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He lies in bed and thinks about all the hangovers he’s ever had in his life; from the first one he ever got when he was fifteen to last week’s one, which, in hindsight, had been pretty mild compared to how much he had complained about it. This one is bad. This one is so bad that he thinks he might never recover. This is it. It isn’t a bald man, or a hammerhead shark, or wall made of light bulbs, it’s this hangover, this is the thing that’s going to do him in. He can feel it.
But perhaps he’s being overdramatic.
He can’t remember why he had been drinking, probably some suppressed feeling of something, and he hardly even remembers the drinking. But he remembers company, someone with him, someone he’d dragged along.
Wait.
It hadn’t been his idea.
It struck him suddenly. Usually it was his idea, nearly always, thus the assumption, but this time it hadn’t been. Perhaps that was why he had drunk so much, he was so grateful to not be the one to suggest it. But then there was the company, who was the company? Where are they? Are they going to take care of him? He hopes so.
He rolls over very slowly while he thinks about it, and then he stops, because the company is lying next to him and the mystery is over. Dirk snores like a bear cub and he’s beginning to remember. A celebration sort of deal, karaoke, so on. He winces and stares. Dirk is on his stomach, cuddling the pillow in his sleep. He’s imagined this moment so often that it feels like he just doing it again, waking up with a hangover next to Dirk Gently.
And Dirk’s naked.
Technically that’s an assumption, but it’s a fair assumption because he’s not wearing a shirt, and Todd can see his pants flung over that nice chair he keeps in the corner of his bedroom because the color doesn’t go with the living room.
He lifts up the blanket briefly, just to be sure, and there it is, the world’s favorite bum, bare as the day he was born. That is, if he was born, which is still in contention.
He lowers the blanket.
And he wants to think about what he ought to do, he really does. Wants to map it all out and talk about it over coffee, agree that this was just a lapse in drunken judgment and that it clearly meant nothing and they can just go about their lives in a slightly less drunk and sexual way. But this is so nice, lying next to him, not even touching, just being close. He can see sunlight in his hair, and listen to his breathing and feel his warmth through the sheets. And the man is like 78% sunshine, he’s hardly going to understand how bad this is.
So maybe right now, he can pretend that this is where he’s meant to be.
…
He finds his briefs under the bed, and falls into them. Dirk still sleeps, cuddling his pillow, breathing so deep it’s like his lungs go on forever. There is no sound from the world outside and Todd stands over him, and holds his elbows. He should have been better, been better at resisting. Even drunk, he should have held back. Should have gone to sleep in his own bed. Everything in him churns and tumbles.
He doesn’t think and reaches down and the gesture that was meant to brush some hair out of his eyes turns into a stroke down the company’s cheek. He has a yearning like a pebble stuck in his heart. He imagines leaning down and kissing a cheekbone or a forehead, but instead he turns away and leaves the room because there is nothing worse than getting exactly what you’ve been wanting and having it mean absolutely nothing.
He closes the door before he looks up, midway through a yawn, but when he does he wishes that he had just stayed in bed, maybe he could have wound himself around Dirk Gently, pretend he woke up like that, be warm. Feel safe.
“Holy shit!”
He hisses at her to be quiet and puts a finger to his lips. He listens for movement behind the door, but he only hears a small grunt and then more snoring. He locks eyes with Farah and she locks eyes with him. He doesn’t like how this has escalated. They stare at each other.
“Holy shit,” she whispers. He looks at her grimly and she looks grimly back and he tries to think of something smart to say, but he can’t because he is officially no longer capable of speaking. She runs a hand through her hair and relaxes her posture, like she didn’t see it coming, but it’s all cool. He’s almost a little offended that she’s not more surprised.
He walks to the kitchen, feigning confidence. Which is hard to do hungover and probably still a little bit drunk. He finds a teapot in the sink and thinks about looking for a coffee pot but he feels like that would be pointless. He fills up the kettle and tries to think of things that he could say that would make sense. He turns it on and when he turns around she’s sitting at the counter, staring at him.
“So you guys are, like, sleeping together?”
And how the holy hell is he meant to answer that? Yes, technically, they had “slept” together, but there aren’t “sleeping” together. It isn’t an ongoing operation. But if he says no, she will just assume he’s lying because he just appeared from his bedroom in only his briefs after clearly staying the night. And maybe, just a little bit, he wants her to think they are sleeping with each other, wants to her think that he is loved by Dirk Gently.
So he shrugs.
She takes this as a yes, but technically he isn’t lying and the technicalities of lying means a lot to him these days.
“Oh my gosh,” she says, still speaking quietly. She puts her head in her hands. “I owe Amanda fifty bucks. Fuck.”
He doesn’t comment. He’s not even offended. If anything could have predicted it, Amanda had always been very open about her suspicions of him. It dawns on him that he can’t quite tell why he always denied them.
Farah is looking at him when Dirk appears at his door wrapped in a bathrobe, but she looks at him as soon as she notices. She narrows her eyes like she’s seeing him for the first time and is skeptical of his intentions. He frowns at her, and moves toward Todd.
Todd thinks about the day before, or what he can remember of it and he doesn’t think he saw this moment coming. Dirk slings his arm around his waist and he stands very still. Dirk kisses his cheek and tells him good morning and yawns and it all feels very natural, but also very strange. Like this is what they were meant to be doing all along, they just… hadn’t been.
He tries not to spook him away and instead slips his own arm around Dirk and holds onto the bathrobe. He tries not to think about it to hard. Farah still has her eyes narrowed and Todd’s feeling all warm and friendly and Dirk is suddenly complaining about his head and he comprehends nearly none of it.
“Alrighty then,” Farah says suddenly and loudly, “well I’m going to leave you guys be and drive very quickly to your sister’s so that I can tell her about this.”
“Okay then,” Dirk say’s back, as though that was normal, “See you later!” And then she leaves, just like that. Giving them one last look, standing at the counter with their arms around each other, before slipping out the door.
“Why was she here anyway?”
“I have no idea.”
…
They spent the day in bed, curled up in his linen sheets, recovering, snoozing, watching tv, drinking tea. And it was unclear whether they were on the same page, but for a while Todd didn’t try to rectify that because he was too wrapped up in the moment to care. And he didn’t know if Dirk was doing this on purpose or was just doing what he thought he ought to, and Todd made the choice not to ask.
He lies on the left side because it feels like the side that’s his and he remembers the pillow Dirk was holding when he slept and he thinks that he is that pillow now. He moves his hand though Dirk’s hair, and he doesn’t think, because if he thinks logic will kick in and he’ll have to realize that whatever way this goes, their friendship is over.
“Do you remember what happened last night?”
He doesn’t know why he asks, but he’s too tired to regret it. Dirk Gently looks up and bites his lip at him. Todd thinks that if the company were to have his soul swapped with a corgi, he probably wouldn’t notice.
There is a shrug and Todd still has his hand in Dirk’s hair.
“I don’t think I remember too much, I think just the essentials, the important bits. You drank a lot. And then we had sex. And then we woke up.” They hadn’t said it up until that point; it had been one of the subjects that just are just such common knowledge that they don’t even need to mention it.
He doesn’t respond immediately and Dirk is still looking at him, all lazy-eyed and dozy.
“Was it… was it nice?”
Dirk pushes his eyebrows together.
“The drinking?”
“The sex.”
There is another pause and this time it’s Dirk who fails to respond.
“I’m not sure.” Dirk looks at him, looks at him like he’s always looked at him, “but the bits I remember I enjoyed. Like a lot. I enjoyed them very much.” He seems satisfied with his own answer.
Todd never looks away from him, like if he does he’ll be gone.
“Dirk, do have,” he faltered, and Dirk had closed his eyes, leaning his head on Todd’s stomach like a dog. “Do you have feelings for me? Like, romantic feelings?”
This time the answer is immediate.
“Yes.”
His eyes don’t open and he’s never heard the company give such a short answer. It’s so sharp it cut through him and there is nothing. He doesn’t feel happy or relieved or disappointed or anything. Just like the universe had affirmed something he already knew.
“Oh. Cool. Uh, me too.”
Suddenly Dirk is moving, writhing and shifting to put his weight on his arms so that he’s abruptly being leaned over and that’s new. The kiss is like being in a boat for year upon years, always shifting and moving uncertain, and then you’re on solid ground and suddenly everything in steady. Dirk lies down next to him, tucking himself under Todd’s arm like the kitten sometimes does, and that feels like that.
Like this is where he was mean to be.
Like this is where the universe wants him to be, holding Dirk Gently in his underwear, hungover and watching late morning soap operas.