Pulling Teeth
Title: Pulling Teeth
Author: Concupid
Pairing: unrequited Dan/Jones
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language (misogynist and homophobic), substance abuse
Summary: Jones fancies Dan, and Claire feels sorry for her misguided flat mate.
Author’s note: I asked for angsty prompts and got kicked in the gut! This was the least specifically angsty prompt, a request for unrequited Dan/Jones from littleredchucks on tumblr and it didn't come out very angsty at all, but I’m okay with that (and I hope she is as well…). I also owed Claire after Altered Reality.
Claire had plenty of nicknames in school. There was stupid bitch, fat whore, ugly dyke, fat ugly stupid bitch whore… They were variations on a theme, and that theme was that women were meant to act a certain way and Claire utterly failed to fall in line. While she couldn't pretend the ugliness didn't leave its mark, she was glad she had never been cool or popular. While she might be a touch brittle and impatient, Claire felt confident that she was an honest person. She was honest with others and she was honest with herself.
Dan, on the other hand, had always been Ashcroft. Claire distinctly remembered overhearing a conversation between two students a few years ahead of her.
“She’s Ashcroft’s sister.”
“So she’s an Ashcroft, too?”
“No,” the student said, taking a dramatic puff of her cigarette. “She is no Ashcroft.”
But Dan never got to appreciate being too cool for school, because he was too busy being unhappy and moody.
While Claire was kept on a short leash and sometimes felt like she’d drown in her parents’ expectations, Dan was eternally indulged. When Claire asked why Dan was never held accountable for his behavior, her mother said, “Dan isn’t like you, Clair. He’s sensitive.”
When Claire pointed out Dan was mean and called Claire ‘fat arms’, her mother said, “Don’t be so sensitive, Claire. Dan’s just being a big brother. It’s how he shows his love.”
When she was a teenager, she was jealous of Dan and his unwashed hair and angry essays, but she grew to see what her parents could never admit: Dan was a fucked up kid. He was courted by the most popular kids, but spent most of his time alone. He questioned the motives of anyone who wanted to be near him. For a while, drinking had brought him out of his shell. For a few years, Dan was downright sociable and sometimes even happy. When Dan returned to being a cranky hermit, he continued to drink. Now he was a miserable drunk, but people still called him Ashcroft and sought his presence. Everyone wanted his disaffected disposition, but they used product to make their hair greasy and bought their clothes used instead of wearing the same shirt for years. Ashcroft worked better as a concept than as a reality.
Xxx
“I’ll never be clean,” Dan moaned dramatically. He was off his tits and Jones was giggling at his every word.
“You wore a glove, right?”
“I wore a surgical glove, under a gardening glove…”
“You did not!” Jones looked sincerely shocked. He was probably off his tits as well.
“I wasn’t sure what I’d be touching. I wanted some distance,” Dan explained. “I took it off, because he kept whinging about it…”
“It probably hurt! I used to try different materials when I had a wank. You don’t want anything too course or thick,” Jones said with authority, definitely off his tits on something.
Dan laughed and mussed Jones’s hair. It was a brotherly gesture, but Jones went red. From across the room, she could see Jones stop breathing while Dan touched him.
“Was it… Was it rank? It must have been well disgusting,” Jones asked in a voice thick with emotion. It tugged at Claire’s heart.
Dan shrugged, “It wasn’t oozing puss or anything. It was like jerking off with someone else’s dick.”
“Oozing?”
“He gets handjobs in mensrooms from strangers! I expected him to be riddled with disease. At least some e. coli,” Dan explained with a sheepish smile. For about twenty minutes, Claire had honestly felt bad that Dan pulled off a stranger to get her camera back. Then she realized there was absolutely no reason for Dan to actually go through with it. He could have written the article in his sleep. Dan had just been courting misery as usual and she couldn’t take the blame for what he did to himself.
“Why didn’t you just make something up?” Jones asked, fidgeting in his seat like a child, but his eyes focused and unblinking. “Or done it with someone you know? You could have given me a handjob, saved me some time in the shower.”
Claire couldn’t bear the weight of Jones’s words hanging in the air.
“No masturbating in the shower!” she yelled, not for the first time since having two male flat mates. While she might make occasional use of the massaging shower head, she didn’t leave bodily fluids behind. She knew how well Dan and Jones tidied up after themselves. She did not trust them to clean up their residue if they couldn’t be buggered to clean up the coffee rings on the counter.
Her brother shot her a glare, but Jones never stopped staring at Dan.
“Sorry, Jones. Your cock just isn’t disturbing enough. Wouldn’t have made for a good story,” Dan explained with a wink. Dan couldn’t flirt. When he fancied someone, he became spastic and painfully awkward. However, when he drank, he relaxed. He could be downright charming when he crawled inside a bottle. He didn’t reserve his flirty behavior for women he was trying to pull, he winked and gave meaningful looks to anyone in his vicinity. Claire had the unpleasant experience of telling people the man “eyeing her up” in a bar was actually her beloved older brother. She would say, “That’s just what he looks like when he’s drunk.”
Of course, Jones knew all that, but he was still leaning forward and looking up at Dan from beneath his lashes.
“It might have been disgusting,” Jones purred. “You don’t know where my cock has been. Maybe I was blowing that guy last week.”
Dan gave a hearty laugh and mumbled something about how Jones wouldn’t leave his tables long enough to suck cock. Watching the two of them, Claire was torn between feeling sorry for them both and wanting to smack their heads together. Dan was unintentionally leading Jones on with his hooded gaze and suggestive comments, but Jones knew better. He certainly knew enough about the real Dan to not be sucked into the Ashcroft mystique. Dan was in a polyamorous relationship with addiction and self-loathing, there was no room for someone else in that destructive romance.
“But what was it like?” Jones pressed. “Was it weird to yank another man’s chain?”
Dan looked thoughtful.
“It was really awkward because he was a stranger… and his wife was waiting outside. The cock thing didn’t bother me. I thought it would, but it really didn’t.”
Jones was biting his lower lip and his breathing was shallow. Claire couldn’t bear to watch any longer.
“That’s enough dick talk for one night,” she announced as she stood up.
Dan smirked, “Jealous?”
Claire looked at Jones, his pointy face almost pretty as he stared at Dan with doe eyed wonder.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. She felt Dan’s eyes on her back as she left the room, but she knew Jones wasn’t taking his eyes off of Dan. Maybe he was hoping for a handjob. The builder Dan tossed off followed him home, Dan had to have some clue of what he was doing.
But rather than tell the builder to piss off, Dan avoided him and tried to hide. He didn’t have the balls to properly end things, so the builder kept grasping at straws. Dan apparently gave a good handy. It was just one more thing Claire had never wanted to know about her only sibling.
“I became a prossie for you!” Dan yelled as Claire began to close the door to what was loosely termed ‘Claire’s room’. Her flat mates agreed she should have her own bed, but they never saw any reason to give her a moment of privacy.
“You’re an irresponsible git,” Claire reminded him before shutting the door completely. She heard murmuring and an explosion of laughter before she turned on her radio. The only way to sleep in the House of Jones was to drown out the noise with a louder noise.
Xxx
The next morning, Jones was still awake and drinking coffee. He was practically vibrating with caffeine.
“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack,” Claire scolded, more out of habit than anything. Jones occasionally needed a trip to hospital from overdosing on stimulants, but nothing could slow him down.
“I fancy Dan,” Jones blurted out as he poured three cups of coffee. He pushed one towards Claire and kept the remaining two. From the way he was adding cream and sugar, it was clear neither was intended for Dan. Jones was double fisting his coffee.
“I’ve noticed,” Claire said drily as she added a sweetener to her black coffee. She still preferred tea, but there was always a pot of coffee brewing. Dan and Jones were amusingly transparent in their coffee choices. Dan took his coffee strong and bitter, while Jones liked his sugary sweet and barely recognizable from its original form.
Claire liked her coffee strong, but sweet. She hoped it reflected her personality, but mainly it was because milk or cream in her coffee gave her stomach pains.
“Does Dan know?” Jones asked, suddenly looking very young and vulnerable.
“Dan doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.”
“Do you think he fancies me at all?” Jones asked with his characteristic bluntness. “Or could he fancy me?”
“Jones, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to Dan. You make him laugh, you make him relax. You bring the best out in him. I’m so glad you live here,” Claire spoke gently, choosing her words with care.
“So, do you think he might fancy me?” Jones asked again.
“Of course not! Weren’t you listening?” Claire snapped. “You make Dan happy. Dan doesn’t like being happy. If you want something with Dan, you’ll have to… I don’t know. You could start dating Jonatton Yeah? Maybe you could get Sasha pregnant at Sugar Ape… Could you stomach making out with Nathan Barley?”
Jones looked appropriately horrified, and Dan chose that moment to walk in the room. Jones stared hard at Dan before turning on his heel and running out of the kitchen. Seconds later, the flat filled with a thumping bass line. Claire wondered if the godawful noise was some kind of love song to Dan.
“He’s been acting weird,” Dan pointed out. When Claire made a face, he amended his statement. “He’s been weird, even for Jones. Do you know what’s going on?”
Claire shrugged and drank her too hot coffee while she searched for something to say.
“I think.. I think he fancies someone,” Claire said with some hesitation. She didn’t want to spill Jones secret, but she didn’t want Dan to miss out on an opportunity to be with someone who cared about him.
Dan looked confused for a moment, but then realization dawned.
“Oh,” Dan sighed. “I guess it was inevitable, close quarters and all. What do you think?”
Claire was surp
nto her cup. She’d used too much sweetener, and she didn’t care for anything too sweet.