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It was one of those days.
Patrick felt slightly below his usual perky self. Slight irritants that made his anger fuel up and made him itch to throw something across the room for no particular reason. The lights were just a bit too bright. The cars outside his apartment window were just slightly too loud. It made him want to curl up under a bed and pull a blanket over his head.
He hated feeling this way.
It wasn't usual for Patrick to be faced with these mornings, even more unusual for him to be faced with a full 24-hours of unceasing grumpiness and sadistic humour quips. Normally his day was fixed when he got to the store and saw his boyfriends rather affronted look, talking about some stupid drama between his family that Patrick couldn’t care less about. It always made him smile.
However, it was Saturday… David's favourite day of the week to be more precise. A day that had been explained to him multiple times. A day that had no responsibilities and where he could sleep in as long as he wanted without interruptions.
Patrick didn't want to be selfish, he didn't want to ruin his boyfriend's mood by attempting to fix his.
For god sake why does David have to be so preppy… this would be so much easier if he cared about someone other than himself…
The intrusive thought crossed at the forefront of his mind before he could stop it. In its wake it left him with a sick feeling of guilt in the pit of his stomach. He knew that David cared about him, he also cared about his family, sure he could be a bit self-centered, but Patrick loved him for it.
His mood was steadily getting worse, and it was only 9am.
The itching feeling of aggression was still tingling in his arm. Falling backwards into his bed, Patrick groaned and threw the thing that had been in his hand in frustration. He heard a thump and then a crack. A sudden flood of panic rushed into his throat as he sat up like he was being electrocuted to see what it was that had been thrown.
His phone sat in front of the wall, its screen was face-down and a small amount of glass littered the floor around it. Patrick jumped out of his bed and ran over to his dejected phone, dreading what he would see when he flipped it over.
The glass protection cover of his phone had shattered, but his phone screen was still okay, save for a line that now dragged from the top corner to the bottom.
With his adrenaline still pumping, he opened his phone and immediately went to his voicemails, quietly whispering under his breath, “Please no, God no, no, no…”
Patrick scrolled through the voicemails until he reached the ones he was looking for. David’s messages.
He let out a breath of relief and collapsed on the floor dramatically, still clutching his phone to his chest. A smile worked its way onto his face as he recalled the day that he had met David. He was nervous, he had been living and working with Ray for about two weeks at that moment, and David was going to be his first real customer in his new job location. It did not help with the fact that when he walked into the room he was immediately smitten with the taller man. His nerves doubled, and gave him a distinct feeling of literal butterflies swarming in his stomach. Not necessarily an unpleasant feeling. Patrick, in his innocence, attempted to flirt with David through the only way he knew how, teasing. Oh god he remembered that, he was yelling at himself later on for being such a middle-schooler, why couldn't he have said something interesting or funny? Why did he have to make fun of the attractive man, most likely scaring him away for good in the process. He was certain that David was going to try and find someone else that could get his lease filed. With that in mind, he had to get to his party, on his way there he remembered the feeling of sadness and loss, even though he had only met the man one time.
And then the voicemails came flooding in.
Some were 3 seconds or less, some were over 5 minutes, but each held their own special “Davidness' ' that made him want to laugh and cry. Each new message gave him a shot of dopamine that made him crave more. David's voice was like a drug and-
Oh yeah… Patrick was definitely smitten.
He chuckled at the memory, it was his first time going from a high and then a low within 10 minutes, when he was with Rachel it was more like a permanent low that made him feel both guilty and stuck. It was a nice change from the horrible feeling.
He looked at the messages, the messages that he had memorised, the messages that still gave him a pang of gratitude and love for his boyfriend, the messages that could make his heart soar in a moment.
He hesitated for a moment before pressing play on his cracked phone screen.
“Hi David, it's Patrick.”
There was a slight pause that made him laugh, he knew that David was flustered and trying to prove something to both himself and Patrick in the message, but it didn't make his embarrassment any less charming.
“I, um… was just calling to run my business plan, uh, by you in a little more detail.” David cleared his throat on the other end, emphasising his awkwardness.
“So, feel free to give me a call back, and I will be happy to walk you through it. Okay, ciao!” Patrick let out another laugh, tears of joy starting to fill his eyes, he briskly wiped them away as pressed play onto the next message, sniffling at his fortune. How could his first boyfriend also end up being the love of his life.
“Hi Patrick. Yeah, I think I… I think I called you David. Which that’s not… that's not your name. You can just delete that text… the mess… uh, the voicemail that I left you.” David’s lack of confidence made him smile wetly, he knew for a long time that David had serious trust issues, and the fact that he had let his embarrassment get in the way of his perfect mask of confidence that he was so used to using around strangers made him feel special in a way. These messages were proof that David definitely wanted to evince something to Patrick back then as well.
“Um, just thought it might be a good idea to give you some background information about… the… the store. It’s basically a general store, um, that will support local artists under the brand of the store, which… which would also be my brand.” David’s voice had lost the majority of its cockiness by the end of the message, like he was deflating slowly.
Patrick had listened to these messages hundreds of times and each time it was like he uncovered something new. It was like watching a show that you had watched as a kid, and finally understanding the jokes or the plot fully as a more intelligent, mature human being.
With the smile still on his face, Patrick pressed play on the next voicemail,
“Sorry, the text cut us off… I, uh, I think that this general store… Wait, it's not really a general store… Anyways, I think it should be called something along the lines of Rose Chemists… no wait, that's horrible… What's another word for chemist… uh, I'll call you back, I have to search something up.”
Patrick, vision blurry, was about to click play on the next message when he heard a knock at his door. He pushed himself off the group and rubbed at his eyes, trying to wipe away all of the memories that were for sure still shining in them. He took a shaky deep breath before pulling open the door.
And his wonderful, gracious, caring, loving David, was standing right behind it, flowers in his grasp and a sheepish smile on his face.
“Uh, hi.” He said, his head tilting slightly to the side.
Patrick stared at him for a moment too long, and David’s smile disappeared from his face as he finally took in the state of his boyfriend.
“Oh my god, what's going on are you okay?” He asked, gently putting the flowers down on the floor and placing his hands on Patrick's shoulders.
The touch was all he needed to activate the tears again.
David had a horrified look on his face, going to remove his hands like Patrick had burned him. But instead of letting him pull away, Patrick grabbed David by the shoulders and pulled him in for a hug. He could feel his boyfriend tense as he wrapped his arms around him. The tears would not stop, Patrick was starting to embarrass himself.
David pulled away, and Patrick felt a jolt of pure panic run through him. Why was David pulling away?
He bent down and picked up the flowers before grabbing Patrick's hand and pulling into the apartment, closing the door behind him. He moved Patrick to his couch and sat down, placing the flowers on the coffee table before turning to face Patrick and pulling him closer.
“What's going on?” He whispered, rubbing between his shoulder blades gently.
Patrick chuckled and looked up into the worried eyes of his boyfriend.
“I almost lost my favourite memories of you, then I found them again and they made me realise how happy you make me.”
David’s face heated up and he started to look anywhere but Patrick, he cleared his throat and stuttered his way through a sentence.
“I… You are… I mean… What memory… How do you lose a mem… I feel- feel the same way about you, you- you make me so happy everyday and I- I don't know where I would be in life without you.” He said, finally looking back down at Patrick.
Patrick broke out into a huge smile, and leaned up to press a sweet kiss to his boyfriend's lips.
“You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that today.” He mumbled into the kiss.
David nodded, not saying anything. He gently pulled away and continued to rub Patrick's back, occasionally pressing a kiss to his forehead.
They sat like that for a while, until Patrick sat up and wiped the remaining tears away from his face. He looked at his boyfriend and smiled timidly, “Sorry.” He said with a self-conscious smile.
David shook his head and smirked lightly. Patrick motioned to the flowers on the table, “What’re these for?”
“Uh, well I took it upon myself to make our love-life a little more spontaneous. I saw online that if you don't get your significant other flowers or another type of romantic-gift at least once a month, you won't last longer than 2 years, and I didn't want to push my luck so…”
Patrick chucked and grabbed the bouquet of camellia flowers. The strong jasmine scent wafted to his nose. They were so dramatic, yet so simple. They were so David.
He pressed another kiss to his boyfriend's cheek, “Thank you for these.”
David hummed, and fidgeted with his rings, clearly wanting to ask a question.
“David.” He looked up at him, Patrick raised his eyebrows, “Go ahead, you clearly want to say something.”
David opened his mouth, hesitated, and continued.
“What memory can you lose and find again on the same day? How is that even possible?”
Patrick snickered, pulling out his phone, preparing himself for FlusteredDavid® to make an appearance.
He opened up his voicemails and showed David how he had kept every one he had sent to him. He explained how it was like a little time capsule of their first meeting. He even played a short one for him to prove that they were the same ones.
Patrick's smile grew as David’s hands covered his face in embarrassment. He stuttered and groaned and tried to snatch the phone away. He begged for Patrick to delete the messages, but to no avail.
He loved the messages, he listened to them whenever he felt sad or down, or even when he was missing his boyfriend. David was the love of his life, there was no question about it. Every little quirk about him he loved. And if the sound of just his voice could make his irascible mood vanish in less than a minute, he knew that he would never have one of those days again if he could wake to David's face every morning.
Patrick Brewer loved David Rose.
It was a simple sentence, but it held the most truth that Patrick had ever said before in his life.