Archive of Our Own ^beta

[needle scratch noise] Yep, that’s me. Bet you’re wondering how I got myself into this crazy situation.

David could almost hear the wacky sitcom music in his head as he sat on the floor of a stuck elevator, his back against the wall, trying his damn best not to look at the single other occupant of the car: Rachel, his husband’s ex-fiancée.

It had been ten minutes now, and neither of them had spoken a word, nor looked directly at each other.

He wondered what etiquette rules applied in this situation. Dear Emily Post: I’m stuck in an elevator with one of the few other people on earth who’s sucked my husband’s dick. We’ve never exchanged so much as a word. She probably hates me and has good reason. Is it acceptable to gloat that his dick is all mine now?

It had to happen eventually. In their efforts not to look at each other they had no choice but to look anywhere else, and it was inevitable that their eyes would catch at some point. They did, and held, and he couldn’t look away.

He sighed. “This is fucked up.”

She snorted. “Agreed.”

Long pause.

“Is he in town with you?” she said, quietly, her eyes now on her hands, clasped in her lap amidst the folds of her (admittedly gorgeous) gown. He tried not to think about the damage she was doing to it by sitting on the floor in it.

“No. He’s at home.”

She nodded. “Good.” He saw her eyes flit to his wedding ring, visible on his left hand where it rested on his knee.

Another long pause.

“What are you doing in Toronto?” he asked, carefully.

She glanced at his face then looked away again. “My firm got an award for public service from the province. Some of the associates were invited to come. The formal dinner was tonight.” She looked like she was fighting with herself over whether to reciprocate the question, eventually landing on doing so. “You?”

“I’m here for Fashion Week. One of our vendors is showing her alpaca knitwear. I gave her some tips about navigating the scene, she ended up asking me to come with.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d recognized me at first,” she said, her voice quiet but steel-edged. He’d been heading up to his hotel room from the parking garage when the car stopped at the lobby; the door slid open and there she’d been. He’d seen the recognition slam into her face, then her features hardened and her brows settled, the “you have got to be fucking kidding me” written all over her expression. He’d stepped back and let her enter. They hadn’t acknowledged each other.

“Of course I recognize you. I’ve seen a million pictures.”

That got a reaction. “He talks to you about me?”

“All the time.”

“And you...you’re okay with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s his history, it’s part of him.” David watched her face as she processed that his relationship with Patrick was secure enough that he didn’t feel jealous of his past with her.

She sniffed, her fingers twisting together. “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

David hesitated. “He misses you.”

Her head snapped up and her eyes blazed. “He misses me? No. He does not get to miss me, like we’re just old school friends who’ve lost touch.”

“Um...okay.”

She visibly pulled herself in, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away. David said nothing.

“I get why you’d be angry,” he finally said.

She sniffed again. “I don’t need you to give me permission for my feelings, thanks.”

He spread his hands. “Look, we’re stuck in here for however long it takes for the stupid repairman to arrive, where the fuck is he coming from, Winnipeg? I’m just trying to…”

“To what? Make conversation?”

“Is that so terrible?”

“Maybe I don’t want to make conversation with you, David,” she said, uttering his name for the first time in his hearing.

“Fine, then,” he said, crossing his own arms. “We’ll sit here in silence. That’s just fine.”

The silence lasted about two minutes.

“How is he?” she finally asked, in a voice almost too quiet to hear.

David bit back the urge to snark at her. It was costing her something to ask. “He’s well.” She just nodded. “He’s happy.”

Her jaw clenched and she looked away again, blinking hard. “Happy now that he’s getting dick, which I guess was the one thing I couldn’t give him.”

His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “Okay, wow.”

She glanced at him, looking contrite. “Yeah, sorry. That was over the line.”

“No, I’m impressed. I didn’t think you were the type to come for me like that.”

“It was rude.”

“Hey, you want to go there, we can go there. Between him and me, I’m the one comfortable with rudeness.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He arched one eyebrow. “Like, for example, I might point out that if dick was all he needed, it would have been more than possible for you to give it to him, with the right accessories.”

Her eyes widened a touch, then she snorted bitter, brief laughter. “Fair.” She shook her head, her fingers twisting around each other. “Do you know how many years he took from me? Do you have any idea what that means? Especially for a woman who wants a family? And I’m supposed to be gracious and kind and supportive? Tell him how glad I am he finally figured his shit out and wish him well in his shiny new life while I sit here in the ruins of mine?”

“It’s been three years.”

“I spent fifteen with him. Thinking that was it, that I had my guy and I was done.”

“Did you never wonder why it was fifteen years of limbo?”

“Of course I did!” she hissed. “You know how many times my girlfriends gave me shit about it? Even my parents? But every time it ended and I started thinking about moving on, I’d cave and ask him to come back, or else there he’d be again, with those big sad puppy eyes…”

David rolled his eyes. “Those puppy eyes should be registered as weapons,” he muttered.

A tiny smile touched her lips. “People think he’s so innocent and sweet but he sure as fuck knows how to deploy the arsenal, doesn’t he?”

“Tell me about it.”

She held his gaze for a moment. “Look, I know none of this is your fault.”

He shrugged. “I can take it. But when he hurts, I hurt. I care a hell of a lot more about his feelings than my own. I will do whatever I have to do to spare my husband pain. So if you want me to suck up to you, I’ll happily do it, if it means you’ll speak to him again. Because it eats him up that he’s lost you completely.”

She seemed surprised by this. “It...it does?”

“Of course it does, what did you think?”

“I didn’t think he gave me a second thought.”

David laughed out loud at that. He sat forward and looked at her. “Fifteen years, I would have thought you knew him. He knows what he did to you. He knows what it cost you. He hates that it took him so long to know the truth about himself, which isn’t his fault for a boatload of reasons we don’t have time to unpack right now. You got caught in that crossfire. None of it means he didn’t care about you, or about how this affected you.”

Her eyes went glassy, then she blinked and shook her head and it was gone. “I just...I pictured him happy in his life with you and not a care in the world.”

“I get it. Takes some of the pleasure out of righteous anger if he’s really sorry about it. And he is. Trust me.”

There was a long pause before she spoke again, looking like she was dragging the words out of herself. “So he really is, then?”

“Really is what?”

“Gay.”

“Yep,” David said, popping the p. “If you doubt it, come by the store on Saturdays when the cyclists from Elmdale stop at the farmer’s market for juice and protein bites and watch him trying very hard not to ogle their asses in those little Lycra shorts. And failing miserably.”

She laughed bitterly, then dashed tears away from her eyes and shook her head. “You think I want to feel like this? I don’t. I want to be supportive of my friend, my lifelong friend, for coming out. But I just...this was my life that he ended.”

“I don’t know, you seem pretty lively to me.” He sighed. “Look, I don’t know how much you know about me…”

“Way, way too much. There may have been a period of...obsessive Googling.”

“Oh dear Lord. Anyway, I know something about having your life snatched away and having to rebuild it from scratch.”

“Spare me the inspirational anecdote. I spent most of my twenties, years I could have spent having a not-doomed relationship, even starting a family, with a man who was never going to be my future.”

“No, he was my future. And I only found it by losing everything. If you gave me a chance to go back and let my family keep their fortune, I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, because what felt like the worst thing that ever happened to me brought me to Patrick. Sometimes I think about a life where I never knew him, and I can’t breathe, it’s so terrifying. Having him is worth more than my whole life up to the day I met him.”

“So I just have to let go and make peace with it and my own version of that is waiting just around the corner, is that it?”

“I don’t know that. Neither do you. I do know there isn’t a way back, so you might as well move forward.” David thought for a moment. “He cried. The day your wedding invitation came back, with that big red Return to Sender on it.”

She stared at him with big, shocked eyes. “I didn’t need to know that.”

“I think you did. I held him while he cried, and I haven’t been that angry for a long time.”

“Angry? At me? I was setting a boundary that I had every right to set.”

“I know that, but I’m a fucking human being and nothing shreds me up like my husband crying, so forgive me if I resented it just a skosh.”

She drew her knees up -- David said another prayer for the fabric of her dress -- and wrapped her arms around them. It was a childlike pose. “You really love him, don’t you?”

He just looked at her, not in the mood to hold forth to her on the nature of his feelings for Patrick.

She sagged, letting her head fall back against the elevator car. “I’m so tired.”

“So was he. When he left you, and his home, and his family, and everything he’d ever known. You know how scary that was? He’s a people pleaser. He’s the Good Boy, that nice young man down the block, the one the teachers praise and the pastor holds up as an example. You know what it cost him to throw all that away?”

“Yeah. I know what it cost him. It cost me, too.”

“Then maybe point your anger at the world. All those people who said he was such a nice young man who’d make some lucky girl a great husband and who never gave him room for the idea that he might not be straight, to the point that he had to trash his life, and yours, because nothing had ever felt right. That isn’t his fault. Or yours.”

Silence fell, and this time, it stuck around for a bit. It was a little less prickly than it had been, and he didn’t think he was imagining that.

“Jesus, where’s this fucking repairman? What if one of us was having a seizure or something?” he finally said.

“I don’t know. I’m kind of enjoying the quiet.”

“Yeah, it’s been real peaceful in here so far.”

She snorted. “Oh hey...how’s your sister?”

“Um...she’s fine. She lives in New York. We went down to see her last month.”

“She was really nice to me...that day. She didn’t know.”

“I know she didn’t.”

“I remember your face. When she said Patrick was my fiancé.”

“That wasn’t a good day.”

“You looked like someone had punched you in the stomach.”

“That’s how it felt. You know, we were still pretty new then. Four months that day, in fact,” he said, smiling a little at the memory of the damn cookie. “I was really falling for him, but I didn’t have much confidence that it would last. Nothing ever had before. I was just starting to trust him, and us, and that...didn’t help.”

“That had to be rough.”

“It was. For about a week.” David knew he should resist the temptation to get a little covert intel of his own, but he wasn’t good at resisting temptation and never had been. “What did he say to you, that day?”

“He hasn’t told you?”

“I mean, vaguely. I haven’t really pressed it.”

“He told me that we were definitely over, that he was gay, and that he was in love with you and he was happy for the first time in his life.” She sighed, shaky. “You know what that felt like to hear? That all the time we were together, he was never happy with me? In our life?”

David did know what that felt like, albeit on a smaller scale, and her anger suddenly seemed amazingly restrained for what she’d gone through. “He said he was in love with me?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. He hadn’t said that to me yet.”

She was watching his face. “He looked wrecked for the entire conversation. But I knew it wasn’t the end of our relationship that was wrecking him, it was that he was afraid he’d lost you. That also sucked, a lot.”

“He ought to have looked wrecked for not telling me about you before that.”

“Damn right.” One corner of her mouth quirked up. “I guess he made it up to you later?”

“We got past it. Obviously,” he said, holding up his left hand.

She looked at it, then bit her lip, thinking. “Do you, uh...have a wedding picture on you?”

“I have some on my phone.” He wasn’t going to make it easy.

“Could I see one?”

“Sure.” He pulled out his phone and opened his gallery, finding the posed shot of them with their families and Stevie. He handed his phone across to her and watched as she absorbed the image. “Wow,” she murmured. David wondered if she was picturing the wedding photos she’d dreamed of having with Patrick herself. “What is your officiant wearing? That is...a lot of look.”

“That’s my mother.”

She looked at him, sheepish. “Oh. Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. ‘A lot of look’ is kind of her whole thing. Also, turns out she didn’t have a license to marry us in the first place, so we had to go to the courthouse in Elmdale two days later. So you’re looking at the most elaborate wedding rehearsal in history.”

“You guys look really happy.”

“Best day of my life.”

“Is Alexis wearing...a wedding dress?”

“It gets better. She actually walked me down the aisle. So imagine how that looked. I was glad I had the flowers, people might have thought I was giving her away.”

“She gave you away? Isn’t that tradition about women being property, handed off from father to husband?” She handed the phone back. “Wouldn’t have thought you’d be so heteronormative.”

“The nice part about being a same-sex couple is you get to do whatever the fuck you want, and I wanted to walk down a goddamn aisle. I’m a nearly six foot tall man with five o’clock shadow who wears skirts on occasion, I don’t care if it’s heteronormative.”

“Fair. Love the kilted tux, by the way.”

“Thanks.” He put his phone away and watched her face for a moment. “Are we becoming friends now?”

“No.”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

She looked off into space, then a sad little smile crept onto her face. “Does he still do that thing when he wakes up?”

“The double neck-crack? Yes,” he said, rolling his eyes. He recognized a flag of truce when he heard one, and he wasn’t above returning the gesture. “Did he always do that humming thing when he’s brushing his teeth?”

“Only when he’s happy.” She cocked her head. “Also...when he hums like that? He’s writing music.”

“I know. He’s been writing a lot. I’m hoping to find a piano for him. He hasn’t had one since he moved. We have room in the house for an upright.”

“You guys have a house?”

“We bought one just before the wedding. Little stone cottage, ridiculously charming.”

“Where I bet you snuggle on the couch under a knitted afghan in front of the roaring fireplace,” she said, an edge in her voice.

David cut his eyes away. “We...may have done that, yes.”

“Jesus, you’re so gross.”

“We’ve decided to lean into it.”

They were almost -- not quite, but almost -- smiling at each other.

“I’m still bitter.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever stop.” He shrugged. “It’d be easier if I could just flip a switch and stop caring about him. Stop loving him. I don’t want to still have those feelings, but it’s not like I get a vote.” He nodded, just letting her talk. “I…” She scrubbed her hand down her face; David winced at the effect on her carefully-applied makeup. “I’m glad he’s happy,” she said, low. “But it’s hard to know that he is, when I’m still stuck in this…” She made helpless grasping motions at the air in front of her. “This quicksand, this spiral of blame and guilt and self-loathing.”

“You know, call me crazy, but this all sounds like something to unpack with a professional.”

“Yeah. I’ve been resisting that, but I should. Talk to someone, I mean.”

“As a longtime graduate of many therapists, I recommend it.” He shifted, stretching out his cramping legs. “Three years is a long time to go without moving on.”

“I’ve moved on, in some ways. I’ve really doubled down at work. I’m a fucking rock star there.”

“I bet you are.”

“I’m becoming something of a specialist at representing LGBT people who’ve been discriminated against.”

David blinked, unexpectedly touched. “You have?”

“Yeah, and it’s not because of Patrick, okay?” He arched an eyebrow. “Fine, maybe it is, a little bit. See, this is why this shit is complicated. If we’d only ever been friends, I’d have waved the rainbow flag and hugged him and supported him and fixed him up with cute guys and done the whole thing. So on top of everything else, I have guilt that I didn’t do any of that because it was so painful, personally. So maybe there’s some transference, or something.”

“Well, you’re sure as shit talking like you’ve been to therapy.” She shrugged. “What about...personally? Moving on, I mean.”

“You mean, am I dating? A little. Weirdly, I’m enjoying not being coupled. It’s nice. To only have to consider myself when I’m deciding what I want to do or where to go. Have you ever taken a trip by yourself?”

“No.”

“It fucking rocks. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, for as long as you want, and there’s no negotiating or compromising.” She stretched her legs out too; their feet rested alongside each other on the floor of the elevator car. “I’ve been coupled up most of my life. It’s probably good for me to be on my own for awhile.”

“I wouldn’t know. Patrick is the first real coupled-up experience I’ve ever had.” David sensed the conversation winding down. He looked at her until she met his gaze, then held it for a moment. “I wish I could say I was sorry,” he said. “But I'm not, because he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I wish I could say it’s okay. It’s not. But I think...I think it will be. For the first time, I think it will.”

They stared at each other for a few more beats, and then there was a thump and a groan and the elevator car was moving again.

“Thank fucking God,” David muttered, getting to his feet. Without thinking about it, he reached down and offered Rachel his hand. She took it without comment, letting him help her up. They moved a few feet apart and stood facing grimly forward until the elevator reached the lobby again. The doors opened to reveal a worried-looking hotel manager.

“Are you folks all right?” the manager said.

“We’re fine,” Rachel said, in a Lawyer Voice that David took note of. They stepped off into the corridor.

“Please accept our apologies. If you’d care to have a drink at the bar, it’s on the house.”

David looked at her. “What do you say? Want to have a drink?”

She didn’t look at him. “No, thank you, I’d like to go to bed now.” One glance. “Some other time.” She headed off toward the stairs.

David watched her go, then turned to the manager. “How many drinks are we talking about?”

The house smelled like garlic and Italian spices when he walked in, because David had the best husband in the world. “Oh my god, are you making puttanesca?” he called out.

“With extra capers,” Patrick said, emerging from the kitchen with a smile. “Hi,” he said, wrapping David up in a tight hug.

“Hi, baby,” David breathed, relieved to be home after the five hour drive and four long days of intense people-ing. “It smells amazing in here.”

“I thought you might like some heavy carbs and tomato sauce after your trip.”

David kissed him, pressing in for a more intense kiss than a simple welcome-home greeting would ordinarily have entailed. Patrick responded eagerly, sliding one hand down to grab David’s ass and opening his mouth to his tongue. David kissed across his cheek to his jaw and buried his face in Patrick’s neck. “I love you,” he whispered against his skin.

“Damn, you really did miss me,” Patrick said, chuckling a bit and rubbing his hands up and down David’s back. “I love you, too. Come on, leave your bags, I poured you a glass of wine. It’s by the couch.”

David sat down and picked up the wine. Patrick returned to the kitchen; the space was open, so they were still in the same room, more or less. “How are things here?” he asked, taking a sip of their best pinot noir from the shop and leaning his head back.

“Fine. Heather dropped off some more of that crême fraiche.”

“Oh good, I’ve got three people waiting for it.”

“Yeah, I let them know it was back in stock. Your dad called. Your mom has a week’s filming break at the end of the month, he wanted to know if they could come out.”

“Anything on the calendar?”

“Nope. I told them yes.”

“Okay. I’ll text Alexis and see if she wants to come up.” David smiled. “I love that we’re at the point where my family calls you and not me when they need concrete answers.”

He chuckled. “He knew you were in Toronto this week. Dinner’s ready.”

David joined him at the table. Patrick put a plate of pasta with puttanesca sauce in front of him. “Ooh, do we have...yes!” he said, as Patrick returned with a basket of garlic bread.

“It’s like I don’t know you at all,” Patrick deadpanned. He sat down with his own glass of wine. “So how was Fashion Week?”

“Exhausting. Thank God I went, though, because I ended up wrangling Gretchen’s models, getting them to makeup, coordinating their jewelry...she was not prepared.”

“Which is why she asked you to help.”

“It was worth it, the place went nuts for her stuff. She ran out of business cards.”

“Might have shot ourselves in the foot, there. She’ll be too expensive for us to carry.” Patrick twirled his pasta around his fork. “Must have been exciting, though, right? See all those fashionable people, and clothes...parties…” He trailed off, his face carefully neutral.

David put a hand on his arm. “Honey. Look at me.” Patrick lifted his head. “I don’t want that life anymore. I like my life here, with you.” Patrick looked relieved. “Once upon a time, that was my natural habitat, but now? It was all just so...loud. And rushed. I don’t know how I ever stood it. I couldn’t wait to get home.”

“You’re not just saying that?” Patrick said, still looking a little unsure.

“You know I’m not. I’d rather be cuddled up on the couch with you than at the hippest, most fashionable club in the city.”

A slow smile spread across Patrick’s face. He leaned over and kissed him again, tasting like oregano and wine. “Did you score any new pieces, though?”

“Hmmmmmm I might have returned with...one more item of clothing than I left with. Possibly two.” Patrick chuckled and returned to his pasta. David watched him for a moment, then set down his fork. “I do have something to tell you.”

“What?”

“I ran into Rachel.”

Patrick froze. David could almost see the buffering disc spinning behind his eyes. “You...what? My Rachel?”

“Yes.”

“But...wha...how…”

David took pity on him. “She was there with her firm, they won some kind of award. We just happened to be staying in the same hotel. We kind of...got stuck in an elevator together for almost an hour.”

Patrick’s eyes were popping out of his head. “You were stuck in an elevator with Rachel for an hour?” he said. “Way to bury the lede, David!”

“I was working up to it.”

“I...I don’t know...where do I start?” He rubbed his face, his pasta forgotten. He picked up his glass of wine and chugged what remained. David wordlessly picked up the bottle and refilled it. “Did you talk? Did she speak to you? Did she even recognize you? She barely saw you that day at the barbecue.”

“Oh, she recognized me. She’s apparently done a lot of Googling of me.”

“Jesus,” Patrick said. “So you did talk.”

“Well, not at first.”

“Wait, you were stuck in an elevator? Why didn’t you tell me? Were you in any danger?”

“No, and because I wanted to tell you about Rachel in person, and it wasn’t a big deal, and you’re spiralling.”

“I think spiralling is the appropriate response right now!”

David touched Patrick’s lips with one finger in a universal ‘shush’ gesture. “Let me tell you, okay? Can you becalm yourself?”

“You sound like your mother.”

“Well, get used to that, because it’s just going to get worse the older I get.” David took a deep breath, and told him everything. Patrick sat quietly listening, clutching David’s hand, a range of emotions fighting across his face.

“So she’s still angry. She does hate me,” Patrick said, in a hollow voice.

“Well, I burst her bubble a bit. She had this image of you blithely skipping through your life and not giving her a thought.”

“What? How could she ever think that?”

“We all view things through the lens of our own pain, honey, and we always imagine that we’re alone in it. To her, it felt like you had vanished into thin air, reappeared with a new relationship, and cut ties with her without a look back. And to be fair…”

“...that’s kinda what I did.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “God knows I feel shitty enough about all the years I strung her along, I can’t exactly be mad that she’s held a grudge.”

“It’d be nice if we could all make our life choices without anyone ever getting hurt or being upset, but that’s just not a thing. It’s not entirely your fault that you spent so long twisting in the wind. But you did, and she got hurt, and that’s just…” He shifted to take Patrick’s left hand, running his thumb over his wedding bad. “That’s what it cost for you to be who you are.”

Patrick swallowed hard, his eyes shiny. “I would pay that and more. I’d pay anything.”

“I know. So would I. That doesn’t mean you can’t have feelings about it, or that she won’t.”

He nodded. “I tried to text her, she never answered. Then when she sent back the wedding invitation...I just thought I should give her space.”

“That was the right thing to do. But even if it weren’t, I don’t think there’s anything you could have done that would have made her feel great about everything.”

Patrick wiped his eyes. “So what do I do now?”

David shrugged one shoulder. “If you ask me? Nothing. I think anything that happens has to come from her. And if she never wants to speak to you again, that’s just how it has to be.”

Patrick nodded. “Okay.” He looked down at his abandoned pasta, then back up at David. “I’m not really hungry anymore.” He got to his feet, still hanging on to David’s hand. “Take me to bed?”

David got up and wrapped his arms around him. “You’re a good person, Patrick Brewer. The best I’ve ever known,” he murmured into his ear. Patrick’s arms tightened around him, and David hoped that he believed it.

Two weeks later, they were having a quiet afternoon at home, sprawled out on the couch with books, their heads at either end and their legs tangled up together in the middle.

David was just contemplating getting up to make some mulled wine when Patrick’s phone rang. He picked it up from the coffee table and looked at the screen, then at David, his eyebrows going up in surprise. “Hello?” He sat up as he listened, swinging his legs down. “Rachel, hi.” Pause. “Yeah. He told me. I’m really glad you called.”

David got up, leaned in and kissed Patrick’s temple, then went off on his mulled wine mission. the sound of the conversation following him.

“Yeah, I have time. I’d love to talk.”