Work Text:
In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a good idea to let Hal drink all those Chu-hais in one sitting.
It’s just, he’d gotten so excited when he’d found them in the Japanese market a town over from their current hideout in Fort Lee, piling the shopping basket with one of every flavor and nearly crushing all the boxes of Pocky he’d hoarded earlier in the process.
“You really gotta get all of these?” Dave had asked, eyeing the brightly-colored cans skeptically as he repositioned his grip on their basket.
“I’m a completionist, David,” Hal had said before he’d wandered away into another aisle.
Hal continued to be so excited about the damn Chu-hais when they’d settled in for the night that Dave really didn’t have the heart to stop him once he started drinking. It was such a rare occasion that Hal had any sort of actual downtime, and somehow this weekend left them in between missions and without even any maintenance or pre-prep to do, so why not let Hal relax with his little nerd drinks? Besides, how much of a punch could a can that looks like a kids soda pack, really?
The answer is, apparently, a lot, especially for such a lightweight, both literally and figuratively. They’ve made it through their takeout, a movie, and an episode-and-a-half of that anime Hal was fixated on this month. Now they’ve moved onto the torrented-albums-off-Hal’s-computer portion of the evening, and Hal is, without a doubt, wasted. He should have made Hal eat more yaki-soba instead of just the karaage, Dave thinks to himself. Carbs would have soaked up the booze better. Hindsight is 20/20, though, and wasted-Hal is now standing in the middle of their living room, posing as if he’s about to play a packed stadium, nodding along to tinny laptop speakers and holding onto a TV remote as if it’s a microphone.
“Her name is Yoshimi ,” Hal sings, and it comes out as a sort of tipsy, quiet shriek. “She's a black belt in karate; Workin' for the city, she has to discipline her body… ”
Dave probably shouldn’t find this endearing. Hal is objectively a terrible singer at his best; drunk, it’s even worse. He’s in ratty old pajama pants and a t-shirt, barefoot, his non-hairstyle even messier than usual. Dave doesn’t know why he thinks this is cute, or when he started allowing himself to acknowledge (only to himself, of course) that he thinks things about Hal are cute. There are a lot of things about Hal though that, much to his chagrin, he thinks are very, very cute.
Hal’s looking at Dave over the rims of his smudged-up glasses (grease from the karaage: he’ll clean them after Hal passes out tonight), making direct eye contact while Dave sits motionless on the couch, his drink (a normal, grown-up person beer, thank you) pinched between his thighs. Hal almost never makes direct eye contact. Not sober, at any rate. Dave pointedly looks down and studies how the condensation of the glass bottle is leaving little wet marks on his sweatpants.
It was almost definitely a bad idea to let Hal drink all those Chu-hais.
“'Cause she knows that it's demandin', to defeat those evil machines,” Hal continues, making his way over to where Dave is sitting. “I know she can beat them…”
Hal’s cheeks are flushed. Dave always forgets how pale Hal is until he sees him like this, cheeks pink with just the lightest layer of sweat forming, like when he has to carry his gear up too many flights of stairs, or like back in Alaska when he’d used to try to help take the dogs out, and would come in winded from the effort and bitten pink from the cold. It makes him look softer, somehow. Less angular. More touchable.
Maybe the beer wasn’t such a great idea, either.
Hal’s standing right in front of Dave now: there’s no coffee table in this apartment, hence why Dave is holding his beer bottle between his legs like an idiot. Hal’s hair is flopping into his eyes now as he begins to dance and sway, and his t-shirt is hanging just slightly off of one shoulder. Even his shoulder is a little pink now, Dave observes. He doesn’t remember if that t-shirt is oversized because it’s Hal’s and it’s old and stretched out, or if it’s oversized because it’s one of his own that Hal stole. Dave tries not to have any feelings about it either way. He tries not to feel anything about the fact that it’s hard to tell whose clothes are whose anymore.
He takes another look down at his own beer, swirling the bottle around to make note of how much he’s drunk as well. Maybe too much. He doesn’t feel drunk, and God knows he has quite a tolerance, so it’s probably fine. He’s just making observations. They’re just not observations he really lets himself make while they’re both sober, is all. He’s trying hard to be respectful. Trying so hard not to mess up the only real friendship he’s had in years.
“Oh, Yoshimi, they don't believe me, but you won't let those robots eat me,” Hal is right up in Dave’s face now, inches away, leaning over him and looking like he’s about to have to grab Dave’s knees to hold himself up. The remote-turned-microphone is discarded somewhere on the carpet; it’s a full-on serenade now. Dave doesn’t know where to look so he just ends up flitting back and forth between Hal’s face and his own beer, somehow both too drunk and not drunk enough for this. “Yoshimi, they don't believe me, but you won't let those robots defeat me…”
“ I’m gonna eat you if you don’t cut it out,” Dave mumbles into his beer before he has time to really think. He freezes, bottle halfway to his mouth. Oh .
Hal freezes too. The song keeps playing. “Hah. You’re gonna what?” Hal asks, craning his head back to try to look at Dave’s face, squinting his eyes a little to try and focus.
“Nothing. Nevermind,” Dave mumbles. He’s trying to look anywhere but at Hal, and failing.
This time, Hal does lean on Dave’s knees, bent over and still swaying a little. “You’re not gonna protect me from the robots, Dave?” he asks in a fake pouty voice, scrunching his face up in a fake little frown. Goddamnit.
“You’re drunk,” Dave says.
“I know! I had to be, otherwise I couldn’t sing to you.” Hal smiles, and when he does his eyes crinkle up behind his glasses. They’re askew now, threatening to fall right off the tip of his pointed nose. “This song reminds me of you. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”
God-fucking-damnit. Dave takes a breath. “What are you trying to say, Hal?” he asks. No leading questions. Hal’s drunk. He’s trying so, so hard to be the responsible one here.
Hal’s face softens into something that would look serious if he weren’t obviously drunk.“I…I know I’m not tough and bad-ass like Meryl or Frank, or basically everyone else you know…”
“I don’t care about that,” Dave cuts him off, and damn, does his mouth have a mind of its own this evening.
“You don’t?” He’s completely leaning on Dave’s knees now.
“No. It’s, ah,” well, here go all of Dave’s noble plans to not ruin this friendship, “it’s cute.”
“You think I’m cute?” Hal asks.
“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?” Dave grumbles.
Hal is quiet. His breaths are coming shallow. He’s staring at Dave’s mouth. Behind him, the shitty laptop speakers are still playing 'Cause she knows that it'd be tragic if those evil robots win, I know she can beat them…
“Dave, please don’t kick my ass, ok?” he asks.
Before he can ask what for, Hal is leaning forward, hands white-knuckled on Dave’s knees, and kissing him, and before he can really process what’s going on, he’s kissing Hal back.
Hal makes a surprised little “mmph!” sound into his mouth, as if he hadn’t honestly expected this plan to work, and Dave has no choice but to bring his hands up to Hal’s jaw, thumbs brushing his ridiculous, flushed cheeks, and kiss him more.
Hal is crawling into his lap now, straddling him and grabbing fistfuls of Dave’s shirt to steady himself. Dave has to crane his neck up to keep kissing him, which he really, truly tries not to feel as excited about as he is. He brings one hand to the back of Hal’s neck, grabbing a fistful of mousy hair and letting his tongue slip past Hal’s teeth. Hal’s tongue is warm and insistent and as Dave licks into his mouth, he tastes yuzu and sugar and, most prominently, shochu. Oh, right. Fuck. He immediately freezes and pulls back.
“Mmm?” Hal is kissing the corner of his mouth now, his jaw, his chin, undeterred.
“You’re drunk.”
“I know, we’ve been over this,” Hal says, trying to kiss his neck instead, but Dave puts a hand on Hal’s chest and he stills. “You..want to stop?” he asks, some of sober-Hal’s nervousness creeping into his voice. It breaks Dave’s heart a little, so he brings their foreheads together, just barely touching.
“I don’t know how you’re gonna feel about this once you sober up, Hal,” Dave says, barely above a whisper.
“Good. I’ll feel good, great even. I’ve wanted this, Dave, please?” Hal says, and Dave is really, really glad he had all that interrogation-resistance training back in the day.
He exhales, resting his hands on Hal’s scrawny waist. “Can’t know that until you’re Sober. Sorry.”
“I’m too scared to ask you when I’m sober,” Hal whispers.
“Then I’ll ask,” Dave says.
“You promise?” Hal asks, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” Dave says, pressing a kiss to Hal’s cheek. “Come on, you have to hydrate a little before you fall asleep.” He pats Hal’s hip and guides him to sit on the couch. “Did you buy that Pocari?”
“It’s in the fridge,” Hal says with an exaggerated sigh.
Dave nods. “Good. Half the bottle and a glass of water, and then you can sleep it off,” he says, a hand on Hal’s knee to push himself up off the couch. “Oh, and give me your glasses, I gotta clean them. There’s fucking chicken grease all over ‘em.”