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December 20th
It’s five days until Christmas, one day until his in-laws arrive for their first holiday in Schitt’s Creek, and David definitely is not freaking out at all.
Okay, well maybe a little.
He and Patrick have yet to host a holiday in their new house. The first holiday season after they got married, they stayed home by themselves and told everyone to leave them alone (well, David did. Patrick was much nicer about it). The second year, Hanukkah coincided with Christmas so Patrick’s parents joined them in LA to celebrate with David’s family.
But this year, his mother’s shooting schedule is too hectic (after winning a Primetime Emmy this past awards season, her stock shot up and now she’s busier than ever) to travel anywhere. Alexis is back in Schitt’s Creek this year, though David has a hunch that that has more to do with the fact that she heard Ted was back in town than it does celebrating Christmas with her family. Normally, David would be thrilled to have his sister back in town, but coupled with the fact that Clint and Marcy asked if they could spend Christmas in Schitt’s Creek as well, it’s almost too much.
Okay, so maybe he’s more than a little stressed. Sue him.
“David.”
“Hmm?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the tree that he just can’t seem to make perfect.
“Can you look at me?” When David doesn’t, Patrick removes his hands from the ornaments and steps between him and the tree. David has the urge to push Patrick out of the way, but he reels it in – he’s been trying to be a nicer person recently. Even if Patrick makes it nearly impossible sometimes. “David, you need to stop.”
“Well, if this stupid fucking tree decides to cooperate, then I will,” he replies. He knows he’s being stubborn and he’s testing the limits of Patrick’s endless patience but he can’t find it in himself to care.
Because everything has to be perfect. He can’t give Patrick’s parents a single reason to make them change their minds about him and decide he’s not good enough for their son. They may be the nicest people David’s ever met, but he also knows that he’s the sort of person people can only tolerate for so long. Hell, sometimes he worries that Patrick’s tolerance is about to run out.
So, everything needs to be perfect.
Patrick moves his hands to the sides of David’s face, forcing eye contact. “David, the tree is about as close to perfect as you can get. Everything looks amazing and I just need you to relax before you give yourself a heart attack. Can you do that for me?”
“I. Will…try.”
Patrick flashes the smile he reserves specifically for David that, to this day, does funny things to David’s heart. “That’s all I ask.” With a quick kiss to David’s forehead, he walks away, leaving David once again alone with his nemesis the Christmas tree. As he’s reaching out to fix an ornament that refuses to sit straight he hears, “David, move away from the tree,” from behind him.
He drops his hand and takes a few big steps back even as he says, “Fuck off.”
Patrick laughs and replies, “Love you, too.”
David rolls his eyes and examines the tree. Maybe Patrick’s right and it’s okay that it"s not perfect. Maybe an out of place ornament won’t entirely ruin Christmas and make his husband’s parents hate him.
Or maybe he’ll sneak downstairs after Patrick goes to sleep and fix it.
December 21st
The next morning, David can’t sit still. He has never been so nervous in his entire life and the thing is, he knows that it’s irrational. Marcy and Clint love him and he knows they aren’t going to judge him or the house or whatever the fuck else. And yet, here he is, pacing and trying not to vomit all over his living room.
“David.”
“Nope, I don’t want to hear it,” he says, holding up a hand to stop whatever Patrick was going to say as he continues to pace. At this point, he’s going to wear a hole in the hardwood, but he can’t find it in himself to care. Maybe if he makes the hole deep enough, he’ll be able to fall into it and he won’t have to do this.
Patrick says nothing else and David appreciates the fact that, despite how much he loves pushing David’s buttons, Patrick knows when to back off and give David the space to sort things out in his own mind.
Unfortunately, his sister isn’t quite as considerate.
She’s basically floating when she walks in the room and David wants to hate her for the way she doesn’t have every single anxiety in the world crushing her chest. She stands and watches him curiously for a minute, the way one might watch an animal at the zoo. David certainly feels like a caged animal. Right before he’s about to snap at her to leave him the fuck alone, she says, “Oh, my God, David. Can you, like, chill for a minute? You’re making me dizzy.”
That stops David in his tracks as he turns to glare at Alexis. “Oh, I’m sorry I’m bothering you. I’ll just get out of your hair. Oh, wait, no. You’re in my house so if you don’t like it feel free to fuck off.” It’s mean and he knows it and he takes a deep breath to try and rein it in. He’s not entirely sure that it works.
Alexis’s expression softens and she drops her arms from where she had them crossed over her chest. The curious look is replaced with one that looks like pity…or maybe concern – David isn’t quite sure what the difference is. He holds her gaze, intent on making her look away first, but the way she’s looking at him like she cares is just too much and he tilts his chin up, squeezing his eyes closed.
“David. Sit.” He shakes his head and crosses his arms over his chest tight, feeling like a defiant child. “David.” He opens one eye to see Alexis sitting on the couch, waiting for him. When she sees him looking, she pats the spot next to her, leaving no room for refusal. David sighs and flops onto the couch, resting his head against the back of it and refusing to make eye contact. “You need to stop worrying so much. You’re almost forty and I know you don’t have the money to pay for Botox.”
“Okay, if you’re just going to sit here and insult me, you can leave.”
He feels Alexis shift and he turns his head to find her sitting cross legged on the couch, facing him. “Seriously, David, what’s going on? Patrick says you won’t talk to him.”
Of course Patrick was behind this. For all of the growth they’ve had over the last five years, it’s still hard for David and Alexis to have conversations like this and sometimes they both need more than a little prodding. But David also knows that neither his sister nor his husband will let up until he talks to one of them, and right now, Alexis would understand more than Patrick.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he says and it only feels a little bit like the confession is being ripped from his chest.
“Do what? Host an event? David, you’ve been doing that since I was in diapers.”
David shakes his head, knowing he’s messing up his hair in the process. Hopefully, he’ll have time to fix it before the Brewers come. “No, not that.” What he doesn’t say is that his event planning had never come easily to him, that he’d had to work so hard every single time. Just like with everything in his life. “I meant…just. All of this.” He waves his hands around, gesturing at the room.
And that’s really the root of it. It isn’t that he’s worried about ornaments or Christmas dinner or if the guest house looks nice enough. He’s worried that he’s going to crack and they’re going to see through the walls he’s put up. That they"ll see he doesn’t really know how to live a domestic life with a family holiday in a cozy house that he owns with his husband.
“No, yeah, I totally get that.” She reaches out and puts a hand on his forearm. To his credit, David doesn’t pull away. “But you can do this. You’ve been doing it.”
Alexis’s sincerity makes David squirm. He’s used to it from Patrick, who is never anything but earnestly sincere, but coming from anyone else, it makes David feel flayed open. He desperately wishes Stevie was here to tell him to stop being a fucking idiot and give him a drink. He scoffs and says, “Yeah, whatever,” keeping his voice low so she can’t hear the tears that are threatening to choke him.
Patrick chooses that moment to enter the room, carrying two large mugs of hot chocolate, which makes David think that he had been waiting just around the corner for the perfect moment to appear. David smiles as he accepts the mug, loving the way Patrick just always knows what he needs. When Patrick sits and pulls David’s legs into his lap, David impossibly falls deeper in love with him.
“Are we feeling better?” The tone is teasing (from anyone else, David may have dared to call it patronizing) but the undercurrent of concern is there. David wonders how he went over thirty years without Patrick Brewer by his side, how he managed to make his way through life without this love and stability. “Good,” he says, when David nods, words failing him. “Because my mom just called. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”
“Oh, my God!” David jolts, the nearly full mug of hot chocolate threatening to slosh over the rim. “You can’t just spring that on me, you fucking dick.”
Patrick gently moves David’s legs and stands, laughing. “You just stay here and relax. I’ll take care of everything.”
“You know damn well I’ve never relaxed a day in my life,” he counters with a scowl.
“I know.” Patrick shoots him his terrible approximation of a wink and kisses the top of his head. “I love you, David.”
“Love you,” he says to Patrick’s retreating back.
“Breaths, David,” he hears Alexis say, and oh he isn’t breathing. He sucks in a few deep breaths and he feels better. Alexis pats his arm and they drink their hot chocolate in silence until they hear the door open. Alexis takes the now empty mug from him. “You’ve got this,” she says, heading towards the kitchen.
Expecting Patrick, David is taken aback when Marcy walks in alone. He practically jumps to his feet to greet her and she laughs. “There’s no need to get up, dear.” Even still, she crosses the room and pulls David into a hug. He’s still amazed at how someone so much shorter than him can make him feel protected and secure. “It is so good to see you, David.”
He steps away from her embrace and adjusts his sweater even though it doesn’t need it, just to have something to do with his hands. “You, too, Marcy.”
Marcy looks around the living room and David watches her nervously, even as a gentle smile spreads over her face. “The house looks absolutely gorgeous,” she says, but David barely hears her over the anxious pounding of his heart.
Still, he manages to thank her as the front door opens and then closes a moment later. Patrick and Clint enter the living room, dragging suitcases behind them. David’s anxiety spikes – the Brewers were supposed to be staying in the guest house and he had spent an entire day making sure everything in there was perfect. Patrick catches his eye and gives him a look that says breathe before you pass out as he says, “Heat’s out in the guest house.”
“Mhmm yep,” David says, just to have something to say so he won’t start screaming, and he can feel everyone’s eyes on him. “Um.” He doesn’t have a back up plan. Alexis is in the guest room and the third room upstairs is home to all of his clothes that wouldn’t fit in his closet. He supposes he could call the motel and ask for a room but that defeats the purpose of a family Christmas and, besides, he can’t even remember the name of the kid Stevie hired to watch over the place whenever she went out of town. Fuck, why doesn’t he pay attention when people talk to him?
And, great, now he’s spiraling. He’s vaguely aware of Marcy reaching out to touch his arm, but he can’t feel her. Patrick is watching like he might actually pass out and Clint has that strange look he’s come to learn is fatherly concern and David feels so guilty that they’ve been here all of three minutes and everything’s already going to shit.
“You guys can take my room!” Alexis’s voice, loud and clear, breaks through David’s panic. She gives him a not so subtle double wink then returns her attention to his in-laws, who are already insisting that they can’t kick Alexis out. “Please, it’s totally not a problem. I’ve slept in worse places than David and Patrick’s couch. There was this one time…” Her story fades out as David’s pulse starts to level out. By the looks on Marcy and Clint’s faces, it’s probably one of her more horrifying tales.
He’s pulled out of his own head and back to reality by Patrick saying his name in a tone that suggests he’s said it multiple times. “Sorry, what?”
“Alexis wants your help moving her stuff.” David groans, he’s not really in a helping mood, but he follows her up the stairs anyway because he does owe her for saving his ass.
“You’ve been here less than two days, how much help could you possibly – Alexis, what the fuck?” His beautiful guest room looks like a tornado ripped through it, though unfortunately, it had failed to take his slob of a sister with it.
“Oh, my God, David, it is not that bad.”
“Not that bad?”
Before he can list everything that absolutely is that bad, Alexis grabs him by the shoulders and forces him to sit on the bed. “Stop. You’re going to have another panic attack.” He looks around at the mess, argument already forming, but Alexis cuts across him before he can say anything. “No. I didn’t give up sleeping in a bed just for you to come up here and have another breakdown.”
“I don’t need you to save me, Alexis,” he snaps. He doesn’t like feeling helpless, doesn’t like not being in control, doesn’t like being the one that needs to be saved.
“Yeah, well, you’ve saved me enough times. So I thought I should repay the favor or whatever.” Alexis flicks her hair over her shoulder, perfectly aligned with her flippant tone, but the undercurrent of genuine emotion is thick between them.
“Oh,” he says because what else is there to say? “Well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her bright smile is back, the one that David used to think meant she was effortlessly happy all time but now knew meant she was happy but she put conscious effort into it. She claps her hands together. “All right, now come on. I really do need help.”
She starts throwing clothes into her suitcase with no regard for them and David just can’t sit by and watch. “No, no, no, no, no. Move.” He shoves her out of the way, knocking her over, and starts putting her clothes away correctly.
David knows that she took him up here because she knew that he would be horrified by her disgusting habits and clean for her. It should annoy him, Alexis using him for free labor, but by the time he’s done and Alexis’s suitcases have been stored in the spare room/closet, David feels much better than he did half an hour ago.
Back downstairs, they find Patrick and his parents in the living room, laughing at something Clint is saying. When he catches sight of David, Patrick rearranges himself so that David can sit in his lap. He settles himself in and feels Patrick’s hands find their way to his waist. It seems to be almost muscle memory at this point, Patrick’s hands on David’s waist, and it physically grounds him more than anything else.
“So, David,” Clint says. “Patrick says that Stevie is out of town?”
“Uh, yeah. They’re setting up a new motel so she’ll be gone until the new year.” The sadness that twinges in his chest is painful. Like with Patrick, whenever Stevie is out of town, David feels like he’s missing part of himself. He should probably call her.
“It’s so great that the motels are doing so well but I wish we could have seen her before we leave.”
Patrick quickly changes the subject to something one of Marcy’s friends had done, rubbing circles into David’s hipbone. David relaxes into the touch and leans back, listening to stories about people he’s met once or twice, focusing on the rise and fall of Patrick’s chest.
He’ll call Stevie later.
Everything is going to be fine.
December 22nd
The next day starts out as nearly picture perfect as anything in David Rose’s life can get. Patrick lets him sleep in, despite all of the Brewers being early risers and David having fully prepared himself for a week of getting up way too early. Marcy has breakfast waiting for him when he comes downstairs and Patrick makes him coffee. Clint asks him how he slept even though that should be David’s line as the host. Alexis is engrossed in her phone but she’s wearing the sweater that David knew she stole from him the last time he visited her in New York but never called her out on because she needed it more than he did.
David lets the caffeine flow through him and basks in the fact that, despite everything he’d done in his life, he’s allowed to have this.
Patrick kisses him on the top of the head and says he has to go to the store for a little bit because there was an issue that Alisha needed his help with. David’s pulse jumps a little – he hadn’t planned for Patrick to be gone at all during this visit – but Patrick silently reassures him that he’ll be quick. He nods and Patrick leaves, satisfied that everything will be okay until he gets back.
Once he’s gone, though, David doesn’t know what to do. Marcy and Clint have been here enough times that there’s nothing new in the house or the town for them to see. He’s not good at just being with most people without some kind of plan. He looks to Alexis for some assistance but whatever’s happening in her phone is more important and she doesn’t even register him.
“David?” He blinks and turns his attention to Marcy, who is smiling in that perfect TV mom sort of way. “I was going to make some cookies for when Patrick gets back. Do you want to help me?”
“Uh, yeah.” He actually planned to attempt to make cookies before Clint and Marcy arrived, but he hadn’t had time. He’s sure it will go much smoother with Marcy’s help. “I just need to uh…” He gestures to his hoodie which, while not as nice as his sweaters, is still too nice to get baking ingredients all over.
Marcy chuckles and David would worry that she thinks he’s being ridiculous for caring so much about a hoodie except for the fact that all the Brewers seem to be charmed by his antics. “Of course, dear.”
David goes upstairs and pulls out a sweatshirt that technically belongs to Patrick should anyone ask because David would never admit to loving it. It’s an old faded thing that might have been green at one point but definitely isn’t anymore. There may have also been a logo on it in its past life but David has never seen it. It’s old and battered and definitely perfect for deflecting baking mishaps but it also just reminds him of his husband.
It’s dumb to miss Patrick this much, he thinks as he switches his hoodie for Patrick’s sweatshirt, especially because he knows exactly where he is and Patrick would be home in five minutes if David said he needed him to. But he also doesn’t really care either – if feeling dumb is the price David has to pay to be in love with Patrick Brewer, then he would pay it a million times.
Back in the kitchen, Clint is helping Marcy assemble ingredients. They both turn at the sound of David approaching and Clint says, “Oh, wow, that old thing is still hanging on?”
“I’m sorry. What?”
“The sweatshirt,” Marcy explains. “It used to be Clint’s but Patrick stole it when he went away for school. He said it just reminded him of home.”
David plucks at the sleeve, thinking about a teenage Patrick sneaking it into his suitcase when no one was looking the same way he would always sneak it out of the closet whenever Patrick was away. “Yeah, I um…” He doesn’t know what to say. Does Clint want his sweatshirt back? Should he take it off?
“It looks good on you, son,” Clint says and, oh, okay. Yeah. That’s fine.
“Thanks,” David says and he’s definitely not crying. God, Alexis is going to…Wait. “Where’s Alexis?”
Marcy doesn’t look up from what she’s doing. “Hmm? Oh, she left when you went upstairs.” David nods. He knew from the beginning that Alexis was mostly back in Schitt’s Creek because she’d heard Ted moved back to town and David couldn’t fault her for wanting to see him. If Alexis and Ted were both in a place to get back together, David would be so incredibly happy for them. But right now, with Stevie in another country, Patrick at the store, and Alexis pulling yet another disappearing act….well, he feels a little alone. “David, are you okay?”
He swipes the sleeve of his third hand sweatshirt under his eye and clears his throat. “Yep, mhm, all good.” He’s lying and they all know it, but no one says anything. He goes to stand next to Marcy at the counter and says, “What are we making?” like he knows what he’s doing.
“These were always Patrick’s favorites,” she says, handing him a recipe card. “It’s my mother’s recipe and I just haven’t had it in me to make them since she died.”
David looks down at the card, at the handwriting of a woman who he never met but who had loved her family enough to leave this piece of her behind, and something catches in his throat.
“Snickerdoodles?” he says and suddenly, he’s six years old, standing on a stool next to Adelina in the kitchen of the mansion.
“Is that okay?” Marcy asks, so lovingly concerned and fuck he’s crying again.
“Yeah, it’s just. Um.” The one thing he’s never been good at talking about was Adelina because the fact that he still couldn’t find her was a faint wound he didn’t like to poke. “I used to make them when I was little. With — with my nanny. Adelina. Her name was Adelina.”
Marcy’s smile was so much like Adelina’s that David almost loses it altogether. “Tell me about her.” It’s not a demand and David finds that he wants to.
So they make snickerdoodles and trade stories of the women they used to make them with. By the time the last batch is out of the oven and cooling, Patrick is home and apologizing profusely for taking longer than expected.
“Don’t apologize, sweetheart. Your father and I would never want the store to suffer on our account.”
Patrick slumps into a chair and David moves to stand behind him, digging his thumbs into the tense muscles of his shoulders. “I know. I just—”
“Honey, shh. No one’s upset,” David soothes. He knows how much Patrick hates disappointing people. “Here, have a cookie.” He reaches over Patrick’s shoulder and grabs one off the plate in front of him.
Patrick accepts it and takes a bite. “Mom, you made Grandma’s snickerdoodles?”
“Couldn’t have done it without David.”
“You baked?” He turns in his seat to smirk up at David, smug bastard that he is.
“Okay, you don’t need to sound so surprised.” In response, Patrick tugs David down by his sweatshirt and kisses him soundly.
The rest of the day passes without incident and David almost forgets the fiasco with the guest house and starts to think that maybe the rest of this visit won’t actually get ruined.
But then dinner comes and goes without Alexis having returned. He’s helping Patrick with the dishes and trying not to check the clock every five seconds — Alexis is an adult. She doesn’t have a curfew and she doesn’t need to check in with her big brother.
But he knows he’ll never stop worrying about her.
“She’s okay,” Patrick says without having to ask. Then, “Have you talked to Stevie today?” David shakes his head. He’s sent her a few texts throughout the day but she hasn’t answered. “Go call her. I’ll finish this.”
David thanks him and heads upstairs. Sitting on the bed, he pulls up Stevie’s contact and presses FaceTime. It rings and rings and he’s about to hang up when Stevie’s face fills his screen. She looks like she’s been through a wind tunnel and there’s a wet spot on her shoulder. Before David can say anything, she says, “David, I’m sorry, but now isn’t a good time. A bunch of pipes burst and three rooms flooded.”
“Oh, my God.”
Someone says something off screen behind Stevie and she says, “Shit, I gotta go. I’ll call you when I can.”
He starts to protest but she’s already hung up.
David curls in on himself and when Patrick comes to bed, he pretends to be asleep.
December 23rd
David wakes the next morning cold down to his bones. He’s always cold, but this is different. It’s like the temperature dropped twenty degrees overnight. He looks out the window to see a sheet of white and smiles. He’s always loved the snow but it’s so rare to see in Schitt’s Creek.
By the time he makes it downstairs, it’s nearly noon and Patrick cracks a joke about how nice it is for him to join them.
“Sure is coming down out there, isn’t it?” Clint comments, the perfect TV dad that he is. All four of them watch the snow in silence for a minute, trapped in their own little snow globe.
But then Patrick says something that shatters the glass, sending everything crashing to the ground.
“Definitely doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere today.”
“What?” Today is supposed to be their big day of pre-Christmas activities. There’s Twyla’s party at the cafe and then the driving lights tour out in Elm Glen that he was so excited to show Marcy.
And Alexis still isn’t back.
“We’ll keep an eye on it, baby, I promise.” But the words fall flat as the wind howls outside.
David’s never been one to watch the weather. He knows from Patrick that it’s apparently a tradition for kids to watch the news every morning to see if they had a snow day or not. But, for David, if he didn’t like the weather he would just charter a plane and go somewhere more to his liking.
But now he’s clinging to the Weather Channel like it’s a lifeline. And it does seem to be changing — just in the opposite direction than David hoped.
By three, Twyla’s already called Patrick to tell him that she’s had to cancel the party. It’s just too dangerous to ask everyone to leave their houses.
And David gets it, he really does. He doesn’t want any of his friends to put themselves at risk just for a dumb party. But there’s that small part of him that’s still used to the world rearranging itself to fit what he wants that can’t comprehend why they can’t make this work.
By five, David’s nervous energy has him pacing. It’s still fucking snowing and everything is falling apart and he doesn’t know what else to do.
“David, sit down.” He shakes his head. “Baby, please. Giving yourself a heart attack isn’t going to make the snow magically stop.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I had a plan and now everything is ruined.”
“You didn’t make it snow, dear. And nothing is ruined.” He just keeps shaking his head and pacing.
His walls are breaking, the ugly parts of himself he lets very few people seeping out of the cracks. He knows he needs to stop, needs to get himself together before Marcy and Clint see a side of him that they definitely won’t like, but he’s too far gone at this point.
His walls are breaking and it’s going to ruin everything.
His phone rings and he jumps at it, hoping Stevie is finally able to talk to him. But it’s Alexis’s name on the screen and his already erratic thoughts go to every single worst case scenario they can think of.
“What’s wrong?” he demands when he answers. “Where are you?”
“What? No, David, I’m fine. I just wanted to tell you that I’m not going to make it back to your house tonight. Don’t worry, I’m with Ted and I’m safe.” He can hear the smile in his her voice and, logically, David knows that Ted would never let anything bad happen to Alexis.
But he would feel a lot better if she was somewhere he could keep an eye on her in this storm.
“Yeah, okay. That’s..mhmm yep.”
“David? Are you okay?”
“Yep!” His voice is high and strangled — the opposite of okay. “Everything’s great! Have fun with Ted.” He hangs up before she can say another word.
“David…” Patrick is searching his face for a way to fix this. But David is afraid this is beyond even Patrick’s skills.
He plasters a smile on his face that he hasn’t had to use in years. It’s the one he used on the paparazzi so no one knew what a mess David Rose was. “Sorry. I’m fine.”
Patrick doesn’t believe him, judging by the way he watches David like he’s a bomb one tripped wire away from detonating. And why would he? Patrick knows him better than anyone in the world. He’s seen David at his absolute worst and knows all his tricks.
But, thankfully, he also knows him well enough to keep his mouth shut and let David pretend just a little longer.
Marcy puts on some Christmas movie that’s just a blur of color and a faint buzzing to David. Patrick crushes him against his side, a steady pressure that comforts him. Eventually, David falls asleep.
When he wakes up, the house is dark and his head is throbbing. The snow has stopped and the world is silent. Patrick is next to him, David still tucked into his side, and when he feels David stir, he smiles. “Hey, you. Feeling better?”
“No,” he says honestly because it’s dark and the world is asleep and he never has to lie to Patrick.
“I know.” Of course he does. Patrick always knows. “But tomorrow will be better, okay?”
“M’kay.” He knows Patrick would never lie to him, either.
They fall asleep together on the couch.
December 24th
True to his word, Patrick makes sure that Christmas Eve goes smoothly. The roads were cleared sometime overnight and he was able to bring in breakfast from the cafe along with a promise from Twyla that her Christmas party will turn into a post-Christmas, pre-New Year party in a few days. David wants to say that post-Christmas, pre-New Year parties aren’t a thing, but he holds his tongue.
Alexis is still at Ted’s but David relaxes a bit knowing she’s not going to get caught in the middle of a blizzard. He still hasn’t heard from Stevie, but he tries not to dwell on it — she would never ghost him.
The light tour in Elm Glen is definitely a bust, but Patrick takes them to a park in Elmdale he and David have been to a million times but looks like something out of a storybook in the snow.
By the time they get back to the house, David is frozen to the bone. Patrick ushers him into a shower and tells him to warm up. He stands under the spray for what is probably a ridiculous length of time, letting the heat seep under his skin. It feels like it washes away every single worry he’s ever had.
He dresses in his comfiest sweats and leaves his hair damp and curling at the ends and goes to rejoin his family downstairs. Patrick is waiting to greet him with a kiss at the bottom of the stairs like the fucking Prince Charming he is.
“Feeling better?” he whispers, like it’s some sort of secret that David had a mental break last night.
God, he loves him so fucking much.
“A little.”
“Good. Come on, my mom says she has a surprise for us.” He smirks when David grimaces, knowing full well how much he hates surprises. “David, would my mom let anything bad happen to you? Would I?”
“No.”
“Exactly.” He slaps David lightly on the ass and starts walking away. He turns around and says, “You coming?”
“I hate you.”
“Of course you do.”
They find Patrick’s parents in the living room and David’s eyes immediately find the small, immaculately-wrapped-yet-gaudy present sitting on the coffee table. “Boys, come sit down.” Once they do, Marcy picks up the present. “I really should have given you this your first Christmas you were married but I— ” She cuts herself off, choking on tears. Clint puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Like father, like son. Marcy composes herself and tries again. “When Clint and I got married, we were young and we didn’t have a lot of money. So when Christmas rolled around and my mother saw how upset I was that we didn’t have any decorations, she bought me this.” She handed the package to Patrick, who took it gently. “She told me that it would be the start of my collection and that one day, I’d be able to pass it on to my own child so they could start their own collection.”
“Not that you don’t already have an impressive collection,” Clint adds, gesturing towards the tree that David spent so many hours on.
Marcy agrees then says, “My mother would have loved you, David.” Beside him, Patrick is crying. His hands are shaking so David takes the present from him so he doesn’t accidentally drop it. Marcy gives him the okay to open it, so he gently peels back the paper.
It’s nothing extraordinary, just a simple red bauble. But when David turns it over, he finds the words May your days be merry and bright written in the same handwriting as the cookie recipe. “Thank you,” he whispers, still looking at the ornament.
He’s not sure who he’s thanking.
All three Brewers insist he be the one to put the ornament on the tree which is a fuckton of pressure, but he obliges anyway. He finds it a place front and center, even though it doesn’t match the rest of the aesthetic. He’ll design everything around it next year, he decides, and he steps back.
David barely takes two steps back when Marcy’s mother’s ornament starts to slip.
Everything happens in slow motion after that.
He’s not quick enough to catch it and watches helplessly as it falls onto the hardwood. It shatters on impact, having been weakened with age. And David breaks with it.
All the shit that’s gone wrong in the last few days – the broken heat, Alexis abandoning him for Ted, Stevie not talking to him, the snowstorm and subsequent canceled plans – comes to the surface, choking him with the weight of his failure.
He thinks he hears someone say his name, but can’t tell who over the pounding in his ears as he quite literally collapses. He spends an eternity lost in his own head, but is brought back by the weight of a hand running up and down his back. “Patrick?” he says instinctively, then cringes at how pathetic he sounds, voice raw.
“He’s in the other room.” Marcy. “He wanted to help, but I told him I thought you might need a mom right now.”
“I’m sorry I broke the ornament,” he says because he can’t say that he does need a mom, but doesn"t know how to need one.
“David, the ornament doesn’t matter. I knew it was never going to last forever. What’s important right now is you. So, please tell me what’s going on.”
And, because Marcy sounds so much like the best parts of both Patrick and Adelina, David does. He admits as much as he did to Alexis just days ago – that, even now years later, he still doesn’t know what it means to be part of a real family. A family where the children have memories with their parents and not their nannies, where there are family heirlooms and not mountains of things bought and tossed away without a care the minute they were no longer wanted, where moms sit on the floor and care more about the broken person than the broken thing.
“I’m sorry,” he ends, half expecting Marcy to leave. But she hugs him close instead.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, dear. Can I tell you a secret?” David nods. “We don’t want you to be perfect. We want you to be you. Because you make our family complete, David, just by being yourself.” Marcy kisses the top of his head and holds him until he cries himself dry. “Better?” she asks eventually.
“I think so.”
“Good.” She stands and waits for David to join her. “Don’t worry, Patrick can clean that up,” she says when his eyes dart to the ruined ornament.
And he does.
Patrick cleans up the ornament and Alexis comes back and Stevie calls him and he even gets to talk to his parents for a few minutes and by the time David wakes up on Christmas morning, he feels better than he has in a long time.
And when a package arrives a few days after the new year containing a simple black Christmas ornament with May your days be merry and bright written in silver in Marcy’s handwriting, David thinks that he finally understands.