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Jack doesn’t know how to explain it.
He sits on the window in his living room, looking out at the road underneath it. There's people walking, living their own lives, uncaring of the man in the window above, watching them. They're like ants on the ground, and he’s God, deciding what he wants to do.
He pulls his knees up to his chest, wraps his arms around them, and he sighs, staring still.
He cares. He cares about what people think, about how they view him, how they look at him. He cares about what people say online, how they act towards him. He cares so fucking much, and it hurts.
Luke’s in the kitchen, making something. He doesn’t know. He wants to know, he wants to know so bad, but he can’t let go of this moment, no matter how much he tries.
It digs at him, eats at his skin and buries itself deep. The feeling’s there, nearly worse than the first time it decided he would become the victim. He can’t tell if it will be worse. Can’t tell if this will be better, or if he’s going to cry with his brothers again.
He texts Quinn.
jack (6:37 pm)
its bad again
His phone rings before he can even shut it off again.
He answers it automatically, putting it up to his ear, staring out the window.
“Jack?” Quinn says, and there’s sounds of voices beside him, sounds of what sounds like him running away. “What do you mean, it’s bad again?”
“I-“ Jack tries, before he’s crying, burying his face into his knees.
Luke’s in the kitchen, he thinks. He can’t know about this, he can’t be forced into this awkward situation, he can’t know. He tries to cry quietly, tries not to let anything happen to let his youngest brother know.
It doesn’t help.
“Jack?” Luke says, and when he looks up, tears still streaming out of his eyes, Luke’s standing beside him, looking down at him with concern etched in the lines of his face.
Luke doesn’t say anything else. He only forces Jack to stand up, pulling him up with both of his hands, and forces him to the couch. He shoves him into the corner, and Jack’s crying still, holding the phone, Quinn on the other line as Luke grabs their comfort blanket and settles against his brother.
“What’s wrong?” Luke asks gently, a side of him that Jack isn’t used to seeing.
Luke isn’t supposed to be like this, he’s not. He’s supposed to be the youngest, the one who doesn’t know any of his problems. Jack’s supposed to hide them, tell only Quinn if he has to, shove them deep inside of himself until he can’t anymore. He’s not supposed to Luke know.
“Is that Quinn on the phone?” Luke asks, and when Jack nods, he holds out his hand. Jack wordlessly hands it to him, sniffling all the while. Luke only puts it on speakerphone, holding it in the air. “Hi, Quinn.”
“Hi, Luke.” He says, and it seems kind of rushed and rude, Jack thinks, until he’s speaking again. “Jack,” He says softly, “What’s wrong?”
And he doesn’t know if he can admit it. If he can say it outright, tell them both exactly how he feels.
“Do you remember 9th grade? For me?” He asks, instead, sniffing. “When-when it got really bad? When I-I had to go to the hospital?”
Quinn’s breath hitches, and Luke grips him tighter.
“Oh, Jack,” Quinn says softly, and that breaks the dam.
Jack cries, and Luke shifts them so he can bury his face into his chest, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tight. Jack knows he’s wetting Luke’s shirt, and he feels sorry, but he’s shaking, sobbing into his chest. Quinn’s speaking over the phone, saying words that Jack can’t even understand, can’t hear over the sounds of his own crying and Luke’s gentle whispering.
He holds Luke tight, his brother holding him back, holding him back from the edge. He cries, and he cries, until he’s only sniffling, body feeling exhausted, blinking slowly at the couch.
“How are you now?” Luke asks softly, where Jack’s curled up against him, eyes brimmed red. He's unseeing, staring blankly at the wall. His hands are shaking still, and he doesn’t know what to do.
“I don’t know,” He says, and Luke accepts that as an answer.
There's buzzing on Luke’s phone, and he glances at it for a moment, typing something out before he shoves it away.
“Hey, Jacky,” Luke says softly, and Jack blinks to look up at him. “Let’s go get in bed.”
“Okay,” He whispers.
Luke helps him climb off of the couch, down the hall and into Luke’s bedroom. He doesn’t question the change, the fact that they aren’t in his bed. He just climbs underneath the covers and settles onto the side that he’s claimed as his own when they hang out in the bed.
Luke turns off all the lights and makes sure that the doors are locked before he returns, pulling off his sweatshirt before he slides into the bed beside Jack. Immediately, Jack moves to lay closer to his brother, unwilling to be alone longer than he has to.
Luke doesn’t say anything. He just wraps his arm around Jack and pulls him close, lets Jack rest his head on his chest and hear the quiet ‘bum-bum-bum’ that always seems to help calm him down.
He doesn’t feel as bad as he did earlier (doesn’t feel as suicidal, staring at his arms, at the fact he could do something so easy), but it’s still there, underneath his skin, a hum that won’t go away.
He closes his eyes, and he pushes himself against Luke, and he tries to ignore it. He tries to make it go away, because he doesn’t want a repeat of 9th grade all over again.
(He doesn’t want to make it where this time he succeeds, instead of waking up in the hospital to his family waiting. He doesn’t want them to go to his funeral rather than cry when he’s in the hospital bed, bandages around his wrists, a knife mark on his face that will never go away.)
He closes his eyes, and he falls asleep between one breath and the next.
He wakes up feeling hot, hotter than usual. Him and Luke keep the air cool, their fans on all the time, even in winter, so there’s no reason he should feel so hot.
He tries to roll over, to feel the air just for a moment, but the arms wrapped around him stop him. He frowns, and opens his eyes slowly.
Quinn’s lying beside him, and his arms are the ones wrapped around him. He’s pulled into his chest, his head resting over his heart, listening to the bum-bum-bum as well. Quinn’s rubbing circles into his back, trying to calm him down before he’s even woken up.
He can hear the two of them talking softly over his head, words mumbled that he can’t really understand, and he doesn’t want to understand. He shoves his head impossibly further into Quinn’s chest, and he breathes.
“Jacky?” Quinn says softly, and he nods. “How are you feeling?”
“I-I don’t know.” Jack says, and he frowns. He hasn’t thought about those feelings in this moment of being awake, too scared to face them. Too scared to think about them and have the urge to find the closest blade. “I just don’t want to think about it.”
“Okay,” Quinn says softly, and he doesn’t say anything else about it.
Jack shifts, turning so his back is against Quinn. He pulls Jack impossibly closer, as Luke holds Jack’s hands, playing with his fingers. It's something Luke’s always done, a way for him to distract Jack when things where too much, for either one of them. It hasn’t happened in a little bit, too much happening all at once, but it makes Jack feel warm, realizing what his brothers doing.
He lies with his brothers in his bed, and he ignores the thoughts pushing at his brain, pushing for him to go and do exactly what he doesn’t want to do. He knows he’s going to have to face this soon, preferably before Quinn will have to leave, but he doesn’t want to think about it.
Instead, stays where he is.
“I love you both.” He says, sniffling only a little bit.
“I love you too.” Luke says, grabbing one of his hands and just holding it.
Quinn tightens his grip on him, and kisses his hair. “Love you too, Jacky.”
He listens to the beat of his brothers heart, and he breaths.