Cheap Sunglasses– A Whiskey and Patrick fic, for RJ Scott’s Christmas Bash

Sunglass Hut

A Whiskey and Patrick
Fic

By Amy Lane

“I’m going down to
work on the boat—you want to come with?”
 

To his credit,
Whiskey’s voice didn’t have a note of recrimination in it, even though it was
sort of Patrick’s fault that the boat had sprung a leak and needed repairs
right before Christmas.  All things
considered, though, it was probably better that Patrick had other plans, so he
looked up from his bed and smiled guilelessly but regretfully.

He hoped it was a guileless smile. He was trying for “innocent” and “inoffensive”
and “not planning to buy your boyfriend’s Christmas present while he went to
work on the boat.”

“Uhm, no,” he
said, as casually as possible. “I hope it’s okay—I’ve got some homework to do.
I, uh, need to study for finals.”

Whiskey had shaved
recently, and the brown scruff on his cheeks wasn’t as deep as usual. Which
meant when he rubbed it, the rasping sound filled the room. 

Patrick smiled
winningly and looked right past his left temple, avoiding all contact with his
gold-brown eyes. 

“Study, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Your dad wants us
to stay until after the New Year—Lori Ann even asked if that’s okay.”  Well, Dad’s girlfriend was pretty
awesome. And she was afraid Patrick and Whiskey would catch cold, which made
sense since he’d been trying to install a space heater when he’d accidentally popped
a hole in the boat—but that’s not what was on Whiskey’s mind right now.  “I don’t have to go do repairs right now.  Did you want to go ‘study’ at the mall together?”

Patrick flailed
his long-fingered hands and then covered his eyes.  “No! Because you’ll know what I’m getting you! Because I
suck at surprises! So… you know. I’ll go by myself and get your Christmas gifts
and hide them.” His grin felt much more sincere now.

Whiskey
grimaced.  “You, uhm, know we’re
spending most of my money on our leaky home, right?  I mean, at this point my present for you is—“

Patrick launched
himself off the queen-sized bed they were sharing in his father’s house until
the houseboat was livable in the winter. 
“You!” he finished,
excited.  “You’re my present this year!” His melted into Whiskey’s arms, shorter,
but strong and lithe.  “This is our
first Christmas together, really,” Patrick whispered against his ear. “So I
need to get you something really awesome.” Whiskey had been gone the year before, researching in the arctic, and their relationship had survived until he’d returned. Patrick wanted it to be special–even if they weren’t celebrating in their home.

Whiskey laughed
into the hollow of Patrick’s neck, tickling him. “You’re awesome. Don’t worry about the present—I told you, we’ll
keep it small this year so I can take you with me in the summer.”

Patrick beamed at
him. “Okay.”

Whiskey shook his
head and sighed.  “Yeah, well,
don’t break your bank, okay?”

“Don’t worry,
Whiskey—I’ve got it nailed.”

He pretended not
to see Whiskey grimace. He had plans.

Whiskey missed
Patrick’s company when he was working on the boat, but he didn’t mind missing
the “help”. Patrick tended to forget what they were doing in the middle when
they were doing it—which is sort of how the hole in the hull had happened in
the first place.  Whiskey, in fact,
spent the bright December day squinting against a headache because his last
pair of sunglasses had been knocked off his nose and into the river by Patrick’s
elbow when they’d been pulling the winterizing tarp over the deck so, yeah—he’d
made progress and nothing had been broken. He was calling it a win.

However, he was
glad to get back to Patrick’s father’s house, up in the rich part of
Orangevale, and he was even happier when he walked in and smelled two of
Patrick’s favorite things: cookies and pizza.  Yes, he was getting too old to eat them both but after the
day of gluing indoor/outdoor carpeting to the inner hull in an effort to
insulate, he would eat anything as
long as it was warm.

“Pizza?” he asked
hopefully.  “And cookies!”

The cookies were,
in fact, purchased from the Otis Spunkmeyer (the name cracked him up every
time) store at the mall, and Patrick had bought a truckload of them.

“Hrm, ‘arf mm,”
Patrick offered, from the kitchen table, waving his current victim in a shower
of crumbs.  The table itself was
covered in wrapping paper, tape, and scissors. The wrapping paper was cut,
torn, and shredded into tiny pieces, the tape was strewn from one part of the
table to the other in big, tangled strips, and the scissors were wide open and
in the dead center of the table.

The cookies sat in
a big red box on top of all of that other stuff, in front of Patrick
himself.  To Patrick’s immediate
left, in danger of being knocked over with every wave of his cookie, sat three
perfectly wrapped packages, tied together with gold ribbon, and topped with one
big, purchased, glittering bow.

Whiskey stared at
the mess in a daze and took a cookie from the red box.  “Has, uhm, your father seen this?” he
asked.  Please God, no, please God, let me have time to clean this up…

Patrick nodded and
swallowed. “Uh-huh.  That was when
he went to order pizza, since Lori Ann is going shopping tonight.  He’s showering right now.”

Whiskey stepped
forward and began to pick up big handfuls of wrapping paper. God, if he hadn’t
seen Patrick in action before, he would never have guessed such a skinny man
could create such a giant fat mess. 
“So, you couldn’t resist Otis, huh?”

Patrick smiled
before his next bite of cookie. 
“Yeah, well, it’s right by J.C. Penny’s, that radio control booth, and
Sunglass Hut – it was pretty hard to miss.”

Patrick kept
gnawing on his cookie, apparently thrilled with a mission well accomplished,
and Whiskey looked at the three packages—one the size of a sweater and jeans,
one the size of a radio control toy, and the other the size of sunglasses—before
he continued to sweep the remains of the gift-wrapping frenzy off the table.

He very carefully
didn’t meet Patrick’s eyes.

4…3…2…1…

“Oh fuck!” Patrick moaned.  He shoved the box of cookies away so he
could thunk his head on the kitchen table. Repeatedly.

Whiskey sighed and
squatted next to him, kissing him gently on the shoulder.

“You, Patrick,” he
said, meaning it.

“I wanted to–”

“You’re my best
present.”

“—surprise you!”

“I couldn’t ask
for a better man in my life.”

“I was trying so
hard—“

“I love you more
than sunglasses. You know that right?”

Patrick turned to
him and blinked, his blue eyes shiny with embarrassment. “I hope so,” he said
with a little sigh. “But just in case, you’d better not trust me with state
secrets or anything.”

“Just my
heart.  I swear.”

Patrick smiled a
little, and Whisky had to kiss him. It was imperative.  That’s what they were doing when
Patrick’s father walked into the kitchen. Whiskey barely heard him as he loaded
up his plate with pizza and then walked out. 

“When you two are
done in there, bring the cookies to the living room! We’re watching Christmas
specials because I said so!” he hollered.

Patrick grunted
and pulled back.  “Christmas
specials?”

“Santa Clause is Coming to Town,” Whiskey
said, because they could hear the music through the doorway.

“Good. Let’s go
eat cookies, I mean dinner there. 
Here—I’ll clean up, you can put your stuff under the tree.”

Whiskey did as
ordered, wishing he could open his present right now.  Man, those sunglasses would come in handy the next time he
took Patrick out on the boat.