His Brother's Keeper (Wreckers, David/Nick/Dawn, NC-17, Cumberbatch!fic)
There are things that once seen, can never be forgotten.
Dawn lay alone in the brass-bound double bed, unable to sleep. Nick’s farewell party had been a disaster that had ended in tears and screaming, and that was just the adults. While she had been mostly able to brush off Gary’s vindictiveness and Nick’s retaliatory fury, it was David’s behaviour she couldn’t get out of her mind. He’d struck at Nick so viciously with the mallet-once, twice, three times, leaving him sprawled helplessly in the wading pool-then stalked off into the trees. She could barely bring herself to look at him after that particular display. Which was why tonight David had been consigned to their newly-vacated spare room.
Now, as she lay staring at the cracks in the ceiling, she heard footsteps coming up the stairs, followed by a voice, familiar enough even through the closed bedroom door. It was clear that Nick had unexpectedly returned, for reasons unknown. Perhaps he’d missed the train out after all. He wasn’t speaking to her, though, but to David, who was lying in what had for the past few weeks been Nick’s bed. She wondered briefly if she should perhaps get up and make peace, smooth over the sleeping arrangements for everyone. But anger at their behaviour still simmered inside her, and she decided against it. Let them work out their own differences, including who was going to have to sleep on the floor.
Since Nick’s arrival, she had learned how little she really knew of the man she’d married. David had always been reluctant to talk about his childhood, and she’d never pushed too hard. She had certainly never been keen to discuss her own upbringing, with parents who'd let her know early on that she was adopted, and insisted on her continuing gratitude right up to the day she’d finally escaped. When David had rescued her in London, it had been easiest just to clear the slate altogether and pretend that their lives had each begun when they’d left home.
But Nick had brought with him memories of a shared childhood that could be disputed but not denied. Someone had pushed their mother down the stairs; someone had left the rabbit hutch open, let the dog off the leash, committed the crimes that Nick had been punished for. Yet for all his denials and accusations, Nick seemed to bear no grudge against his brother; in fact, quite the opposite. He clung to David with a devotion that she found somewhat disconcerting. David’s behaviour, too, was odd. His attitude towards Nick was a mixture of love and hate; delight and affection overlying some kind of fierce resentment. She couldn’t tell if he were actually happy that Nick had come to visit them in the first place.
Their voices were louder now, growing more heated, all consideration for her forgotten. She responded by pulling her pillow over her head like a child. It wasn’t as though she could sleep anyway. As long as they didn’t come to blows again, let them argue. But the very next moment there was the solid thump of someone being pushed hard against a wall, the ancient floorboards groaning in protest. The anger flared in her again. Enough was enough. If they wanted to continue with this, they could go kill each other outside and let her concentrate on not-sleeping in peace.
She slipped out of bed and padded along the hall, even as the voices became more muffled, then fell silent. The door to the spare bedroom stood open. In the pale half-light from the window, she could barely make out what was happening at first, and then it was a further few stunned seconds before she could believe it.
It was Nick with his back against the side wall, his slight form pinned there by David, who was very far from hitting him. Instead he was kissing him with an intensity she found as breathtaking as it was disturbing. Nick was quiet, but David was murmuring softly in between kisses, something that sounded like, “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“David!” It burst from her in a shriek.
He didn’t draw away from Nick, but instead tilted his face deliberately away from her. “Go back to bed, Dawn.”
Nick continued to say nothing, but his gaze met Dawn’s over the curve of David’s shoulder. He looked scared, but just a little triumphant. She wanted to rip them apart from each other with her bare hands, wanted to stop David touching him like that. That, too, had bothered her from the beginning-how much physical contact David had seemed to crave from his brother. Because he was not a naturally affectionate person; at least, he had never been so publically demonstrative with her. She should have known all along that there was something-but who could have suspected it would be as terrible as this? She couldn’t bring herself to come a step closer.
“What are you doing?” she said stupidly, although it was all too clear. She just couldn’t quite grasp it.
Now David did finally look at her, releasing his hold on Nick just a fraction. His eyes blazed in a way that made her take a single step backwards.
“This is nothing to do with you,” he said sharply. “You wanted the bed to yourself; you have it. Nick will be gone in the morning.”
With that he turned his attention back to Nick, dismissing her entirely. The entire length of his body was pressed obscenely against Nick’s and Nick was now moaning softly under his kisses. She was trembling with shock and rage and something that felt closer to fear than disgust.
“If she wants a baby so much, I could give ’er one,” Nick muttered, loud enough for her to hear.
It was the wrong thing to say. David tore himself abruptly away and for a moment she thought he would end up punching Nick after all. Then his mouth twisted into a wry smile, and he looked back at her.
“Well. I suppose that’s true. What do you say, Dawn?” and his voice was rougher than ever, losing its cultivated city veneer and taking on the ugly cadences of his youth. It sent a shiver up her spine.
She should have fled then; wanted to flee, but his challenge held her. The last few weeks had revealed a David she had never known; darker and more dangerous than she had ever suspected. And yet he was no less attractive to her for all that. Despite his violent behaviour, she had never once been afraid for herself; she hadn’t hesitated to push him away with force when he had tried to stop her from walking home, and that very afternoon she had told him off sharply for fighting. All of which he’d accepted meekly enough. The fear she felt was more, she realised now, a fear of losing him. The only parents she had ever known were dead; the friends she’d had far away in London. Out here in the country it was just the chickens and her faithful Judy. A handful of David’s old friends. And David.
And she did want a baby; so much so that she hadn't hesitated for more than a minute when Gary had turned up at her home, the day she’d discovered David had been lying to her from the beginning. All the love she professed for her husband hadn’t stopped her from betraying him then, from letting Gary fuck her on the hard wooden floor in the hope that she might conceive. Desperate that David’s infertility-his fault, it had always been his fault, and he’d known it-would not condemn her to a life of childlessness.
But even if she really were able to conceive with another man, there was no certainty yet that Gary had done the trick. And now it seemed David was offering her Nick with his blessing. It did make a kind of perverse sense. Any child of theirs would at least be of David’s line, his blood. And Nick was attractive enough to her that she did not find the thought repulsive. Despite his erratic behaviour, she knew he was a better, kinder man than Gary would ever be.
“I saw you, you know.” She spoke directly to Nick, willing her voice not to shake. “With Sharon. In the woods.” At the time she should probably have just walked away, but she had been fascinated-and maybe just a little aroused-watching their liaison. The words Gary had spoken to her at the disastrous farewell party still stung. Who’re you going to fuck next? Maybe he should have started by asking his own wife the same question.
“Yeah?” Nick did not sound in the least perturbed. “Wondered where you’d got to.”
He detached himself from David then, and came towards her. He reached out a hand as though to touch her on the cheek, but she flinched back instinctively, and he stopped. “So how about it then, Dawny?”
Almost comically, they both turned as one to look at David. He was watching intently, but his face was expressionless. After a long moment spent studying each of them, he seemed to be satisfied.
“Take off your clothes, Nick,” he said.
David had said nothing to her, but she removed her pyjama bottoms anyway and sat gingerly on the bed. The slats creaked ominously even under her slight weight, and she could feel the outline of them clearly through the thin mattress. She felt a small twinge of guilt over having let Nick sleep on it all this time, but he’d never complained. Still, she supposed, for her sake it would at least be better than the floor.
Meanwhile, Nick had shed his clothes obediently, and now he joined her on the edge of the bed. She noticed almost absently that he was already hard, and she tried to close her mind to David’s obvious contribution to that state. David himself had made no move to leave, but was now leaning against the wall, his arms folded. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
She wrenched her gaze away from David once more and turned back to Nick. He laid one tentative hand on her leg, and then leaned in closer. This time she allowed him the kiss she had refused that night in the garden. He tasted like smoke and despair. She reached over and traced the scars on his stomach, as morbidly fascinating as they’d been the first time she’d seen them; dozens of thin white lines, faded with age. She remembered again the weight of his pen-knife, heavy in her hand. Then she shoved the thoughts away.
Instead she closed her eyes and let him begin to touch her, gently, arousing her with his hands and his lips and his tongue. Despite her better judgement, it was working, and before long she had discarded her sleeping vest as well. Nick’s right hand trailed tenderly across her breast, his thumb brushing against her nipple, and she shivered. She reached up to hold it there, then opened her eyes.
“Are you just…going to stand there and watch us?” she demanded of David, who was showing no signs of moving. She was amazed he hadn’t left yet; how could he bear this, to know that his brother was replacing him in the most intimate manner, taking the role that was rightfully his? To stay and bear witness would only be a reminder of David’s own failure to give her the baby she wanted so much.
David shook his head, but said nothing.
Then Nick was easing her backwards onto the bed, which protested loudly against having to take their combined weight. She hoped it would survive what was to come. Nick must have had the same concerns, for he tugged her down the bed so that he could stand on the floor at the foot of it instead. Then he continued kissing and stroking her until she finally pulled him in towards her, lifting her knees up and apart, allowing him access. Treating her as delicately as if she were glass, perhaps conscious of his brother’s ever-watchful gaze, he began pushing slowly into her, stopping in between each further thrust forwards, letting her breathe and adjust.
She had closed her eyes again, but when she felt him fully inside her, she opened them. There was Nick’s face, rapt in concentration above her. Then, unexpectedly behind him, there was David. He had taken off his shirt; the expanse of his bare skin gleamed in the moonlight. As she watched,she could hear him unclasping his belt buckle, followed by the rough whisper of fabric as he took off the jeans he had not changed out of since the party.
She held her breath as he came up close again behind Nick, his hands now on Nick’s shoulders, massaging them. Nick groaned as David touched him, as though he had finally been given permission. He had not yet begun to thrust; she just lay there with him deep inside her, watching his face change and contort as David further caressed Nick’s chest, his body, pushing up hard against him as he did so. She could feel Nick rocking slightly against her, forwards and back, in time with David’s movements.
“God, David, what are you…?” and she hated the way she sounded, so high-pitched and startled.
But David ignored her.
“I always looked after you, didn’t I?” he asked Nick instead, nuzzling into his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Nick said softly, tilting his head to the side, and accepting the kiss David bestowed on him. “Always.”
Only then did Nick begin to move inside her, slowly, carefully, and she was temporarily distracted from the things David was doing. But still she heard David walk away, and then return. Then there was the sound of flesh slapping against flesh, unmistakeable. David was standing just off to the side of Nick now, giving her a clear, unobstructed view. He held a bottle of lotion in one hand, and with the other he was stroking himself in firm, unhurried movements. The skin of his cock glistened. They stared at each other as he brought himself to full arousal, and as Nick continued to thrust into her.
Then David moved around behind Nick again, and she heard the bottle fall to the floor. She could no longer see anything of David but glimpses of his hair, but the noises Nick made had grown louder, and the quality of his thrusts had changed; they were no longer as deep as before. But it was really only when David stopped to wipe his hand on a piece of discarded clothing nearby did she really understand what was about to happen. She watched as David moved to take up position behind Nick again, tilting Nick’s hips up, pushing him forward onto her.
She’d known that Nick’s mental instability had begun long before he enlisted in the army. Beaten by his father; more of the same from his mother; followed by a stint in borstal. No wonder he'd had nightmares. It was truly amazing that David, growing up in the same household, had turned out so well-adjusted. Or so she’d imagined at the time. Wildly, she remembered David’s answer, when she had asked him why Nick had come back. The way David had claimed not to know. I used to hold him, David had said. That’s all. You saw. But judging from his current actions, it clearly hadn’t been anything like all David had ever done.
“David, you can’t! For god’s sake, he’s your brother!”
But it was Nick who answered her. Unbelievably, he was smiling. “It’s all right, Dawn. Really. It’s okay. He loves me.”
No, she thought, but did not say. I don’t know what this sick thing is, but it’s not love.
From then on, her reality shifted and blurred. She shut her eyes again, yet she could still feel everything that was happening from the way Nick reacted; from the way he cried out and tensed and relaxed on top of her as David entered him. And then they were all moving together, discordantly at first, but slowly settling into an awkward rhythm. Nevertheless, she recognised it; it was David’s rhythm. She knew it well, as intimately as she knew the breathless gasps he always made and the steady thump of his heartbeat as he moved on top of her. Almost, she could pretend. If not for the lingering scent of smoke and Nick’s tactless moans of pain and pleasure, it could have been David giving her this, a chance at what she wanted most in the world.
But when David came, it was Nick’s name she heard.
After it was over, she couldn’t look at either of them. She slipped out from under Nick’s exhausted weight and pulled her vest and pyjama bottoms quickly back on, not caring about the mess. She left them both there in a naked tangle on the bed, side by side, drowsing.
She managed to shut the bedroom door and throw herself down on the bed before the tears came.
***
True to David’s word, Nick was, in fact, gone the next day. Much to her relief. For days afterwards she could hardly bear to be in the same room as David, let alone touch him, but a week passed, and then another, and the sharper edges of the encounter slowly faded as their lives returned to some kind of normal. While she could never quite forget, she could tuck the memory safely into a drawer at the back of her mind that she never intended to open again. If Nick’s visit had taught them anything, it was that there was no point in dwelling on the past.
Another week went by, and then for the first time the second line on her pregnancy test came up blue. She decided against telling David. And when she discovered Nick was still there, hiding out at the abandoned farm, she thought she could persuade him to leave without needing to tell David about that, either. Although she suspected he already knew.
And when David finally did discover that she was pregnant, on the same day she learned of Nick’s abrupt disappearance, the joy and relief of one event quickly overshadowed the mystery of the other. Later, she would wonder exactly what had become of Nick, but on reflection she decided she didn’t really want to know. Nick had finally left them alone for good; that was the important thing. She didn’t feel the need to discuss it with David. After all, as Nick had freely admitted to her at the farm, David “owned” him. Which implicitly gave David the right to do whatever he wanted with Nick. Or to him.
Didn’t it?
When the baby was born, they named him Ben. She could tell from very early on that he was Gary’s, but either David hadn’t noticed, or he’d just taken Nick’s paternity for granted. Regardless, David was as wonderful a father as she’d always hoped for, even after she finally confessed the complete truth of what she’d done. It seemed to make no difference. David did in fact truly love her and want her to be happy, despite everything. And now there was Ben as well, who would always belong to her. Whatever David had done in the past, or might do in the future, Ben was here, and he was hers.
And maybe, as a family, they would all be happy together.