Notes: Finally decided to start posting this here!

I don't know how long this is going to get, because new things for this are always popping up in my head.

Also, Stridercest is only bound to happen on the last, like, two chapters, so if you aren't looking forward to waiting, well, this is not a fic for you.

Chapter 1: I Am Not A Model, The Camera Turned On By Itself

Being in a position like that, Dave wasn't sure if he should laugh, cry, feel proud, kick himself in the face or set the whole apartment on fire with him and everything else inside. There was a greater good behind all that, but it still didn't change the fact that, yes, everything about the situation was weird and unnatural as hell.

It all started a couple of month earlier. He was sitting on the couch, playing games and minding his business, when his brother just barged in, muttering something under his breath and looking quite worked up.

That was unusual. He had never seen his older brother so concerned, except for when his grades had dropped, and even then he wouldn't shuffle around papers while talking to himself in a clear state of desperation.

Dave paused the game and patiently waited to see if Bro was going to say something, anything, in regards of his unusual behavior. When an entire minute passed and Dave was under the impression his brother wasn't even seeing him, he called out his name, what finally grabbed his attention.

"Yeah?" Bro asked, with a pile of papers in his hands.

"What are you mumbling about?" Dave went straight to the point. No use kicking around the bush.

"The asshole who used to help me with the pictures of my site just called it quits; I need to find someone else." Bro let out a huff of air, leafing through the papers he had on his hands.

"Help… you?" Dave's face slightly contorted in confusion. He had absolutely no idea that someone else was helping with his brother's site. He thought Bro did everything all by himself, because that's how he always did things.

"This girl used to pose for me with my puppets, but she told me some bullshit about aiming for something better and more prestigious. Fucking skank, she could have been big if she stuck around. It's not like she was doing it for free…" Bro kept on complaining, the sound of rustling paper filling the room.

That was news to Dave. He had never seen anyone in the apartment to model for his brother. Maybe he did it somewhere else? That would explain his sudden, mysterious trips outside the apartment. Bro sure was taking this whole website business a lot more seriously than Dave thought.

"Fucking hell man… Now what am I going to tell the people who visit the site? That I lost the hot chick? Some of them went there just to see her…" Bro said to himself, putting down the papers. "Fucking useless. I can't believe I have to go out or search around the net for a new model, this fucking blows…"

Dave couldn't help but feel a bit bad for his brother. He looked really exasperated and his patience was clearly running short. But it wasn't like he could do anything to actually help Bro out of this jam. It was his site and, consequently, his issues. And knowing his brother, Dave knew he was going to find an answer to it, just as soon as he stopped freaking out so much and put his mind to it.

With a small shrug, Dave resumed playing Xbox, just to have his brother turn the console off on him.

"Hey!" Dave glared at Bro, angrily setting the controller on his lap. "I was in the middle of something!"

"So, while I'm flipping my shit over here, you're just going to sit there and play games?" Bro asked, arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Dude, it's your site. It's not my responsibility to fix your shit" Dave sighed in irritation, leaning back on the couch.

"Oh, you better start putting in some effort to help me solve this shit, because if the site counter starts dropping, I think we'll have to start cutting things around here. And I'm willing to bet you don't want that to happen." Bro went to sit at his computer, deciding to prepare some manner of notice to post on his site about how his model jumped ship, in a sense, and he would have to find someone new to replace her.

Bro was one-hundred percent sure those news would piss off a large part of his audience. He constantly got e-mails from random guys – and sometimes girls – stating how they found the girl modeling on the site attractive, and some of them would even go to the extent of describing in great detail what they would like to do to her. Bro regarded those as "too much information" and often refrained from reading those in their entirety. He had no interest in knowing the machinations of those people's minds.

"Fine, but what do you expect me to do?" Dave turned his head to look at his brother's back, as he typed away on the computer.

"I lost a beautiful, busty and curvy gal. If you could find something with almost the same appeal, I would be quite glad." Bro teased, more than anything. He didn't want Dave to actually find a replacement to his model, but he would like if his little brother showed some concern about the thing that was, basically, their breadwinner.

"If you don't know what to put in her place, how am I supposed to figure it out?" Dave furrowed his eyebrows, frowning. He couldn't believe his brother was asking him such a thing.

"I wasn't expecting you to know, geez…" Bro said, leaning back and taking a look at what he had written so far. "Just show a little interest in the issue, OK?"

"Fine…" Dave's face softened and he got up from the couch, walking to his brother's computer. "What you doing anyway?"

"Looking for a way to tell the people who visit the site that the hot babe is no more and I'm going to find someone else to put in her place. It won't be pretty though. A lot of people liked her and, hell, I can't blame them. She certainly was a nice piece of ass." Bro resumed typing and Dave just watched with little to no interest, while trying to devise a solution to their dilemma, but finding nothing.

"Where did you find the previous chick? Can't you find someone the same way?" Dave asked, leaning against the computer desk.

"She was a stroke of luck, honestly." Bro kept typing and erasing things, searching for the right words to use.

Frankly, Dave wasn't surprised by that statement. He could imagine not many people were willing to be part of his brother's business, because, well, it wasn't like puppet porn was something anyone would be terribly exhilarated to be part of. Bro was obviously the exception to the rule.

"Well, I'm going to take a shower, and like… try to think of something?" Dave said, honestly a little bit disappointed he couldn't really help. The look on Bro's face clearly translated all the frustration going on inside his brain, and just how absolutely nothing was coming to his mind. And that was worrying, because his brother was rather good at getting out of tight situations like those.

"Alright then." Bro made a dismissive movement with his hand, eyes fixed on the screen.

Dave left his brother's room, going to the bathroom, struggling with his brain to come up with something, anything that could get Bro out of that pickle. He was right about what he said earlier: if people stopped visiting Bro's site, money would stop coming, and they would be in trouble.

They needed an answer to their issue, and they needed one quick.

Ten minutes later, Dave came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, shades in hand and his hair still damp. Absolutely nothing had occurred to him while showering, and he felt stupid. He honestly thought he was sharper than that, despite his age. Before going to his bedroom to change, he decided to check on his brother and see if he was less agitated.

"Hey, how is it going?" He pushed the door open, walking inside. Bro was still sitting at the computer like before, but now there were a bunch of smuppets all over the furniture and floor. "… What happened here?"

"I was trying to think, but I got nothing." Dave failed to see how spreading those somewhat creepy dolls all over the room had anything to do with thinking, but he wasn't going to question his brother's methods. "What about you?"

"Nah, I'm still at square one too." Dave's shoulders slumped forward, imagining just how long they would go on without a solution. "What about the text you were writing? Are you done?"

"Yeah… but I'm going to wait a while to post it. Maybe I'll put it up tomorrow morning." Bro wasn't going to post it at a time the site got heavy traffic. He surely didn't want an even bigger mess on his hands.

Dave just nodded, and turned to walk out of the room to go to his own and put some clothes on. He was so distracted thinking about the present issue, he failed to notice a smuppet which was right by his feet, and tripped on it, falling unceremoniously to the floor, face first, with his shades falling a few inches from him.

Well, that wasn't very cool… Dave thought as he tried to collect himself as quickly as he could. Talk about an awkward scene, with him just laying there covered only by a towel while surrounded by those weird puppets. Although, he stopped on his tracks and turned to look behind, when his brother talked to him.

"Hey, be care… Dave, wait! Don't move!" Bro had the biggest tone of urgency in his voice as he spoke those last two words, and Dave froze in place, not sure why his brother wanted him to be static. Maybe there was an insect on his shoulder or something?

In a split second, Bro already had a camera in hand and was pointing it at Dave, his finger resting on the shutter button. It took two or three second for Dave to register what was going on, which was more than enough time for his brother to take a photo. When the flash of the camera burst out in front of his eyes, his brain finally registered what was going on, and his eyes widened as he flinched back on the floor, cheeks instantly going red.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" Dave shouted, one hand firmly holding on to the towel around his waist and the other going for his shades, as he tried to get up as quickly as possible.

"I told you not to move… Fuck, I hope the one I took looks good." Bro said, seemingly unfazed by the whole situation.

"Bro, are you going to do what I think you are? Are you out of your fucking mind?" Dave was already on his feet when he finished talking, eyes narrowing as his fingers tensed gripped on the towel.

There was no answer from Bro as he plugged the camera to the computer, loading its pictures into it.

"Fuck you, give me that thing!" Dave tried to reach for the camera and pull it from the computer, but his brother simply held him back by placing a hand on his chest, still looking as indifferent as ever.

"No can do." Bro simply shook his head, watching the images on the camera load on the screen.

"I swear to God if you do this, I'm never talking to you again!" Dave was still trying to get the small gadget sitting on his brother's table in all ways possible, but it was hard work reaching for it while avoiding his brother and preventing the towel from falling from his waist.

"Look, this is just going to be a temporary solution. I need something to keep those people distracted while I try to find something else." Bro explained, as if what he was about to do was the most normal and common thing in the world.

"Are you shitting me? I… fuck you. Just fuck you Bro!" Dave stormed out of the room, crossing the hallway and entering his room, slamming the door shut behind him and locking it, back pressed against the wooden surface. His blood was boiling and he was seriously thinking about slashing his brother's computer to pieces the next time he left the apartment.

He could barely believe his brother was capable of something of that caliber. He knew Bro was a total weirdo, but he never imagine he would go so far as…

Shaking his head vigorously, Dave walked to his small closet and grabbed some clothes, angrily throwing them on the bed. He wasn't even sure if his brother was being serious about it or if he was fucking with him. It was never easy to tell when his brother was joking or when he was being dead serious. This time though, Dave really wished he was joking.

Because, if he wasn't, Dave wasn't bluffing back there. He would honestly never, ever talk to him again as he lived, if he dared doing such a thing.

Dave opted to stay the rest of the day pretty much locked inside his bedroom, and he was quite surprised his brother didn't knock on his door at some point, trying to lure him outside with the promise of pizza or Chinese food. That was how things usually went down.

The day turned into night and, after waiting all day long for any sort of sign from his brother, curiosity was eating Dave from inside out, and he couldn't help but send him an e-mail message from his computer. No subject or anything, just a message saying "you didnt do it did you?"

The reply he got back was short, but enough to cause his heart to skip a beat and his face to go pale.

"OF COURSE I DID"

Dave sunk on his chair, wanting to disappear forever. How could his brother do something like that, and be so absolutely blatant about it even?

In a matter of seconds, Dave felt his stomach turning, imagining his photo somewhere in the front page of his brother's site, probably with big bold letters above it, just to make sure everyone would notice it.

Or maybe Bro was still pulling his leg? Sure that was taking a simple prank way too far, but sometimes his brother definitely didn't know when to stop with certain jokes, especially the ones which caused him utmost embarrassment.

But to be sure if his brother was lying or not, he would have to go to that damned site and see it with his own eyes. There was no way his brother would simply tell if he was just faking it or not.

Hesitantly, he typed the url to his brother's site, pausing between each letter, a gut feeling telling him he shouldn't be doing it. Maybe he should just consider all that as a joke, even if it wasn't, and just leave it at that. It would certainly save him a lot of energy and, mostly importantly, mental scarring.

Still, he kept going, and reluctantly pressed the Enter key, eyes closing as he put a hand over them.

Please be joking, please be joking, pleasebejoking Dave kept chanting that sentence inside his mind like a mantra, as he peeked through his fingers to look at his computer screen.

All of a sudden, his eyes immediately snapped open and his hand immediately fell to his lap, and he could swear his stomach dropped to the floor at the same speed.

He had done it.

The asshole actually did it.

There was the photo his brother took, right in the front page just like Dave imagined, big bold letters and all. But he barely paid attention to what they were saying. He was far too shocked and disoriented by the image itself.

If Dave ever needed to define the word "humiliation" in a single picture, he certainly could use the one right there in front of his eyes. There was him, lying on the floor, a white towel loosely wrapped around his hips, as he just stared blankly at the camera, lips slightly parted and his red-tinted eyes wide and completely in the open, his figure surrounded by his brother's colorful puppets.

Dave's stomach turned even more at the sight. He felt disgusted by how unbelievably vulnerable and delicate he looked in that photo, and how it clashed so much with the exact opposite image he wanted to show others. And suddenly his face contorted in anger, frustration and disbelief.

He just wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, but he was so downright dumbstruck by the incident whatever sound trying to escape from his mouth got stuck in his throat, and he just silently and angrily closed the browser and shut his computer, going to his bed to lay on it, face buried on his pillow, muffling a chain of swear words. Dave never really felt like dying, but that seemed like a quite convenient time to just go to the rooftop and take a leap.

As if his brother knew what just happened, there was a knock on the door, which just served to get Dave even more infuriated.

"FUCK OFF! I'M NEVER TALKING TO YOU AGAIN!" Dave yelled, not bothering to get up from his bed. He had to admit he was happy when his brother didn't say anything else and did "fuck off". That almost never happened.

With a heavy sigh, Dave covered his head with the pillow, wanting to disappear from the face of Earth forever.

A few minutes later, the sound of paper brushing against carpet reached his ears, and he peeked from under the pillow to see a small piece of paper on the floor, next to his door.

Is he joking? Dave honestly couldn't believe his brother was handing him one of his stupid notes at a moment like that. Of all the times to do such a thing, that had to be the worst.

Pushing the pillow aside, Dave got up from his bed and sluggishly walked to the door, picking up the small piece of paper lying there.

"CHECK YOUR E-MAIL"

That was all the note said. Dave shifted his gaze from the message to his computer, and back to the piece of paper. That went on for a few seconds, as he tried to figure out just what Bro was attempting to achieve. Did he send some kind of apology by e-mail? Dave doubted it, because it wasn't like his brother would ever apologize for anything, even atrocious things like what just happened.

And it wasn't like any sort of explanation would magically fix things.

Either way, Dave wanted to know what that was all about, so he turned his computer back on, another heavy sigh escaping from his lips as he sat on his chair, still frowning.

When he opened his e-mail, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.

His inbox had a total of more than one hundred new messages, all from Bro. And all of them had different subject lines, or no subject line at all, and the way some of them were worded didn't seem like his brother's way of writing at all.

Needless to say, Dave was quite puzzled about just what was going on. When he opened up the first e-mail, he noticed it was actually some manner of forwarded message. He automatically deducted all of those other ones followed the same style, since they had literally seconds of difference in between them.

There was a pattern to all those messages though: all of them seemed to be, more or less, praising him for his picture that was up on his brother's site.

Well, maybe "praise" wasn't the best word to describe the nature of some of those. Dave literally couldn't read more than half of those till the end, because there were some really nasty scenarios going on in some of those. And pretty much all of them involved Bro's colorful puppets.

But the fact remained that a good amount of people seemed to be considerably interested in him, and clearly in the best way possible, considering the nature of Bro's site.

That didn't help to ease the turmoil going on inside Dave's head though. If anything, those messages only served to get him even more flustered, confused and… flattered? There certainly was a strange sense of accomplishment growing in the back of his mind, but he tried his best to choke back that feeling. How could he feel even the littlest feeling of triumph for something so upsetting? That was, without a doubt, mortifying, so how could he even for a moment think that was something to be proud of?

Still, he couldn't say getting such an overwhelming amount of attention in such a short time span was bad, but the circumstances revolving around said attention were surely displeasing. Not to mention Dave had no idea just how perverted the people who frequented his brother's site actually were. They were getting off by looking at the image of some half-naked pre-teen. That was some sick and twisted shit right there.

Dave skimmed though all the messages his brother sent him, and by the time he was finished, he was just staring blankly at his computer screen, not sure of what to say or do. He didn't know if he should just stay in his room for a long time and avoid his brother completely, or if he should go out that very second and confront him about it, or if he should just let that feeling of victory take over and give no fucks…

And, hell, he couldn't even ask anyone how to proceed. He was completely on his own, and he had no clue how to act.

A notification sound reached his ears and he looked at his computer. There was a new message on his inbox, once again from Bro, but this time it wasn't a forwarded one.

Showing no hesitation for the first time that night, Dave just opened the last message, and as he expected there wasn't much written on it, except for one single question.

"HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE A FANBASE?"

There was actually a pretty damn good question and Dave had no idea how to answer to it.