Chapter Text
TODD
By the time the pizza had arrived Dirk was getting restless. “Why do we have to wait for the pizza to arrive to keep watching the movie?” Todd gave him the look that was somewhere between annoyed and amused. In lieu of being able to watch the movie, Dirk watched him puppy eyes, swimming in the cable-knit blanket Farah got for them when they moved in together. Luckily the pizza man chose that moment to ring the doorbell. Dirk shot up and sprinted to the door.
“Hello, yes is this our pizza? A pepperoni and a Hawaiian? Good, good.” He patted his pockets looking for money. Todd sighed and pulled twenty-five dollars out of his wallet then reached past Dirk and handed it to the pizza man.
“Thank you.” The slightly bewildered pizza man handed the pizzas to Dirk who received them with a wide smile and practically skipped back to the couch.
They soon finished most of the pizzas and by the time Thor, Scrapper 142, Bruce, and Loki were fighting for Asgard, Dirk was almost asleep, his head lying on Todd’s shoulder. This level of casual trust and physical affection reminded Todd of his last girlfriend (a while ago admittedly). Todd was surprisingly okay about this. It wasn’t bad per say, Dirk was certainly endearing, and smart at times, and quite cute really. Oh god, I like Dirk. I definitely like Dirk, in much more than a platonic way.
In another ten minutes, Dirk was definitely asleep and Todd could feel a yawn growing in his chest. He tried his best to stay awake but by also fell asleep by the end of the movie. Todd woke to a sore neck and sunlight streaming through the blinds. He groaned and on his shoulder, Dirk made a small sleepy noise. Dirk’s hair was ruffled and would undoubtedly take him ten minutes and a decent amount of water to fix later. He seemed much more peaceful while sleeping, just as cute as normal though. God, Dirk was going to be the death of him. Todd shook himself out of his thoughts and checked his watch, it was 9:14. He lightly shook Dirk. “Hey, wake up, it’s time to get up.” Dirk groaned and grabbed Todd’s t-shirt.
“I don’t want to.” Todd rolled his eyes.
“It’s Saturday, we can make pancakes if you want.” Dirk sat up at that and rubbed at his eyes.
“Cool, yep, good with that.” His voice was endearingly sleepy. “With chocolate chips in the batter?”
“Ah—kay, yeah sure.”
They managed to get most of the way through making the pancakes without making a mess. This was ruined when Dirk reached past Todd to get the chocolate chips and knocked over the flour. “Gah!” Todd sprang back and avoided most of it, Dirk did not. His blue jacket and pale t-shirt were now covered.
“Toooodd! Help me.” Todd, however, was laughing too much to help him. When he could breathe again, he went over to Dirk.
“Your clothes will be fine Dirk, although you may want to change your shirt. Give me your jacket and I’ll try to get some flour off while you go do that.” He went to help Dirk slip off his jacket. This brought him quite close to Dirk, not that he was sad about that, it was just. …strange. Dirk slipped his arms out of his jacket and handed it to Todd, not noticing how he’d frozen. Todd was left holding the blue jacket. He shook himself out of it and went about dusting off Dirk’s jacket.
Once Dirk returned (with a nice new shirt) they finished the pancakes without further incident and sat down to eat. Dirk poured unhealthy amounts of maple syrup on top of his. Todd looked on disapprovingly. “Dirk, as much as I like maple syrup, you have more syrup than pancake.” Dirk looked up.
“I just like maple syrup.”
“You’re going to get cavities.”
“I shan’t. The universe won’t let it happen.” Todd sighed, this was a lost battle. Why did he care anyway, it wasn’t his teeth. He just didn’t want to help out with the dentist bills, that’s all.
They cleaned up and were enjoying a nice quiet Saturday when Todd got a phone call from Farah. “Hey guys, you might want to come down here. I think we’ve got another case coming up.” Todd looked at Dirk who was happily reading a book on their window seat. He sighed.
“We’ll be there in twenty.” He hung up. “Hey Dirk, we’ve got another case. Time to go.”
DIRK
Dirk threw his hands up hoping it would decrease his chances of getting shot by this tall, incredibly mysterious man. The man smiled. “Now, I’m very sorry about this Dirk. I won’t kill you. In fact, I can’t, but these anti-nausea pills are brilliant so I can at least injure you. I must be going.” He smiled again and pulled the trigger, the bullet went through Dirk’s leg. It felt like he’d been punched, hard, in the leg. The man ran away, his tall thin frame disappearing quickly through the door. Adrenaline was still racing through Dirk’s body and he moved to run after the man. His leg gave out beneath him and the pain came crashing down. He screamed.
The paramedics had given him something for the pain which definitely helped, but know all he could think about was Todd. Where was he? Was he okay? Had he gone after the strange man? The paramedic beside was trying to ask him questions about his medical history. It wasn’t going very well.
“Anything you can tell us will be helpful. You’re losing a lot of blood so you’ll probably need a blood transfusion. What blood type are you?”
“I think I’m O negative?” Dirk was trying his best, he just didn’t know if he’d ever been vaccinated. Blackwing didn’t care for that sort of thing.
“Okay, so you’re going to go under anaesthesia but you won’t be unconscious. You won’t feel a thing, although you might feel a bit talkative.” The doctor smiled reassuringly at him. “You’ll be fine.” He gestured the anaesthetist forward.
“All done.” The doctor smiled at him again.
“Does this mean Todd can come now? I want to see Todd again. Is he here?” One of the nurses came up to his bed.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“I want him to be.” The nurse finished his sentence for him.
“-here. Of course. I’ll go see if there is a Todd in the lobbyat receptio.” She left the room. The rest of the medical team started packing up.
TODD
Todd raced into the hospital reception and sprinted up to the desk. “Is there a Dirk Gently here right now? Is he okay?” The desk worker sighed slightly.
“I’ll take a look, sir. Just calm down, please. If he is, panicking will not make him feel better.” Todd took a step back from the desk and waited. He fidgeted, how was he supposed to wait calmly when Dirk was probably injured. Or bleeding out somewhere in that building on Lander street. The desk worker looked up. “We do appear to have a Dirk Gently. He is currently in operation but not unconscious so you will probably be able to see him soon after it’s done.” Todd breathed a sigh of relief, for a moment.
“Hold on, why is in surgery?” The worker looked back down at the screen.
“Uh, let’s see…blood type O-negative.....Oh, here we go.” The worker looked back up at Todd. “It says here they’re operating on his leg as he was shot in the leg.” Todd couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. Dirk had (unfortunately) had worse wounds than that but still, holy shit, being shot in the leg?
“Thanks, um, where do I wait?” The worker pointed to a crowded waiting room nearby.
“Over there.”
After a tense hour of waiting and fidgeting a nurse comes into the waiting room. Todd looked up. “Are there any Todds here?” Todd shot up out of his seat.
“I’m here.” The nurse smiled at him.
“Here for your boyfriend Dirk Gently?” Todd’s mind skipped over the fourth word in the sentence, instead focussing on the name Dirk Gently. The nurse gestured for her to follow him. “Now he just got out of surgery so he may be a bit out of it, but you can still talk to him. Just don’t get too excited.” They got in the elevator. She pressed 4. Only in the silence did Todd stop to think about what the nurse had said. Boyfriend? Todd opened his mouth to ask about what she had said but she began speaking before he could.
“Now he’s just down here, room 416. Just knock on the door, Dr Stewarts will let you in.”
DIRK
“You sure you’re okay going up the stairs by yourself Dirk?” Dirk nodded.
“Yes Todd, I’ll be fine. You can stop fussing by the way. I can make it up the stairs.” Dirk stumbled. From behind him, Todd’s hands grasped his hips, steadying him. They made it to the top of the stairs without Dirk actually falling although he did stumble again once or twice. Todd was watching him like a hawk the whole time. “And to think you once complained you were a bad friend. You won’t do anything right now without making sure I’m okay first.”
“Movie night!” He declared from his position on the couch. It was a week on and Todd hadn’t let him out of the house to do anything besides grocery shopping, and that was due to heavy complaining. “We’re watching Prisoner of Azkaban. Aka the best Harry Potter movie.” Todd poked his head around the kitchen door.
“Oooooh no, it isn’t, Order of the Pheonix.” Dirk gasped in horror.
“I mean it’s good but it can’t contest. There has to be a balance between light-hearted and good special effects. And that balance comes in Prisoner of Azkaban.” Now Todd entered the living room to argue his point.
“Sure it’s a good movie, but c’mon. I mean, it’s a brilliant adaptation of the source material.”
“I’m the guy with the shot leg, I get to choose.” Todd walked past the sofa and ruffled his hair. Oh god, that made him feel ….feelings? He didn’t know the word for it.
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” Todd walked off in the direction of his room. He returned soon with a blanket which he spread over both of them once he sat down on the couch. Dirk pressed play then lent on Todd. He was very warm.
TODD
Todd tried to focus, he really did, but with Dirk leaning on him and hugging his arm at the scarier parts, what was he supposed to do? Especially with the nurse’s ‘boyfriend’ comment from the hospital still in his head. Unlike the last movie they’d watched together, Dirk managed to stay awake through the whole thing. Todd switched off the credits and went to get them both ice cream. He returned a pensive Dirk. “What do you think happened to the kitten Todd, you know the sharky one.”
“I dunno. Lived in the woods perhaps? It’s probably better than someone bringing it home to live with.” Dirk nodded.
“That’s true.” They sat in companionable silence for a minute, eating their ice cream before Todd put down his bowl with a bit more force than usual.
“Uh, this is a pretty big change of subject but, uh.” Todd took a deep breath. “Last week at the hospital, the nurse who came to get me referred to me as, as your boyfriend.” Dirk visibly froze.
“She did?” His voice was high-pitched. Todd cleared his throat awkwardly.
“I just wanted to know why she thought that.” After realising what that sounded like, he hastened to fix it. “Not that that would be a bad thing. I, uh, actually wouldn’t dislike it if perhaps that was what you wanted.” Dirk didn’t reply, instead, he was staring at Todd like he was spewing nonsense. Todd took another deep breath to steady himself.
“I like you, a lot, is what I’m trying to say.” Dirk seemed to shake himself out of just staring at Todd.
“Really. Wow. Me too?” Now it was Todd’s turn to stare.
“Oh okay cool. Good. That’s good.” Todd picked his ice cream back up and the silence stretched on.
“I’ll take your bowl to the kitchen.” Todd held out his hand to Dirk who tentatively gave him his bowl. He walked to the kitchen, his heart pounding from the conversation. What did you do now? Ask him out? Yeah, I’ll do that. That’s a good idea right? He walked back into the living room. Dirk stood up.
“I’m gonna go to bed now I think.”
“Dirk, wait I—” Todd faltered, he didn’t know what to say now. “I was wondering in you’d like to go out sometime. Like, on a date?” Dirk’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open a little.
“Uh, yeah. That’d be good.”
“Cool. Well, uh, night.”
DIRK
Dirk couldn’t sleep, but could you blame him after that conversation? He finally threw his legs out from under the covers and put some pants and a warm jacket. Grabbing a set of keys off the bench, he headed up to the roof. Perhaps the night and some fresh air would help get rid of the adrenaline. His leg ached as he walked up the stairs and had to take a few breaks to get to the top. He opened the door and stepped out onto the roof. The cool wind whistled across the rooftop and he pulled his jacket closer around him. He could see someone standing near the edge of the roof. They turned around when the door shut.
“Dirk?” It was Todd. Dirk walked up to him and stood beside him.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Neither.” They sat in silence, staring out at the city. “Dirk—”
“Todd—” They both started talking at the same time. “You go first, Todd.” Todd acknowledged this with a nod but still waited a bit before speaking.
“About earlier,” Dirk’s heart dropped, did Todd regret saying what he did? “I just wanted to make sure that, I dunno, you’re sure about going on that date.” Dirk’s heart returned to its usual position, beating faster for sure though.
“Todd, I’m sure. I’ve liked you for, um,” he paused, “a while. I’d really like that.”
“Good.” The silence returned until Todd started rubbing his hands together.
“You’re cold?”
“Only my hands.”
“Pockets?”
“For some reason, not on this bloody jacket.” Dirk slowly stretched out his hand to Todd, whose eyes flickered from Dirk’s hand to his face before taking it. Damn, Todd’s hand was really cold. Todd shoved his other hand between his arm and his torso. Adrenalin was pumping through his veins and a strange feeling was lodged in his chest. Never before had someone wanted anything to do with him and now Todd wanted this? It was a lot.
“Todd,” He faltered, “are you sure you like me?” Todd turned to look at him, the city lights reflecting off his eyes.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Todd muttered. Todd extracted his hand from Dirk’s and turned towards him fully. “I’m pretty sure.” Todd placed his hands on Dirk’s jacket and pulled Dirk closer to him. The height difference very obvious this close, he could feel the warmth of Todd’s body. He was stunned as Todd removed one of his hands and placed it behind Dirk’s neck, tilted his head up, and kissed him.
Todd stepped back. “There. Proof that I like you.” His voice was a bit breathless. Dirk couldn’t seem to work his mouth, he was frozen in position. He finally tilted his head back up to look at Todd.
“Okay. That’s good.” His voice perked up. “I’m pretty sure I like you too.” They stared at each other, both stunned by the kiss. “Does this mean I can kiss you again?” Todd nodded and Dirk stepped towards him again. Their lips met harder this time. Todd pushed his hands up into Dirk’s hair as Dirk wrapped his around Todd’s back. The cold of Todd’s hands made him acutely aware of where they were. Emotions were racing through his body but he didn’t have the time to process them, he was instead focussed on savouring this moment. The wind, the feel of Todd’s jean jacket beneath his hands, of Todd’s hands in his hair, of Todd’s lips on his. A car horn blared on the street below causing Dirk to flinch back a bit. Todd pulled away. Dirk checked his watch.
“It’s late. We should sleep.” Todd cleared his throat.
“Yeah.”
When Dirk woke up, it felt like a dream. Surely he hadn’t kissed Todd on the rooftop last night in the cold. But the memories were right there and boy, were they going to get overplayed in the cinema of his mind. He could hear Todd moving around the flat. Todd was, surprisingly, a morning person. Dirk was not. He groaned but pulled himself out of bed. He pulled on his dressing gown and shuffled his way out into the living room. Todd greeted him cheerfully.
“Welcome to the land of the living! It’s 10 am.” Dirk grunted and flopped onto the couch, his leg protested at this sudden movement. “Tea?” Todd offered.
“Yes please.” Todd brought it out along with a plate of toast. Dirk smiled at him sleepily. “Thank you, Todd.” He bit into the toast. “Ooh, raspberry jam!” Todd rolled his eyes but was smiling nonetheless.
TODD
Todd had expected it to be more awkward after last night, but it was as normal as they could be. Just excess tea, toast, and Dirk being overly enthusiastic about new jam flavours. On the sofa, Dirk was making himself comfortable. “If we can’t work cases, Todd, I can at least finish a season of Brooklyn-99 today.” Dirk was currently fine with being cooped up in the apartment but Todd knew he was going to get cabin sickness soon.
“I was actually thinking we could go for a walk somewhere. Can’t let you spend all your time in here.” Dirk looked at him.
“You’re the one not letting me leave.”
“I’m just concerned about your leg. It needs to be able to heal properly.” Dirk smiled at him on his way to the door and it lit a small fire inside Todd’s heart.
It was cold outside. Todd had not planned on that. Dirk had one of his distinctive, quite good-looking jackets but Todd did not. He rubbed his hands together. “Maybe we could go get some coffee or something?” Dirk looked at him.
“Didn’t you just have coffee?” Todd looked away.
“Perhaps. It’s just, my hands are cold. I’m cold.”
“You don’t need to get coffee to warm up your hands silly.” Dirk grabbed Todd’s hand and he felt a bolt of adrenaline jolt through him. Oh god, he felt like a schoolgirl with a crush. He was a mature adult, he could handle this.
“Oh yeah. That works.” His other hand was still cold but Todd wasn’t about to complain.
They were walking at a slower pace than usual due to Dirk’s leg so it took them a while to get anywhere. “So, Todd, do you have an idea of where we are going?”
“…no actually.” Dirk looked at him with an exasperated expression but it soon lit up as he spotted something behind Todd. That was adorable.
“Can we go to the pet store, Todd? Please?” Todd blinked.
“The what now?”
“The pet store Todd, keep up. It’s just over there.”
“Okay.” Todd relented. Neither of them had had a pet growing up but Dirk seemed to really love animals. Plus inside would probably be warm.
Dirk was oohing and aahing the kittens in the store. He picked up a small fluffy white one who was playfully batting at a small ball. It went limp in his arms and looked at him with bright blue eyes. Dirk practically melted. “Todd. Our apartment is allowed pets right? Can we get her?” Todd scratched the kitten’s head.
“Bit early in the relationship for that don’t you think Dirk?” He said nonchalantly. He froze up. “That is, if we were to be in a relationship and I don’t mean to assume anything or whatever after last night, you know what? I’m gonna stop talking now.” During his speech, Dirk had pulled the kitten closer to his chest put he promptly put it back down with the others.
“Perhaps we should continue with the walk.” Todd nodded awkwardly and headed towards the door.
DIRK
They walked in silence as Dirk contemplated what to say. He’d liked Todd for a while he just still couldn’t quite believe that Todd liked him too. He was reckless and kept getting both of them into dangerous situations. He’d turned Todd’s life on his head. He decided to try to say as much. “Todd, well…” Todd’s head jerked towards him and they stopped. They’d ended up in a nearby park. “I like you. A lot. It’s just, hard for me to believe you actually like me back. And want to,” here Dirk coughed, “date me. Also, I haven’t really dated a lot. Or at all. So there’s that too.” Todd nodded slowly.
“Well, I’d really like to. I can prove it again if you want.” Dirk blushed at the implications of that, no matter how PG they were. “So you uh, want to date me as well?”
“Yeah.” Dirk looked around at the park. “Does this count as a date then?”
“Only if we can get coffee.” Dirk laughed. “What! My hands are still cold.” Dirk glanced at them and grabbed one. He smiled at Todd.
“If I say my lips are cold, will you kiss them?” Dirk joked.
“Gladly.” Todd pulled him closer and leaned up, meeting their cold lips. Despite the slightly despondent weather and his injured leg, this moment was still almost perfect. As good as the universe would give him.