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Quinn wakes up first, as usual. There’s a pulsing ache at the back of his head, and when he opens his eyes the light makes him wince, but overall he’s not as wrecked as he expected. He’s in his own room, and although he vaguely remembers Luke flopping down onto the end of the bed last night - well, earlier this morning, really - the only other person here now is Jack. They must have done a shitty job of closing the curtains, because there’s late June sunlight streaming into the bedroom, bright and cold. Quinn forces himself out of bed and hobbles over to the window, yanking the curtains tightly together and shutting the blinds for good measure.
He takes a breath and surveys the bedroom - as he thought, it’s empty, aside from the familiar lump of Jack’s body beneath the covers. He always sleeps with the blankets pulled up right over his head, a hangover from when they were kids and he was petrified of the shadows in the corner of his room, convinced that they were whispering to him. He’d come shuffling into Quinn’s room more often than not, and plead to sleep with him instead. Quinn used to whine as Jack wriggled into his bed, complaining about his skinny little elbows that would inevitably jab Quinn in the stomach as he tried to get comfy - the thought makes him smile, now.
He goes into the bathroom and fills the glass that he keeps by the sink. As soon as the water touches his lips he realises he’s ridiculously thirsty, and he chugs down the whole glass, then refills it and does the same again. He meets his own eyes in the mirror - they look like those of a basset hound, all bloodshot. Well, sue him. Their little brother got drafted yesterday - there aren’t many better reasons to celebrate.
Speaking of. Quinn tops up the glass again, and takes it back into the bedroom. He pauses at the door to check it, and then hesitates for a moment - Luke will have questions, if he comes back and finds it locked - but he flips the knob anyway. They can tell Luke that people kept coming in and waking them up.
Quinn sets the glass down on the bedside table and slips under the covers again, on the other side, so that he’s immediately lying next to Jack. Quinn woke up in the same t-shirt he was wearing last night, along with his boxers, but when he touches his fingers to Jack’s back they meet bare skin. He runs his fingertips down Jack’s spine, gently rippling over the knobs of his vertebrae, and they eventually come to a waistband. Probably for the best.
Jack’s sleeping on his side, facing away from Quinn, and so it’s easy for Quinn to slot in behind him, to cup his hand over Jack’s hip and tuck his face into the curls at the nape of his neck. Jack smells like beer and sweat and boy, and Quinn lets his mouth fall open to taste his skin.
Jack makes a soft murmuring noise, but doesn’t wake up. Quinn slides his hand from Jack’s hip round to his stomach, rubbing tiny circles there, and then he tucks his fingers into Jack’s boxers. His pubic hair is longer than usual, kind of stubbly, but he’s had things on his mind other than shaving. Quinn’s fingers venture lower, meeting the chubby lips of Jack’s pussy, and he eases his middle finger gently into the slit. It’s dry in a way that Quinn isn’t used to, and it must be somewhat uncomfortable, so Quinn withdraws his hand and stuffs his own fingers into his mouth.
When he’s satisfied that they’re wet enough he fits his hand under Jack’s waistband again, and this time the slide over Jack’s little clit is so much better. He circles it with one fingertip, just teasing really, and then slips his middle finger down and inside, feeling Jack’s walls squeeze and quiver around him. It always amazes Quinn how tight he is, still. He sinks his finger in up to the knuckle, bringing his thumb to nudge against Jack’s clit, and it’s all getting satisfyingly wet now, in a way that isn’t just from Quinn’s spit.
Jack wakes up when Quinn pushes another finger inside. “Quinny,” he mumbles, and Quinn feels a dark twist of pleasure at the knowledge that when Jack wakes up with his pussy stuffed, he immediately thinks of Quinn.
Quinn kisses the back of his neck sloppily, and Jack whines and twists his head around. It’s a bad angle, a bit awkward, but Quinn manages to slip his tongue into his brother’s slack mouth anyway, and then withdraws to kiss the side of his face, the delicate shell of his ear. Jack is making little breathy ‘oh, oh’ noises as Quinn fucks his fingers into him, his eyes still screwed shut.
“You’re so good for me,” Quinn whispers to him, and Jack’s back arches, his ass pressing into Quinn’s groin.
Suddenly Quinn wants something else. He pulls away, ignoring Jack’s mewl of protest, and slips his hand out. He tugs at Jack’s shoulder, rolling him over onto his back, and Jack’s grumbling sounds quiet when Quinn shuffles down the bed, shoving the covers away. The wetness staining Jack’s boxers is visible even in the near-darkness, and Quinn nuzzles his face into his thigh affectionately.
He cups Jack’s pussy through his underwear, feeling the softness, the dampness, rubbing his thumb slowly over the ever-so-slight protrusion of his clit, until Jack pushes lightly at his head. “C’mon,” he mutters, and Quinn finally peels down his boxers and gets to work.
He fits his mouth over Jack’s clit, alternating between long, slow sucks and teasing little flicks with the tip of his tongue, and slots two fingers back into his hole so that he can fuck him at the same time. Jack’s relaxed now, loosening, and pretty soon Quinn can tuck a third finger in. Jack squirms and whimpers, and Quinn presses his mouth even closer in, so that Jack can feel his stubbly beard scraping across his most sensitive places. Jack’s hand comes down to slide through Quinn’s hair. God, Quinn loves the way he tastes, the way he smells, somehow musky and clean at the same time.
Jack’s breath is getting faster, choppier, and then he tenses and gasps as he comes, pulsing around Quinn’s hand. Quinn continues lapping at him until Jack gently shoves him away, oversensitive.
Quinn wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sits up on his knees between Jack’s legs, yanking his own underwear down to mid-thigh to get a hand on his cock. Jack blinks sleepily up at him, looking fucked-out and satisfied, his hair a lovely mess. There’s just enough light for Quinn to see the glisten of his pussy, for him to think - I did that, I gave him what he needed. It doesn’t take more than a few rough strokes before Quinn’s painting Jack’s stomach with his come.
When he’s got his breath back he flops down next to his brother, exhausted, his headache threatening to rear up again.
“G’na have to shower now,” Jack mutters, and Quinn opens his eyes to squint at him. He’s wiping at his belly with some bit of cloth - his boxers, probably.
“You needed to anyway,” Quinn tells him. Jack tosses his underwear to the side, hopefully out of the bed.
“Shut up, I don’t smell,” he says, even as he’s curling up against Quinn’s side, laying his head on Quinn’s shoulder.
“You kind of do.” Quinn brings his arm around him, squeezes his waist. “I like it.”
“Creep.”
Quinn was thinking about something, when his head was between Jack’s legs, but it’s hard to remember now, as he drifts back towards sleep.
***
People look at Jack. They always have. Quinn first noticed it when they were both too young - the neighbour whose eyes lingered on Jack’s mouth at their family parties, the friend’s dad who made Jack sit in the front seat when he gave them a ride home, Quinn’s hockey buddies who made excuses to ruffle Jack’s hair and roughhouse him when he came to watch Quinn’s practices. It took him a lot longer to realise that he wouldn’t notice other people looking unless he was doing the same thing.
Two days after Luke’s draft, Quinn wakes up alone. The house is eerily quiet after forty-eight hours of revelry, and when he shrugs on sweats and heads downstairs there’s only his mom sitting at the breakfast bar, reading something on her iPad. “Morning, sleepyhead,” she says wryly, “Or should I say afternoon?”
Quinn squints up at the kitchen clock - sure enough, it’s almost one. “Where is everyone?” He asks, shuffling over to the fridge.
“Your dad’s gone into town, and the boys have taken the boat out.” Quinn retrieves the orange juice and grabs a glass, because he’s not a slob - and, well, his mom is watching.
‘The boys’. Luke and his friends who came to stay for the draft, and Jack, too, because he still doesn’t fully trust Luke to handle the boat on his own. Well, that’s fine. Quinn fixes himself an omelette, has a shower, then ambles out to the porch to half-read his latest book.
Inevitably, the gentle sunlight and the soft sounds of the lakeshore quickly lull him into a doze. He wakes up abruptly to the grumble of the boat’s engine as it pulls into the dock, and squints down at the gaggle of boys tumbling off it, shirtless and loud and damp.
Quinn can pick Jack out of the group from fifty metres away - could probably pick him out from a mile away. He’s the last off the boat, wearing red swim shorts that Quinn’s pretty sure started off as his own, yelling playfully at Luke’s friends to take their shit with them. Totally in his element. Quinn watches Luke’s buddies as they watch Jack, and wonders if they’re looking at his sharp collarbones, his lean stomach, the thin hair that dusts his thighs. Wonders if they know what he’s keeping in those stolen shorts.
He’s in a bad mood all day, stewing in his futile possessiveness, aware that he’s lingering like a shadow in the background as Jack cheerfully plays volleyball and gets slapped on the back and dunked in the lake by a horde of indistinguishably lanky teenagers. They order pizza and argue about whether mayonnaise is an acceptable accompaniment or not, which Quinn can barely tolerate even before Jack starts licking the stuff off his fucking fingers.
Jack corners him after dinner, following Quinn into the garage when he goes to retrieve more ice and tickling his bony fingers up underneath Quinn’s shirt. Quinn kisses him. He tastes like pepperoni.
“Those guys are kind of a lot, huh?” Jack says, and Quinn feels pathetically grateful and also guilty, because they’re not bad kids.
“It’s only a few days,” he says, and Jack pinches his side, teasingly, seeing right through him.
Quinn takes himself off to bed not long after that, expecting to sleep alone, but it’s only about half an hour before his door creaks open. Judging by the sounds coming from outside, Luke’s night is only just beginning - but Jack is here, with Quinn, slipping off his t-shirt and shorts and fumbling with the bedside lamp so that they can see each other.
Quinn shuffles up into a seated position, back against the headboard, and tugs Jack into his lap. He looks obscene like this, his thighs pushed wide apart, his bare little pussy dampening the front of Quinn’s boxers. Quinn gets a hand down between them and spreads Jack’s lips apart with his fingers, drinking in the pink rawness of him. He wants to cover it with his mouth, his hands, his body, so that no-one else can ever see it.
Jack whines, impatient, and Quinn silences him by fitting their mouths together. His hands go to Jack’s hips, urging him into motion until Jack’s rutting against him, his cunt sliding against the ridge of Quinn’s cloth-covered cock. When he catches an angle that makes the head of Quinn’s dick press shallowly inside him, Quinn groans and pushes him away, just enough that he can shimmy his own boxers down his legs.
Jack’s back on him immediately, pouring breathy little noises directly into his ear, and the sensation of Quinn’s cock slipping through his soaked lips is almost enough to make Quinn thrust into him right away. He knows from experience, though, that they’ll both regret it later if he doesn’t stretch Jack first. Quinn reaches down, tucking his middle finger into Jack’s hole. It’s still unbearably tight, even with his legs splayed like this. Jack groans, but Quinn shushes him, easing his finger in and out as Jack’s hips twitch.
When it feels like the pressure around Quinn’s finger has lessened a bit he adds another, curling them up to find the spot inside Jack’s channel that makes him whimper and tuck his face into Quinn’s shoulder. Quinn’s considering a third when Jack reaches down and grabs his wrist, yanking his hand away.
“Enough,” Jack demands, and Quinn leans back, accepting it. Jack gets a hand around his dick and lifts his pelvis, lining himself up. Quinn’s hands find the back of his strong thighs and squeeze. Jack slowly, slowly sinks down onto his cock and Quinn tastes blood in his mouth, still unprepared for the feeling even after all this time.
Jack’s ass finally meets Quinn’s thighs, taking him all the way in, his breath coming short and shocky. When he starts to move, it’s just jerky little twitches of his hips, more grinding than riding, keeping Quinn’s cock lodged within him. Quinn feels for his firm ass cheeks, small but lovely, encouraging him, and when the pressure becomes too much to bear he presses Jack backwards, getting his legs underneath him so that he can shift Jack onto his back. In this position Quinn can thrust into him properly, let his cock force Jack’s tight little hole open, bullying his way deep inside.
“Don’t let anyone else have this,” Quinn grits out, feeling wild. “Only me. You can let them fuck your ass, or your mouth, if you want to, but this is for me, yeah? Only I get your pussy.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jack pants, “It’s yours.” Quinn runs his hands down Jack’s sides, revelling in the shape of him - the narrowness of his waist, the gentle flare of his hips. He sets his thumbs against Jack’s hipbones and pulls out slowly, almost all the way, then drives back inside in one fast thrust. Jack whimpers, turning his head to the side to mouth at the pillow, as Quinn repeats the motion over and over again.
He could drag it out more, make Jack really suffer, but Quinn’s a good big brother. He slides one hand down to paw at Jack’s clit, all tight and swollen from Quinn’s cock stretching him out. Jack’s already close - Quinn can tell from the red flush spread across his belly and the jerky, twitching movements his legs are making. It doesn’t take more than a few firm presses of Quinn’s fingers before Jack’s mouth is gaping open in a silent gasp, his insides pulsing as he comes.
When he’s caught his breath a few seconds later, and pulls out, a dribble of come escapes with his cock. Quinn wriggles down the bed to get a closer look at Jack’s pussy, now red and a little swollen, his hole fluttering prettily around empty space. A soothing noise escapes Quinn’s throat as he uses his thumb to tuck the smear of gooey liquid back inside Jack.
“What are you doing down there?” Jack mumbles. He sounds half asleep already. “Pervert.”
“Well, yeah,” Quinn says, his own voice coming out dry and raspy, “Obviously.” He crawls back up the bed, flopping down next to Jack, who immediately rolls over to drape himself half across Quinn’s chest. Quinn runs his fingers lightly down the sweaty, slightly tacky skin of Jack’s back.
“I’m not fucking anyone in New Jersey,” Jack says after a few minutes, startling Quinn - he’d thought he was already asleep.
Quinn noses at his hair. It smells like lake water, a little stagnant. “You could,” he murmurs. “You could have anyone you wanted.”
Jack lifts his head up to look at Quinn properly. He looks cheeky and smug and fucked-out, his cheeks all pink and his eyes shiny. “Duh,” he says, soft.
“Brat,” Quinn tells him, and Jack rolls his eyes, like, yeah.
He lays his head back on Quinn’s chest, and Quinn brings both arms around him, although it’s too humid for this much skin-on-skin contact to really be comfortable. Somehow even like this, with Jack’s body squeezed tight against his own, and Quinn’s come slowly leaking out of his pussy, Quinn somehow feels like they’re not close enough. Like the barrier of their own detached skins is still too much separating them. He hates this about himself, the way that even his pleasure can veer into sadness if he lingers in it for too long.
Jack flicks his tongue, lightly, over Quinn’s nipple. “I should go to my room,” he mutters, “Mom was talking about going out for breakfast tomorrow.”
“I’ll set an alarm,” Quinn says, entirely unwilling to let Jack go. When Jack acquiesces with nothing more than a breathy sigh, it feels like a victory.
***
People think of Quinn as the sensible one, the responsible one, but the thoughts he has about Jack aren’t sensible at all.
Their parents host a family barbecue, probably the penultimate one of the summer, another event that’s half a celebration of Luke, half an excuse to light a fire and make a dent in their stacks of solo cups. Quinn does the rounds, puts in a shift at the grill, then snags an IPA and goes to sit with the cousins who are closest to him in age, down near the lake.
Their oldest cousin’s wife and their toddler came along, and Jack’s by the water with them both, playing some game that mostly seems to involve picking up pebbles. Quinn watches as Jack passes a stone over to the little girl and she holds it in both hands, staring at it for a few moments before she shakes her head solemnly and lets it fall to the ground.
Her mother, too heavily pregnant to bend down, brushes her hand briefly over the toddler’s wispy blonde head and says something to Jack that makes him laughs. He’s so beautiful, painted golden by the late afternoon sun, his posture boyish and horrible as he squats down to search for worthier pebbles.
Jack straightens up, and Quinn’s eyes linger on the shape of him, next to their cousin’s wife, both of them standing with their hands on their hips. They’re about the same height, and from the back their figures aren’t so different. It isn’t until they turn towards her daughter that the contrast becomes obvious; her belly rounding out, an almost-perfect circle in her silhouette, and his flat, slim torso.
Jack could look like that one day, Quinn thinks. It’s possible. A shiver trickles down his spine.
Before he’s had time to even begin processing that thought, Jack’s jogging back up the hill towards where Quinn and their cousins are sitting. “Kayla’s so funny,” he says when he gets close, his face split into a fond grin.
“You’re good with her,” their cousin says. Jack flops down onto the grass beside Quinn, plucking his beer out of his hand to take a swig, and Quinn swings an arm around his neck in what hopefully looks like a semi-affectionate headlock, but is really just an excuse to get his mouth close to Jack’s ear.
“Would you like that?” he murmurs, his lips brushing the velvet-soft skin there. “Kids? Being pregnant?”
Jack is more astute than most people give him credit for. He shrugs Quinn off with a huff, clambering back over to the chiller to snag another beer, and Quinn turns back to the conversation with their cousins. When he glances over and meet’s Jack’s eyes, though, his gaze is sharp and assessing.
Quinn fucks him that night, Jack on his hands and knees, both of them a bit sluggish and loose from the beer and greasy food. The back of Jack’s neck is a little burned, and Quinn leans over him to lick it, grinding into him slow and deep. He props himself up on one arm and runs his other hand down Jack’s soft belly, making him squirm. This would be a good position if he was pregnant, Quinn thinks.
Jack comes first, and he’s so soft and shivery afterwards, barely rocking back onto Quinn’s cock. “Come on, Quinny,” he begs, “Give it to me.”
Quinn teases them both by holding back, hardly moving. “Give you what, huh?”
“You know,” Jack whines.
“Yeah, I know.” Quinn’s thrusts pick up, his hips jerking almost involuntarily. “You want my dick, don’t you. Want my come filling you up, yeah?”
The first time they did this, Quinn was going to use a condom, but Jack stopped him before he’d even opened the packet. Quinn can still picture it so clearly; Jack’s cheeks all pink with excitement and nerves, the way his voice cracked as he said that they didn’t need it, that he hadn’t slept with anyone else. And really, how could Quinn deny him anything, when he looked at him like that, when his own spit was wetting Jack’s perfect little rosebud lips?
He rubs his face against Jack’s shoulder-blades, and says the thing he’s been thinking for six hours. “Want me to put a baby in you, huh?” He’s barely finished speaking before he comes.
In the morning, when Quinn’s brushing his teeth, Jack enters the bathroom with something in his hand - his slim grey blister packet of contraceptive pills. Quinn’s seen them before, of course - waiting on the counter in hotel bathrooms, when they’ve shared rooms, or an empty packet in a bin - but Jack doesn’t usually take them in front of him, at home. Quinn pauses with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, and watches Jack’s throat pulse as he swallows the pill dry. His eyes meet Quinn’s in the mirror.
Quinn spits out a mouthful of toothpaste and waits. Jack’s bare, tanned feet shift on the floor tiles, uncharacteristically fidgety.
“I’m only twenty,” Jack says uncertainly, “And - Luke just got drafted. We’re going to play together.”
Quinn turns on the tap and brings a cupped handful of water up to his mouth. “I was just joking, earlier.” He realises as he says it that it’s a lie.
“Okay,” Jack says. He’s still watching Quinn, his eyes big and serious. He doesn’t look like he believes him at all.
***
The issue is, once Quinn’s had the thought, he can’t seem to stop having it.
It hits him hardest when they’re fucking. When Jack’s on his back Quinn can’t help but fix his mouth over his small nipples, lavishing them with attention until they’re swollen and red and Jack is mewling. Quinn licks over the shallow dip of Jack’s bellybutton and pictures it nudging outwards, his belly all taut and stretched.
Quinn’s always liked coming inside Jack, but now his feverish brain seems to have decided that any come he spills elsewhere is wasted. When Jack sucks him off Quinn nudges him away before his orgasm gets too close, urging him up and onto his back so that Quinn can notch his cock inside Jack’s pussy to finish.
One memorable morning Jack urges him to come on his face, looking up at Quinn with his lips parted and his eyes serenely closed, like something Botticelli wouldn’t have dared to draw. Quinn, murmuring apologies, sinks down onto the carpet next to him and pulls him into his lap instead, using one hand to ease himself inside as Jack sighs.
Jack knows, of course. When Quinn’s hand comes to rest on his lower belly as they spoon, he goes as tense as if Quinn had said it out loud. “It would be crazy,” he says, low. Quinn has no rebuttal to give, so he just bares his teeth against Jack’s shoulder.
***
Four days before Quinn has to go back to Vancouver he’s stretched out on a sun-lounger near the lake, watching the sky turn pink and then orange, with his arms and legs still aching from a long swim. He hears Jack before he sees him; the soft pat-pat of his feet on the grass, the mumbling tune he’s half-humming. Jack comes to stand next to him briefly, then clambers onto the lounger, pushing Quinn’s legs apart to make room for himself between them. Quinn sits up a bit further, and hooks his chin over Jack’s shoulder, his arms slipping around Jack’s slim waist. They both watch the lake for a while.
“The summers never seem long enough,” Quinn says softly.
“I know.” Jack squirms a little, just to feel Quinn’s hands move against his skin.
“At least you’ll have Luke there, in Jersey.”
Jack is quiet. Quinn kisses behind his ear, just an open-mouthed smear.
“Doesn’t that make it worse for you?” Jack says, eventually. “The two of us being together?”
Without you, is the unspoken ending to that question. Quinn thinks for a moment, and shrugs. “Maybe, a bit. But I’m glad you can look after each other.”
Jack snorts. “It’s not the same.”
“Well, I’d hope not.” Jack rolls his eyes, even as he’s pressing his cheek against Quinn’s.
The sun reaches the horizon, a flare of orange against the silvery-grey edge of the lake. “When we were kids, it felt like hockey was this thing that kept us together,” Jack says. “It didn’t matter if we were annoyed with each other, or jealous, or whatever. We always had hockey. And now it’s, like. Keeping us apart.”
“Yeah, but we’ll still see each other. And FaceTime, and all that. We did it last year. It was okay.” It was exactly okay, in fact - just one step above ‘bad, bad, very very bad’. Just barely manageable.
“Do you want to quit playing,” Jack says, “And just move to Jersey, and be our housekeeper?”
Quinn hums, pretending to think about it. “Luke might have some questions.”
“Nah, he’d love it.”
“I don’t really know how to clean,” Quinn reminds him.
“Well. Sex slave, then.”
“No,” Quinn says gently, and then, “I love you”, because he does, all the time, even if he doesn’t say it enough.
Eventually the air cools enough that goosebumps start rippling across Quinn’s arms, and he reluctantly tugs Jack up from the lounger. The house is still and silent, their parents already in bed, Luke off at a friend’s, so they creep up to Quinn’s bedroom hand-in-hand. Quinn locks the door with Jack pressed up against his back, and when he turns Jack’s hands are on his face immediately, pulling him in to slot their mouths together.
They just kiss for a long time, slow and sloppy, breathing each other’s air. When Quinn’s neck starts to ache he steers Jack backwards by his hips until they reach the bed, and then crawls over him, covering him with his body and licking into his mouth again. When he pushes down Jack’s shorts he’s surprised by how wet he is already, his pussy making sloppy little sounds as Quinn eases his fingers between his lips. “You need it, yeah?” Quinn murmurs, and Jack bites his bottom lip, nodding.
Quinn sinks two fingers into him straight away, and Jack’s breath hitches but he still takes it so nicely. Quinn pumps them in and out, fast but steady, his eyes on Jack’s face. When Quinn’s thumbnail scrapes, just delicately, over his clit, Jack clenches around his fingers.
“Okay,” Jack says suddenly, all breath.
Quinn frowns down at him. “What?”
“Okay, you can do it,” Jack repeats. His cheeks are stained pink, his eyes big and wet. “You can put a baby in me.”
Quinn doesn’t think any more. He just pushes inside, making space for himself in Jack’s body, making a home, making somewhere he can stay.
***
What do his teammates think, Quinn wonders, when they shuffle back to the locker room and see Jack sitting there in Quinn’s stall? When their gazes catch on the taut fabric of his ‘Hughes 43’ jersey, stretched out over his beachball-sized stomach? Do their eyes linger on his rounded-out hips, his peachy little ass (because he insists on still wearing those tiny fucking compression shorts, even at seven months), when he throws himself into Quinn’s arms?
Jack, lying horizontal on the couch with his feet in Quinn’s lap, laughs. “They probably think I’m a slut,” he says lightly, “And that you’re such a good brother, standing by me despite my whorish ways.”
Quinn continues massaging Jack’s ankles. “Little do they know, it’s actually because of your whorish ways.”
One summer when they were kids - like, really little, mite-level - Jack had a full-on tantrum in the car when he realised that Quinn was going away for hockey camp without him. Quinn can still remember his red, indignant face, his tiny fists pounding on the back of the driver’s seat, Luke crying in confused sympathy beside him. Their mom told him, then, that they would never really be apart, that they couldn’t be, because they all carry each other inside them, wherever they go.
It’s a nice sentiment, but Quinn’s not a fan of platitudes - he likes solid things, things he can hold in his hands. A hockey stick. Jack’s wrists. The baby that he put in Jack’s belly, a part of both of them, inextricably entwined. He lifts up one of Jack’s poor swollen feet and presses a kiss against the toes, just to make him squirm, and the dark thing in his chest purrs its satisfaction.