Ronnie can’t help but snort. Patrick would have been up her ass for a precise time to meet, but Clint seems more relaxed on the subject—apparently being a total thorn in her side isn’t genetic. Well, Ronnie is not relaxed when it comes to keeping timelines, the regularity and reliability of which are important in maintaining her business (even when it’s side work for a friend). She’d once said as much to David, who had rolled his eyes and told her she and Patrick had more in common than either of them cared to admit.

“I’ll be here to get started at 10AM,” she tells him tersely. “You can help me when you’re done at the Apothecary.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Ronnie,” Clint says and if she didn’t see the family resemblance before, it’s impossible to miss now.

It’s those loud as hell eyes, earnest and with nothing to hide.

“Really, I know Patrick and David will appreciate everything you’re doing to help—I certainly do.”

“Mhmm,” she gives him her most no-nonsense tone and pins him down with a single look that he shifts awkwardly under. “I expect to see you at noon Brewer. And be ready to work.”

Ronnie climbs back into her truck and is backing out of the driveway before he can respond.

Later that night, after figuring out the ramp dimensions they’ll need, she texts Clint photos of a few shower rail options along with a handful of other ideas she’s been considering. With all the bedrooms on the second floor, they’ve got their work cut out for them getting the house ready for David and Patrick’s return. Just a ramp is not going to cut it.

With her plan in Clint’s hands, Ronnie leans back into her seat at the kitchen table and absently watches Vanessa as she cleans up the dinner dishes.

Back in her youth, Toronto, Montreal and New York had always been the queer meccas of the world. But it wasn’t until her late twenties that Ronnie had stumbled across the safe haven that has been Schitt’s Creek and truly understood what a queer mecca could be. It’s been that for a lot of people like Ronnie. People like Vanessa, like David and Patrick, Ray, Jake, and half of her women’s business group. It’s like a little pocket of what the rest of the world should be.

It’s where the boys belong, and Ronnie is sure she won’t be able to fully relax until David and Patrick are back home.

Chapter Text

CLINT

The fence needs fixing, is the thing. 

Or at least that’s what Clint tells himself as he struggles to reattach one ancient wooden board to another. He’s ignoring the fact that the sun is setting and his reading glasses are lying forgotten somewhere inside, so he can’t really see a whole lot of said fence up close anyway. But he needs to be doing something, which has absolutely nothing to do with needing a break from coping with the overwhelming emotional and physical pain of his sons who are currently inside the house. Speaking of pain…

Clint curses and clutches at the thumb he’s just introduced to the flat end of his hammer. 

“Shit,” he bites out and turns swiftly on his heel only to knock his shin against the raised garden box behind him, and sending the toolbag sitting there sprawling across the grass. “God dammit!”

“Hon?”

He looks up, sucking painfully on the edge of his thumb and leaning gingerly on one foot. Marcy is watching with a look that borders on bemusement and concern from the back deck. Clint gestures lamely to the fence behind him.

“This fence needs fixing,” he says as if that’s actually a passable explanation for what she’s just walked in on. 

Marcy’s eyes slide past him as the board he’d just been struggling with falls off the nail with a thud. 

“And was the cursing and self-flagellation part of that plan, or…?”

His shoulders drop and the faint smile on Marcy’s lips folds down into a frown. She steps off the deck and joins him in the backyard, pulling him down so that they’re sitting side-by-side on the edge of the garden box. Clint watches, suddenly exhausted, as she pulls his hand into her lap and begins to fiddle with his wedding ring in familiar twisting motions. They sit in silence for a minute, listening to the symphony of crickets and cicadas and the occasional chirping call of a cardinal. Beyond the cottage’s property, a golden hue has settled on the soybeans growing in the neighbouring field, as the sun dips past the patchwork of trees in the distance. They can just make out two deer at the far end of the field munching away at the crops, blissfully unaware of their audience.

The peacefulness of the scene feels cruel in comparison to life inside the cottage.

“So the fence was calling to you,” Marcy says softly, and he doesn’t need to look at her face to know her expression is serious but her eyes are sparkling.

“Something like that,” he mutters.

“And then the hammer betrayed you.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees her nod to the hammer still clutched in his other hand. He tosses it in the general direction of the toolbag and misses by about a foot. Marcy hums sympathetically and brings his hand up to her lips for a kiss.

“Sounds like maybe the fence deserves to wait for another day,” she suggests, looking up at the sky which has darkened significantly in the last few minutes. “Emphasis on day.”

After thirty-five years of marriage Clint knows she’s trying to ease the tension in his mind with her teasing, but not for the first time he doesn’t feel equal to it. Heaving a sigh, he pulls away to rest his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. As ever, Marcy cannot be dissuaded. She leans into him and rubs small circles against his back.

“Talk to me. It’s just you, me, and the crickets out here.”

She has said this to him often throughout the years. 

Sit down and tell me what’s wrong. It’s just you, me, and the dust bunnies. 

It’s between you, me, and the cat. She won’t say a word.

It’s just you, me, and the stars.

Clint clenches his jaw to keep his chin from trembling as he thinks about the scene he’d come out here to escape from. Patrick and David in the bathroom, post-shower, the signs of Patrick not quite keeping it together all around them. Yes, he’d had a certain look of triumph in his eyes at having gotten David cleaned up without incident. But the frenzied streaks of soap across the mirror to hide their reflections, and the tired circles like blue ink thumb prints pressed under Patrick’s eyes had made Clint’s chest ache. 

And David…

When Clint and Marcy had first gotten the call from Alexis, they’d been frantic with not truly knowing what was happening. Sure, David’s sister had given them all the medical information she had but they couldn’t really wrap their heads around the extent of it. It wasn’t until Patrick had FaceTimed them and they’d been able to see his bruises for themselves that the pain and worry really became a physical thing they could point to and say this is where things have gone wrong, this is where the universe isn’t making sense. 

Because this isn’t like the other times Patrick has come home with bumps and bruises over the years. This isn't a black eye from getting a soccer ball to the face at recess, or a broken arm from a rough game of shinny. This is a parent’s worst nightmare. This is the thing that had kept them up at night after Patrick had finally come out, and they’d worried about all the ways the world could be unkind or brutal to him. But then David and this town had been so accepting that those worries had eventually been pushed to the back of Clint’s mind. It’s been so long since he’s had to worry about someone hurting his son, and now that it’s happened he has to worry about how Patrick is handling being hurt. Or handling how David has been hurt… 

Clint isn’t sure how he’s held it together since the boys got home yesterday. Marcy had called ahead to warn him about David’s state of mind, but it was still jarring to see his son-in-law’s face—normally so animated and sharp—slack and unresponsive. Worse to see the physical damage left behind from the attack when he had helped give David a clean shave just an hour ago. Before yesterday, Clint wouldn’t have thought it possible after seeing Patrick, but his son had gotten the lighter beating between the two of them. 

“Still with me, mister?”

“They’re both so vulnerable right now,” Clint finally responds tightly. “That’s not something Patrick has an easy time being.”

“Hmm,” Marcy agrees and he knows she’s thinking about where their son got that particular personality trait. “We’ll be here to help him. To help them both.”

Marcy would stay here indefinitely if they let her, Clint knows. But he also knows that where she yearns to be within hugging distance of her children—and David has long ago become that to them both—Patrick has always needed the buffer of distance, and Clint suspects that’s something David appreciates too. Whether it be physical or emotional, Clint knows Patrick often needs to work things out on his own first out of an innate sense of independence. Sometimes though, if he’s not careful, that amounts to letting things build up. It’s a delicate balance. 

“We can’t stay here forever Marce,” he reminds her gently, finally turning to look his wife in the eye. She’s looking back defiantly but she knows he’s right. “Eventually they’ll both need to figure out how to live with this.”

It’s Marcy’s turn to look away, and she crosses her arms over her chest unhappily.

“Well, that’s certainly not now. I’m not about to pack up and leave them like this.”

He takes her hand this time and she lets him, both of them staring out across the bean field to where the deer have disappeared into the indigo shadow of dusk. 

“That’s not what I’m saying. I just...I worry that when we do go, Patrick is going to struggle. He loves David more than anything, but I worry he’s forgetting to be kind to himself. That he’ll make himself sick with guilt and that he won’t ask for help until it’s too...until it’s too late. I'm terrified of what too late looks like...”

His eyes are burning and his throat feels thick. Clint’s not a big crier, was raised by a father who felt that wasn't a thing a man should be. He has to admit, seeing David over the last two years openly embrace that side of himself has been something of an education even if it hasn’t quite made Clint change his stripes. Still, he’s never had to worry about letting go in front of Marcy. She has never made him feel weak for it or stupid. And in the past when he’s needed to let the hard emotions out and couldn’t quite bring himself to drop the stoicism, she’s always told him she could cry enough for them both if he wanted.  

She’s crying now, quietly and with all the grief of a mother unable to fix what’s broken for her children. This isn't something Clint can stand to let her carry alone, and something in the sight of her like this unleashes the floodgates.

“It’s not fair,” he snaps gruffly, running his free hand over his face to scrub away the tears that have begun to stream relentlessly down his cheeks. “They don’t deserve this mess.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and can’t help the shaking of his chest under the weight of the last week and the uncertainty of his sons’ futures. He feels Marcy’s arms wrap around his shoulders and her hand guides his head down to be tucked under her chin.

“Shhh, I know. I know.”

“I could kill them, Marce. I could just kill them.”

He whispers this secret hatred only to her through clenched teeth. Only to her and the crickets.

Those men, those animals deserve worse than they gave to Patrick and David.

“Don’t think about it,” she soothes, understanding him immediately. “Don’t let them take your decency from you. Don’t let them have that.”

Clint breathes in the familiar scent of her as the anger slowly and achingly drains from him. She smells like Dove soap and peonies, and her arms feel warm as they anchor him to himself.

The sun finally disappears completely beyond the horizon and the fence waits to be fixed tomorrow.

Chapter Text

DAVID & PATRICK

David is determined to have a good day. It’s become a bit of a fixation, and one could argue that if he needs to force the matter then he must be actively not succeeding. But, no. He’s determined. He’s smiling, see? And he’d been humming earlier to the playlist of Patrick’s favourite songs that he put on for the day, even if they’re a bit too acoustic for his taste. He’s working the floor of the store, and turning up the dial on his sales charm, and hasn’t even thought about...things...in over an hour.

So this is going to be a good day, dammit. Even if David has to pull a facial muscle smiling while he listens to Bob’s meandering story about something—he never said he had to pay real attention—to do it. It has to be a good day because Patrick’s been watching him like a fucking hawk all morning, waiting for David to implode at any second. 

Which he is totally not going to do.

Except that maybe he already did a little bit this morning, and Patrick knows it. Worse, Patrick knows that David knows he knows and now you can cut the tension between them with a knife. But David has only been back at the store part time now for a week, and he refuses to let one setback this morning give Patrick the justification to send him home again.

Hence the smiling, and the humming, and the shrewdly ignoring Patrick’s wounded yet concerned looks coming from his post at the cash register. 

Because, really. One small moment of not recognizing your own face in the bathroom mirror doesn’t mean David can’t work. 

Right?

David twists his engagement rings round and round on his fingers, nodding absently to Bob but actually thinking about what Patrick had almost walked in on this morning. 

He’s been having this problem ever since the attack where he can’t quite recognize the face looking back at him in the mirror. At first, David had put it down to some weird traumatic response to seeing the bruises and cuts there, except that the problem has persisted long after his face has healed (for the most part, the surgical scar on his cheek is still very jarring). It’s like every time he looks at his reflection there’s another man standing where David should be. He should probably tell someone about it—technically that’s what Doctor Boratto is there for—but it feels too big to just say out loud. Like it’s proof he’s totally damaged beyond fixing. It’s bizarre and frightening, and in addition to avoiding talking about it, David has taken to avoiding mirrors at all costs.

It’s possible for the most part. He can do his skin care routine blindfolded, and he has something of an eidetic memory for which individual items from his wardrobe can be put together to form cohesive outfits. He doesn't need to see himself in the mirror for that. And if he’s taken to wearing toques instead of styling his hair, what’s the harm in that? It’s getting cold out so it's easy to convince himself he's just being practical. But shaving, well that’s a different story. He’s gotten into the habit of letting his facial hair get about as long as he can stand—which isn’t very long at all—before he inevitably needs to shave it down to a manageable stubble. And for that, David needs his reflection. 

Only, it’s never him. Or he knows it’s him, but it doesn’t feel like him or look like him. It’s like the wires in his brain are getting crossed somewhere and what he thinks he looks like isn’t what his eyes are seeing. And oftentimes, like this morning, the face becomes something terrifying and gruesome. Like a memory of the thing he saw in the mirror back at the motel in Niagara Falls, when Stevie and Marcy had brought them home from New York. Not a person at all, but the broken inhuman beast that sometimes haunts David’s dreams.  

So there he’d been this morning, clutching his razor in one hand and gripping the edge of the counter with the other, willing himself to see the stranger and not the beast when he very slowly dragged his eyes up from the sink to look straight ahead. Of course, he wasn’t so lucky. The gaping, bloody maw of the thing raged back at him, stuck in a silent shriek and David had dropped the razor with a clatter and had squeezed his eyes shut, willing it to disappear. 

He’d taken deep, forceful breaths through his nose and at some point must have sunk to the floor because he could feel the cool tile against the palms of his hands. The pain in his knee had flared in protest, and it might have been the only thing anchoring him to reality in that moment. When breathing had become too big of a challenge, David had dug his fingers into the sensitive scar tissue of his knee, finally managing to suck in air in order to gasp at the added pain there. 

It was then that he had heard Patrick’s tentative knocking at the door of their ensuite. With gruelling effort, David had pulled himself off the floor, keenly aware of the cold sweat dampening his face, and leaned against the counter with his back to the mirror. What had followed was a poor attempt at convincing Patrick that he was a) not in the middle of a panic attack, and b) in need of an extra hand shaving simply because his arm (freshly healed and uncasted) was feeling too weak to do it himself. The last part hadn’t been a complete lie, but it also hadn’t been enough to convince Patrick who hadn’t said anything with his words but had certainly spoken volumes with his damn eyes.

Patrick who has now materialized at his side, looking even more worried than he had just a minute ago. He’s looking at David expectantly, one hand pressed firmly to the small of his back.

“David, I asked if you’re feeling alright?”

“What?” David looks from his husband to Bob and realizes he must have spaced out for a minute there. “Mhmm, yep all good here. Sorry Bob, you were saying...something, I-I don’t…”

“Gee Dave, maybe you oughtta get that checked out,” Bob suggests not unkindly but certainly without much tact.

Patrick sighs and takes the opportunity to steer Bob over to the register to cash him out and send him on his way. David turns his attention to adjusting the soy candles on the shelf behind him, leaning on his good knee. The cane he’s been using is sitting behind the counter and he’s refused to use it on the sales floor thus far. His knee is beginning to throb though and he kind of wishes he had it now. He would go get it except that Patrick will just turn it into a thing. As it is, David is hoping what just happened isn’t going to turn into a thing all on its own. For a second time this morning, he’s not so lucky. When they have the store to themselves, Patrick returns to David’s side.

“Maybe it’s too soon for you to be back,” he says for the thousandth time, not even trying to mask the worry in his voice.

He reaches out to rub his hands along both of David’s arms, but David bristles and steps out of his reach.

“No. No, we talked about this already. I’m fine, Patrick.”

Patrick pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and sighs. “Whatever that was didn’t look fine to me, David.”

“Whatever what was?” David can’t help it that his voice is getting higher and more pitchy by the second. “That was Bob boring me to death for the millionth time! That’s all!”

“You looked like you were dis–”

“Stop!” David cuts him off, not interested in going over this again. “I wasn’t, I was just thinking about something that wasn’t Bob’s futile attempts at getting Quinn back.”

“Gwen.”

“Whatever. So sue me for not being thoroughly engaged in that ongoing saga.”

“David, I’m just trying to help you!”

“Well there’s nothing to help with right now, everything is fine! Maybe you’re the one that needs help!” 

The kicked puppy look on Patrick’s face is finally giving way to frustration. Good, David thinks. He’s getting tired of all the walking on glass that’s been going on between the two of them over the last two and a half months. He’s tired of all the things Patrick hasn’t been saying, and the weird and fractured distance that’s been forming between them because of it. David is tired of being the only one who has to acknowledge his damage, and he’s fucking done being the only one who needs to be managed and babysat. Patrick is hurting too, and David is sick and tired of him refusing to admit it and refusing to let David help him for once! A voice in the back of his head points out that David would probably be a perpetually unresponsive mess without Patrick, but the chafed and aggrieved part of him wins out. 

He’s about to open his mouth and say some of this when the bell over the door announces a new customer. David gives Patrick a this isn't over look and pushes past him, trying to hide his slight limp. He flashes the out-of-towner his most charming sales smile, and hears rather than sees Patrick escape to the back room with a huff.

“Welcome to Rose Apothecary!” 

“Hi,” the guy smiles, completely unaware of what he’s walked in on. 

He begins to meander around the shop and David takes another step closer to him.

“How can I hel...help…” 

It’s then that the nauseating smell of cheap Calvin Klein cologne hits him.

David remembers that smell clearly. Remembers the feeling of bodies closing in on him, and the pain and terror that follows.

Patrick is clutching at the edge of his desk in the back room, trying to force himself to calm down. They’d been on the cusp of breaking under the weight of the tenuous thing that has been growing between them since leaving New York, and Patrick’s not sure he can handle what that might look like. 

Over the last couple of months he’s been putting every inch of his energy into taking care of David. Into trying to keep his dissociative episodes at bay, and then into convincing himself that David will snap out of it when they happen anyway. The fear that the next episode will be the one that his husband doesn’t come back from hounds Patrick’s waking moments, and the memory of the attack that got them here hounds his sleeping ones. Between managing David and the store, Patrick feels like he’s cracking at the seams.

His chest constricts with guilt. He knows he doesn’t have the right to feel that way. His injuries (so much less aggressive than David’s) have long since healed, and it’s not like he’s the one disappearing into his own mind to escape the pain that lingers.

Patrick takes a deep breath. He’s angry with David for being so obstinate but worse than that, he’s angry at himself. He should have pushed harder for David to stay home this morning. He shouldn’t have let him brush off whatever it was that set him off in the bathroom. Not for the first time, Patrick berates himself for not insisting David take more time to heal before coming back to the store. At least until he could get through the day without needing his cane.

Patrick had held his tongue when David had deposited the cane behind the cash counter that morning, but it hadn’t escaped his notice that the other man had been limping just moments ago. He can be so goddam stubborn! 

His guilt peaks again at the unflattering thought, and Patrick is about to sink into his misery when he hears the customer’s voice raised in alarm from the store front.

“Buddy, are you alright?”

Misery turns to panic in an instant. 

Patrick whips back the curtain to see David has pressed himself bodily into the display shelves, a look of sheer terror on his face. The customer standing across from him looks at a total loss, and when his eyes meet Patrick’s he raises his hands in innocence.

“I didn’t do anything man, he just started freaking out.”

Patrick crosses the room and barely spares the guy a second glance. “It’s a medical thing, sorry. I have to ask you to go. David? David, can you hear me?”

He’s vaguely aware of the bell announcing the customer’s confused departure after an uncertain moment, and Patrick risks leaving David’s side just long enough to lock the door and flip the closed sign. When he returns, he can tell that David hasn’t dissociated yet but that he’s on the cusp of an episode. 

Patrick takes David’s hands and pulls him gently away from the shelf. Doctor Boratto has given them a short list of things they’re supposed to try in order to anchor David to reality and stop an episode in its tracks. So far nothing has ever worked for long, but Patrick—ever desperate and relentlessly hopeful—goes through the motions.

Step 1: Get David walking.

“David, walk with me. Let’s walk, okay? One step...good, and another? Good, that’s good.”

David’s body stiffens quickly when this happens, like some bizarre living rigor mortis, and getting him moving is supposed to help. Patrick walks backwards slowly, pulling David with him. He takes one of his hands and presses David’s fingers gently against the items on the shelves as they pass them. Candles, scarves, glass bottles. 

Step 2: Identify objects through touch.

“What do you feel? Hmm? What’s this?”

They pause beside the alpaca wool blankets folded neatly to David’s right. Patrick’s heart quickens when he sees David’s fingers curl into the fabric of their own accord.

“What do you feel, David?” Patrick asks again, trying to anchor him by repeating his name.

“L...Llama…”

Close enough. It’s more of a response than Patrick normally gets at this point in an episode.

“Good, good. And this?” he moves David’s fingers to one of the cutting boards Jake makes out of reclaimed wood.

But David’s eyes are glazing over and his arms are going loose under Patrick’s hands. He moves them desperately to either side of David’s face. He’s got one last trick to try. 

“Baby, look at me. David, look at my face.”

Step 3: Distract David from sinking into an episode by forcing him to concentrate on mimicking Patrick’s facial expressions.

Very slowly, and with great effort, David’s eyes slide down to Patrick’s. Patrick pulls a face, forcing an exaggerated grin. He doesn't have the time to feel silly doing it.

“Do what I do, David. Smile with me.”

It takes forever, but eventually David’s slack face twists into a sort of grimace. Again, close enough. Patrick raises his eyebrows as high as they can go. David’s pinch together before rising fractionally. They do this for what feels like forever before clarity slowly returns to David’s dark eyes, and he begins to squirm under Patrick’s hands. 

Patrick can’t help but laugh a little manically. It actually fucking worked. For one brief moment, the crippling stress and weight that has been pressing down on Patrick’s shoulders gives way to elation.

“Holy shit,” he breathes and pulls David into a hug, pressing his face into the curve of his husband’s neck. “It worked. It actually worked.”

“Hmm.”

Patrick pulls away and looks David in the eye. He doesn’t look excited by this development. Rather, he’s looking as exhausted as Patrick feels. David is always drained after an episode, and it seems that a near miss is no exception. His eyebrows crease in discomfort and he presses the heel of one hand to his temple. Patrick’s relief is replaced by worry once again upon seeing that David isn’t being spared the headache that usually follows dissociating either.

“Come on, I’ll take you home.”

Something flashes in David’s eyes and he pulls away from Patrick’s arms.

“No, I’ll just–”

“David. ”

“No. I just need to rest my eyes for a minute,” his words are a little slurred and it’s clearly an effort to string them together. “The couch in the back is fine.”

Patrick wants to argue but David is already staggering away from him unsteadily, leaning on the counter as he passes it on his way to the back room. He follows and watches as David sinks down onto the couch and falls asleep almost instantly. 

Patrick stares at him, thoroughly at a loss. His mind is still reeling from the success of what just happened as well as the insistant feeling that he has somehow failed at the same time.

That maybe he hasn’t stopped failing since New York when he hadn’t heeded David’s desperate pleas to leave that fucking alley.

When David wakes, he can tell that what was meant to be a short nap has taken a turn. From his spot on the couch, he can see the orange light of dusk streaking through the store windows, realizing that he must have slept the entire day away. He struggles to sit up and stops when he sees Patrick staring at him from his seat behind the desk.

“Hey,” he says thickly, still feeling a bit groggy.

There’s a strange look on Patrick’s face, but before David can pinpoint what it is he blinks and turns away. Patrick clears his throat and stands up. 

“Let’s go home, David.”

The briskness in his voice is enough to wake David entirely. Suddenly he remembers their argument this morning and can’t let this go on for another minute. 

“No.”

Patrick closes his eyes and visibly has to control his reaction. “David…”

“We need to talk.”

“It’s been a long day and I just want to go home, okay?”

“Why? So you can avoid having this conversation?”

“I’m seriously not in the mood.”

David sits up properly and crosses his arms. “You think I am? We can’t not talk about this.”

Patrick throws up his hands but he’s not looking at David. “I’m not doing this with you right now.”

David’s patience is as brittle as it was when they’d dropped their argument earlier. “If you had it your way, we would never do this!”

Patrick has now completely turned his back on David and is staring out into the store with his shoulders hitched up defensively and his arms crossed. When he replies, his voice is shaking. “There’s nothing to do, there’s nothing to talk about. Let’s just go!”

“Nothing to–?” David scoffs incredulously and his next words come out in a shout. “Patrick, you’re fucking drowning!”

His husband whips around, a mixture of guilt and disbelief clear on his face.

It breaks David’s heart and when he speaks again, his voice is softer. “Honey, let me help you.”

David’s not sure how he thought Patrick would respond but he’s not expecting his face to crumple like it does. He watches as the precariously built dam that Patrick has constructed around himself breaks.

It breaks violently. 

“I’m supposed to be helping you!” he shouts, gesturing wildly from himself to David. His voice is raised louder than David has ever heard it before. “I’m supposed to keep you safe, instead I’m the reason your life is ruined! I’m the reason you can’t work! I’m the reason why you can’t look at yourself in the mirror! Why you have to disappear into your own head because the pain is too much! I’m the reason for the pain, David! I did this to you! I did this!”

Patrick is shaking and he backs up until he’s pressed against the wall, looking shocked for having finally said what's been eating at him for months now. David stands and stiffly hobbles over to him, reaching out slowly but stopping short of touching him. He knows Patrick had been bottling things up, but hearing this level of guilt spoken out loud is almost too much. 

“None of that is true,” he gasps through his own tears. “Patrick, absolutely none of that is true. You do help me! You do keep me safe.”

“I didn’t! I didn’t!”

David still has his arm outstretched but it’s Patrick who closes the space between them. He leans his forehead against David’s chest and collapses, sobbing into his sweater. David embraces him as tightly as he can.

“The only people responsible for what happened are those fuckers who did this to us. To both of us! Patrick, we’re in this mess together, and you don’t have to carry the weight of what happened by yourself. You need to let me carry it for you sometimes.”

Patrick is still crying, but now he’s shaking his head against David’s chest. David has to strain to understand the words being muffled there. 

“You h-have enough to...to carry.”

David sighs and pulls back just enough to put his hand under Patrick’s chin and force him to look up. 

“Honey, maybe it’s time we both share the load.”

Patrick breaks down harder at that, and buries his face into David’s chest once more. David presses his lips into the short curls of Patrick’s hair and tightens his hold. He breathes in deeply, and they stay like that until the orange glow of evening goes completely dark around them.

Later, when they’re lying in bed and it’s Patrick who is knocked out by the exhaustion of an episode of a different kind, David watches him intently. 

Maybe now Patrick will allow himself to accept David’s shoulder to lean on. Maybe now they can move forward together.

Chapter Text

MOIRA

“John, your phone.”

“I’m driving Moira, I can’t answer it.”

Moira sighs and proceeds to ring her hands nervously as the cell phone caterwauls on without pause.

“Can you answer it, dear?”

“Oh, very well. If you insist on following every meaningless traffic law foisted upon us…” she’s still muttering when she answers the silly thing and only stops when she hears a throat being cleared on the other end.

“Moira?”

“Oh, hello Patrick. To what do we owe this communique? John assured me he called ahead to say we would be arriving shortly.”

They’re only about half an hour away, and she longs to be out of this rental car after the six hour flight from Los Angeles and the two hour drive from the Toronto airport. At the same time, she’s dreading the moment they arrive at their destination.

“Yeah, yeah he did,” Patrick’s voice sounds positively exhausted, which isn’t especially new. Every time she’s spoken to the young man in the last four months, he has sounded ready to drop. “I just needed to call to...to let you know um…”

Her stomach clenches unpleasantly.

“Let us know what?”

Beside her, John takes his eyes off the road for a brief moment to shoot her a concerned glance.

“It’s David, he’s had an episode. I was hoping it would have passed by the time you arrived, but...Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you’re prepared when you come that he’s...well, that he’s not going to be very responsive when you get here.”

Moira inhales sharply and looks out at the road before them. It’s clear of other vehicles and she can only see as far as the pale glow of the headlights reach. The windshield wipers tick back and forth like a metronome, keeping their view ahead unobstructed by the snow that has been falling since they landed in the Great North. Here, in the middle of nowhere and this late in the evening, the world around them is wrapped in an inky black darkness. She thinks perhaps she might sink into that darkness at the very thought of David in such a state...

The beating of her heart rushing in her ears keeps in time with the wipers.

“Moira? Mrs. Rose?”

Patrick’s voice, gentle and concerned, brings her back to the moment.

“Yes. Yes, I’m here. Thank you for calling and keeping us apprised of the... situation. We’ll see you both soon. Kiss David for me, won’t you?”

Moira says this last bit every time she speaks to Patrick over the phone. Has done so ever since the ugliness of New York. She says the same thing to David about his husband when they speak. Patrick’s reply this time is no different from any of the others, if only perhaps quieter.

“Yeah, of course.”

Almost too soon, John is pulling into the charming little cottage’s driveway and they both sit in silence for a moment after he pulls the key from the rental’s ignition.

“These things don’t last too long,” John tries to assure her. “I’m sure he’ll uh, come around. You know, while we’re here. Right in time for Christmas. And with Alexis coming, we can all be there for him. Together...”

“Of course, John.”

“When I was here last, he was only gone for a day and a half.”

“Yes, I remember you telling me.”

John reaches out and pulls the hands she’s ringing together apart. “I’m sure he’s been looking forward to seeing you, sweetheart. Everything will be alright.”

She doesn’t know how he can be so sure, but she nods anyway.

Patrick is standing in the doorway when they exit the vehicle, ready to help John with the luggage. It’s late, and David has already been put to bed. Moira uses this as an excuse not to look in on him. She’s terrified of looking into the dark wells of his lively eyes and not seeing his recognition for her there. 

“It’s getting late,” John says to Patrick after they’ve carried the luggage up to the guest room. “Why don’t we call it a night, and catch up in the morning? I’d be more than happy to come help out with the store, Patrick, if...if you uh, need a hand with that.”

Moira grips his arm, unsure why he’s implying she be left alone with David in his state of helpless catatonia. Patrick looks between them and smiles hesitantly, also unsure of this ludicrous scheme.

“That would be a huge help, Johnny. If the episode passes by the morning, I’ll take you up on that but um...well if it doesn’t, Jocelyn usually helps me out at the store. I’d just...I’d prefer not to leave David when he’s not lucid.”

“No, no of course. You just let me know, and we can uh, we can decide in the morning.”

They go to their separate rooms after that, Moira awash with relief at Patrick’s assurance—if not in so many words—that she won’t be left alone to be David’s sole caretaker. 

She’d been exhausted when they’d landed at Pearson Airport, but now sleep eludes her. As John snores softly beside her in the narrow guest bed—comfortable but much smaller than they’re used to these days—Moira can’t help but sink into old memories and the kind of worries that have etched themselves into her very marrow. She’s sure that if you extracted one of her bones, a rib or a femur perhaps, and cut it crossways like the trunk of a tree to count the rings, you’d find David’s name radiating out from its center, interspersed with Alexis’ in more recent years. It hurts but she knows it’s a pain of her own making. 

The worry lives in her bones, but motherhood itself has always been this elusive phantom muscle, like a second heart that sometimes startles her when it begins to beat. Like when the children had been born. Or when Alexis had broken her wrist playing polo. Or when David had been fourteen...

Her relationship with David has always been something of an oxymoron. On one hand, maternal affection has never been her forte, and so she’d always kept both him and Alexis at arm's length as children. On the other hand, she’s never been willing to let David go any further, even now. Long distance coddling, as it were. She’s never quite gotten over the scare of seeing him so fragile as an infant, and so the need to keep him safe has always conflicted with her discomfort at being a mother. Over the years she and David have developed a co-dependence on each other, built on either side of the giant emotional rift Moira knows she created between them. 

This internal conflict roils within her, and she considers popping a pill to settle it. She’s not entirely sure why she doesn’t, but it feels like something akin to guilt. Like maybe she ought to feel it. Whatever it is, it stays her hand. After two hours of unrest and unable to lie still, Moira finally slips out of bed and wraps herself tightly in her silken robe, anxious to go in search of something less drastic to calm her nerves. Wandering down the dark and sleepy hall, she pauses only briefly at the door to the master bedroom but keeps going until she makes her way downstairs. She means to help herself a bottle of wine and is surprised to find Patrick sitting at the kitchen table nursing a glass of red himself.

“Mrs. Rose, er– Moira,” he stammers, looking as though he’s been caught out. “Uh, sorry...did I wake you, or…?”

Moira takes pity on him. “Not at all. I simply could not overcome the jet lag. I wonder if I could partake in the grape? Burn the midnight oil with old Dionysus, as it were.” 

Patrick stares at her blankly. “Sorry?”

She nods to the wine.

“Oh yeah, of course.”

He fetches the bottle and a second glass and pours it with all the care of a man who has never spent a day of his young life carousing with sommeliers in Tuscany. Moira briefly wishes it was David sitting across from her, turning the bottle gracefully over her glass. Still, Patrick is a gem and she doesn’t hold his ignorance against him.

“Is this a regular late night occurrence?” she asks casually after taking a sip.

“Oh, no,” the young man seems to be struggling with something and takes a drink to collect his thoughts. He flashes her a smile that’s somehow genuine and forced at the same time. “It’s David, he um...he woke up about an hour ago.”

Moira’s heart skips a beat and she reaches out to hold his wrist. “Surely this is a positive development?”

A look like shame washes over him so quickly she almost misses it before it’s replaced by something more reassuring. “It is! It is, it can just be hard for him. He um, well I think it scares him to wake up like that. It can be overwhelming...for both of us. And he gets these headaches after. He’s sleeping it off now.”

“How grim…” Moira replies quietly, and the words almost get stuck in her throat. 

She must look dreadful, because sweet Patrick puts a comforting hand over hers where she’s still holding his wrist.

“David won’t remember,” he explains, eyes widening as if to impart this truth with every ounce of care. 

It’s the look that she saw in his eyes when he’d auditioned for Cabaret, only now it’s steeped in love for her son.

“He never remembers coming to,” he continues gently. “It’s a blessing really. He’ll probably sleep late tomorrow, but I know he’ll be so happy that he’s not missing your visit. He’s missed you guys a lot.”

She’s sure he doesn’t mean for this to bite, but it does. Moira pulls her hand away and runs her finger along the rim of her glass, unsure if what she needs to say is really what she should be saying, or if he wants to hear it at all.

“I know we haven’t been...or that I haven’t been there as much as–”

But Patrick holds up a hand to stop her.

“You and Johnny have helped us so much, please know that me and David are so grateful for all that you’ve done to help us the last few months. Really, thank you. The money…” he shifts uncomfortably and then appears to decide to barrel forward. “There’s a very real chance that we would be drowning in debt with the store right now if it wasn’t for you. I’m not sure we would have been able to bounce back. And I know that David has appreciated all your texts and calls even if he hasn’t said it. It means the world to us both that we have family to lean on right now.”

It’s quite the speech and Moira doesn’t know if she can live up to it.

The next morning, under every assurance that when David awakens he will indeed be himself, John and Patrick leave her bereft in the cottage while they depart for the Apothecary. 

At first Moira contents herself with perusing the paper, utterly disinterested in the breaking news that rural Ontario has to offer. She sips her coffee, wanders through the main floor to inspect the bits and pieces of the house that make it a home, and eventually finds herself standing at the bottom of the stairs. Why they should feel so insurmountable is beyond her...

David is up there. Vulnerable, precious David. 

Her feet take the first steps before her mind can demand they stay planted firmly on the hardwood floor. All too soon, she’s standing at the door to the master bedroom and pushing it open as quietly as she can manage. From her place at the threshold she can just see the black shock of curling hair above the slate duvet cover. Holding her breath, Moira takes one step and then another until she’s standing over David’s sleeping form. There’s a chair placed on his side of the bed and she wonders if Patrick sits vigil here when these things happen?  

Taking a seat, Moira reaches out—inexplicably moved by the desire to run her fingers through the elusive curls of David’s hair. But he’s laying just out of reach and she lets her hand fall back into her lap. Once again, she’s reminded of the rift between them.

They’ve built little bridges over that self-made rift over the last few years, and yet as she watches David—his face so open in sleep—she can’t help but think of him as her unhappy little shadow instead of the man he’s become. Such an anxious and small child, always so risk-averse and itching for as much attention as she had been willing to give him. She can admit now, in the privacy of her own mind while she sits here in this silent room, that it hadn’t been much. 

Perhaps they hadn’t been as close as other children were to their mothers, but she can at least take pride in the fact that she hadn’t frozen him out completely, as her own mother had done with her. At any rate, that closeness had come at a time when the cruelty of other children had only taken the form of taunting words and not physical assault. That would come later. He had sought her out back then, in an absence of school chums his own age—juvenile reprobates who refused to see the shine in David’s eccentricities that she was secretly so fond of. She had tried her hardest back then to fill the space she kept between them with some measure of affection, even if it had never been especially maternal. Even if she’d kept that cold phantom heart at bay. David, with his delicate constitution, had always needed so much from her. He had needed her in ways Alexis had never seemed to. Moira is ashamed to admit that she could never understand why material wealth hadn’t been a suitable replacement for the emotional connection he craved.

It wasn’t until the money was gone that she finally understood. That she could watch both David and Alexis grow into versions of themselves they could be proud of. That she could and can love them properly, and recognize their love for her for what it is. It wasn’t until there was nothing left that Moira could see how much she needed David too, and still does.

She’s so lost in her ruminations, staring ahead at David’s sleeping face, that she doesn’t notice him slowly blinking into wakefulness. But then he’s squawking loudly and throwing himself backward with a dramatise that rivals Vivian Blake’s, hand grasping at his chest in shock.

“Oh my god, what the actual fuck?!”

“Honestly, Dav-id! ” Moira admonishes, clutching at her own heart in alarm. “Is that any way to greet your mother?”

“M’kay, well how am I supposed to react to you hovering over me like a vulture a day earlier than you’re even supposed to be here?!”

Moira presses her lips together and he must see something in her expression because his face drops with a sense of realization.

“Oh. Oh, uh…” David’s tone deflates and he shakes his head a little, rolling his eyes in frustration. “How long have you been here?”

Moira hesitates for only a moment before she moves from the chair to the edge of the bed. She reaches out and cups his cheek in her palm, smoothing her thumb over the raised trail of the surgeon’s incision there. This is one of their little bridges, she thinks, crossing the gap between them. David’s eyes soften at her touch.

“Only since last night, darling.”

He blinks rapidly in a valiant attempt at keeping himself from crying and clears his throat. 

“Mhmm, okay. Well, can we please continue this conversation after I’ve recovered from literally being shocked out of my own body first thing in the morning? Preferably not in my bedroom. Part of being a homeowner is that I no longer have to entertain family in the same room where I sleep.” 

“You’re being dramatic dear, and those frown lines will not thank you for it.”

“Oh my god, out!”

She complies, feeling surprisingly lighter for having heard his voice and been on the receiving end of his dramatics. It feels a bit like home, the same way John’s hand on the small of her back feels like home, or the way the backdrop of Alexis’ bubbly chatter when they see her does.

David eventually meets her in the kitchen, showered and shaved and looking much more himself. His curls have been tamed into a straightened coiffe and he’s dressed in Givenchy, simply ready to tackle the day. It’s hard to imagine him the way John once described, vacant and lost without his usually sharpness and candor only just last night.

“Where’s Dad?” he asks, absentmindedly tidying the kitchen with a level of domesticity she’s never expected from him.

“With your beau at the Apothecary. Your father called me and suggested we all meet at the Cafe for a lunch trip down memory lane. If you’re feeling up to it, of course.”

David huffs with false irritation. “I’m fine. So yes, of course let’s go.”

“I’m told dear Twyla has invested in some much needed refurbishments?” Moira asks hopefully as they pull on their winter regalia. 

David snorts uncouthly, “That might be a stretch, but she did take my advice and buy a proper espresso machine. So small wins.”

“Indeed. Shall we walk, for old time’s sake? I must admit, after being entrapped on a aeroplane for so long last night, I’m feeling the need to stretch my legs.”

David hums, considering the cane that’s sitting in the umbrella stand by the door but opts to leave it. 

“A walk sounds nice, I guess.”

They leave the cottage and turn down the road, freshly plowed and a straight shot into town. Moira takes her usual place at his side as they walk. After a minute or two, she notes the stiffness with which David favours one leg over the other. Normally she would take his arm, but this time she holds his hand and links his arm through hers so that he might lean on her instead of the other way around. Neither of them comments on the switch-up, but she catches the twitch of a smile pull at the corner of his mouth out of her periphery.

It buoys her, and the words she’s been carefully considering since she agreed to make the trip back to Schitt’s Creek finally see the light of day.

“I hope you know that your father and I love you very much.”

David clears his throat and nods, looking to the sky instead of looking at her. “Mhmm.”

She runs her gloved thumb over his knuckles. “You’ve had an unfair share of knocks for one lifetime. I want you to know that I have every faith in your ability to come out all the stronger for them. And if you ever need...well, if ever I can be more of a comfort to you, I hope you know you can call any time.”  

David’s brows twitch together and his breath crystalizes in front of him as they walk.

“At the hospital…” He can’t seem to finish the thought, but she sees the lingering hurt on his face when she glances up at him.

She’s been holding onto this guilt for so long, but it won’t do either of them any good for her to make promises she cannot keep.

“I cannot promise you I will ever be useful to you as a mother when it comes to seeing you in physical pain,” Moira says slowly, deliberately. “It’s been a point of failure for me since you were an infant. Unless you have a child yourself, you can’t understand what it’s like to see a piece of yourself suffering like that and to feel so helpless. It stops one’s heart, lets it atrophy if you’re not careful. I’m not proud of it, David. I’m not proud of myself, but I am proud of you.”

David stops walking and huffs a little, pulling one glove off so he can wipe his eyes clear. He turns to her, and Moira’s breath catches in her throat. He looks so strong. So handsome. And yet so unsure of what he’s about to say next.

“I’ve missed you. I...I need you sometimes...”

Moira squeezes his hand, and feels a twinge pull at that phantom maternal heart. 

“I’m here now, darling.”

He nods, looking at his feet and sniffing furtively.

Moira reaches up to lift his chin and pull his face down to kiss his cheek lightly, ever careful not to mark him with her lipstick. Another little bridge perhaps.

“Perhaps we can come again soon, if you’d like.”

He nods again, the corner of his mouth pulling to one side making his cheek dimple. They continue to walk and he holds his head high.

“Yes, yeah. That would be um, good. Really good.”

The phantom heart beats again and it doesn’t hurt as much as Moira thought it would.

Chapter Text

STEVIE

Stevie has never seen an American court case in person. Watching Judge Judy alone after school at Aunt Maureen’s house hardly counts, though being in New York does make her feel like a bit of a latchkey kid all over again. Like she’s perpetually waiting for an adult to show up and tell her what to do. Nine times out of ten, that adult is Ruth. 

Like the last time Stevie had attempted to do this, to hear the jury’s verdict for herself. Ruth had taken her out for a drink when she could only make it as far as the steps leading up to the court house. They’d spent the afternoon talking about everything but the fact that Stevie hadn’t been able to handle the possibility of seeing them in person. Sometimes Stevie can’t help but wonder why Ruth does it? Why she shows up and shows interest outside of RMG business meetings. It’s yet another unlikely friendship that can be traced back to David and his family—her family—bulldozing their way into her life and changing it forever. Putting people like Patrick and Ruth in her path, to be pulled into their orbits without a second thought. Like it’s nothing. Like it’s easy. 

The thought makes her feel a little homesick for David who at least understands the bigness of that.

Sitting here in the back of this room, she’s alone now—no one knows she’s in the city today. Well, mostly alone. She had spotted Alexis sitting behind the prosecutors when she’d slipped in past the bailiff at the last minute. It’s hard to miss her, even if the tension in her shoulders looks foreign on her slender frame. Like always, she looks like a lost model who’s wandered in from a photoshoot, this time for Lawyers Monthly or Court Case Weekly. Her pale pink pantsuit is a far cry from the black one David had picked out for Stevie’s business trips—of which she’d promptly gone ahead and bought two more identical sets. It’s easy to train her eyes on the soft splash of colour in the room that is Alexis. It’s easier than letting her eyes fall onto the backs of the three co-defendants, all found guilty last month. 

Eric Aldershot.

Stephen Lipwick.

Mitchell Beaumont. 

She’ll never forget their names but she has no real desire to have their faces burned into her memory. The cuts and bruises they’d left on David and Patrick’s are enough for her. A gentle flurry of motion brings Stevie out from her reverie and she realizes the judge has just called for any victim statements to be read to the court before making her sentencing decision. 

Stevie knows what’s coming—discussed it at length with everyone involved. When the prosecution was planning their case it had been decided that David and Patrick would provide their witness testimonies remotely from home. It had been so hard on both of them, that neither man had left the house for a week afterward. So when the prospect of victim statements had been raised, pending a guilty verdict, Alexis had offered to read anything they wanted to say in their place. Mr. and Mrs. Brewer had also expressed a desire to add their voices to the mix, as had the Roses, and eventually Stevie had sent Alexis a few lines of her own. Between the six of them, they’d co-written a veritable essay to be read alongside David and Patrick’s statement.

Stevie has read both. She wonders if their words will sit as heavily in Judge Espinoza’s gut as they do in hers?

Alexis steps up before the judge, and—with a sense of courage Stevie has always admired and been baffled by—she turns to look directly at the co-defendants. Bolstered by her nerve, Stevie risks a glance too. One of them visibly shrinks back under Alexis’ withering stare. The other two refuse to meet her eyes. Stevie isn’t convinced all if any of them truly regret what they’ve done beyond the regret of getting caught. One of them has a history of this kind of thing and his fate is already sealed by state law, but the others...

“I have two statements to read, your honor. The first is from my brother and his husband.”

Alexis clears her throat just as an unwelcome lump rises in Stevie’s. 

An hour later, she’s sitting on the courthouse steps soaking up the sun and breathing evenly for the first time in months when a shadow falls over her. 

“You could have told me you were coming!”

Stevie opens her eyes to see Alexis standing over her, a look of exasperation on her face.

“It was sort of a last minute decision.”

Alexis sighs and shakes a limp hand in Stevie’s face until she gets the message and takes it, accepting the help getting to her feet. 

“Okay, well you’re here now. I don’t know about you but I need a face mask and like a crate of the strongest alcohol known to man.”

She’s never known Alexis to be much of a drinker. She’s the type that will nurse one drink over the course of two hours to keep up appearances while maintaining the sharp alertness of someone who was once technically kidnapped by an gin guzzling oil tycoon (“Oh my god, I was not kidnapped David! It’s called dating an older man!”). Stevie chances a look at the taller woman’s face and sees her eyes are indeed puffier than is probably considered acceptable by Rose standards and she looks exhausted but lighter at the same time. Reading the letters had been emotional, and Stevie is sure her own face is embarrassingly blotchy having listened to them. At the same time, two fifteen year sentences and one life without parole (thanks to New York’s three strikes law) feels like something to celebrate. 

“Sorry,” she replies dryly. “I couldn’t get Roland’s bathtub hooch past the border.”

“Ew Stevie, no! I’m like two thousand percent sure he doesn’t clean that tub between bathing and distilling. Tequila. We need tequila.”

She’s already ordering an Uber, so Stevie pulls out her phone too and opens her group chat with the guys, knowing that they’ll already have heard from the lawyers if not Alexis. 

SB: you good?

She taps her phone against her thigh until it vibrates with a reply.

PB: Good. Glad that it’s finally over.

SB: David?

PB: He’s resting. It’s wine night with Ronnie later and the guys from the team want to grab a drink. 

That they’re both going out tonight is a pleasant surprise and one more weight Stevie hasn’t realized she’s been carrying is lifted from her shoulders.

SB: good get hammered i am

She pockets the phone just as the Uber pulls up and slips inside behind Alexis. 

Later that evening, laying on Alexis’ couch as the younger woman kneels over her to smooth a weird smelling cream onto Stevie’s face, she finds herself looking forward for the first time in a long time.

“I think I’m going to take a vacation,” she says, tongue weak with tequila and words slurring slightly. “M’gonna force David and Patrick to go to Cancun with me to a three star resort just to watch David squirm.”

“Ew, Stevie!” Alexis slaps her arm with a limp hand but she’s grinning. “Oh my god, one with children?!”

It’s Stevie’s turn to make a face. “What? No! God, I have to stay there too. Is this shit supposed to burn?”

Alexis happily ignores the question about the mask and gives her another slap to the arm. “What about me? You’re going to go to Cancun without me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine, you can come too.”

“Aw, thanks girl!”

“Whatever.”

Alexis finishes whatever she’s doing to Stevie’s face and sits back, taking a drink of her third paloma cocktail. 

“Ugh, I feel like I can finally breathe again.”

Stevie makes an affirming sound and sits up so that she can take another drink. 

“I feel like we should totally like, do something, you know? Like do something symbolic to cleanse the last year and a half from our lives.”

“Not drinking tequila straight from the bottle and putting gunk on my face isn’t enough for you?”

“No, come on! Like something big. One time in Ibiza, my friend Destiny broke up with her long term hookup for the third time. And to like, get rid of all his gross vibes, we stole his tacky Maurice Lacroix watch and threw it off of Kim K’s yacht. For closure.”

“Closure…”

A thought strikes her. Stevie fishes her phone out from where it’s disappeared between the couch cushions and scrolls through her image gallery. Alexis moves to sit beside her and inhales sharply when Stevie stops scrolling, the air around them suddenly turning solemn.

There.

It’s a picture of David from last August, barely sitting up in a hospital bed, one side of his face swollen beyond recognition and the other cheek stitched together and raw. His leg is propped up to accommodate the knee surgery he’d just had, and his hair is a wild mess. He’s got one arm swathed in a cast and he’s holding the other up despite the splint, flipping off the camera. Every visible inch of him is covered in cuts and bruises, and he’s almost entirely unrecognizable. Stevie hates this picture. She hasn’t been able to delete it though, even after all this time. Even when he’d made her promise to delete it immediately.

Her thumb hovers over the trash can icon and she hesitates. The anger this photo induces in her has been something of a fuel when things have gotten overwhelming. It’s been a reminder of how far David and Patrick have come, even when David is lost in his own head or when Patrick can’t get out of bed. It has sent her rushing forward when all she wants to do is curl up and stay put.

It’s been an ungodly weight too.

Alexis reaches out and takes Stevie’s free hand, and Stevie realizes that maybe she doesn’t need that kind of fuel anymore. Maybe it’s time all of them got back to a meandering pace together, eased forward by the weight of a hand in hers or her hand in theirs. Her hand in David’s. In Patrick’s. In Alexis’. 

Alexis squeezes her fingers gently and Stevie taps the screen. 

“Almost as good as Ibiza,” she says, truly feeling lighter.

“Oh my god, yes!” agrees Alexis brightly, back to her bubbly self like the flip of a switch. “But just imagine how cathartic it would have been to throw the whole thing off the side of a yacht!”

Chapter Text

DAVID & PATRICK

It looks different in the daylight. 

The space is nothing more than a little strip of pavement sandwiched between two brick buildings. The Italian restaurant is closed this early in the day, so the lights around the door hang cold and unlit. David leans against the wall at the mouth of the alley, and sips his coffee slowly as he takes it in. It’s such an unassuming corner of the city. It certainly doesn’t give the impression that one night five years ago a ripple went out into the world, changing the course of his life and the lives of his loved ones forever. No, it’s just an alleyway; nothing more, nothing less. Maybe he should have been more careful than to come here alone, but as predicted this place has no real hold on him. Maybe at night…

He doubts it even then. Historically, New York has been the setting of many a traumatic experience, but David has never considered the city to be the problem. In every instance, it’s been the people or the person he was at the time, that have the tendency to cling like tar to his lungs. It’s always been the hangers-on and people in the periphery who take and take, and never seem to stop taking. And yet, through it all New York City has remained constant—a staunch and solid presence that has always given David what he’s needed in the past even when he didn’t know he needed it.

A thousand quiet book stores smelling of roasted coffee to relax in when his mind went into overdrive.

An endless supply of art galleries to explore when he needed to fill the hole in his soul with the passion of others.

A seedy diner on every corner to stumble upon and sober up in after a night out when everyone else had gone home without him.

The kindness of an unsuspecting couple, unlucky enough to stumble upon two strangers being brutalized in the street.  

New York has always known what to give David, almost as if it’s capable of loving him back.

With a sigh, David pushes off from the wall and checks his phone. No texts from Patrick, but there's a rude string of emojis from Stevie who's flying into the city tonight, and a text each from his Dad and Marcy just checking in. He takes a second to reply to them all before making his way back up the street. Coming here was very much out of the way, and it’s a twenty minute walk to get back to the hotel. As he walks, he puts the alley out of his mind with a sense of finality and makes a mental list of all the other things on the docket for the day. When he finally reaches the Marriott, he drops into the coffee shop across the street before making his way back to his room.

Opening the door, he finds Patrick sitting anxiously on the edge of their bed nervously wringing a white scrap of David's journal paper in his hands. 

“Hey you,” David dips down to press a kiss to his temple and deftly exchanges the note for tea. “How was the nap?”

“Where were you?” Patrick asks in lieu of an answer, voice piqued with worry.

“Just went for a walk. I had to call Jocelyn about that hand soap shipment and didn’t want to wake you.”

The note he left says as much, but he doesn’t begrudge Patrick his nervous tone. Being in New York is easy for David but that isn’t at all the case for his husband, so he’ll gladly put every inch of his energy into being calm and patient for Patrick’s sake while they’re here.

“How’s the tea?” he asks, sitting at Patrick’s side and dropping a kiss to his shoulder. “They were too pretentious for orange pekoe so I had to improvise.”

His laugh is a little thin but he takes a sip and nods. “Hmm, just pretentious enough.”

Now that he can see David—can touch him—Patrick seems to start to relax. Mission accomplished, David lays back and closes his eyes. He can feel Patrick turn slightly beside him to reach out and run a hand down his thigh. He stops at David’s knee and smooths his thumb over it. 

“Did you walk far?”

“A little.”

“Want me to book some physio for when we get back?”

“Hmm, thanks honey.”

David’s knee doesn’t ache now, but it usually does after a few days of walking around New York. He’s visited Alexis twice since their anniversary trip and he’s always stiff when he gets back. It’s usually a point of contention for Patrick (who has opposed both trips) but he just sounds concerned now, not combative.

David doesn’t blame New York for what was done to them but Patrick does. Over the past couple of years, his distrust in the city has led to some of their most intense fights. He’d fought so hard when David had expressed the desire to go back the first time to see Alexis—to fall back into the city’s embrace. He hadn’t understood how David could want to return to the place he felt had hurt them so badly. How he could risk going back and relapsing into a dissociative state without Patrick to be there to help him. In the heat of the moment Patrick had called it masochistic and selfish, among other worse things. When Stevie had driven a tearful David to Toronto for his flight, he had truly been unsure what would be waiting for him at home four days later. In the end it hadn’t been the silently incensed and hurt husband he’d left behind, but the frightened man he’d been desperately missing looking lost and inconsolably guilty waiting for him at the gate at Pearson Airport.

They'd forgiven each other in the end, but the second visit hadn’t gone much better.

Before now, David had entirely given up on persuading his husband to join him on these infrequent trips. So it had been a shock, though a welcome one, when Patrick had anxiously suggested it himself a few months ago. More than anything, David suspects Patrick’s therapist is the one who finally convinced him it might be worth reconciling with the city he blames so vehemently for the pain they’ve been put through. David doesn’t mind, he’s just happy to be here helping Patrick take this step forward. And anyway, he’s all too familiar with the strange ways fear can manifest itself. So who is he to judge being afraid of a place as if it were the perpetrator?

The bed dips down further beside him, and David opens his eyes to see Patrick laying on his back too, head turned so that they’re eye-to-eye. His face is still pinched but he looks better than he did when David first walked in.

“Ted texted to say they’d meet us at the stadium instead of for lunch first. Something to do with a lemur incident at the zoo.”

“Brave of him to deny a pregnant woman a meal but okay.”

“I’m sure Alexis is fine,” Patrick smiles softly. “She’s pretty formidable even when she’s not six months pregnant.”

David’s hum is skeptical. “Frankly, he’ll be lucky if she doesn’t put him on a boat back to the Galapagos.”

With a huff of laughter, Patrick turns onto his side with his knees partially drawn up. David rolls over to mirror the position and leans in to press a small kiss to Patrick's lips. For a moment they lay here in silence, and it’s like the worry of only moments ago visibly drains away from him. David can tell that, despite the anxiety of being here, he’s excited to see and fuss over Alexis. He’s happy to spend some quality brother-in-law time with Ted. He’s looking forward to the Yankees game today and the private tour of Central Park Zoo (courtesy of the head vet) tomorrow. Despite the fear and the nerves and everything else, Patrick is already building new memories of this city that loves David like he loves David. And like New York, David hopes he’ll always know what to give Patrick when he needs it.

David can feel this dark chapter of their lives closing, and he relishes in the prospect of each new turning page of their future.