Chapter Text
Dave shouldered the door open with a weary groan, eyes half closed and body sagging as he staggered in. Tonight had been a long night. Almost multiple nights. All stitched together and laid out and slowed down to a standstill until it was like a lifetime.
A lifetime filled with listening to weak beats spun by amateur DJs picked from Craigslist, and cleaning up vomit. It's the first step, everyone told him. Get your foot in the door to the club scene, even if it's only as a janitor. You'll work your way up, everyone added.
But everyone was John, and John was a trust fund baby with a naive heart, too much faith in the world, and not enough sense.
There were bills to be paid though, so Dave kept making sure everyone made it to the restroom in time, and cleaned up their messes when they didn't. He plucked used condoms from floors and held back the hair of others bent over toilet bowls. And he quietly died a hundred deaths as he listened to the cheap tracks that played in the club all night.
"Yo, Dirkinator, I call the bottom bunk tonight. If you gotta problem with that you can just toss my ass up to the top, 'cause I ain't moving for shit," Dave called out as he made for the single bedroom.
"Be sure to take your shoes off for once," Dirk called back, his voice coming from the linoleum wasteland they called a kitchen.
"You're not my real mom," Dave said as he shrugged off his coat, letting it drop in the middle of the hall before nudging open the bedroom door.
The room was dark, the sole source of light the glow of Dirk's computer screen, his wallpaper a smattering of disembodied horses' heads and a tacky CGI waterfall. The floor was a sea of rumpled shirts and pants, the occasional hoodie tossed in to add flavor. Dave slogged through it until he reached to bottom bunk, falling face-forward without so much as taking his shades off.
Or his shoes.
Speaking of shoes, the clip clip clip of heels was haunting him, the steady echo that seemed to follow every fucking woman who was let into the club. It reached critical mass at 1 a.m., a cacophony of stilettos and pumps banging away like nails into wood. Dave was pretty sure the Geneva Conventions were supposed to protect him from this sort of torture.
But one pair, he could handle that. It was nice, almost. A clip here, a clip there, the sound of a cupboard opening and closing. Hell, it was rivaling on dainty, fast closing in on nice. It made him think of deer, all long slender legs and careful steps. Yeah. Deer were okay. He could appreciate them along with the in and out of the clipping.
Dave's thoughts grew muddled and heavy as he started to doze, cheek smooshed against the pillow and limbs loose while he balanced on the cusp of sleep. He was in the final stretch of consciousness when the mattress dipped, the rustle of fabric filtering into his half-dreams as hands gently gripped his ankle.
The touch startled him awake, forced his leg to snap out in surprise and meet against Dirk's side. Dirk gave a sharp hiss and smacked his hand against Dave's leg.
"Shit, dude, don't get your club-gunk all over my brand," Dirk said
"Sorry to break it to you, but TJ Maxx doesn't count as a brand," Dave yawned, curling on his side.
"This isn't no Bodyline," Dirk said, as if Dave should recognize the name. "This coord is straight up Angelic Pretty. Got help with it from the ladies on the comm and everything."
"Holy shit man, if you want to talk so late at night, stick to English," Dave said. He didn't jolt this time when Dirk touched his ankle.
There was something off about Dirk's hands, though. They were his, sure, but they didn't feel like it. The calloused roughness that accompanied his fingertips was muted, hidden beneath something softer, almost velvety. It wasn't skin.
"You wearing gloves, dude?" Dave asked.
Dirk gently worked Dave's first shoe off before untying the laces of the other.
"Feels good, huh?"
Dirk pulled the second shoe off, tossing the both of them with a thunk to the floor. He gave Dave's shin a quick pat and a stroke, like he was rewarding a horse after a good run. Dave sighed and rolled his shoulders, his mind beginning to clear the longer Dirk was around.
"Tough day at work?" Dirk asked.
"Tonight was like, night of the living midlife crisis dudes. And it's like─ shit, man. I can't help it if those twenty-somethings they keep feeding drinks too end up losing it all over their nice slacks, you know?"
"Will Easy Mac make it better?"
"It'll make it bearable."
With a laugh, Dirk rose from the bed, giving Dave another pat before he left. The clip of heels returned when he left, and this time Dave wasn't so sure they were a carryover noise haunting him from work. Dirk donning gloves for reasons hitherto unknown, and then babying him with tasteless, thirty second macaroni wasn't helping either.
Something was up.
Sometimes, when Dave came home early, he'd hear the clipping. He'd assumed it was a neighbor, their feet hitting the floor above his head. But they were on the top floor. Other times, he'd walk in to see Dirk at the computer, hair mussed in a very not-on-purpose way, and with his shirt on backwards or inside out, like he'd changed in a hurry.
Then things changed. Slowly, but they did.
Dirk stopped being so uptight about the packages he received on a bi-daily basis. No longer did he squirrel them away, hiding them only to dispose of the packaging in the middle of the night, like a killer carrying a body into the woods.
Not that it did him a lick of good, because Dave rooted through the trash like a stray dog in search of a meal, found the names of all sorts of places, ranging from run of the mill to somewhat suspicious. (Because seriously, what the fuck could Dirk be needing from a place called 'bridles4u"?) Most were from China, sporting names right off of ebay, while a few seemed to be from personal addresses, including one 'J. English', who lived on an island Dave had to google to make sure it existed, which did him a fat lot of good. There wasn't even a street view for it, and the wiki article was a stub.
The laundry changed after that. Snuck between jeans and socks and ironic graphic tees were nice things. Frilly things. Stuff made of lace and silk and stuff Dave wasn't sure he was supposed to find. He pinched them between thumb and forefinger, dropped them in the washing machine with his eyes averted and tried not to think about how they were soft as a chinchilla's ass.
Usually Dirk took the reins after that, folded everything freak-neat and put it away in drawers while humming Skrillex like some urban Disney princess, seagulls perched on the windowsill and listening in.
But there were times where Dave was stuck with the duty. He didn't fold clothes so much as he shoved them into what space there was, pounded and stuffed until it all fit. The closet was something else. The closet was vaguely frightening, in the way that run of the mill shadows could be when it got late. He hung up shirts on hangers and didn't waste time, tried to ignore the opaque dry cleaning bags that were always there.
He'd lifted the edge of one up once, overwhelmed by curiosity. What he'd found was pink and scalloped and good god, that was a lot of bows. He'd stopped then, yanked his hand away and shut the closet. Striders minded their own shit, first and foremost. Or at least pretended they did. Dave wasn't about to let on he'd wisened up to Dirk's cashflow.
Not that Dirk was shy about it. He ran a paysite. He posed for photos in the single clean spot of the living room. He stayed up until sunrise and then some, fingers tapping away at the keyboard while he entertained his customers. He didn't, however, entertain them or take photos in those nice things.
Or at least, that's what Dave told himself. Repeatedly.
The clipping in the kitchen became very clear and real as Dave sat up, pulling his shades off and folding them on the nightstand. That Easy Mac was calling his name, and he wasn't about to sit back and let Dirk take his slow-ass time until he got his grub on.
"What's the hold up, dude?" Dave said as he padded from the bedroom to the kitchen. "You should be a pro at cranking this stuff out with how many times you've made it."
"Figured I'd make it extra special for the big baby," Dirk said, and Dave saw that mother of God he was slicing through a fat hunk of velveeta and throwing it into the mix.
And that he still had his gloves on. And heels, yeah, those were a thing that was happening. Dave did a sweep that was anything but quick. Bullet-time was more applicable to the action. But when someone had legs like Dirk, fucking miles long and all toned and shit, it was a disservice to do anything but that.
It didn't help that those legs were clad in sheer stockings, hugging his calves and reflecting the light oh so perfectly as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. From the knees up he looked like confectionary on fine-ass legs. He was wearing a dress. No bones about it, like an Indian burial ground all dug up and carted off. There were negative bones, almost.
It was orange, but muted and soft. Nothing garish or tacky. The little candies and fruits on it, those were pretty damn tacky. Not to mention the little carousel horses that encircled the bottom, and the avalanche of bows didn't help. The dress was fitted around his chest, snug until it reached his waist where it promptly sloped and turned bell-shaped. The lace trim at the edges was the icing on the cake.
The hair on the back of Dave's neck stood when he spotted what was sure to be a hint of petticoat. Shit─ no. Seeing your bro in a dress wasn't supposed to do that sort of thing. Seeing your bro in any state of dress wasn't supposed to do that.
It wasn't supposed to make your throat close up and your breath hitch, your fingers twitch and curl with an instantaneous desire to touch. It didn't send your heart galloping and settle a sickly sweet twist in your stomach. It didn't kick up thoughts that had been bludgeoned into dark recesses and never meant to surface again.
But fuck if it wasn't doing all those things and more to Dave.
"You going to stand there all night or do you want some food?" Dirk eventually said, offering a bowl to Dave. His voice was flat, even. He wasn't making the first move.
"Don't you know it," Dave said, and shit, his voice kind of almost squeaked a little, like he was some sort of middle school dweeb talking to his crush.
Dave took the bowl from Dirk's hands like something holy, a splinter from the cross or a vial of the pope's blood. He looked to Dirk and found Dirk wasn't looking back, gaze instead directed downwards. Dave followed his line of sight to find his own hands.
Which were shaking like they were host to an off the charts earthquake. Dave gripped tightly at the bowl, trying and failing to steady his hands. The fork clattered against the rim of it when he tried to eat.
"Blood sugar's being a little shit again," was the excuse Dave supplied.
Dirk leaned back against the kitchen counter, half-perched and watchful. Dude had eyes like a hawk since day one, clear and sharp and a color no one else had. It was like amber and honey and some sort of shade plucked straight from Twilight but without all retarded adverbs.
"If I knew you were going to be such a pansy I would have thrown on sweats before you got home," Dirk said.
"I─ shit, dude. I'm not being a pansy. You dress however you want, man. You want to wear suspenders and elbow patches? Cool, dude. Want to dress up like a little girl waiting for her unicorn? I'm down, but you got to give a man a minute to get used to the glamor."
"Sure, like you weren't keen on it already."
Dave accidentally chomped on his tongue.
"What?"
"You're smart, Dave. You know my half of the rent doesn't grow on a money tree in the roof garden."
"Well yeah, dude. I know you got your entrepreneur on online, have that little site of yours or whatever. I didn't think you were pulling cash outta your ass."
"And you've been to the site," Dirk said. He wasn't looking at Dave's hands anymore.
"Like, once. Had to check up on my bro and all, make sure you weren't trying to hock a kidney and all."
Dirk clutched the counter for a split second, hands tensing before he pushed himself off. He closed the distance between the two of them, one agonizingly slow step at a time. He was doing this on purpose, dragging it out like a cat on cornered prey, moving nearer until Dave could hear his breathing, feel it tickling his skin and heating his blood.
"Well," Dirk said, the word drawled and low, "since you seem to have all the answers, perhaps you could tell me why you've felt the need to 'check up' on me five times over the past three days."
Fuck.
Busted.
Chapter 2
Notes:
What do people put here? It's such a mystery.
Chapter Text
If there was one medium Dave could trust for advice, it was television. After-school specials and PSAs had taught him how to react in case of people trying to lure him into cars, or what to do if ever he encountered a grease fire. He knew who had the best car insurance rates in town, and that the thrift store was 'a minute and five past the old dingy dive.'
It also taught him that if dragged into a sudden and unwanted topic of conversation, he could buy time by shoving gross amounts of food into his mouth. Which he promptly did. Not a single scrap of macaroni escaped his gnashing teeth as he shoveled in forkful after forkful. The whole act was made awkward tenfold by the fact Dirk didn't have the courtesy to step off Dave's grill while he noshed.
Dave tried to step away. Tried multiple times. Dirk simply stepped closer after each attempt to move, conspiring to create an ugly waltz that ended with Dave backed against the counter and running out of macaroni fast, the bowl in his hands like a shield and the tines of the fork bitten between his teeth.
"You know I wouldn't begrudge you a membership, dude," Dirk said. He did that thing with his lips, where it curved almost into a smile, but never quite made it. Settled for something more smug and self-assured instead. "After seeing the previews as many times as you have, shit must be getting pretty stale."
"Jesus, dude. No─" The fork slipped from between Dave's lips and he spoke, and his knee-jerk reflex was to grab for it, the end result him having a handful of skirt instead of the fork.
"Eager," Dirk said. It wasn't a question or a comment. It was a statement.
Dave let go of the dress and reared away, the small of his back connecting with the sharp edge of the counter and sending a shiver of pain through his body. He stood, stunned and still, one eye screwed up at the throbbing ache. Dirk took the bowl from his hands and set it aside, left Dave with nothing to clutch and hide behind.
"So is there a reason you got all gussied up tonight or what?" Dave finally managed to spit out.
"Decided I'd do a nice photoset with my new duds," Dirk said, smoothing his hands down the front of his dress.
The movement was too slow and measured to be subconscious, drew Dave's eyes like a horse on a lead.)Not watching wasn't an option. And fuck if this wasn't like the startings of a hypnotism session with how Dirk played his gloved fingers over each button and bow, his hands the mark instead of a swinging pocket watch.
"Well, uh, don't let me stop you," Dave said. "Get that show on the road and shit, don't keep your audience waiting."
"I finished an hour ago."
"And you're still in this getup of yours?"
"You're still in your work clothes," Dirk countered.
"I─ yeah. Fine, I am," Dave said.
There was a cue he was missing, a hint in the conversation he was meant to pick up, a thread dangled before his eyes. But Dave's words were failing, slowly sinking Leonardo di Caprio's dumb ass when he trusted that Rose chick to never let go. There they went, frigid and blue, swallowed up by the ocean to die.
Because here he was, completely busted and called on checking his bro out online. He hadn't meant to, didn't want to in the forefront of his mind. But it just, it happened. He'd wanted to know more about his brother, what his site was like and how he ran it. Wanted in on more of his life and some kind of connection that went beyond the few short hours they had together before Dave went off to another soul-crushing night of work.
And in the beginning, it had been to check on Dirk, to make sure he wasn't getting in over his head.
It hadn't been hard to find the site, not with how Dirk left it open from time to time when he thought Dave was asleep. And Dave would shimmy from beneath the covers, slip down the ladder and peer over the chair. The pages were innocuous most of the time, traffic stats or file names composed of abbreviated words and lines of numbers.
But there were times when it was a little less innocent. A shot of puppet dong-nose so close he could make out the felted fibers. Or a fish-eye photo of one of their freakish rumps that jutted like icebergs from the ocean. It was weird as fuck, but it kept the lights on and the water running so Dave didn't question it, instead let it stew and fester in a dark spot.
It was a manageable spot, though.
Or it was, until he'd decided to vacuum. He hadn't planned on it, had instead been rooting around the hallway closet for a tie because tomorrow─ tomorrow was it. He had an interview with a record shop and he was going to shine, blow them away with his musical knowledge and look sharp while doing it.
Instead, he'd found a vacuum cleaner. It was dusty and dull, more fit for a museum on display next to ancient stone carvings and bog-mummies than for actual cleaning. It started up with a cough, rolled over before it began to roar. It gave him something to do, narrowed his concentration and stole it away from the everyday what ifs that plagued him.
He'd been in the middle of vacuuming around the bunk bed when it happened. There he'd been thinking that once Dirk was back from the store, caught Dave taking initiative and being domestic as shit, he might treat him nice. Might make him beanie weenies for dinner, even.
Then the vacuum had gone head to head with something just under the bed, made a whunking noise and died. A noble death in the line of service for an old warhorse, at least. Dave pulled it back out from under the bed, found its face dented, impressed upon.
The fuck?
Dave dragged the vacuum aside, propped it against the wall before dropping to his hands and knees. There was a monster lurking under the bed, a conquerer of vacuums, and he wanted to see it for himself. He lifted an overhanging blanket with one hand, ducked his head under the bed and squinted, made out vague shapes of old shoes and socks along with something else.
It was long and thin, like a dowel. Dave's shoulder tensed and ached as he forced it under the bed, hand groping until he grabbed the object. It was cool against his skin, some kind of metal. He sat back on his knees once he'd fished it out, rolled it in his hands and took it in.
The restraining cuffs on each end caught his eye, struck faded memories in the back of his head, recalled a word that lingered on his tongue until it clicked. It was a fucking spreader bar, plain and simple, hanging around under the bed like it was living in some kind of kinky paddock, waiting patiently to be let loose.
Shit. That had been it, the real kicker. The thing that spurred Dave to check the site himself instead of seeing it from Dirk's screen. Spreader bars weren't for smuppets, and it it wasn't for them it could only be for─
That was when he saw him on the site. Not smuppets─ and God, those freakish things turned Dave's stomach─ as Dave had assumed for so long. They were an offshoot, a side dish to the main course that was Dirk.
And then Dave had found himself in the bathroom, the whir of the vent muffling his soft pants, his phone in one hand and his dick in the other. There was Dirk on the screen, eyes half-lidded and warm, focused on the camera. He dragged his tongue along the smuppet's nose in one long, lazy swipe, nuzzling the tip with nothing short of a simper when he was done.
Then came the prompt, a promise that so much more awaited Dave if only he would shell out $20 a month. HD videos his for the downloading, photosets for his perusing at any time. Weekly updates. Live chats, if he was willing to shell out an extra wad of dough on top of that first fee.
Dave couldn't do it. Told himself there was no way in hell he'd pay to see the ass of someone he could scope out on a daily basis. Not that he did that, because fuck, how sick could he get? That was what kept him from looking, from eyeing Dirk as he bustled about in oversized sweatshirts that nearly swallowed his hands and shorts so short Dave had to wonder if they were even on under there. That and the fear of being caught.
Online, the risk was gone. There was no way Dirk could turn, catch Dave's eyes on his ass, or fixated on his lips. In the bathroom he could watch all he wanted, enthralled by each new preview that went up on Thursdays. He'd even gotten a script to save them, had a little dragon's hoard of half minute clips to watch while Dirk slept in the other room.
One week would have Dirk with his hands sliding between his thighs, roving over his tights at a pace that was painfully slow to watch, hips and stomach rolling in entrancing waves to shitty My Little Pony Euro-trance remixes. The next he'd be at the computer, the feed from the webcam grainy and dull and the screen reflected in his eyes. He smiled and smirked, caught his lip between his teeth, skimmed his fingertips along the arch of his neck.
That was all it was. Lewd, sure. Racy as fuck, actually, but never explicit. Dirk toed the line like a child chasing the waves, springing back right as the sea foam touched his toes. The heart of the site, composed of the thoughts Dave had before bed, the things that stirred in his dreams and had him taking too-long showers to rival Dirk's, were hidden behind a login page.
Until last week.
Last week had broken the fucking flood gates.
In place of the licking and nibbling and onslaught of fuck-me faces Dave was used to was a full blown video.
Five fucking minutes in high definition. Shit had all the p's. 720 at least, maybe even the full 1080. P's up to the gills and out the wazoo. All organized and shit to complete perfection, no trace of grain or compression or blur as the camera struggled to find focus. And Dirk─ Dirk was the star.
With a guest appearance by the spreader bar.
That was the final nail in the coffin of denial.
Dave was hot for his bro, and now, standing in the kitchen without so much as a smuppet's worth of space between them, Dirk knew too. And while Dave's hand was free for anyone to see, cards clear as day and no way to hide them, Dirk's hand was still guarded, his pokerface immaculate.
"I'm sorry," Dave said, and it was a confession for every sin he'd committed.
Dirk said nothing. Just stared, eyebrows slightly raised and head canted to the side. He wasn't guiding now, wasn't steering the conversation. The reins were in Dave's sweaty mitts and fast slipping.
Shit.
Dirk was freaked out, hit so hard even he was speechless, his smooth wit obliterated by the blow. Dave had done it. Fucking done it. Here was the kid who'd seen everything the internet had to offer, all the weird shit; from the amalgamations of childhood joys and the most bizarre of sexual acts, to the bile-encouraging photos that littered Wikipedia pages about diseases and─
Dave's admission had trumped all of it.
This was the end game, and Dave had made the wrong choices each step of the way. Here they were building up to the final speech. The credits would roll, the game over would surface.
Dirk's eyes flickered, moved as though they were reading. Like he was watching, searching, looking for something that Dave didn't know how to give.
"Can't say I thought you'd pony up so easily," Dirk said. His voice was soft, an undercurrent of surprise carrying his words.
"You got me, bro," Dave said, raising his hands in surrender. They were still shaking, fingers trembling and palms clammy. Time for his sentencing.
"Class dismissed," Dirk said, taking a step back. "Or really, detention. Hope I didn't keep you too late."
Dave made a noise halfway between a sob of relief and a noncommittal grunt. It wasn't pretty, but he didn't really care about it. Nothing could be worse than his own admission. All he wanted was for this to be over, for it to leave his head and stop weighing on his thoughts, like concrete shoes dragging his sanity under.
He'd been running on empty since three in the afternoon, busting his ass on the six hours of sleep he'd nabbed over the past two days. Now there were birds chirping, faint but very-fucking-much awake and excited to be so. Escape was the sole thing on Dave's mind, and sleep would give him that.
Dave staggered back to the bedroom, all dragging feet and shallow breathing. He crawled beneath the covers of the bottom bunk, and fuck─ fuck, this was Dirk's bed. The thread count was high, the cotton from another country. Where Dave had a scratchy rag of a throw to cover him, Dirk had blankets. In the goddamn plural. From the thin sheets Dave kicked down to the heavy comforter he pulled up to his chin, Dirk had it all.
The pillow was goose feather and the case made of silk. It smelled like Dirk. Like the too-expensive hair products he used, the bodywash concoctions in all sorts of containers Dave was strictly prohibited from touching. Dirk was the scent of sugared sweets, light and airy, just a touch of taste on the tongue of warm vanilla. He was Eden, and every wonderful thing in it.
Including the forbidden fruit. And Dave wanted the knowledge that came from biting into it, wanted the carnal knowledge.
Dave jerked as he caught his own thoughts, quickly turning them into a stream of self-loathing and reminders of how fucking wrong this was on so many levels. He curled in the bed with his thoughts, hidden under blankets and huddled against the wall, like an injured cat seeking a comfortable space to die.
But he didn't die. He didn't even sleep.
Instead he recounted each wrongful act, recalled every time he'd looked at Dirk as more than a brother─ which amounted to nearly every goddamn time in the past few years. It began with a kind of painful ache of appreciation for Dirk, for the curve of his neck and the strong relief of his collarbones, how his voice rasped low when he'd just woken, and how he'd so unabashedly bat his eyelashes when he wanted to watch Saddle Club and Dave had the remote.
It escalated from there. Turned into a fondness for how lithe Dirk's fingers were, deft and nimble as he sewed smuppets. His teeth were even and pale, canines rounded as he caught thread between them, giving a short jerk of his head to snap it when he was done. If the smuppet was up to par, Dirk would make a noise, soft and content in the back of his throat, like a mother's approving coo as she held her child for the first time.
Dave wanted those hands, those teeth─ on him. He wanted to hear that noise, wanted to earn it.
But he didn't deserve any of it.
And he most certainly didn't deserve for the blankets to lift, the mattress dipping as Dirk lowered himself to the bed. He pulled the covers back over the both of them, the bunk's frame giving a clanging shake as he wriggled closer closer closer until the his candy-colored number was bussing against the back of Dave's knees and there was a warm breath on his neck.
"Dirk," Dave breathed, his throat tight. "Dirk, please."
"Shh," Dirk said, and Dave didn't have the energy to argue.
Instead he lay still, eyes open and staring at the wall. Dirk shifted from time to time, seemed to somehow move closer without trying, the heat of his chest warm against Dave's back, with the buttons and bows of the dress biting into him through his shirt.
The sheets rustled as Dirk raised his hand, and Dave knew exactly what was happening, childhood memories inching their way to the forefront of his mind. This had happened a hundred times before, Dirk crawling into bed, fitting himself against Dave, and lastly, stroking his hair.
Dirk wound locks around his finger, held them quietly for a moment, a breath and then two, and let them fall away. His neatly filed nails moved on to Dave's scalp, scritching and scratching lightly before they found their way to Dave's ears. They trailed along the shell, trickled down until they settled in the indent behind his ear.
This was how it had been years ago. When Dave would wake in the night, clothes clinging to him in a cold sweat. It was the dreams that did it to him. The ones of a life he'd never had, but still experienced, like a child plagued by nightmares of dogfights and skirmishes in a war that had happened decades before their birth. A time that didn't exist for them, but refused to leave their conscious.
Dave dreamed of heat and gears, of having a handle on time and having a brother who was Dirk, but not. Who was Dirk, but different. Different and dead. There were creatures, all gray skin and pointed teeth, candied horns and confusing words. There were people in his dreams he met, knew their names and faces only to have them one day appear in his life as real. He couldn't explain it, didn't want to explain it.
And when Dirk would sneak into his bed, he didn't make Dave explain. Just stayed close and quiet, and most of all, comforted.
Now he was at it again, all those years later. But this time, there was no reason to, no motivation Dave could understand behind the action. The question was on his tongue, heavy and worried, refusing to leave his lips. All he could do was wait and wonder, the affection he'd yearned for before now a torturous treat after what had come to light.
"You hate your job," Dirk said, and only then did Dave realize he'd started to drift.
"Mm, yeah. Surprise of the century there," Dave mumbled. His lips barely parted, his eyelids too heavy to open.
He must have closed them when Dirk had gone from touching at his ear to resting a hand on his waist and─ no. He didn't remember that either. It was there alright though, settled on the slightest dip of Dave's waist, gently clutching at his side, thumbing a fold in his shirt.
"You should get a new job."
"Not that easy, bro."
"It can be," Dirk said. His lips were at Dave's ear, pulling him back from the precipice of slumber.
"How?"
The room went quite again, nothing but the sound of their breathing and the whir of electronics.
"Trust me," Dirk said.
"Why?" was the last question Dave could muster. His entire body was weak, overburdened and exhausted. His thoughts were sluggish and muted. Thought was a far off concept, something he could no longer comprehend. Reason had been laid to waste.
"Because I want you to be happy."
Those words had strings attached, a deeper meaning with hidden intentions lurking beneath them. But Dave didn't care. He was tired and hurting, his only desire to make everything stop, if only for a few hours. So he mumbled half-words of acceptance, nosing the pillow in a nod, signaling his surrender to Dirk's whims.
The last thing he registered as he drifted off was the noise, the satisfied sigh he'd yearned for, and a stockinged-leg hitched over his thigh.
Chapter Text
The next day had Dave thinking the night before was some sort of twisted, all too clear fever dream. The bed was empty when he roused, the spot where Dirk had been already cold. The air was muggy and stifling, the rumble of midday traffic overwhelming any birdsong.
Dave crawled his way out of bed, shuffled straight for the bathroom before he could be intercepted. He needed some time before showing his face to Dirk again. A dude didn't admit to bro love like his without things going off the rails in a spectacularly short amount of time.
The shower water was tepid, even at full blast. Nothing close to the open-flame-hot that it took to get Dave going. Not that he was surprised. Dirk was the one with the preternatural ability to wake up first and steal the good water, no matter what hour it meant rising at. Dave got whatever was left over.
Once he was out of the shower and dried off, Dave trundled back to the bedroom with a towel slung around his waist like a sarong. He curled his toes into the carpet, cracked them as he grabbed clothes from the floor, giving each article the sniff test to cobble together an outfit.
Dirk was already in the kitchen when Dave finally made it out, the microwave whirring as he bustled about. He looked kind of normal. The kind of normal that carried no frill, lace, or petticoat. He was wearing one of Dave's ratty old sweaters though, one that was inappropriately festive regardless of the time of year and irreparably frayed at the hem. He was giving Ms. July 1986 (who Dave was well-acquainted with after seeing her invitingly perched above the washing machine every time he did laundry) a run for her money in the legs department. Pants were not in his immediate future.
Dave watched from the doorway, shoulder against the frame and arms crossed. Dirk was pulling his best domesticity shtick, light and springy on his feet as a newlywed, hair clipped back out of his eyes (and suddenly those fruity little barrettes had bottomed out in the irony department). What Dave had at first thought to be a poorly whistled imitation of a bird was instead an excellently reproduced bass drop, which stopped only when the microwave did.
It was quickly apparent that Jimmy Dean was on the menu, and the smell alone had Dave creeping into the kitchen and seating himself at the fold-up card table they pretended wasn't going to fall to pieces at any minute. Dirk served him up a plate with a half-dozen helpings of clogged arteries and a side of just-add-water gravy to sop it up with.
With a gruff thanks Dave dug into the meal, chowing down on biscuits and sausage with his head held low. He ducked from side to side as Dirk stood over him, fingers fussing and parting his hair just so, laying flat the damp cowlicks and flicking his bangs into place.
Dirk didn't bring up last night.
Dave sure as fuck wasn't about to either.
It was only when Dave was shrugging his battered parka coat on with his house keys in hand that Dirk stopped him. It took nothing more than a curt clearing of his throat and a sideways glance to freeze Dave in place. He shoved his keys in his pocket and stood stock still, shoulders hunched and defensive as he waited for Dirk to speak.
"Going off to work?" Dirk said, and if that wasn't a challenge in his voice Dave didn't know what was.
"Something like that."
"Even after last night?" the challenge had switched to a warning, like the 3-2-1 of a mother's countdown when their child stepped out of line.
Dave gave a single nod and settled his hand on the doorknob. He wasn't quite ready to be cowed by his brother.
"One last night of work, okay?" Dave asked as he opened the door. "Gotta go out with a bang and all that."
"I'll be waiting," Dirk said, and Dave took it as permission to leave.
----
At the club, Dave eschewed anything vaguely resembling responsibility. In the darkness of the building, surrounded by moving bodies and strobing lights, he was another face in the crowd, cornering cougars for a dance or two before offhandedly snatching their drinks and slipping away.
And with the drinks came courage. Well, maybe courage was the wrong word. He wasn't fearful to begin with. It was more that he'd been steadily slipping down a slope of fucks and was about to reach the base, bottom out at zero feet above no-fuck level.
It culminated with him acting on a fantasy he’d played in his head daily since childhood.
He hopped up on the stage while DJ Craigslist was between sets, no doubt schmoozin' it up with a gaggling flock of girls who'd be spilling their drinks over him in no time flat. Dave's hands were on the turn tables in seconds, fingers working and spinning before anyone could stop him. The movements were natural, automatic. It was as effortless as breathing, but so much better.
His time on the stage was short lived and well-received, the bouncers sweaty hands on him before his third song was over. The guy gave him a pitiful kind of your-job-or-mine look at he hauled Dave away, teeth busted and crooked from too many brawls and his shades cracked from the most recent one.
Dave didn't look back when he was wrestled out the door, just started walking for the closest bus stop and took a seat on the bench. He hadn't spent two years cleaning up sick to go out without getting his hands on those tables. That, and a brother wasn't about to ditch all that unemployment at Dirk's whim.
The buzz that the drinks had left Dave with was nearly gone by the time he made it home. He took each step of the stairs slowly, hand wrapped around the rail like it was pulling him along instead of guiding him. He could handle this if it was just going out of the frying pan and into the fire, but this was going straight from the frying pan and into the devil's own molten clutches.
Dirk was waiting for him in the living room, perched perfectly on the edge of the futon with his hands folded in his lap and dolled up in all his finery. His outfit tonight wasn't quite the assault on Dave's eyesight, with antique whites and creams in the place of creamsicle orange and otterpop teal.
"Should I even bother asking about work?" Dirk asked as he stood. He had kitten heels on tonight, short and sensible. It looked good on him.
"Went out with as much of a bang as I could," Dave said, hanging his coat on the rusty nail jutting from the wall. "So when does this new gig you've apparently got lined up for me start?"
"The second you get that stubble shaved off," Dirk said. He moved closer slowly, like a predator that had been spotted by its prey and was feigning indifference as it prepared to pounce. "The sideburns have to go, too."
Dave wanted to say no, that this was his carefully cultivated and grown facial hair that came with being a man, a sign that he was rugged as fuck and had moved beyond a cracking pitch and pimples, but he couldn't. Not with how Dirk was scratching along the offending sideburns like he was tickling beneath the chin of a cat.
Dave followed the touch right into the bathroom, head hazy and mixed up. This felt nice. This felt really fucking nice. One thing he'd learned in his life was nice nice things were a precursor to the unpleasant, so his surprise was muted when Dirk lead him straight the the bathroom and his eyes went straight to the cabinet.
"Come on," Dave said, ducking his head to the side. "Can't a man have a final moment with his facial hair?"
"Got a eulogy prepared?" Dirk asked.
"I can whip a little something up."
Dave didn't whip anything up. Instead he stood and gave himself a once over in the mirror, hands idly gripping at the sink's counter. He really dug what he had going. That bit on his chin that he liked to rub along the back of his hand, the sideburns that added a swarthy touch. It was what kept him looking older, like he hadn't fallen off the cabbage truck twenty-three years ago.
And he liked it that way.
"Alright, that's enough tearful goodbyes," Dirk said with a sigh.
Dave gave a weak and worn smile before turning the taps of the sink, letting the water warm before lowering his head and splashing his face. Dirk made his usual throat-clearing noise to say that, no, this wasn't how things were supposed to go. Dave brushed it off and kept splashing, continued to look himself over as he ran his hands over his face.
It was when he reached for the shaving cream that Dirk tutted, clicked his tongue like a schoolteacher and flicked his fingers along the side of Dave's hand.
"Sit," Dirk said, and Dave was sure that word alone in that kind of demanding tone wasn't supposed to send a shocked shiver down his spine. Not that knowing stopped it from happening.
When Dave kept standing, Dirk placed a hand on his shoulder, giving a sharp squeeze before easing him away from the counter. He guided Dave all of a foot and a half and sat him on the toilet seat lid. Dave mindlessly smoothed out the wrinkles in his jeans as he watched Dirk from the corner of his vision, his heart shuddering as Dirk started going through cabinets.
Then it did a lot more than shudder once Dirk pulled out an old and familiar leather case. The contents rattling within it as Dirk laid it down and opened it and set to work. The flick flick flick of the razor against the strop heightened Dave's heartbeat as Dirk sharpened it, his humming soft and melodic as he eyed the razor in the washed out light of the bathroom.
"You sure about using that bad boy, Sweeney?" Dave asked, tongue darting out and licking along his lips.
"I've seen you at it enough times to know what I'm doing," Dirk said.
He set the razor down and smiled sweetly, shorting out any other concerns Dave had been about to pose him. Dave instead took to staring at the tile of the wall, making out symbols and animals in the cracks and mildewed spots, his leg starting to jog as Dirk worked shaving gel between his hands until it foamed.
Dave's hair stood on end as Dirk lathered up his face, which was great. Just great. Now he'd get a nice close shave. The closest out there. Maybe, if he was lucky enough and fucking jerked again like he did when Dirk tipped his chin up, he'd get his own throat sliced open and be done with this.
But Dirk was slow and painfully gentle. He kept one hand beneath Dave's chin, shallowly dragging the razor across the skin and with a hint of pressure in the movement. His touch drifted to rest under the fleshy spot between Dave's chin and throat as he cleared away the remaining stubble on his chin.
Dave's leg switched from bouncing to going completely stiff and tense, like the majority of his body. Except for his stomach. That shit was having some kind of luau complete with a roasting pig, tiki torches, and dancing. His heart was currently invited to the luau and pulling some fire-swallowing stunt the rest of him wasn't ready to handle.
When Dirk tilted Dave's head aside, the razor kissing along his sideburns and leaving him fresh faced, Dave found himself shutting his eyes so tight white spots ate his vision. His mind was fast conjuring the mental image of a vampire looming over their about-to-be victim, teeth set against a thumping jugular. Fuck, that was hotter than it should've been.
This whole damn mess was hotter than it had any right to be. His body was taking a turn for the boneless and the tips of his ears were getting warm. Hell, the entirety of his blood volume had risen to a slow simmer that was building into a roil.
"I think that should just about do for now. We'll get your legs tomorrow when you're not so twitchy," Dirk said, running his palm along the underside of Dave's jaw.
The jolt Dave gave at the combination of Dirk's words and touch nearly lopped his own head off. But Dirk seemed ready, the razor no longer against his skin.
"What the fuck kind of job requires baby-ass-smooth legs?" Dave balked as he stood.
Like a woman fresh from the salon, he wanted to look in the mirror. But unlike like that woman, there was a quiet dread creeping into his bones that he wouldn't like the finished result. He at least had the nerve to run a hand along his face, found it hairless and foreign and a little sickening.
"For all intents and purposes, consider me your new boss," Dirk said. "And if you want to keep your job, you'll have to tone the sass down, mister."
"I don't know if I should be pumped or freaked out," Dave said. He had an idea all along it'd boil down to having Dirk as a boss, but he'd never stopped to think exactly of what that would entail.
"Why don't you wait until we've got you in uniform to decide?"
"Great, fucking fantastic. Can't wait to see what kind of duds you've got cooked up for me," Dave said, already artlessly pulling his shirt over his head. He caught his own eye in the mirror then, and all the resolve not to look crumbled away.
"I look like a fucking child," Dave said, wincing at his own reflection.
"Always the pessimist," Dirk said, watching over Dave's shoulder.
Before Dave knew it Dirk had one hand on his waist, gently gripping his side, testing the give of flesh and muscle. The other reached around and up, gripping Dave's jaw. Dirk tilted it from side to side, forced Dave to look himself over without having to say a word. The smoothness of Dirk's touch, his palm settled against the clean-shaven skin of Dave's jaw, sent an electric snap down his spine.
"Think of it another way. Think of it as proof of how nice you clean up. I always knew you would," Dirk said, his hand sliding from Dave's face. He gave Dave a final, fond squeeze before his other hand was gone as well, and Dave followed him to their room with the look of a seasick sailor.
The bedroom, Dave found, had gone under a similarly shocking transformation. The inside-out shirts and twisted jeans were gone. There was no hint of a stray sock or spare pair of sweatpants. There were extra lights brought in, tall lamps Dave recognized from the living room, casting enough light to make him realize what he'd thought had been khaki-colored walls had really been a kind of terrible off-yellow shade all along. It made him think of high fevers and childhood.
The lower bunk was made, all neat sheets and plumped pillows, starched and clean to a hospital-like degree. The sole disturbance to the clean scene was a hot mess laid out over the bed spread, a visual cacophony of red and white and lace. And those─ those looked to be the makings of a dress, goddamn it .
Dave's hackles rose, instinct forcing him back a step. Dirk's hand was on his wrist before he could get away, slim fingers wrapped around it, cool fingertips resting on his thumping pulse.
"Fuck that noise," Dave said, half choked. "That's not a uniform. That's a straight up embarrassment ."
"Talking back to your boss on the first day? You looking to get put on probation already? Because I can arrange that." Dirk lips curled at the end, along with his voice. Sure he had a habit of slipping into a flirty tone here and there, but this was pushing it. This was taking flirty, forcing it into a headlock until it shifted into the come-on zone.
"Think I'll pass, dude," Dave said, but it didn't stop him from warily eyeing the lacey pile before him. "I'm literally going to be unable to figure out how half of this goes on. It's like the Rube Goldberg machine of 'uniforms.' I don't even want to think about how many steps are involved."
"Relax, Dave. You're so uptight about this. I'll walk you through it and then some," Dirk assured.
Dave looked to the clothes on the bed, tried to differentiate where one article stopped and another started. He gestured vaguely at the pile, as though he could conjure sense from the mess, stitch it together in his mind if he took long enough.
"Okay, so before I commit to any of this─"
"You committed last night," Dirk cut in.
Dave's shoulders sagged. "Right, right. How about you tell me, straight up, exactly what this job is going to entail? I don't want any sucker punches out of left field throwing me off, so spit it out."
"You get off to me," was Dirk's response. He said it with all the solemnity of a doctor informing their patient they had three months to live. Said it with that kind of coolness, like it was indisputable fact.
And yeah, it kind of was indisputable fact, with the empirical evidence to back it up and everything. Dave figured his silence was all the admission he needed to give.
"Basically, I'm going to pay you to keep doing that. Just in nicer clothes."
Dave's stomach gave a lurch, and his voice did the same. He made an empty kind of heaving sound, his entire body giving a solid shake in the process. Dirk had not just said that. Those words had not left his mouth. Dave was pretty certain his brain had gone off the deep end and taken to twisting his brother's words so they sounded like what he wanted to hear.
Except he didn't want to hear that.
"I'm not a Polly Pocket, I'm not going to prance around in pumps for cash," Dave said, and he would have made for the door if Dirk hadn't beat him to it. For all his frills, he looked more than imposing with his hands on his hips, blocking the doorframe.
"But you're not above the getting off?" Dirk asked.
Dave's argument condensed itself into a single ineffectual splutter.
"You're not backing out of this," Dirk informed him. "You can't go back to the club, and you're not about to make me pay all the bills."
"You don't have to spell it out for me."
"I'm cutting to the chase, is all. I don't want you whining and squirming for the next hour as I get you dressed."
"You, dressing me?" Dave said. "It's going to take an hour?"
"You said it yourself, you won't be able to manage getting the outfit on. I'm doing you a favor here."
Dave opened his mouth, worked his tongue for a moment, and closed his mouth again. Dirk had him there, pinned between a rock and a hard, lacey place plastered with pastels. All he could do was throw his hands up, his palms facing Dirk in surrender.
Dirk smiled for him then, soft and fond, like he'd gotten an out of hand dog to behave. He was quick to make for the bed, hands careful as he sorted through the clothes, rummaged for exactly what he wanted. Dave watched with a cold resignation, half-scared to see exactly what Dirk was going to have him dressed in.
Dave expected it wouldn't be pretty. Or really, it'd be too pretty. Dirk pulled out something that could not be called anything but panties and they─ they weren't the worst thing ever. They weren't the monstrosity Dave had cooked up in his head and forced himself to accept that, yeah, they were going to be covering his ass. Barely.
They were nearly tame in comparison to what Dave had been imagining. A kind of muted color balanced between red and orange. There were no ornate decorations, no weird as hell pouches. A few wide stripes and that was it. It was tolerable, something Dave could stomach.
What wasn't as easy to stomach was Dirk just about ripping his pants off. His fingers were quick and nimble, the panties held between the middle and ring finger on one hand. He thumbed the button of Dave's jeans, popped it free with a deft motion that was fast followed by the slurred hiss of metal teeth as the zipper was pulled down.
Dave's jeans were halfway down his hips before his brain stopped being a helpless mush of what-the-fucks and instead decided that it wasn't quite so down with this. His already-trembling fingers found their way over Dirk's and pried them off, his body reared back to make sure there wouldn't be any ensuing pants-grabbing shenanigans.
"What the fuck, Dirk? I know you don't have a ton of faith in my abilities, but I do at least have the motor skills of a ten year old. I can manage to change my own underwear."
"Figured I'd give my little bro a hand is all," Dirk said, tossing the panties at Dave like it was nothing more than an easy game of softball between the two of them. Dave snatched them out of the air and turned his back to Dirk.
"Little bro my ass. Five minutes older is nothing," Dave said, shoving his jeans to the floor and stepping out of them. He paused for a moment with his thumbs hooked into the elastic of his boxers, breath shallow and his head holding onto a light, fluttering buzz. Like it was filled with an atrium's worth of finches.
"Well?" Dirk prompted.
"Cram it man, I'm not putting on a show for you."
"Not yet, you aren't."
Dave rolled his eyes, his shoulders following suit. He tried to shake out the nerves that had crept into his body, pulled his muscles taught and refused to release them. It didn't take powers of a psychic inclination to know that Dirk was watching him strip down. Fine, if he was going to watch, then so be it. But Dave wasn't pulling anything special. No amateur striptease hour here.
Dave shoved his boxers to his ankles and dutifully stepped out of them, kicking them off to the side. He had the panties on in seconds flat, sliding up his thighs in record time. The elastic waistband of them snapped against his hipbones as he left go, and he belatedly noticed a small, decorative bow on the front of them.
"Alright, think I've managed to do a bang up job so far. What's next?" Dave ask, looking over his shoulder.
Dirk was the picture of poise, sitting on the bed with one leg hitched over the other. He was smiling prettily, having pulled something new from the clothes pile. He had it in his lap, stroked at it as though he were petting a sleeping cat. With Dave's gaze captured, Dirk tipped his head, nodded beside him in a silent command to sit.
Dave followed the command.
He sat on the bed, hands uselessly dropped into his lap, fingers giving weak twitches as he stared them down. He tried not to think of the prickling heat simmering just beneath his skin, a thousand little pinpricks that were only worsening as Dirk slid from the bed and kneeled before Dave.
Dave's brain belatedly registered what was happening halfway through Dirk sliding the first garter up his leg. It waited until the second was on to actually allow anything out of Dave's mouth that wasn't a choked stutter or something bordering on a noise a baffled baby could manage.
"Cosmo says it's in vogue," Dirk said, all smooth fingertips and well-manicured nails against Dave's thigh as he snapped the garter's suspender onto the stocking.
"You read that?" Dave asked, mind falling back, recalling a short stack of magazine issues in the bathroom. "I thought those were emergency toilet paper. Like, I've literally used it to wipe my ass. I'm pretty sure the page I got had Mariah Carey's mug on it and everything."
Dirk smiled, something halfway between annoyed and endeared. Once the second stocking was on he dipped his head, forehead resting against Dave's leg. His breath was warm and flickering, light as a butterfly's feet against Dave. It make his heart been sickeningly fast and heavy, pressing against his ribs like a tiger against the bars of its cage.
"I was wondering what happened to that page," Dirk said as he raised his head. He used Dave's knee to brace himself as he stood. "I'm turning the camera on now."
Dave's body went rigid.
"Now? Like, now-now?" Dave asked, and yeah. Dirk meant now-now. Walking over to the computer with that little sway in his hips.
"Don't worry, Dave," Dirk said. "I promise it's easy. Just lay back and look like you're enjoying yourself."
"Right, a real piece of cake," Dave said, forcing his voice to carry a calmness he didn't have.
The red light of the webcam came on, and Dave could do nothing but wet his lips when Dirk returned to him, took a seat on the bed beside him. When Dirk pushed, Dave moved. He was shifted and posed by Dirk's hands, warm and doting as he moved Dave. The act was blurred in Dave's head, sensation instead of sight as he found himself half-resting against the pillows, legs spread and with Dirk between them, a cream-colored shirt in his hands.
"You ready, lil bro?" Dirk asked, voice bordering on a croon.
Dave stared at him, wide-eyed and bewildered. No, he wasn't ready. He needed ten years and a solid bought of isolation to even begin to process what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. But before he could make a crack about it, Dirk was leaning in.
Dirk's lips were warm and smooth, a stark contrast to Dave's overly-bitten and chapped lips. And he tasted of muted sweet things, sugar and vanilla and a touch of honey, all mixed together and sinfully good. Dave breathed out a softened noise of shock when a hint of tooth caught on his bottom lip, a nip of pleasure forcing the sound from him.
When Dirk pulled back, Dave's mind was a muddled mess, his previous reservations struck down and replaced by an almost frantic need for more.
"Ready?" Dirk prompted again.
Dave's fingers wound their way into the sheets, grounded him as he nodded his head.
"Yeah, I think I'm ready."
Chapter Text
Dirk dressed Dave with all the care of a servant clothing his king. Each touch was measured and perfect, the skimming of fingers along flesh preceeding the drag of cotton and lace. The buttons were fastened without a hitch, nothing but deft flicks and hardly a glance.
The skirt came next, a mess of layers and fabric sliding up Dave’s legs, brushing over already hyper-sensitive skin. Dave lifted his hips without prompting as Dirk continued to pull the petticoat up, repeating the action again when the petticoat was added to the mix.
An apron followed, quilted and pale with a scarlet-colored heart on the front. Dave moved as a puppet would as Dirk sat him up, each touch of gentle pressure from his hands a cue on how to move.
Dave bowed his head as though he were to be knighted, eyes closing as Dirk dropped the straps of the apron over his head.
This was easy enough for him. Nothing but Polly Pocket, Barbie dress up. He could deal. Sure, each fleeting stroke was numbing his mind and sending it into overdrive at once, but at least the skirt and all the poofy shit it entailed would hide the inevitable hard-on he’d be rocking in five minutes flat.
This was all it’d be, Dave assured himself. His role was to be Dirk’s American Girl doll, something to fuss over for the camera. Not for him, but the camera. For someone watching a thousand miles away and with twenty bucks a month to spare. Someone sitting at their computer, basking in the glow of the screen and getting off to this.
Just like Dave was.
Not that he wasn’t making a concentrated effort not to, but no amount of thinking of gross wikipedia pages he’d stumbled upon or the memories of late-night Walmart walkers could snuff out the building heat in his body.
It was always there, a constant like the forever-burning flame at a memorial, and each time Dirk touched him only fed the fire. And when Dirk shifted and moved without a word, easing Dave onto his stomach before seating himself on the small of Dave’s back with his knees on either side, it was like throwing a can of gasoline into a bona-fucking-fide bonfire.
“I know ponies are your deal, but that doesn’t mean you can ride me like one,” Dave said, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as Dirk’s hands moved over his spine, sliding along each vertebrae.
“Right, of course. You’d prefer it the other way around, wouldn’t you?” Dirk said. His hands found the ribbons sewn to either side of the apron, playfully tugging as though they were reins before neatly tying them into a bow.
Dave didn’t argue back. He was too distracted by how Dirk was settled on him, weight solid and warm, all balance and poise even in such a precarious position. And through all the layers between them, Dirk moved.
It was slow and aching, a tempered shifting barely there, a single languid roll of his hips. Like the princess and the pea, Dave was sure there was something there, hidden between petticoats and skirts and panties. It had to be a figment of his imagination, conjured from the dark depths of his desperate mind.
There was no way Dirk was going to be hard for him just like that. Or at all, even. Dirk had the entrepreneurial eye, knew a good business plan when he saw one and wasn’t afraid to act on it. Dave had already learned that much through the bits and pieces of the paysite he’d seen. This was all an extension of that.
Dave shut his eyes tight, jaw set as he waited for what came next. How the hell did this sort of thing even work? He needed a goddamn itinerary. First was the shaving, yeah. Then the gussying up. What came next?
He needed a manual to consult, and stat.
Dave’s pulse quivered sickly in his stomach as Dirk moved off him long enough to turn him over, hands gentle and precise, as though he were moving fine china. He reseated himself on Dave’s hips, his ass teasingly close to Dave’s crotch.
“You’re so tense,” Dirk said with a cluck of his tongue. He bit gently at the tips of his glove, drawing one, and then the other, off before raising one hand to cup Dave’s face. His thumb was cool and smooth against the heated skin of Dave’s cheek, like a cold compress on fevered flesh.
Tense, Dave thought to himself, was an understatement. There wasn’t a muscle in his body not strung tight to the point of pain. The knot in his throat was nothing short of Gordian levels, and his stomach was doing a fine imitation of a coiled slinky.
The heat building in his body was a well-mixed concoction, two parts desire and two parts searing shame. A sprig of disbelief for garnish. It was shaken, stirred, and then lit up like a flaming shot.
“You don’t have to do a thing,” Dirk said, the tips of his nails skimming Dave’s jaw. “Just relax.”
Dirk’s thing, as it turned out, was enough fondling to rival Hellen Keller’s memorable groping of the water spigot.
He worked at the stiffness in Dave’s body, rubbed with the heel of his palm and pressed with the tips of his fingers, like a cat getting cozy. Dave’s heart hitched harder with every touch, inched further and further until it was nestled in his throat, blocking his breath.
Dirk spoke to him in dulcet tones, soft and sweet and lingering like his touch. He had nothing but kind words and reassurances, told Dave everything he wanted to hear. How lovely he looked, how well he was doing, how Dirk was proud of him. Every word that Dave had craved came forth from Dirk’s lips as they pressed feather-light kisses to his skin.
This was what Dave had wanted. It had hedged his thoughts for so long, given him a lust-tinted view of Dirk he couldn’t will away. So instead he’d changed, adapted to that darkness. He wallowed in it, let it take his mind and slip in between his other thoughts. He retreated into the dark as much as any desert animal would.
And now all those desires were getting pulled out into the sun and he was along for the ride. In the dark he’d grown pallid, veins showing blue and stark beneath skin that thinned. This was the blazing of a white-hot sun, and he was burning.
If he was going to burn, Dave decided, it would not be the slow burn of a backyard burning of a backyard pile of leaves, but instead the wild fire inferno that consumed entire forests.
When their lips met, Dirk’s murmuring endearments and his breath sweet, Dave didn’t draw away. Instead he closed his eyes, let his back arch and toes curl as Dirk’s hands moved along him, rucking his shirt up and exposing the smooth, pale skin of his sides. His hands doubled back, the tips of his nails grazing the skin and coaxing a shallow gasp from Dave.
The second kiss lingered like a summertime sunset, and had all the same fading, delightful warmth as Dirk pulled away.
Their breath mingled when it came to the third, the brush of their noses preceeding it. It was nothing more than accidental, the barest touch of the tips. But then Dirk tipped his head, brought the bridges together and rubbed with the affection of a house pet. His laughter was a whisper, soft and relaxed, a balm on Dave’s nerves before they were kissing again.
Dirk’s lips were soft and warm, tinged with the candied taste of lip balm. For all the gentility of movements, the easy molding of his body to Dave’s, the weightless glance of fingertips over skin, down to hips and settling under petticoats, his kisses contrasted.
They were hungry and carnal, quick to drag Dave down with him. Instead of the impish playground peck was the catching of his teeth on Dave’s lower lip, the playful pull preceding another attack, the clack of teeth abrupt when Dave wasn’t ready, the wet sliding of their tongues together erasing the last of his resolve.
Dave wasn’t half as able to maintain a semblance of composure. He wanted the closeness, the kisses, every drop of affection he could wring from this act. But his movements were clumsy and fast, the flailing of an inexperienced teen unable to rein in their hormones.
Yet it wasn’t inexperience that hampered him. He was a bonafide lady killer. Not to mention dude killer. He walked both sides of the line and never looked back, stealing moments in darkened alleys and sleazy hotel rooms─ but only when he wasn’t the one footing the bill.
That had all been push button stuff. Do the flirting thing, test the waters with the casual touch of his hand to the waist, the hips, that sort of shit. If he was getting his dick attended to within twenty minutes of that he was happy, in a superficial, fleeting sense. No names, no numbers, no romance. He was content with calling the shots in these cookie cutter encounters.
Now Dirk was calling the shots, plucking Dave’s strings perfectly because he could. Because Dave was letting him, opening himself in all the ways he never had with those one night stands, allowing Dirk to feel and touch and taste, indulging in the act instead of rushing for a fast fuck.
That was where his inexperience lay, and it was obvious in the fumbling of his kisses and the unsurety of his hands. In how the shy twining of his tongue with Dirk’s was easily overpowered, and how warily he wound his arms behind his brother’s neck as though he were initiating an awkward and intimate dance.
His hands slipping from Dave’s sides, Dirk made no show of hiking Dave’s petticoat up. He sank his fingertips into the exposed skin between the garter belt and panties, nails biting and gripping Dave’s thighs. His kisses skirted savage, devouring Dave’s thoughts and leaving a heated haze in their wake.
Each sound Dave made was swallowed or suppressed, stolen as he made it and rewarded with a squeeze and a stroke of his thighs until all he could manage were weak noises he didn’t want to recognize as his own.
When Dirk ‘s kisses started to wander, left his mouth in favor to trail and nip along his jaw, Dave struggled to recover his breath. All he could manage were shallow pants that went ragged as kisses trailed down to his neck. His lips burned with a painful pleasure, bitten and raw and aching from the Harlequin-levels of ravishing Dirk was pulling on him.
Dirk’s kisses dwindled, turned instead to things filled with nothing but tongue and teeth and hot breath. It was sloppy, wet, and sure to leave marks in the morning.
The kind words Dirk had been so quick to lavish on Dave before had all but died. Now instead he offered quiet laughter at Dave’s compliance with his affections before he gently mouthed Dave’s Adam’s apple. His satisfied hum as Dave shuddered thrummed through his skin, and his legs spread further to accommodate Dirk, a short gasp hissing from his throat as the few centimeters between them were closed, pressing their hips together.
“You’re a natural at slutting it up,” Dirk said, voice breathy and light as he rolled his hips.
“Says the dude who pulls this shit on cam for a living,”
“But you’re not doing it for the camera.”
Dave tensed then, the guilt he’d been struggling to smother trickling back into the forefront of his mind. Jesus, why had he ever agreed to this? The natural progression of getting called out for having a blatant boner for your bro wasn’t to let him lay you down and mindlessly rut against you.
Natural progression of that sort of revelation was definitely meant to contain a fuckton more apologizing, drinking, more apologies via drunk texting, and then a final assurance that Dave would immediately remove himself from Dirk’s life in every way, shape, and form.
Maybe he could move to a leper colony.
”Don‘t get like this, Dave,” Dirk said with another roll of his hips, slow and easy. “I never said I didn’t like that.”
Dave’s breath left him in a low moan before he could respond, his grip on Dirk loosening, arms unwinding as his hands fell back to the bed, fingers grasping the sheets. Dirk’s movement against him was quickly quieting the shame and guilt, the roiling self loathing.
But just as Dave found himself shirking his worries, thinking of nothing other than the heated friction Dirk was plying him with, it was gone. He lifted his head and blearily blinked, like someone just roused from a pleasant dream.
Dirk had his legs over the side of the bed, straightening his skirt as he stood. He didn’t say anything, didn’t look to Dave to supply any cue. He simply got up as though he’d been in a middle of a crossword and wanted to make a cup of tea, hips swinging slightly as he made for the computer desk across the room. The pale backs of his thighs were exposed as he leaned forward, elbows on the desk and the faint click of the mouse mixing with the sound of Dave’s faint panting.
As Dave’s breath evened out and the tension eased from his muscles, Dirk stood back from the desk, apparently pleased with whatever he’d been up to. He came back to the bed, smile impish and small and just what it took to get Dave’s blood going again.
“Sorry for the interruption,” Dirk said, one hand resting on Dave’s knee, giving a soft squeeze before it skimmed down his inner thigh. “We’ll now return to your scheduled programming.”
Dave’s body jerked at the touch, any sarcastic snark dying on his lips as Dirk moved between his legs again. All his cool had been drained, quick wit and comebacks doused. Now he was an emotional chimera, lust and shame and more than a touch of fear all twisted together.
Dirk slid his hands over Dave’s thighs, easing them further apart as he dipped his head. The noise Dave made as he lost sight of Dirk and instead felt him, his breath warm against flesh, was anything but protesting.
Beneath the layers of skirt and petticoat, Dirk mouthed at Dave’s dick through the thin fabric of his panties. breath heated and affections insistent, no spot spared. What his lips didn’t cover, his hand did, palming Dave’s length when Dirk’s lips drifted upward, nipping the waistband of the panties and pulling before letting it snap back.
Dave’s ensuing gasp was short and choked , his chest hitching
“I know I said all you had to do was lay back and look pretty, but if you’d be a doll and lift your hips for me, I’d be eternally grateful.”
Dave nodded, knees bent and feet flat on the bed as he complied. Dirk’s fingers hooked under his the sides of the panties, pulling them down frustratingly slow. Dirk left them looped around one ankle.
“Any last words?” Dirk asked.
This was the part where Dave pulled the brakes. Where he got his fucking act together, ripped off the embarrassing-ass little girl clothes and booked it. Sure, his number one priority was to get his dick wet, and hell if he hadn’t been wanting Dirk to be the one to wet it basically since the earth cooled, but Dave was pretty sure that ‘horny as fuck’ wasn’t an excuse that absolved incest.
Except now the coy smile that had been a constant on Dirk’s face was gone. It was changed, shifted into something genuine. The lust remained, but the act was gone.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet now,” Dirk said, kissing along Dave’s inner thigh. “Don’t make me beg to suck you off, Dave. I’ll do it.”
Dave made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, jerking when the trail of kisses turned to playful nips and nuzzling against his already hypersensitive flesh.
“Really?” Dirk asked. “I have to tell you how I want to take you down to the hilt until I feel you bumping the back of my throat? You could wind your fingers through my hair and force me down, Dave. Face-fuck me til you come and I’ll drink every last drop.”
Each word was a purr, breathing and dragged out as it rolled off Dirk’s tongue. Each hair on the back of Dave’s neck stood on end, the coiling heat in his stomach feeding off every syllable. His hand left the bedsheets he’d been clutching so tightly, brought Dirk’s words to life as Dave threaded them through his brother’s hair.
It was softer than he’d expected, the color of hay harvested too late, left out in the sun and bleached by the exposure. But the texture was far from the brittle straw of hay, instead having the downy softness of a child’s hair mixed with the faint waxiness of styling pomade. No tangles met Dave’s fingers as he carded them through, his touch gentle as he pressed Dirk’s head down.
Dirk, as it turned out, was only too fond to fuck around and drag things out in a way that was all too Strider. Which meant he did a whole lot of nothing. Or at least, that was all Dave could tell, his view obscured by the mess of fabric shoved up to his stomach. All he had to watch was his own hand and the blond hair it was gripping.
All of Dirk’s previous fussing and refusal to wash dishes in the past, his preoccupation with cold creams and moisturizers with impossible to pronounce names, and his adamance that Dave tackle any handiwork-related tasks, were forgiven as he wrapped one smooth palm around the base of Dave’s shaft.
The pace was torturous, Dirk’s touch nothing short of languid and easy as he pumped and slid his hand along heated skin. Dave had been so concentrated on keeping his own hands off his dick─ because fuck if he hadn’t wanted to start jacking is five minutes in─ that the sudden attention had his breath catching sharp and his head going fuzzy. Their previous rutting didn’t have shit on this.
“I, fuck─” Dave gasped, his hand leaving Dirk’s hair as he braced himself on his elbows for a better view. “Think you could take this any slower?”
Dirk looked up at Dave’s words, amber eyes brightening with mischief. The slow, sultry curve of his pale lips told Dave he’d said exactly the wrong thing..
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Dave’s hips jerked as Dirk’s hand fell away, instead replaced by his tongue. He dragged it from base to tip, leaving a trail of saliva. Then he did it again. And again. It was like he was trying to see how many licks it took to reach the center of a tootsie pop. Except he was going to find out how many licks it took to reduce Dave to a panting, senseless mess.
As it turned out, it didn’t take many.
Dave was flat on his back again before he knew it, body boneless and sweat beading on his skin as his heart pounded against his ribs. He ached to move his hips the longer Dirk continued, the precise licks turning sloppy, the flourishing flick of his tongue at the end of each swipe drawing noises from Dave that bordered on animalistic.
When Dave was able to gather enough of his fleeting wits to realize this wasn’t going any further without some effort on his behalf, his hand found its way back to Dirk’s hair, much less shy this time as he wound locks around his fingers.
“I didn’t let you doll me up so you could be Grand Marshall Cock Tease,” Dave said, pressing on the back of Dirk’s head.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Dirk hummed, but he didn’t resist.
His head dipped instead, guided by Dave’s hand. He was careful of his teeth as he parted his lips, taking Dave nearly to the hilt, the flat of his tongue lathing Dave’s cock. Dave’s grip tightened as he bumped against the back of Dirk’s throat, the immediate contraction as he swallowed forcing another keen from Dave.
Before he knew it, Dave had his other hand in Dirk’s hair as well, no longer guiding his movements, but encouraging them. He moved in time with Dirk’s mouth, the pace he set quick to fall apart with every bob of Dirk’s head, the wet heat of his mouth and the perfect way he hollowed his cheeks turning Dave into a moaning mess.
And when Dirk paused, suckling and tracing his tongue along the head, Dave’s hips bucked. What was left unattended was soon covered by Dirk’s hand, stroked and pumped and played with until Dave was breathlessly attempted to string together enough words to warn Dirk he was about to come.
“I said I’d swallow, didn’t I?” Dirk said, and fuck if the ensuing slurp didn’t push Dave closer to the edge. “That wasn’t some hollow promise to keep you in bed.”
Dave stopped trying to warn him and pushed his head down one last time, hips snapping up to meet Dirk’s throat again and again. His pace was feverish and needy, increasingly so as the coiled heat in his belly. It was a throaty hum from Dirk, deep and honeyed, vibrating through Dave, that made his body shudder and seize as he spilled into Dirk’s mouth.
True to his word, Dirk drank down the cum without the slightest fuss. His tongue swiped at any stray drops, licking Dave’s cock clean and pulling away only when he was soft and oversensitive.
“I take it you enjoyed yourself,” Dirk said, sitting back as he ran his thumb across his lips.
“Enough that I nearly forgot I was wearing some frou-frou angelic candy dress,” Dave answered. “Now can I get this shit off?”
“As long as you don’t rip anything. I’ll have your ass if you do.”
Dirk’s tone was perfectly balanced between sarcastic and serious, too many meanings behind his words for Dave to want to pore over each one, and their likelihood of happening. Dave picked out a few choice possibilities as he watched Dirk stand and stretch, the movement drawn out before he made for the dresser.
“So, think I got what it takes to be in the business?” Dave asked, watching Dirk fish through drawers.
“You’re a natural. You sounded just like one of my Japanese hentais.”
Dave’s resulting groan was cut short as a shirt was lobbed at his face. By the time he’d pawed it away, the room was empty, the only hint as to where Dirk went the sound of taps running and teeth being brushed. It wasn’t long before the hiss of the shower followed.
Dave’s fingers were tremor-filled and useless as he tried to undress himself, working at snaps and buttons and well-tied bows that refused to be undone. He artlessly shoved the garter belts down legs still shaking from climax. The guilt was coming back for him, drawn away in the moment only to surge back one hundred times worse, like the first crashing wave of a tsunami.
These clothes were proof of what he’d let himself be roped into. Here he’d been thinking he’d sunk as deep as he could, mopping up vomit as he was forced to listen to others butcher his passion on a nightly basis. Now he was gussied up in doll clothes and had only recently finished being sucked off by his brother. While on camera.
That was some real classy shit. Grade A spiel for the therapy couches he’d be sprawled across when he finally cracked and they tossed him in the fun house. Or maybe they’d throw him in the slammer. Dave was pretty sure this kind of thing was illegal. Maybe he could plead insanity. Or at least that his brother was insanely hot.
Yeah, no. Exhibit A evidence was probably plastered all over Dirk’s stupid site by now.
Dave wriggled and shifted as he pushed the petticoat down to his ankles and kicked them off, the frilly panties leaving with them. The apron was next, whipped to the floor before Dave shimmied out of his skirt. His outfit in its entirety was soon nothing but a crumpled heap on the floor.
He was quick to dress in the clothes Dirk had thrown at him, not a single fancy stitch on them. A plain shirt and even plainer boxers. No frills or lace involved. And they were clean. That was all Dave wanted. To be clean.
He sprawled back on the bed after changing. He was going to move any minute now. Haul his ass up the goofy little ladder to the top bunk, crawl under the covers, and attempt to will himself out of existence.
Except he couldn’t move. Every ounce of his energy was spent, his mind as exhausted as he body. His eyes barely flicked when the door creaked open, his heart too tired to do more than give a faint flutter as Dirk came back.
His hair was damp, half covered by the towel he had taken to attacking it with. Shorts peeked from beneath the hem of an oversized shirt that proclaimed him to be a hog wrestling champ from a carnival five states away and twenty years back. His steps were light and unhurried, no sign of any inner turmoil showing.
“Too tired to hike it up to the top bunk tonight?” Dirk asked. He eyed the pile Dave had left on the floor, nudging it with his foot for damage before he shrugged and tossed his towel into the mix.
Dave managed a grunt and considered it an astounding success in his state. Anything other than his starfish-like sprawl was not happening, and the light nudge that Dirk gave him as a signal to move over went unheeded, his limbs lax and useless.
Dirk was quiet as he crawled onto the bed, half on top of Dave when he settled in. One hand lay hand on Dave’s chest, fingers half-curling with every rise and fall that came with his breathing.
They were quiet for a moment, Dirk shifting occasionally as his body molded to his brother’s, his leg hiking up to rest over Dave. When the chill of the night was too much, they crawled beneath the covers and were quick to resume their previous position.
As the dampness of Dirk’s hair slowly seeped through the cotton of Dave’s shirt, he brought of a hand to gingerly stroke it. Dirk curled into him at the touch, his breath carrying the sharp sweetness of mint as he sighed.
“Are you seriously going to record us being all spoony and shit?” Dave asked, tentatively winding a lock about his fingers.
“As if. I’m not about to post that angelic face you make as you’re snoring up a storm,” Dirk said. He burrowed deeper against Dave’s side as he hiked the blankets up to their shoulders. “That’s for my eyes only.”
“And you’re going to be recording that all night for your personal viewing pleasure?”
“Turned the camera off forever ago,” was Dirk’s mumbled response.
“What exactly constitutes as forever ago?”
“When I got up.”
“Which was when?”
“Can we not play twenty-one questions when I’m trying to sleep?” Dirk asked around a yawn. “I turned it off before I took my sweet time slobbing on your knob. If you want a play by play, you’ll have to extricate it from your own memories.”
“Oh,” Dave breathed softly, belatedly registering the softness of Dirk’s lips as they pressed against the corner of his. His heart gave a tired flutter in turn, like the last buck of a broken horse.
“Good night,” Dirk said.
“Night,” Dave returned.
Dave fought to stay awake. To keep the gears in his head ticking and turning as he recounted what had happened. How in the end, Dirk’s final act wasn’t for the camera. After all the show and pomp and procedure had come the unstaged, genuine affection.
And here Dirk was now, breath slow and even, each exhale skimming Dave’s skin. His limbs were heavy over Dave’s body, relaxed with sleep. He didn’t squirm or stir with bad dreams, shift with unease or roll away.
Instead he stayed tucked against Dave, nothing but the occasional sleepy snuffle and dream-induced shifting. With the warmth of the body beside him and the faraway sound of traffic below the window, Dave’s eyelids fluttered closed. He tipped his head to the side, let Dirk’s hair brush the tip of his nose, the smell of his shampoo light and sweet.
For the first time that he could remember, he was content. The rushing of his thoughts, worries of upcoming work weeks and past-due notices, balancing checkbooks that were always in the red and shoving food stamps at cashiers were muted by the warm, sated haze he was wallowing in.
His secret was out─ had been out, and Dirk hadn’t shunned him for it. Where Dave had expected Dirk to turn from him, to throw him out on the streets and shut the door, Dirk had indulged him. He’d pulled the strings to suit himself, there was no mistaking it, but that was how Dirk worked.
Heavy, dreamless sleep spanned between his last conscious thought and the next. Which was that there was a car alarm shrieking in the streets below. The sound reverberated in his head as it continued, no one moving to stop the noise. By the time it ended on its own, Dave had roused just enough that drifting off again wouldn’t be happening.
Not that it stopped Dave from trying.
He lazed in bed with eyes still closed, one hand artlessly swiping the sleep from the corners. As he made to roll onto his side, he found himself tangled in more than the sheets. There were limbs, extra ones. Too soft to be his own.
“Morning, glory,” was Dirk’s greeting to Dave as he opened his eyes.
Dave blinked blearily, pawing until his vision cleared and he could focus on his brother. Dirk shimmied closer in the process, hands pressed between his chest and Dave’s as he closed the few scant inches that separated them. His fingers plucked gently at Dave’s shirt, tugged and played and woke Dave further.
“Five more minutes,” Dave said, voice husky and low.
Five more minutes to rest.
Five more minutes to not think about last night.
“I made breakfast.”
Dave’s feet kicked, disengaged themselves from the bed as he made to sit. Dirk’s hands clutching his shirt was the only thing keeping him in bed, stopping him from sating his always-hungry stomach.
“I ate it already,” Dirk amended.
“And then came back to hassle me?”
“Maury was a rerun.”
Dave flopped back down.
“That doesn’t mean you back go back to bed, sleeping beauty,” Dirk chided.
To Dave, that was exactly what no food meant.
Lips pressed to his, supple and warm, a hint of flavored balm on them. It was slow and chaste, nothing more than a light brush that had Dave sighing into it as he instinctively mimicked the movements. The coaxing to part his lips was minimal, and soon their tongues were sliding hot and slick against each other until Dirk was drinking down Dave’s soft pants and half-suppressed moans.
It was Dave’s turn to clutch and pull, try to drag back when Dirk broke the kiss.
“A kiss from a prince always does the trick,” Dirk said, swiping his thumb over his lower lip.
“No grub and a cocktease, not sure why I don’t start every morning like this,” Dave said.
“I can make it a regular thing, if you’d like.”
“That’s about as tempting as waking up before the sun’s halfway across the sky.”
“Lucky for you it’s nearly four, now get that sweet ass of yours up,” Dirk said, tone touched with an air of finality. The sharp smack he gave Dave’s hip helped drive his demand home.
Dave sprung up with a yelp, the spot still sore and aching from before. He passed Dirk with a low grumble, his hand protecting any more sensitive areas.
As he found out in the bathroom, there were more than he thought.
Bruises stood out starkly on his pale flesh, the rich purple of plums and violets, haloed with mottled greens and yellows. Reddened marks where teeth had nipped and skin had been sucked dotted him like freckles. No amount of suds and shower water lessened them.
When Dave padded into the living room and bade a bee line for the futon─ and the laptop on the coffee table─ Dirk tossed him a glance from the kitchen.
“Turning your shirt inside out doesn’t make it clean,” he said.
“Passed the sniff test, it’s fair game,” Dave said as he pulled the laptop closer, fingers skipping along the trackpad to bring the screen to life.
He slipped into his usual routine of checking his email, scrolling through two pages of subject lines that promised a bigger dick, with half-off lingerie specials bringing up the rear. (The latter was John’s fault, his sense of humor dictating that signing Dave’s email up for ladies’ underwear site he could find would be an awe-inspiring prank.)
As he went to Craiglist out of habit, an oversized bowl of cereal was shoved in front of his face.
“Last I checked, you were very much employed. Don’t tell me you’re leaving the firm after your first day, Dave.”
Dave closed the page without a fight, starting up pesterchum before leaning back into the futon. He spooned cereal into his mouth─ Lucky Charms, heavy on the charms, light on the everything else, just how he liked it─ as Dirk sat next to him, remote in hand.
It didn’t take much DVR browsing before Dirk was slumping against Dirk, cheek pressed to shoulder, his judgemental hums as he read through show descriptions
“How does Toddlers & Tiaras sound?” Dirk asked.
“My Strange Addiction.”
“You’ve already watched all the ones we have.”
“Wanna watch the one with the dude who fucked his car again,” Dave mumbled around his spoon.
Dirk paused, quieted as he ran his thumb over the remote.
“Horseshoes, and we have a deal,” he said.
Dave corralled the few horseshoe-shaped marshmallows left in his bowl, raising it to Dirk’s lips in offering. The eye contact Dirk decided to throw Dave’s way as his pale pink lips wrapped around the spoon had Dave wanting to pour a bowl entirely comprised of the horseshoes.
“Little boy blue’s looking to get your attention,” Dirk commented as his head rested once again against Dave’s shoulder. “You should let me talk to him sometime. Give me five minutes and I bet he’ll toss some trust fund money our way.”
Dave playfully rolled his shoulder as he turned his attention back to the screen. There was a wave of blue text waiting for him.
-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --
EB: finally, the man of the hour arrives.
EB: i have been waiting ages for you!
EB: and by ages that is more like five hours.
EB: but that is basically ages in dog years.
EB: but yeah, i have something to show you.
TG: sorry egbert
TG: im a busy man
TG: got blogs to run and comics to update
EB: busy, you say.
EB: that’s funny, i remember saying that when i was studying for finals.
EB: i remember saying that a lot!
EB: i also remember you sending me links to ‘epic rap battles’ and whether or not pet rocks can survive a blender.
TG: whoa kitty got claws
TG: let me get some soft caps for those
TG: also you have to admit the shakespeare vs dr suess was the shit
EB: that’s besides the point!
TG: but its true dude you cant deny it
EB: okay fine, yes, it was cool.
TG: alright see now were on the same page
TG: so what is it youre serving up for my sight today?
TG: but i swear to god if its another one of those japanese prank shows i am going to call a&e up and next thing you know youll be on intervention
EB: what a kind and supporting friend i have in you, hehe.
EB: anyway, it’s only a photo, so it will take all of five seconds to look at.
TG: lay it on me bro
TG: i got strength like atlas i can shoulder the burden of viewing whatever youre about to throw my way
EB: that’s the spirit!
EB: so you know how sometimes you click a link, but then you click another link, and before you know it you are in ‘that’ part of the internet?
EB: the part you can’t unsee?
TG: three words dude
TG: shitting dick nipples
EB: wow, gross! i am definitely not sending you that.
TG: just recounting my own tales of long walks on the unseemly side of the internet bro
EB: alright well, basically i was taking one of those long walks at like five in the morning.
EB: and i swear to the ghost of steven spielberg’s movie-making skills i found your doppelganger.
EB: and your brother’s, on top of that.
EB: so i guess i found more of a quadralganger??
TG: pony it up dude
EB: alright, but i should warn you first.
EB: the two of you are looking, uh, pretty fancy!
EB: also doppeldirk has legs for miles.
-- ectoBiologist [EB] sent turntechGodhead [TG] 0004.jpg --
Dave’s tongue slid over his lips as he saved the file to his desktop, opening it the moment it was downloaded. What met his eyes was a screencap, grainy pixels and compressed artifacts abounding. What was clear were the clothes, frilled and familiar. And the faces. The profile’s were identical, the same sharp noses and strong jawlines. The single difference was the sly smile on Dirk’s lips, and the unsure downward quirk of Dave’s.
“That sure got back to you fast,” Dirk said casually.
Dave didn’t answer, flicked back to John’s window instead as it started up blinking once more.
EB: just going to sit there in silent shock?
EB: i don’t blame you, that was my reaction too!
EB: i know this will sound weird, but i can’t stop looking at it.
EB: my brain is being blown out of the water like the shark in jaws.
EB: even that bunk bed looks like the one you two have.
EB: it has the same funny dent on the support beam thingy yours does.
EB: and there’s that far side calendar i got you forever ago.
EB: ... hey, dave?
EB: have you ever felt like instead of falling down the rabbit hole, you kind of have a sudden epiphany and instead crawl out of it?
EB: i think i am kind of having one of those moments.
EB: well, i guess you really do learn something new every day!
EB: or is this a bad time to joke?
Whatever John was about to type next was replaced by a black screen as Dave pressed his finger against the power button and held it until long after it had turned off. He lowered the lid as soon as he had enough wits to expend on the action before gingerly pushing the laptop away, like it was a bear trap that would snap at any moment.
Folding his hands in his lap, Dave stared at the TV screen, only barely taking in snippets of sound as the man explained his deep attraction to his car. It was hard to hear him over the pulse hammering away in Dave’s ear
“Busted?” Dirk asked, cool as anything. His hand settled on top of Dave’s, gently prying them apart to lace his fingers with Dave’s. The pads of his fingers pressed against Dave’s knuckles as he squeezed softly.
“Busted,” Dave answered as he squeezed back.
Notes:
Well gosh, this is the end. I’m not too sure what to say here, but I want to thank everyone who’s stuck with us, and those of you that are new readers. We hope you enjoyed reading Nice Things as much as we enjoyed working on it, and thank you for every kind and encouraging comment.
Also, sorry for any funny coding in the pesterlogs. They keep breaking on and off without me doing anything, so I'm not sure what to do other than stand back and watch as they right themselves only to go wonky again.
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