Chapter Text
(i.)
A dip in your mattress wakes you.
It’s still dark. Your alarm clock flashes, illuminating the harsh shadows of your bedroom with a strange, crimson ambiance. In your sleepy haze, you’re reminded of a red-light district. A brothel. Though, that could just be the sour stench of liquor creeping up from behind you, or the warm weight nuzzling against your back. It’s a little past four in the morning, but something tells you that it’s a late night, not an early morning, for your impromptu visitor.
Damn. Dave normally makes it to his room after a bender. He must be really fuckin’ sloshed this time.
“Dude,” you groan, voice still rough and gravelly with interrupted sleep. “Get off me. You’re dirtyin’ up my sheets.”
Nothing.
“Seriously. This ain’t cool.”
Jesus Christ—what’s up with him? You know, other than being drunk. Smells like he took a shower in Axe body spray before downing a fifth of tequila. Not exactly the most pleasant aroma to wake up to—or to ever have to smell, honestly.
See? This is why you hate alcohol. Shit is absolutely foul.
Well, that and you’ve seen what it can do to a person. Namely, the person that’s currently cuddling up next to you, getting real acquainted with your pillow like he intends to stay. Whatever. You might as well let him. If Dave’s this drunk, it might be better that he sleeps somewhere you can keep an eye on him in the likely case that he throws up, and chokes, and dies. And, as annoying as Dave can be, that’s not something you actively want to happen.
Plus, a light snort in your ear tells you that Dave’s asleep anyway, and you ain’t about to get up at the asscrack of dawn just to move him somewhere else.
“Fine,” you say to no one, jerking your pillow back over to your side. Dave’s head hits the mattress with a soft thud and undisturbed snore. “Don’t get used to this, bro.”
The sad truth of the situation is, this isn’t the first time Dave’s been so utterly trashed that he’s fallen asleep somewhere other than his bed, and you’re under no pretense to think it’ll be the last.
Hallways. Bathrooms. The kitchen. The patio.
It’s just…this is the first time that Dave’s ended up in your bed.
He wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you closer, squirming until he’s pressed right up against you, back to his chest. Your face warms and you blame it on the…temperature. This bed isn’t built for two and, between you both, it’s generating a lot of body heat.
That’s all.
It takes a long time for you to fall back asleep but, when you do, it’s with Dave breathing against the back of your neck with his hand on your stomach.
(ii.)
It happens again, only one week later.
Neither of you talk about the first incident. You’d woke up before he did—no surprise there—and carefully absconded. He’s rarely home in the mornings so it’s not often you get to cook a big breakfast. Usually, it’s a bowl of cereal for one. That morning, you’d made a full spread, and kept it extra greasy for his hangover. The smell of sizzling bacon had him dragging his feet into the kitchen and no one had to mention where he came from.
But now he’s back, just as drunk as the first time he found his way into your bed.
Just as…touchy.
You’re not really sure how to handle this. It’s a brand new, shiny development in your typically boring lifestyle routine. Dave barely pays you any attention outside of basic pleasantries—and calling anything that comes out of Dave’s mouth a pleasantry is a fuckin’ stretch.
The point is, you’re used to being ignored.
What you’re not used to is this. Dave holding you from behind, rubbing his nose against the nape of your neck. His arms loop around you, clinging to your chest, fingers digging into your bony sternum, and you hate the way it makes your heart race.
No one touches you like this.
Especially him.
You don’t even try to stop him, not that you put up a fight the last time. Instead, you lay quietly, barely breathing, and commit the feeling to memory. The feeling of being wanted. The feeling of comfort. You know that both of these things are only a cruel illusion but, fuck it. People go to magic shows for a reason. It doesn’t have to be real to be entertaining.
It doesn’t have to be real to make you feel good.
Shamefully, you turn in Dave’s arms and find that your cheek fits perfectly against his chest. The smell of liquor is almost nauseating but you power through it because underneath is a warm, familiar scent of spicy cinnamon.
Your arms wrap around him, stay silent, and hold him back.
(iii.)
It happens like clockwork.
Dave goes out for a weekend bender and comes home in the early morning hours, when the world is still gray, and crawls into your bed. You wake up before him every time. You make him breakfast and wait for him to drag himself from your bed.
“Thanks, kid.”
That’s all you’ll get before he disappears, leaving you for a long week alone, and you start to go to bed on Sunday nights full of anticipation. Maybe this whole thing has made you realize something troubling about yourself.
You’re touch-starved and, not only that, it’s supremely fuckin’ fucked-up that you’re getting your fix from your drunk brother cuddling you.
Dave groans against your shoulder, breathing heavily as he gets situated. You never really pegged him for a cuddler before. Not when he seems allergic to any form of physical affection that’s not a lap-dance from a stripper or a loud, messy one-night-stand.
But here he is, cuddling the ever-loving fuck outta you.
His hands stroke up your sides as he gets comfortable, dangerously close to your hips, humming as his hand settles low on your belly, scratching absently at your (admittedly) lackluster happy trail. It feels like muscle memory; like he’s too drunk to notice a body in front of him; like he’s trying to relieve his own itch, but relieves yours instead.
You wish that made a difference. You wish that stopped your stomach from flipping and your body from responding accordingly.
Shit.
Dave’s hand isn’t low enough to feel the twitch in your boxers, but it’s there. Every absent scratch below your navel has your dick jumping to life, and you squirm to stop it. God fuckin’ damnit. You can’t get hard because Dave’s touching you, holding you, breathing against your skin.
Except, you are. You’re really fucking hard.
And if that isn’t bad enough, Dave shifts behind you and it feels like he is too. Guilt claws at your throat. You can’t let this happen. He’s drunk and he doesn’t know what he’s doing and you’re getting off on it like a fuckin’ freak and—
“Shhhh, baby,” Dave slurs in your ear. “Stop, movin’ s’much, ‘m tryna sleep.”
You hadn’t realized you’d been moving at all, but you settle right the fuck down.
He just called you baby.
No, not you. He thinks he’s in bed with someone else. Someone he wants to be in bed with. Not you.
Never you.
(iv.)
He goes back to calling you kid, kiddo, and bro. Sometimes he calls you by your name, but that’s only once, and because he’s mad. It’d been accompanied with an exasperated sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. A stern warning of—“Dirk, not now.”
After that, he told you to leave his office, and so you did. It’s not like you were given much of a choice, only a cold dismissal like always.
Alright. Fuck him.
It’s not like you thought your late-night cuddle sessions meant anything, but that doesn’t help the sting of rejection. You know he’s not doing anything important. You know he hasn’t had a successful pitch since the last SBaHJ movie over three years ago.
You know that’s why he drinks.
Doesn’t matter. You’re still pissed when he crawls into your bed that night, but there’s something off about it. For one, it’s the middle of the week. Dave reeks of just as much alcohol as he usually does after a weekend bender. If you had to guess, he drank a good portion of the liquor cabinet. The whiskey is pungent and familiar enough to recognize.
“Get off me,” you mumble, shoving his wandering hand from your chest. It does nothing to dissuade him, only makes him hold you tighter. Closer.
You let him and you hate yourself for it.
“Mmm, c’mon, don’t be like that,” he says, and your blood runs cold. For a moment, you think he’s awake—right up until he buries his nose against the side of your throat and kisses.
He’s dreaming, you realize, and you need to wake him up before this goes too far.
You don’t.
You let out a gasp, your body involuntarily arching back against him. He kisses again, hot and wet, as the hand on your chest travels down, planting itself firmly against your stomach. His mouth moves against your skin, his tongue flicking out to taste the sweat dripping down your neck, and quickly the kiss turns into a sharp suction beneath your ear. Dave hums into it, his hips rolling behind you, the semi-hard line of his cock rutting against your ass.
You need to wake him up.
You don’t.
His hand stays where it is, keeping you still as he grinds against you, fingers edging dangerously close to the waistband. It feels like he’s teasing you, but you know he isn’t. He has no idea that you’re hard and leaking; that your dick is one wiggle away from slipping through the opening of your boxers.
Fuck.
You want to touch yourself so bad. Not only that, you want Dave to touch you. There’s no point in denying it anymore. Somewhere down the line, the hero worship twisted into something dark and carnal. He must know it too. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t give you attention. Because he knows exactly what kind of attention you want.
Dave bites down against the pulse of your neck, his hand sinks lower, and—
“Dave,” you hiss. “Bro, please.”
His hand comes to an abrupt stop and you nearly sob, and not out of relief. You’re fuckin’ aching for him and he just stops.
Eventually, his breathing evens back out and his hold goes slack, and you fall asleep still hard with your cheeks streaked with hot, silent tears.
He doesn’t kiss you again.
(v.)
Dave leaves on business; says he’s gonna be gone for two weeks, maybe longer. You don’t look up from your phone when he tells you, afraid he’ll see the hurt and disappointment through your shades. It’s been a long time since you were last stupid enough to beg to go with him.
“Sure,” you say, and he calls you an ungrateful brat.
You manage to wait until he’s gone before you throw your phone at the wall. The screen busts but you don’t give a fuck. At least the glass shards will keep you from texting him while he’s away.
Sunday night, you raid his liquor cabinet, drink a quarter of a fifth, and text him anyway.
I miss you, it reads—and you don’t get a response.
That answers any lingering questions you might have had. There’d been a small portion of your mangled heart that’d hoped, selfishly, that he knew what he was doing when he snuck to your bed. You’d hoped that it was a game of plausible deniability; that he really did want you but just couldn’t admit it.
What the fuck had you been thinking?
Dave Strider has no problem taking what he wants. Sex, drugs, alcohol. He has the world at his fingertips, so why would he ever want you? You’ve been nothing but a thorn in his side since the social worker dropped you on his doorstep, already a gangly teen with too many years between you.
If he wanted you, he would have you.
But he doesn’t, and now you’re left alone, staring at the blinking red light of your alarm clock, wondering what would happen if the next time Dave snuck into your room, you were gone.
You don’t get a chance to test that theory because a little past midnight, three weeks from the day he left, you hear the familiar sound of heavy, drunken footsteps creeping down the hall. For a moment, you think they might bypass your room completely, but that’s all shot to shit when the door opens.
You don’t say anything.
You barely breathe as you listen to the quiet sound of Dave stumbling through the dark. His belt clinks and his pants hit the floor. He grunts, and groans, and hiccups, and part of you wishes that you had the strength to stop him now. He’s still upright and conscious, it’d be easy enough to confront him.
The mattress dips and he climbs in behind you, and you still don’t move.
Dave’s arms slip around you like they always do, and this time there’s no slow build-up to the kiss he presses against the nape of your neck. His hands grope their way up chest, squeezing at your non-existent pecs until his fingers find your nipples through the thin cotton of your sleep shirt. It’s hard to pretend to be asleep when he’s so obviously awake, pinching until your perky and your body’s quaking.
There’s no way he thinks you’re some faceless fuckin’ floozy—you ain’t got the tits for that. But that doesn’t mean he knows it’s you, right?
Deep down, you know that’s just another lie you’re telling yourself.
“Fuck,” Dave hisses, his thumbs rubbing against your hardened nipples, and you have to keep your breath from hitching because they aren’t the only thing that’s hard. His cock presses against your ass, solid and firm.
“Fuck,” he says again. “Fuck, baby.”
Baby.
Dave might not be asleep or dreaming, but he’s definitely not sober. You shouldn’t rock back against him. You shouldn’t whimper like a kicked puppy when he kisses your neck, just like you’ve been fantasizing about for the past three weeks in his absence. You shouldn’t encourage him, but you do.
You let him rut against you until he bites down on your shoulder, muffling a loud groan as warmth soaks through two layers of fabric, dampening between the crease of your ass.
He whispers something that sounds like an apology, a hushed, “I’m sorry. Fuck—fuck, ‘m so sorry.”
But he’s not that sorry, apparently. Because his hand still reaches down between your legs and palms your cock until you seize up against him, shaking as you come with his name on your lips.
He scoops you closer, bundles you up in his arms, rocks you like a fuckin’ baby and you let him. Might as well, seeing that you’re already crying like one. Your shoulder feels suspiciously wet, which makes you think that maybe he is too. It’s hard to tell when he keeps kissing away what you suspect are tears staining your freckled skin.
“I missed you,” he says, but in the morning, you still wake up alone.