Dave broke character for half a second, looking at Bro like he'd just been caught sneaking into the kitchen for a midnight comfort snack, startled and vaguely hopeful that Bro would fix him something better.

But he caught himself and pressed his expression back into defensive neutrality, facing front again to shove a Dorito in his mouth. "'M hungry," he said. "And you know I get cranky when my blood sugar's low."

He wasn't hungry at all anymore, though, and for all the calm maturity he'd built over the years, there was something sharp and brittle about the set of his shoulders, like the wrong touch would snap and collapse him.