Work Text:
It started with a phone call. Because, of course it did.
Eleven at night, just as David was finally at the cusp of sleep at a somewhat reasonable hour for the first time in weeks, his phone began incessantly buzzing on his nightstand. After about a minute of trying to ignore it, he groaned and sat up to check the caller ID.
Brad.
Brad, who hadn't showed up to the office in a week. Brad, who seemed to want nothing to do with David after what happened.
Brad, who was calling him now, an hour before midnight.
He picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"David? Hey, man," Brad said; clearly trying to sound casual but his voice was dripping in panic. "Uhm. Yeah, do you- Do you mind if I crash at your place for a bit. I can explain later, please- I'll owe you a favour, whatever, just-"
For reasons unsure to himself, David cut him off and said, "Brad, it's fine. Just hang on, I'll text you my address."
—
And now, his head of monetization was sitting on his couch with his head in his hands, bouncing his knee frantically and looking more dishevelled than David had ever seen him before.
"…Are you alright?"
"No," Brad mumbled. "I- Fuck."
David got up from where he was crouching next to Brad to get him a glass of cold water. When Brad pulled his hands away from his face to take the glass and down the cup in one gulp, David got a better look at his face — he was more gaunt than usual, with dark circles under his eyes, his hair messy and falling over his face in greasy strands.
"Jesus Christ, you look like shit," David whispered compulsively. He regretted it immediately, but Brad just snorted and looked away.
"I haven't. Showered — or really done anything that people need to survive — for a couple days now."
"What- Why?" David asked, but Brad glared at him, dark eyes dull and piercing, and he conceded. "Well, when was the last time you ate?"
Brad leaned back. "Yesterday, but I threw up most of it, so… Monday, I guess."
His heart sank. "Monday? Brad, it's Wednesday night."
"Mm."
David took a deep breath and moved to stand again. "I'll go get you something to eat-"
Brad grabbed onto his wrist with a weak grip and said, "No, don't. I- I can't eat anything."
"Brad, you haven't eaten in days-"
"I'll be fine, I promise- Please, don't make me eat anything."
David looked at him, saw the pleading expression on his face and felt the way his hand shook around David’s wrist and sat down next to Brad on the couch. "Alright. For now, at least. So, uhm. Is this, ah, about your birthday?"
Brad's gaze travelled away again. "It wasn't my birthday."
"Come on, Brad-"
"It wasn’t my birthday, David," he said, his voice a low hiss. He was facing David again, and there was an intensity in his eyes, like a wild, hungry animal. "I'm not lying to you. There's no point in lying to you anymore- I mean, you're already seeing me like this. Why would I keep lying. It wasn't my fucking birthday- You know what, nevermind. Coming to you was a bad idea."
Brad tried to stand up, but his knees wobbled and David pulled him back down before he could fall over. "Wait- Wait, I'm sorry. Just stay still, alright?"
Brad brought his legs up onto the seat and buried his face in his knees. "Okay," he mumbled.
After it seemed like an appropriate time had passed, David asked carefully, "Why would Zack lie about that?"
"Because he's the devil, I don't fucking know," Brad snapped. David would've been more startled if it weren't for the exhaustion in Brad's tone as he took a deep breath and tapped his thin fingers shakily against his shins. "He works in private equity. Battle royale probably juiced our shares enough for MQ to become a good enough target. And also because he wants to make my life as miserable as possible, I guess."
Brad curled impossibly further into himself, wrapping his arms around his legs as David watched the slight shudder of his shoulders. Gently, he reached out an arm to rub Brad's back. He could feel the ridges of Brad's bones under the layers of his skin and past the thin, threadbare t-shirt that was essentially swallowing him.
"I have a spare bedroom you can sleep in for a while," David said, voice as soft as he could manage. "You should probably eat something first, though."
Brad rested his chin on his right knee and stared at the surface of the coffee table for a moment, then turned to David. His dark, hollowed eyes bore into David's and David resisted the urge to shrink into himself until Brad finally said, "You're so filled with love.”
David blinked. "What?"
"You have this. Care. For everyone. This blind, childish care. I- I've never been nice to you, and yet- Yet when I show up at your house as an- an inconvenience at best, you just let me in and ask me to stay. What is wrong with you- What is wrong with you, that you can experience nothing but misfortune, over and over again and still be so kind, so- bruisable at your core-," Brad unsteadily breathed out. "Why."
His last word had been broken by a tearless sob, and David’s arms wrapped around him. Brad's legs came down as his hands grabbed at the front of David’s nightshirt, burying his face in the warm crook of his neck with his cold nose pressed against David’s pale skin.
They stayed like that for a while, and David listened intently to Brad's shaky breaths, continuing to rub circles into his back. Eventually, his breathing evened out and he pulled away, leaning into the plush back of the couch as his eyes fluttered shut.
David got up to find something for him to eat; managing to scrounge up a few granola bars from his cupboard and refilling the glass of water on his way back.
He handed them to Brad and watched intently as he carefully unwrapped one and took a bite. He chewed slowly through it, staring at the tissue box on the coffee table. “Can you… not look at me. Please.”
David averted his gaze immediately. “Right, yeah, of course- Sorry.”
When he finished eating, he dropped the plastic wrappers on the table and took a deep breath. "He texted me- Which is weird, because I've blocked his number a million times- It was this picture of my backyard and- I don't know, I got freaked out. I don't know if you could tell, hah, but I've been-," he gulped, "-a bit on edge recently."
There was a brief moment of dead silence — David trying to process this new, strange side of his sociopathic head of monetization and Brad trying to even his breathing — and then, “Thanks. I guess.”
“Ah- Alright. For what?”
“Just- I don’t know. Caring.”
And for just this moment, it was as if Brad had shed his skin entirely in front of David, like his soul was bared in front of him in all its cold, hard glory.
“Oh. No problem.”
“Mm.”
—
Brad chose to sleep on the couch that night, despite David's insisting that he didn't mind putting together the guest room for him.
David laid in bed for the first while of the night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Brad in the living room, about Zack, about how badly David had messed up. He couldn't stop; that weirdly foreign emptiness in the dark confines of Brad's eyes, the unsteady way he stumbled through the front door of David's shitty apartment.
He only managed to fall asleep after taking a Xanax.
—
It was still dark outside his window when he scrambled out of bed, woken up by the sound of Brad falling in the bathroom.
When David found him on his knees, one hand on the edge of the toilet seat and his head beside the bowl, he thought about his mother, and all the times he had walked by her bathroom to find her forcing fingers down her throat, making herself throw up. Thought about how he could see her frail bones through her clothes whenever she would yell, her thin neck straining. Thought about how the pieces clicked into place when he learned what anorexia was.
He's always been insecure about his weight.
His blood was cold as he asked, “Hey, buddy, you alright?”
Brad pushed himself up enough to look at David. “I'm fine, I just fell.”
“You weren’t…?”
“What?” He glanced back at the toilet and snorted weakly when he finally understood. “No, I wasn't making myself puke. I was going to take a shower.”
“Now? It's like, three in the morning, man.”
“I didn't want to stay too long and- and be a burden.”
David's face softened. “You're not gonna be a burden, Brad. Here, do you need me to help you get washed?”
“I can do it myself, Dave. I'm a grown man,” Brad responded, pushing himself up enough to turn his body and sit down. “You have work in the morning, just go to bed and I’ll be out of your hair soon enough-”
“Brad, please just let me help you.”
Brad glared at him in a way that would've seemed more threatening if it weren't for the weariness David could see in his eyes. “I'm fine,” he said as he stood up.
His knees gave away underneath him, and David managed to grab him by the arm before he fell. “Brad…”
He took a shaky breath. His eyes were focused on the potted plant past David's shoulder. “…I don't- I don’t. Want you to see my body.”
“That’s fine,” David assured him, thumb gently drawing shapes into Brad’s skin. “Let me help you wash your hair, at the very least.”
Brad sat quiet on a stool in the shower as David’s fingers worked the 2-in-1 into his scalp. As David rinsed off his hair, he finally spoke. “You’re too nice.”
“I think you’ve said that before, yeah,” he replied. Once all the suds were gone (and Brad’s shirt was near fully soaked, though he didn’t seem to care), he picked up a towel and worked on drying him off. “I don’t see why that’s so bad.”
Brad hummed, placing his head on his arm with his elbow propped on his knee. “It makes you susceptible to manipulation.”
“Okay,” was David's simple response as he dropped the towel on Brad's shoulders. “I'll go get new clothes for you to change into, just wait here.”
—
It was strange, seeing Brad so… vulnerable.
David watched him as he slept (though it felt sort of creepy), and he looked so much more serene than he normally did. He always seemed so tense. Locked up, like if he were to loosen just a little, his heart would fall from his chest, beating and bloody. Which was kind of gross. David didn’t want to think about that again.
He listened to the sound of Brad’s breathing, kneeling on the carpet in front of the couch for a few minutes, before he got up to fill a glass of water to place on the coffee table.
“Goodnight, Brad.”