#schittalking

"Okay, before you stay over at my place tonight, there have to be rules," says David, coming in at 9:03 — a new record for being almost on-time, so he must be worried.

Patrick finishes opening up the till and leans his elbows on the counter, nodding seriously to let David know he's paying close attention, and also mocking him. "Rules, okay, good idea."

"Unfortunately, my sister Alexis will be there, seeing as how she... lives there." David puts his bag down behind the counter and stands very, very close. There's nothing sexy about it or anything. Patrick can smell his cologne and feel the warmth of him but that's fine, he's fine. It's just David. "So, no hanky-panky. We're just going to be two people, sharing a bed."

"A twin-sized bed," Patrick agrees. "So what qualifies as hanky-panky, exactly?"

"Um, well. Kissing might be okay, like a peck on the lips," David says, and leans down to demonstrate. "There's nothing intrinsically hanky-panky about that. Friends might do that."

"True. So what about touching?" Patrick asks, running his hand up David's side in a friendly way, that's all.

"Well, twin bed, there'd be bound to be touching. And maybe some involuntary cuddling, you know, because the bed is so small."

"Right, of course. But nothing more than that, right? That's all, because Alexis will be there and we should just act like two bros being--"

"Hos?" David asks, confused.

Welp:

The branch-twig pencils were, David will admit, a mistake. He realizes this almost immediately upon unpacking them and Patrick remarks how they look "rustic" with that little Canadian passive aggressive thing he does; he then realizes it again when they have the soft open and manage to sell a grand total of one, which Ted bought in order to give to his own sister so he still hasn't actually gotten rid of it.

And he realizes it for the third time as he watches Patrick stab a guy in the throat with one of them on the following afternoon.

"What the actual fuck!" David said, in a very calm manner, because he'd been trying this new meditation app and it's all about breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth and counting, or something, and it's definitely working, because David is very calm right now, even though there's blood all over the floor and on a lot of the product and also there is a dead man who is twitching.

"Uh," Patrick says, and yanks the pencil branch twig thing out. There's a gurgle and David runs to the bathroom to hide and to call the police and also to throw up.

He doesn't get a chance to do any of those, though, because Patrick — Patrick! Who wears vaguely slutty business shirts and awful braided belts and whose haircut is, David is forced to admit, only explicable if he's some sort of government stooge and/or a mercenary — grabs him by the elbow and instead of murdering him hustles him out the side door, where his shitty car is parked next to Mom's garden.

"Get in," Patrick says, opening the passenger door.

David's had to get Alexis out of way too many attempted (and that one partially successful) kidnappings to comply; he braces his hands against the frame and balks with every almost six feet of him. "Absolutely not, you just murdered someone!"

"CSIS agents are permitted to use lethal force when their asset is targeted," Patrick tells him, with such authority that David actually gets in the car before remembering that Patrick is an accountant with fugly shoes and dimples, and not a fucking international spy of mystery. By the time he’s figured that out, though, Patrick’s flung himself into the driver’s seat and yanked the car out onto the road.

David fumbles for the seatbelt just as there’s a loud bang behind them — a black SUV, two men with sunglasses and even worse haircuts than Patrick’s hanging out of the windows with guns aimed directly at him. “We need to go faster,” he recommends.

“Noted,” says Patrick, flooring it.

David’s about to make some comment about how ineffective this is likely to be considering they’re in a ten-year-old Toyota Corolla, but he’s too busy getting slammed back in his seat. He looks over at the speedometer: 75 and climbing fast. “Turn left here,” David says, urgent.

Patrick does, but he looks confused and a little suspicious; he’s got a speckle of blood on his right sleeve. “What is it?”

“If we kept going we were going to hit the school zone, and I’m guessing neither you nor the—” David ducks, for all the good it does, as another bullet thunks into the back of the car, “—charming homicidal maniacs behind us care about it, but school’s about to let out and I don’t want my sister getting run over.”

“Your sister’s fine, Ted will have gotten her and your folks out,” Patrick says absently, turning again on about one and a half wheels while the SUV spins out behind them.

“That’s good—wait, what?” David realizes, just before Patrick turns again and David almost concusses himself on the window.

The SUV is falling behind, but only a little bit; they’re already out into the rolling bucolic fields that surround Schitt’s Creek and that Stevie once described as the blank open space in a video game that signals you have to go back before you hit the invisible wall. Mostly right now it means that the bad guys with the guns that look considerably more high-tech than the turkey rifles have an easier time aiming, and David wonders if Sh’ma Yisrael can pinch-hit as a Lord’s Prayer, even though he doesn’t really believe in either of his parent’s gods.

“Don’t worry,” Patrick says, “They’re not going to kill us in this car.”

“The qualifier is perhaps less reassuring than you think it is,” David hisses, and Patrick just smiles at him like he said something funny and fuck, it’s still working for him.

So some people might claim that after writing this in response to her amazing snippet, I may bear some sort of responsibility here. But in fact this is 100% @whetherwoman and @angryonabus‘s fault (as well as @storieswelove who came up with the brilliant prompt in the first place), I have never done anything wrong ever in my life, etc:

*

"We know nothing about each other," Mr. Rose protested, then immediately amended, "Excepting that I know you to be the owner of a shop—"

"An exchange," Patrick corrected him, as he had that summer’s day, once again fighting off a smile. "The Apothecary is quite the mode; a pity that you’re barred from entering it."

"Yes, well, perhaps the owner may finally lift his injunction against me," said Mr. Rose, fussing at his cuffs.

"Where were you able to buy better manners?" Patrick asked, before the implication of his teasing words caught his ears.

Mr. Rose flinched, but showed no anger — just as he’d shown no anger when Patrick had forcibly escorted him from the Apothecary last year, making that flippant remark that had made the papers the next day. At the time Patrick had only been relieved not to suffer the vengeance of yet another aristocrat with more money than sense; but watching Mr. Rose now, he wondered at how many unkind remarks he’d simply accepted over the past few weeks. 

Or perhaps much longer than that.

"I am sorry, that was not an intended barb," he said, and was utterly unprepared for the small, hopeful smile Mr. Rose rewarded him with. It stole his breath, turning his throat into a pillar of glass. Seventeen ladies and twelve gentlemen before him had not stirred such a reaction — Patrick wondered what foolishness he might indulge in to bring that smile back. "What else would you like to know about me?"

Mr. Rose blinked. "In order to find out if we would make suitable husbands? I could not—" His hands waved about, as if to signify some internal confusion. "How do you like your tea?" he asked, after few moments’ thought.

"Black, in a cup," Patrick replied promptly.

It had the intended effect: Mr. Rose huffed, but his mouth twitched in amusement. "No sugar?" he demanded. "Or lemon? And what about the temperature at which it is prepared, or the type of leaf? Do you prefer it from China, Ceylon, India? What are your opinions on—" He cut himself off, scowling now. "What, may I ask, is so amusing?"

"I apologize, Mr. Rose," Patrick said, despite the smile that he had failed to keep from spreading across his face. "Which question would you like me to answer first?"

"None of them, no doubt they will all horrify me," he replied with a wave of his hand.

So @whetherwoman and I are writing a bunch of Assassin’s AU snippets because we’re really terrible people, and I wrote this for her tonight; I’d say I was sorry but I’m extremely not.

*

Patrick watches the gallery for a few weeks; longer than he would for a mark, but the Ghost isn't a mark, can't be reduced to something so banal. He takes slow ambling walks down the sidewalk, gets coffee from the small shop across the street; once he even poses as a buyer on a day he know the Ghost won't be there, walking through the gallery with his hands jammed into his pockets to stop them from shaking. It's all real, the Ghost is real, and after almost ten years Patrick is here, so close he can taste the copper on his tongue.

He should have known that it wouldn't be so easy—that the Ghost would see him, too.

There's a exhibit being put on (of course the Ghost is meticulous about his cover the way he is about everything else, arranging exhibits, displaying truly hideous artwork in his gallery, meeting with buyers) and Patrick slips in, swirling amongst the crowd. He's out of place in his suit jacket and tie, but he's trained himself to fade out of sight anywhere, and it's remarkably easy to do here, people's gazes sliding over him to find the more interesting person to his left.

Ronnie keeps trying to drill it into his head: don't get cocky.

"I was wondering if you'd show up," says a voice behind him, high and warm and a little amused, unfamiliar with a familiar tone. Patrick turns; he can't believe he left a blind spot open, but of course the Ghost would've found it, would've slid into it without any trouble.

The Ghost is David Rose, thirty-four, son of preposterously wealthy parents who do something in entertainment, some college, some drug arrests, some modest successes in his career and some spectacular failures in his personal life. Patrick had skimmed over the biography because it was such a ridiculous cover, something out of the old DnD sessions he and his friends would have with elaborate backstories to make up for whatever reality really was. Standing in front of him, the cover feels like a shield, like armor, like Patrick might be the only one in this whole room—this whole city—that can see the chinks.

Whetherwoman: This is the best thing that’s happened to me all day. All month.

Gus: hahah that's really sad for you

Ooh, good question! I think it probably made like, sex with Patrick more emotional, but not sex as an activity itself.

Like — you can enjoy baking, for example, but there’s an additional layer of joy and specialness when you and your partner bake a really delicious cake together (or when you try to bake a really delicious cake but it gets burned and one of you accidentally used salt instead of sugar and the icing was a disaster but it was still a wonderful time spent in the kitchen with the person you love).