
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/751399.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Homestuck
  Relationship:
      John_Egbert/Dave_Strider
  Character:
      John_Egbert, Dave_Strider, Vriska_Serket, Aranea_Serket, Meenah_Peixes,
      Aradia_Megido
  Additional Tags:
      Semi-Anonymous_Sex, Hand_Jobs, Accidental_Voyeurism, of_a_sort,
      Exhibitionism, Also_of_a_sort, Unresolved_Feelings, Which_are_somewhat
      addressed, Mostly_this_is_porn_starring_John's_disembodied_arm, John's
      Disembodied_Arm, Smuturday, POV_Third_Person, Wordcount:_1.000-5.000,
      Illustrated
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-04-07 Words: 3746
****** Touching Through Glass ******
by elegantanagram_(Lir)
Summary
     Oh, hey, it's a disembodied hand floating through space, no big deal,
     Dave can roll with that. It'd be pretty great if the hand didn't want
     to grab his sweet godtier cape and nearly pull him over backwards,
     but manners must not be a big thing in the handbook on how to be a
     ghostly apparition of a limb.
Notes
     Written for this week's smuturday as begun by Sinny on tumblr. This
     time in collaboration with Ven.
     I seriously just wanted to write porn involving John's disembodied
     hand after the latest update, especially once Ven did some_pretty
     hilarious_update_art.
     The underage warning seriously applies, I set this up so that the
     version of Dave that John happens upon is from the point in time just
     after Dave and Rose arrive on the meteor. So Dave is thirteen. This
     might be kinda hard to ignore.
-
John has to be imagining that the circle of gray trollish faces around him are
egging him on. Aranea's expression rarely varies from the calm facade of the
benevolent storyteller, and Meenah's "just try me" smirk is more of a permanent
feature than a specific challenge. There's something a bit creepy about
Aradia's manic grin, but who cares. John is asleep; even if the glowing whatsit
on the floor blows him to goopy ectoplasmic bits, he'll just wake up back on
the ship, no harm done.
He's not even thinking about those troll girls, he's really not, he's just
hovering his hand over the cool incandescence of the weapon, ready to take the
plunge.
It's not warm, exactly, from two inches away. It's more of a low fizzy buzz
that plucks at his skin before his fingers even make contact, and then he
shoves his hand through. Now he's really playing with portals. There's no way
John wasn't going to try this, not with some freaky weird extradimensional
object hanging at his disposal, even without Vriska's goading. She doesn't
count – she goads everybody, John's catching on to that – this is his own
bright idea.
When John reaches though, he doesn't feel anything right away. His fingers make
no contact and he isn't touching anything; in that regard he might as well be
reaching into nothing more exciting than a deep paper bag. But his arm tingles
all the way up to where he can see his elbow disappearing into the light of the
device. It's a multitude of sensations all at once, feels like freezing air
blowing on his skin and hot heat warming his flesh and a funny prickling
sensation that he has no frame of reference for, milder than the pins and
needles of a limb falling asleep but equally strange.
It's pretty cool, really, and he leans forward to dig around with his hand for
some clue as to where it's reaching.
John's fingers close on cloth, heavy and yielding under his hand. He fists them
up in what feels like velvet, and the weird fuzzing along his arm, cool and
sticky and damp and electric all at once, it doesn't stop. But all his hand
feels is the fabric he's grabbed a hold of, and he yanks on it, trying to
figure out what he's touching.
It's not that John hears anything, not besides the low ambient noise of the
chamber he descended into with Vriska's pirate crew, or besides the low
muttering he thinks Vriska is still making. But there's a little shiver under
his hand, and it reminds him of Dave, brings to mind a string of red characters
inquiring of him, "yo egbert what the fuck."
John finger-crawls his way up whatever he's holding, fabric with the same
cuddly-thick texture as his godtier hood. Dave and Rose went godtier, too,
after they delivered the tumor, didn't they? He hasn't seen Dave in such a long
time, hasn't been able to talk to him on pesterchum, not the original Dave
prime who isn't a flying orange cheeto with a weird ghost butt. Dave Sprite is
cool, but so is John's original best bro. John can just imagine Dave sitting
around in godtier pajamas, informing all of their troll friends about how rad
his godjammy swag is.
He can feel where the fabric starts to bunch up, gathered together to secure it
around something, and then his fingers prod against a more yielding surface
that has to be skin. John prods it again, curls his fingers against it until
they lie flat and close, keeps poking because he's on a valiant quest to figure
out what this is and hey, it's not there's much chance he'll get in trouble for
it!
There's the little imaginary ping of the pester window again, this time
announcing, "what the hell man somebody needs to stop jabbing my neck that is
serious levels of uncool."
John gropes his hand up, and his palm falls flat against the cool, smooth shape
he knows undeniably is an aviator lens. He pats the face around it. And he
grins.
Hell yes, John just reached through an extradimensional portal in space and all
he found was this lousy (awesome!) Dave Strider.
-
It's all kinds of cool and shit that he and Rose got to blast off into
nullspace with a bunch of aliens who they met on the internet, but after a mere
handful of days of asteroid cohabitation, all Dave wants is a hot minute to get
himself set up solo. Their asteroid is huge and cavernous, the bowels of which
are full of countless untold horrors that Dave hasn't had the time to explore
and can by no means assure he'll ever give enough of a shit about to properly
venture off into. Despite this, somehow, he's hardly spent a minute without
Rose or Terezi or Karkat in his immediate vicinity.
Dave knows he's a popular guy, but they could give a dude a little breathing
space.
And now there's a hand on his face.
This isn't what Dave was going for when he designated some alone time. After
all of his experiences in the game, there are very few things that still seem
weird. Oh, hey, it's a disembodied hand floating through space, no big deal,
Dave can roll with that. It'd be pretty great if the hand didn't want to grab
his sweet godtier cape and nearly pull him over backwards, but manners must not
be a big thing in the handbook on how to be a ghostly apparition of a limb.
When the hand gets all up and familiar patting at his cheek, that's enough for
another snarky little protest. Dave gets as far as "Hands off the merchandise"
before a ghostly finger pokes him in his open mouth.
Rude. Maybe the ghost limb handbook preaches the opposite of manners.
Dave grabs the arm around its wrist and pulls it away from his face. There's
some resistance, but it feels more like a contrary objection to being thwarted
than an effort to get more intimately familiar with the shape of his tongue. If
anything, the hand was already flinching away from the wet of his mouth.
He can imagine John typing at him, "eww, gross, dude. now i've got your slimy
spit on my hand, yuck."
That's a weird thought. Dave isn't sure why he's having it.
John is the one who loves paranormal shit, who has a minor fixation on how neat
ghosts are and who has an unironic love for Ghostbusters in all its dubious
cinematographic excellence. (Yeah, yeah, Egbert, Ghostbusters is cool. Dave is
not hating on the Ghostbusters.) Ghosty shit makes Dave think of John, what can
he say. But when he lets go of the arm and leaves his hand hanging in the air,
when the ghost-hand drifts forward to press theirs together palm-to-palm,
before it insinuates itself around Dave's hand to give him a cheeky little
shake... He thinks he gets it.
Yeah, sure, John's hand is poking out at him through a halo of dim blue light,
Dave can roll with that.
He even gives John's disembodied hand a shake back, just to be mannerly.
"Where's the rest of you, Egbert?" he asks the hand. "Did you fall face-first
through some ghost portal and forget to bring everything else along?"
Dave isn't surprised when John's arm doesn't say anything back, because it is a
disembodied fucking arm. He lets go of John's fingers, and isn't surprised when
the hand drifts forward, curling against his cheek one more time.
"Not the face, Egbert, jeez, what did I tell you. Anything but the face."
Dave doesn't bother to push the hand away, though. He's already committed to
giving John the most epic of brohugs when they get done with their three year
travel stint, dirty wifebeaters and all. He's going to hug the shit out of
John, maybe impart a few entirely ironic snuggles as part of the package. But
three years is a motherfucking long time. It'd be downright unconscionable to
reject the inquiring touch of a friend now, in the present.
Dave would equate it to meeting a blind person, this gentle touch along the
curve of his cheek and over his chin, the light fingers dragging down his
throat to map face and neck for eyes that are absent. Except he already knows
one blind girl and this isn't her style. Blind girls just give one good lick
and consider him accounted for. It seems blind Egberts are a lot more
persistent about their how-do-you-do's.
It's fucking weird, but Dave can roll with it. It's a hand on his chest, palm
pressing flat over the gear symbol before fingers move to trace around its
edges, following the subtle difference in texture to work out the shape. It's a
heavier drag of John's hand back across one pectoral, the weight of it when it
curls around his shoulder and squeezes, when it follows down the length of his
arm from shoulder to elbow to wrist.
It really is taking account, Dave thinks, like John is making sure all the
parts of him are there.
It's a proprietary touch. There's nothing really mannered or hesitant about it,
just a straightforward demarcation of his planes and angles, a casual following
of the lines of his body over chest and arms and back again to make sure that
everything is where it should be. And that's just like John. Of course there
isn't a damn thing personal about tenderly touching up on another dude's
abdominals. He's just Dave, a known quantity, certain to the point where John
has the right to verify the shape of him. John has the unwavering authority of
true broship.
This isn't a very bromantic activity. John's hand tries to ruffle up Dave's
hair when it drifts back up to Dave's face, tries to pluck Dave's shades off
the bridge of his nose. Dave pushes at it, snorting a protest, and John's arm
pokes him in the cheek with one finger. That part's comfy, fucking with each
other like John is here in the entirely-whole flesh and they're just messing
around because that's a thing friends should get to do. But then the poke turns
into a caress, a lingering drag of palm over cheek, and it could be a joke but
they've never had a means for hands-on gay chicken before.
It's probably just in Dave's head.
It's John, even if it's just an arm, even if he's a doofus. He has to be
pulling some stupid thirteenth-hour game-based bullshit, which means he has no
idea what he's doing, and means he'll just barrel on fueled by eager curiosity
and intuition. Dave can take disembodied arms in stride, but this must be some
huge novelty for John. He's getting handsy because he's a disembodied goddamn
hand, it's the only thing he can do and who's gonna stop John from at least
doing something?
John's hand is reaching under his cape, following down the shape of Dave's
spine in resumed exploration. His fingers press down just hard enough to feel
right, like thumbs digging into muscle for a really satisfying massage. Dave
arches his back, and it's unexpectedly surprising when John's fingers do knead
at him. Not enough to unknot muscles, not in a way that would be useful if he
were really tense, but friendly and insistent and personal, massaging his lower
back with these slow motions that start to feel exceedingly intimate.
Dave makes a little noise in the back of his throat, god, that's way more
casual familiarity than he's ever been accustomed to.
The territory this is wandering into just took a hard spike up in its
treachery. Dave can bleat that it's just John messing with him and being
friendly until the cows come home, fidgeting where he sits and not pulling
John's arm away from himself, but his traitorous brain is choosing not to buy
that. Sure, it's the cheapest product on sale and Dave is stupid not to just
put it in his cart and check it out, but sometimes a guy falls prey to loftier
wants. Who's going to take the frozen burrito when they're staring at the
possibility of lobster tail and lo, it might even be possible to swing a
discount.
The metaphor is getting away from him.
John's hand is getting away from him, growing bored with the back massage and
ducking under Dave's armpit to loop back around to front. There's a palm
against Dave's belly, warm and increasingly familiar and yet weird enough to
make the muscles in his stomach jump with uncertainty. He breathes very slowly.
John pets his stomach, and it feels like a patronizing reassurance. There,
there, Dave, your heart doesn't need to beat that fast. It's just John, what
are you getting all worked up for?
John's hand stumbles lower for a second, settling for that moment against
Dave's lap, and he can almost buy that it's an accident. Whoops, haha, didn't
mean to let my hand fall on your crotch, Dave! He can practically hear the
meter of John's metaphorical prankster's gambit daring to creep up. Joke's on
him, though, it's not Dave's fault at all that John just grabbed himself a
palmful of swelling strider salami.
Fuck, that's kind of mortifying.
Dave grabs John's arm around the wrist, ready to pull John's hand the fuck away
from the boner he's prepared to pretend really never happened at all. Except
who is he going to pretend to, John isn't here, it's just his goddamn arm and
an arm can't get on Dave's case about how this is totally "no homo." It's a
moment of indecision, Dave's hand clamped vicelike around John's arm, and it
dawns on him gradually that John hasn't jerked his hand away from Dave's junk
any more than Dave has followed-through prying him off.
Dave loosens his grip on John's arm, pats the back of his hand, and lets go.
He's waiting, morbidly curious, to see where this goes next. John's hand feels
warm, even through the fabric of his godtier pants, weighing down on what is
quite obviously Dave's dick, but just waiting there. It pats his boner, once,
twice, and Dave thinks that it's being a frustrating little shitheap.
If John doesn't have the decency to at least be sheepish about it, oh no I
accidentally touched your cock, haha, wow, that's awkward, let me pull my hand
back right now, the least he could do is just. Fuck. Dave grabs John's wrist
again, pushes John's hand forward and down.
Yeah, that's his boner, feel free to do something about it. Shit or get off the
pot.
John's disembodied hand rubs him through his pants and, fuck, he was somehow
still not expecting the follow through. Dave quickly lets go, leaving the arm
with the freedom of motion to really do what it wants with him. That turns out
to be little more than grinding its palm against his dick through the fabric,
following the outline of Dave's boner through the boundary of cloth. It's a
stupid, shitty tease of a touch, but he's never had another person's hand on
him so fuck objecting on those grounds.
Dave's hips roll up, and he braces his arms behind himself for better balance,
better leverage. He pushes up against the hand lightly fondling him, a wordless
demand for greater contact that he wouldn't know how to articulate even if
there was a whole person here for him to voice it to. John's hand rubs against
him harder in response, and then dips down inside the front of his pants.
There are fingers wrapping around his cock, fingers that aren't his, and Dave
breathes in sharp, struggling not to make a noise. He learned how to keep quiet
fast, living in the environment he did with the brother he had. But there's an
unfamiliar steady touch stroking him and he wants to groan hard in the back of
his throat with wanting encouragement. He settles for whining a little, softly,
as that hand jerks him off.
It's pretty weird, Dave hasn't forgotten that. The first two long strokes are
slow, testing, like feeling out the shape of his cock and figuring out what's
there for working with. But once the hand gets a nice hold on him it gets
comfortable, jerking him at an even, friendly pace. That part is nice. What's
disconcerting is watching John's hand slide up and down on his dick, and then
watching John's arm terminate in a glowing spot of blue luminescence. What's
frustrating is that there's nothing for him to touch, or do, it's just this
hand working him over and all he can manage is to clench his fingers against
the floor and try not to buck up too hard.
Dave is kind of loathe to admit it, but John might be better at this than he
is. He's been acquainting himself with his spam porpoise for a little while
now, and he thinks that he and his man-meat have been getting pretty comfy with
each other. He knows what he likes, what sort of grip and what sort of pace.
But the hand stroking him now is a little steadier, a little surer, and it's
entirely unaffected by Dave's rising pleasure so that it doesn't falter and
lose the pace when he gets close and starts trying to go too fast.
The hand doesn't yield when it works Dave over. There's a patience to it, this
quiet determination to get him off that compliments the even, gradually
quickening speed. The thumb slides over his head, casual, coaxing, and Dave is
breathing tightly but at least he hasn't turned into an entire orchestra of
needy sounds. Just the occasional little whine, isolated pant, or surprised
sound when in spite of the regular pace his hips jerk up in a moment of almost-
feels-too-good.
         [http://24.media.tumblr.com/c969ecfc3952dd8ae6a733896788dc1b/
                      tumblr_mkvhsy7VyX1qhd7gdo1_500.jpg]
In the end, Dave knows it didn't last very long, although he'll pretend that he
didn't come with a suddenness that briefly transformed him into a shuddery,
shaking mess.
He's aware of John's hand wiping his jizz off on his pants against the inside
of his thigh.
He doesn't really care.
He just got a handjob from his best friend. The thought still feels strange and
improbable, like an event that was never expected to transpire. John is a
delicate blossom of budding sexuality wrapped up in a cozy soil blanket of
"not-a-homosexual," and as his best friend it's Dave's solemn responsibility to
mind that garden with care. Nothing could suck worse than putting one of the
moves on his best bro and transforming the comfortable familiarity of their
friendship into awkwardness central.
But in the wake of a pretty sweet orgasm and no awkwardness in evidence, he'd
kind of like to kiss John on his ridiculous bucktoothed mouth.
He can't. John isn't really there. All Dave has for company is a lonely arm
just finishing up cleaning itself with his pants. On impulse, he wraps his hand
around John's arm one more time.
He gives the strongest yank he can manage, following through as far back as he
can.
-
John lets go of Dave, and for a moment he continues to feel powerful and smug.
If Jade asked him that morning how he felt about possibly jerking Dave off,
John's strongest emotion would have been confusion over why she or anyone would
think to ask such a thing. He hasn't seen Dave in ages, that's stupid, he at
least wants dinner and a movie before anyone starts taking off their pants!
But he guesses he's not really opposed.
He misses Dave, kind of a lot, to the point of grabbing all over him just to
prove that it's really Dave given the merest opportunity, and in the face of
Dave yanking John's hand back against his junk? He didn't even think about it.
When else would he get the opportunity to touch somebody he likes across
dimensions? It sounded like fun!
His arm starts to tingle again.
It feels funny, wrong, and John mumbles as much, but his voice doesn't come out
right. He thought he felt Dave taking his hand, and he was thinking if Dave
just let go of him, he should take his arm out of the portal. The noise around
him sounds as if it's coming from underwater, or from a radio mis-tuned to the
wrong frequency. He can't focus in on it.
His surroundings zap out from under him, like an old television turning off,
the picture closing down to that one point of light in the center before it's
gone. He doesn't have time to freak out about it, because new surroundings open
up under him, the picture coming back on in a transition that's eerily too
smooth.
Dave is sitting back on his hands with his dick drooping over the top hem of
his pants in a room that is small and dim and gray, and now John is crouching
across from him with his butt in the air, one of his hands poised awkwardly in
mimicry of how he'd shoved it into the portal. Dave looks pink and flushed, and
now John feels ridiculous.
Dave also looks small, smaller than John realized when he was mapping Dave out
without seeing him. His god pajamas look so new, although John isn't sure if
his have weathered any with time. He looks off, not like John was expecting.
"Goodness gracious and mercy me, Egbert," Dave says, fake-flustered southern
charm. "Did you do all your aging for our three years in one go? How are you
going to spend the rest of the trip now, man, I don't think the new universe
can handle you getting any more oversized and lanky than you are right now."
It's a joke, John knows that, but he has this niggling suspicion that Dave is
genuinely off-put. He still feels funny, tingling, and he starts to sit back on
his heels. He's confused and that makes it hard to come up with something witty
to say, a way to tease Dave back. Dave gets up on his knees and leans toward
him, and for a second John thinks that Dave is going to kiss him.
Static fuzzes at the edges of John's vision, and the television picture cuts
out again before Dave's lips can land.
-
-
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