#bave

Diego looks across the kitchen table at Dave. Dave, who’s possibly the most stoned Ben has ever seen him, shrugs. “It’s the law.”

“And we are nothing,” Klaus says, “if not model citizens.”

Diego rolls his eyes, but he gets up and leans over the table. Dave meets him - not halfway, exactly. Maybe a third of the way. Their mouths barely even touch, not that you’d know from the volume of Klaus and Lila’s reactions to it.

“This is awakening something in me,” Lila says. “Diego. Diego, how do you feel about-“

“Whatever it is, I’m in.” Diego knocks back the rest of his beer and scoots his chair away with the backs of his knees. “Tomorrow, though. Keep it down, nerds, it's a school night.”

“Boooo,” Klaus says, but he steals what’s left of Diego’s fries the second he leaves.

Diego ruffles Ben’s hair on his way past the couch. “Night, dude.”

And then there were four. Well, three, really - Ben barely counts, comfy in the half-lit living room, watching Dave lean over the table and spin Klaus’s empty wine spritzer.

“Oh, hell yes,” Klaus says when it lands on him. He clambers out of his own chair and into Dave’s lap, limbs gangling, and kisses the living daylights out of Dave like a man starved for Dave kisses. Which Ben knows for a fact he is not. But if Ben had free license to kiss a smart, funny, handsome man who loved him whenever he wanted, he’d do it all the time, too.

Not that Ben’s ever thought about it. Purely hypothetical.

Klaus unlatches and flips his curls out of his face as he flops back into his chair, pink-cheeked and eminently pleased with himself. Dave sort of looks like he’s been put through the wash, but in a good way.

“C’mon,” Klaus says, “big money, big money,” and he shouts the kind of potentially child-awakening shout Diego will chew him out for in the morning when the bottle lands on Lila. They launch themselves out of their chairs at each other, and Klaus hoists Lila up around his waist and twirls her while they kiss.

Miraculously, they end up back in their seats without breaking anything. Ben shuts his eyes, tips his head back on the arm of the couch. He’s just drunk enough that the conversation at the table blends into formless sound. Words and laughter, not important for what they mean, but for how they feel to hear.

And then Lila says, “Ben!”

“Mm,” Ben says.

“Ben, get over here and kiss me.”

Ben hauls himself up far enough to look over the back of the couch again. The bottle is pointing between Lila and Dave into the living room.

“I’m not a signatory of the kissing contract,” he says.

“Nobody’s a signatory,” Lila says. “It’s verbal.”

Ben makes a noise that would probably offend anyone except for the three people he’s making it at. “I can’t believe you’re gonna force me to move.”

“Well, you can’t stay on my sofa forever. We need it clear. For sex purposes.”

Ben says, “Oh my god,” and rolls off onto the floor.

The walk over is only slightly wobbly, and Lila holds her arms open so that when Ben gets to her, she can wrap him right up and plant her chin on his stomach.

“I will accept a kiss on the cheek,” she says, “because I respect you.”

“No, I’m - I’m not dodging the kiss tax. I can’t afford a kiss audit in this economy.”

Lila grins her big pretty shark grin. Ben crouches down next to her chair, and she cups his cheeks in her hands and gives him a light, close-lipped kiss. It’s nice, in the way that resting a head on a shoulder is nice. Ben likes Lila. She's witty and insidiously kind, and she makes Diego so, so happy. It's good to see Diego happy.

That's been Ben philosophy for all of his siblings' paramours, historically. Even Klaus's - at least, the ones that hung around long enough for Ben to form an opinion. If his siblings are happy, Ben's happy. Hargreeveses tend to do what they want, regardless of familial feedback; no point in getting strong feelings about a relationship either way.

Definitely no point in getting personally attached to anybody's boyfriend. Especially if it's the boyfriend of the person Ben burned his whole first afterlife haunting, who he should probably be trying to like, extricate himself from, now that he can. The near-mythical boyfriend that Klaus spent the better part of a decade holding a candle for, who is here, now, inexplicably, a gift to Klaus from the powers that stole so much.

Ben needs to move out of their spare room, at some point.

"Okay, Benny, go," Klaus says, and Ben blinks up from his spot on the floor at the two reasons he's still third wheeling on a twin mattress. Klaus, chin in his hands with a shit-eating little grin on his face, and Dave, his 21st-century curls all mussed up on top of his head. They've been good sports about it so far. Klaus is used to having Ben around, after all. Dave even cooks for Ben when Klaus is working an evening shift, sometimes, and they watch Star Trek together. They're both so good to him. The best people in the world, who deserve everything wonderful, a long happy life without-

"Psst," Lila says. "S'your turn."

"Oh," Ben says. "I shouldn't-"

"Come oooooon," Klaus says, "you've got good odds, two nonrelations to one."

Ben looks at Dave, who says, "Only if you want to," with that sweet smile that could convince Ben to walk directly off a cliff. Not that Dave knows that. Hopefully.

And really, Klaus is right. It's even better than two to one, with how close Klaus and Dave are sitting. Either the bottle lands on Klaus and Ben gets a big goofy smooch on the cheek, or it lands on the rest of the table, which they'll count as Lila again, and he gets another peck to send him off. Two totally benign outcomes. There's like, a 20 degree range that Ben couldn't reasonably assign to anyone other than Dave.

"Fine," Ben says.

He gets up from his squat, which is harder to do now that he has a corporeal body again, and spins the stupid bottle.

"Dave," Klaus says, before it even stops.

"Shut up," Ben says.

It's Dave.

Klaus and Lila look like they've won the lottery, for some reason. Dave - goes a little pink staring at the bottle, and oh, no, of course he doesn't want to kiss Ben, he lives with Ben. His boyfriend's weird creepy brother who hangs around like he's still haunting them. Dave has been forced to smell Ben's bathroom smells. Dave has found scales between the couch cushions from when Ben's passengers were shedding. Dave knows how much Ben spends every week on loaves of rye bread that he never manages to finish before they go moldy.

"You don't have to," Dave says.

Klaus says, "Yes you do."

Dave swats at Klaus a little, and looks up at Ben. He smiles, just slightly, and raises an eyebrow.

Ben's not gonna - oh god, he's gonna do it.

"I'm gonna do it," Ben says. And then he says, "If that's okay."

"Yeah," Dave says. "Yeah, it's - it's your call."

"Jesus," Klaus says, "I'm divorcing you both."

Dave turns in his chair, and Ben gives him a second to stand up, but he doesn't. He just sits there, chin tilted up to look at Ben. He's the most attractive person Ben has ever seen out of his own two eyes.

Ben moves closer, until his shins bump into chair legs. Dave puts one hand on Ben's hip, and the other - wow, okay, the other on the back of Ben's thigh, halfway up from the knee. Dave is so sweet. Ben should - should really not be taking advantage of this.

"Ben," Klaus says, "if you don't kiss that man right now I'm going to put nair in your shampoo."

Ben gets his hands on Dave's shoulders, right where they slope up into his neck. He has to lean down, but not so far down that it's awkward. In fact, it's exactly the right angle for their noses to tuck in next to each other when they-

Kissing Dave. Kissing Dave! That's what Ben's doing, at the moment.

Ben hasn't kissed that many people, all things considered. No way to know whether or not he's good at it. But Dave - Dave is definitely good at kissing. He opens his mouth, just a little, and pulls Ben's lip between his, and it's the best thing Ben's ever felt in any of his various lives. Ben tries the same move, and whatever he ends up doing, it makes Dave rub his thigh, just once, up and down.

They might be going on too long for a spin the bottle kiss. Ben lost track of time pretty much immediately. But it feels so nice, the lazy push of Dave's lips, the tiniest flick of his tongue, his hands holding everything steady when all Ben's legs want to do is buckle under him and take the rest of the evening off.

Ben goes to pull away, and Dave chases after him, lifts an inch out of his seat to catch Ben's lips again and bring him back down. Ben lets him, and Dave squeezes his hip, tugs him closer.

It's only when Ben fully opens his own mouth that he remembers, like. Where he is, and what he's doing, and with who.

"Shit," he says, and stands bolt upright.

Dave looks gorgeous, obviously. His whole face is red, now, all the way to the tips of his ears.

"Oh my fucking god," Klaus says, "I thought we were gonna have to bust out seven minutes in heaven."

Ben tears his eyes away from Dave's face to stare at Klaus.

"I have never," Lila says, "in my entire life, seen two people pick truth over dare every single time."

"Whuh," Ben says.

"Do you believe me now, you dumbass?" Klaus says. "That both of us want you around?"

Ben looks back down at Dave. Dave, who's still blushing, and who also still has his hands on Ben, like he forgot he put them there. "It's true," Dave says.

"Oh," Ben says. "Um."

"And this," Klaus says, brandishing a mostly-empty beer, "is for future reference, although you hopefully won't need it, but just so you know, when a boy makes you dinner and watches your nerd shit with you, it means he likes you."

"You're gonna break him, kitten," Lila says.

"I was - I mean, I was going to talk to you," Dave tells Ben.

"When, baby?" Klaus props his chin up on the heel of his palm. "When exactly was that conversation gonna happen?"

"At - at the right time?"

"It turns out," Klaus says, "the right time is tomorrow morning after we're all done puking. You're welcome."

"I'm gonna do something," Ben says.

Dave has the - the absolute audacity to look nervous. "What?"