𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙞𝙩 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝?

"A user manual would be a cop-out," Devon laughed. Maybe he's entirely biased, as someone who had navigated the complicated inner workings of Noah's erratic moods, but Devon never thought it was all that complicated. At the root, the three brothers had always preferred to sit in the quiet company of one another. They never needed to talk it out, unless it grew to a point that could no longer be ignored. Devon had nothing to go on; his own love life was more straightforward. He approached every relationship in the same way he approached virtually anything else. Led by logic, because statistics and analytics held more weight than anything led by the heart. "Noah calling you illiterate is laughable. He uses text-to-speech to text anyone." He laughed again. There is an unspoken appreciation that settled in the air between the two. It was never something Devon imagined himself feeling. Noah had always been fairly adamant about finding contentment in isolation.

"Yeah..." Devon sighed, carding a hand through his disheveled hair. "It would be a lot easier if a lot of his problems were more tangible." He shrugged. Devon won't indulge Rory in the darker parts of their past. There are names. There are faces. There are people he could find, if he looked hard enough, to bring justice to the table. The very same table that had been collecting dust for the last decade. Devon has thought about it. Really thought about it. He had never been the one to act on impulse. He had always been the brother who calculated every thought before acting on it. He thinks of Hudson, who had always been fairly quick to throw a punch before he ever thought to weigh the risks. Noah is all the time. Devon assumes that was the reason the two of them had possessed a different dynamic. Something closer. Something built on unspoken understanding. "It's a hard thing to walk into, Rory. I can't tell you how much it means to me that you're willing to be this patient with him."

sunny’s smile softened when devon said negotiations weren’t supposed to be biased, and for a second, he just looked at him like the answer was obvious. “okay, well, i’m biased,” he murmured. “very biased, actually. i think that’s part of my charm.” his thumb brushed lightly beneath devon’s chin, and there it was again, that warm, impossible ache in his chest. devon leaning into his touch like he trusted it. like sunny was something safe. god. he didn’t know how to survive that without looking at him like he’d hung the fucking moon. then devon went quiet after what sunny said, and sunny’s heart immediately kicked up. he hadn’t meant to freak him out. hadn’t meant to say it like it was nothing, either, because it wasn’t nothing. moving in together was huge, and maybe sunny should have been more careful, but when had he ever been careful with the things he felt? “i can say it,” he said softly, eyes searching devon’s face. “i mean, i probably should’ve said it less like i was asking if you wanted fries, but i meant it.” his face warmed, and he let out a small, nervous laugh, gaze dropping for a second before lifting again. “i’d want to. if you wanted me there.” a beat passed, and his expression went even softer when devon said coming home wouldn’t feel like getting back to a sad, empty apartment anymore. oh. sunny felt that right beneath his ribs. “dev,” he whispered, like the name itself had gotten too tender. “yeah. i – yeah. i’d really like that.” his smile turned shy and bright all at once. “i want you to come home to me. and i wanna come home to you.” when devon didn’t push about what tired meant, sunny’s chest tightened with gratitude and guilt in equal measure. he knew devon wasn’t arguing. knew he wasn’t forcing the conversation open before sunny was ready. somehow, that made him want to tell him more and hide harder at the same time. “thank you,” he said quietly, fingers curling gently around devon’s wrist. “for not making me say it right now.” his mouth twitched, a little sad. “i will. i promise. i’m just… still figuring out how to make the words not sound stupid.” then devon laughed when sunny trapped him against the couch, and sunny brightened so fast it was almost embarrassing. “there i am,” he echoed, grinning down at him. “sorry, i was buried under all the feelings. had to dig myself out.” the theatrical disbelief over the bite made him laugh, nose crinkling with delight. “i did bite you,” he said, sounding entirely too pleased with himself. “just a little. you survived.” his smile wobbled when devon said he couldn’t get sick of him if he tried. sunny went still for half a second, the words landing somewhere fragile and bright. he had spent so much time feeling like too much. too loud, too affectionate, too needy, too sunny. and devon was looking at him like none of that was something he had to apologize for. sunny leaned into the touch at his jaw, eyes turning a little glassy despite the smile still on his face. “you don’t make me feel like too much either,” he whispered. “you make me feel like i can just… be here.” then devon rested their foreheads together and said he’d clean up his throw-up, and sunny burst into a soft, helpless laugh, because of course that was the thing that finally broke the heaviness. “wow,” he murmured, eyes closing for a second as he smiled against him. “that’s romantic.” his hands settled warmly at devon’s sides, holding him like he couldn’t help it. “for the record, i’d clean up yours too.” a beat. “and i’d move in with you.” sunny pulled back just enough to look at him, blue eyes soft and warm. “i want that with you,” he said quietly. “not just the big stuff. the stupid stuff too. groceries and laundry and me bothering you while you’re trying to do things and you pretending you hate it.” his smile softened again, impossibly fond. “i don’t wanna take up less space with you, devon. i wanna make a home with you.”

The words settled over Devon with quiet certainty, soft and weightless. Home had always been a temporary arrangement in his life, something measured by expiration dates rather than permanence, by packed bags leaning beside bedroom doors and the practiced instinct of never becoming too comfortable somewhere that could decide it no longer wanted him. He had lived in houses where silence was survival, in foster homes where affection arrived with strict rules and heavy conditions, in apartments that were little more than places to sleep between road trips and practices. Somewhere along the way, he had convinced himself that home was not a destination, but a habit of leaving before anyone else could ask him to. Yet Sunny spoke of it as though it could be built by two ordinary people who loved each other enough to fill the empty corners, and the notion felt so foreign that it almost frightened him.

His hands rose almost absentmindedly, fingertips brushing a strand of Sunny's hair from his forehead before lingering against his temple. There was something sacred in the privilege of touching someone who had never once recoiled from touching him back. His thumb traced a slow path across Sunny's cheek, and the smile that found Devon's mouth was impossibly small, as though it had been coaxed into existence instead of worn. "I don't think I'd pretend to hate it," he admitted, his voice carrying that familiar shyness that never quite abandoned him no matter how comfortable he became. "You'll follow me around, just yapping away, while I'm trying to cook, and I'll act like I won't be listening, but..." A quiet laugh escaped him. "I'll remember every word. Recite it back word for word."

His eyes drifted over Sunny's face with the same careful attention one might give a constellation they had finally learned by heart. It still amazed him that someone so bright had chosen to remain beside him, that all of Sunny's warmth had not eventually grown weary of the colder places Devon still carried beneath his skin. When Sunny spoke of groceries and laundry, and the thousand unremarkable moments stitched between larger memories, Devon felt something deep inside himself loosen with an ache that was almost relief. "That's something I've wanted my whole life." The confession came quietly enough, but it felt deafeningly loud for him.

"Nothing crazy. Just... peaceful, I guess? Normal, maybe." His gaze dropped to where Sunny's hands rested against his sides, steady and familiar. "Falling asleep on the couch 'cause we're stupid and started a movie too late. Arguing over who drank the last Alani." A smile curved faintly at the corner of his mouth. "Having somebody to come home to who... who is actually happy that I'm there." The last sentence left him more vulnerable than any grand declaration of love ever could. He let out a slow breath, forehead finding Sunny's once more as though proximity itself made honesty easier to bear. "I don't think you get it, Sunny," he murmured. "You keep saying you wanna make a home with me, and every time you say it..." His throat tightened with the words, forcing him to pause before continuing. "Every time you say it, there's a part of me that still thinks you're talking about somebody else."

A self-conscious smile flickered across his face, equal parts embarrassed and heartbreakingly earnest. "I'm trying really, really hard to believe you." It's not as if Sunny has ever given him any reason to doubt him. Devon's has only known growing up under the lesson that love was something fragile and painfully conditional. Devon's always going to be waiting for the floor to disappear beneath his feet. "I do. I believe you. Every day, y'know, you make it easier for me to believe." His fingers slipped between Sunny's until their hands fit together as though they had always belonged that way.

there was something heartbreaking about the tenderness in his voice, and the way his smile appeared only in his mouth, never quite reaching the lines around his eyes. adelaide understood that well. she wanted to reach out, though she wasn’t sure how, or if she should. instead, she settled on what she did know. “it must be a special memory, for it to come up often.” she shrugged slightly, gaze soft on him. “even if you do not quite realize it.” a sigh escaped her, and she looked away toward the treeline. “when we were younger, and i was bigger than him, i used to pick him up and run around the lake. when i got tired, i would throw us both in.” she laughed then, quiet and fond, the memory warming her face for half a breath. “there was not always a lake, but when there was, it was the same thing each time.” adelaide turned back to him, and the softness in her expression gave way to something more distant. “i wonder if he is still out there. i have not seen him… in a long time.”

Devon listened without interruption, the way he always did when someone entrusted him with something too delicate for careless hands. Her story settled somewhere deep inside him, stirring memories that had never truly left, only learned how to sleep beneath the weight of the years. It reminded him that moments people carried the longest were seldom remarkable while they were happening. They were ordinary things repeated until they became the rhythm of living, and only after they were gone did they reveal themselves as something sacred. His smile lingered, faint and melancholy. "Funny how the things you think you'll forget end up being the things that stick around the longest," he said quietly. "I couldn't tell you much about the houses I lived in, but I remember the way my brothers laughed. I remember how they'd both hold onto my hand like they thought I'd disappear or something. We didn't have much that stayed the same... but somehow that did."

“It’s not funny,” the blonde retorted, her toes pressed to their tips as if in her pointe shoes. The crunched features and unusually flat tone were identifiers of her irritation, not that it kept Devon from continuing to chuckle at her expense. Her baby blue eyes shot a bullet in his direction as her arched foot flattened to the floor. “Why don’t you give me a boost then? If all you’re going to do is sit there and laugh at my struggle.” The blonde’s arms folded across her chest, an eyebrow arching in challenge. “Better yet, you could just grab it for me,” Peach added, along with a nod up to the glass bowl that hid on the top shelf of her cabinet.

sunny’s eyes shimmered when devon cupped his cheek, and for a second, he just looked at him, like he was trying to memorize every soft, patient line of his face before his brain could twist this into something else. devon understood. that was the part that made sunny’s chest ache so badly. he understood without making sunny feel stupid for being scared, without turning his guilt into some awful thing they had to drag into the middle of the room and dissect until sunny couldn’t breathe. “i don’t wanna do everything alone,” he admitted quietly, voice small in a way he hated a little. “i just think i forget i don’t have to.” his mouth twitched, but it wasn’t really a smile. not all the way. “which sounds dumb when i say it out loud, because you’re, like, right here. you’re always right here.” he blinked hard, gaze dropping for a second before he forced it back to devon’s. “and i still get scared that if i bring you all the ugly stuff, you’re gonna realize it’s too much.” his hand lifted, fingers curling gently around devon’s wrist where it rested against his face. “but i know you wouldn’t.” a beat. “or i’m trying to know that.” sunny let out a shaky breath, leaning further into the touch because he wanted to be brave enough to accept it. because devon was asking to stay, and sunny loved him too much to keep treating every soft place like it was something he had to hide. when devon mentioned noah, sunny’s expression folded into something tender and pained. “he thinks that?” he asked, almost helplessly. the best decision i’ve ever made. god. that went straight under his ribs. “i thought he tolerated me because you love me.” his laugh came out wet and quiet, and he shook his head. “i don’t mean that in a bad way. i know he loves you. i know he’s protective. i think i just – i don’t know. i get scared of being something that makes your life harder. yelling at him feels like it’s… yeah.”  sunny shifted closer, resting his forehead against devon’s again, eyes fluttering shut. “but i love you,” he whispered. “and i love that you have people who care about you like that, even when it’s messy. even when i don’t know what to do with it.” his thumb brushed lightly over devon’s wrist. “i’m sorry i keep apologizing. i’m sorry for apologizing about apologizing.” a little, exhausted laugh slipped out of him. “i’m a nightmare.” but he didn’t pull away. instead, sunny stayed there. “i’ll try,” he said softly. “to come to you. to let you sit with me when it’s hard.” a beat passed, and his voice thinned. “i don’t want you to have to fight my head for me, but… maybe you can remind me when it’s lying.” his eyes opened again, blue and wet and full of all the love he didn’t know how to make smaller. “because i believe you more than i believe me most days.”

Devon felt something inside him yield with a tenderness so complete that it nearly hurt. There had been a time when he would have mistaken pain for proof that he was alive, when affection had seemed like a language spoken through clenched teeth and conditional mercy, but Sunny had undone that belief with such patient persistence that love no longer resembled survival. It resembled this instead: an afternoon steeped in golden light, the weight of Sunny's forehead against his own, the fragile honesty of someone placing the worst corners of themselves into Devon's hands and trusting they would not be crushed. He thought, not for the first time, that courage was so often mistaken for fearlessness when, in truth, it looked exactly like Sunny did now, trembling and openhearted all at once.

His hand remained against Sunny's cheek, his thumb tracing absent circles just beneath his eye as though he could soothe every anxious thought before it ever found a voice. "You aren't bringing me the ugly stuff," he said quietly, the words carrying none of the hesitation that so often colored his own confessions. "You're just bringing me your stuff. Big difference." His smile was almost unnoticeable, soft enough to disappear if someone blinked. "Ugly things happened to you. That doesn't... They aren't you, y'know? They just rewired your brain to expect someone to leave instead of bringing comfort. I used to mistake silence for rejection and, like, mistakes for the beginning of the end. Doesn't really matter, really, none of it decides who you are." His gaze wandered across Sunny's face with something approaching reverence. "You come to me scared, and I don't see someone who's too much. I just see the love of my life trying to trust me with parts of himself that other people forced him to hide. I don't think that's even close to burdensome, baby." His voice lowered, quiet enough to bleed into the rhythm of their breathing. "I think it's an honor."

Noah's name is mentioned, coaxing a wistful breath from Devon. His eyes drifted toward the window where the afternoon gathered in pale ribbons across the hardwood floor. Loving Noah had never been simple because nothing in their lives had ever permitted simplicity, yet it had always been absolute. "Noah likes you," Devon reiterates. "He just spent so many years believing it was his job to stand between me and the world that I don't think he knows how to do anything else when it comes to me." A faint smile touched his mouth before fading again. "Noah just recognizes anger. If he's afraid, it comes off as anger. If he's devastated, it looks like rage. That's how we differ," Devon looked back at Sunny then, warmth returning to his expression. "Neither one of us learned what safety looked like as kids. We had to build our own version of it. Noah built walls, and I made myself smaller. You..." His thumb brushed gently along Sunny's cheekbones. "You learned that love would leave if you weren't careful enough." Devon shook his head with quiet certainty. "None of these things makes us inherently difficult to love, though. That's the funny thing about how people's brains work after shit like that."

his nose wrinkled immediately before he shook his head. "baby..." sunny did his best to look at devon like he'd grown another head or something. "you are so... so wrong. it's okay. you're, like, so handsome. you don't have to be right about this." he grinned, wide and toothy. "it's okay to admit you're wrong. you don't have to be right. you can just be pretty."

noah's knees have crashed onto the tile floor, bruises blooming across knees hidden behind sweatpants. he doesn't know if anyone can see the outline of his vertebrae beneath the tshirt from some diy show in jersey, and the sweatshirt that has been pulled up towards his elbows. his hair had been sweat slicked to his forehead and his hair previously, and some of it hangs in his face as he leans over porcelain. he had no interest in being spoken to about the retching, or any of the other things that happened. he doesn't want to talk to anyone, he had tried, clearly, and been shut down. it doesn't matter if it's true if noah believes it.

Nothing in this life had prepared Devon for the grotesque reality of watching his brother kneel on a bathroom floor and grieve the man who had violated him with the same desperate devotion of someone mourning a first love. It was not the anger at Noah that seized him then, but something so enormous and formless that it nearly split him open. It was disgust aimed at a world that had so thoroughly rearranged Noah's understanding of tenderness. Violence had become synonymous with affection. Possession had become indistinguishable from love. It lodged itself beneath Devon's ribs until breathing felt like labor. There was something uniquely cruel about realizing that the child he had tried so desperately to protect had not merely survived what had been done to him. He had rebuilt his entire identity around it.

He remained where he was. His hands curled into fists against the bathroom floor hard enough that his nails bit into his palms. Devon did not trust himself to reach forward just yet. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to gather Noah into his arms and never let his brother be touched again. Another part of him, more frightened than anything else, worried that even comfort might feel like another theft after everything else had already been stolen. His jaw clenched until it ached. When Devon finally spoke, his voice was rough enough to sound unfamiliar. "I'm not saying this to hurt you." His throat burned with a force of what he was swallowing back. Noah's question had settled inside him like a blade. There was no accusation Noah could have made that would have wounded him more completely. "I'm saying this because you need to fucking hear it, Noah. He didn't love you. He never loved you. He hurt you, Noah. He hurt you."

Devon looked at the broken mirror scattered across the bathroom floor. At the blood dried against Noah's knuckles. Devon felt the unbearable certainty that every single one of these things had been screaming for help long before today. He had missed them. He had missed the hollowing of Noah's body. The rituals disguised as discipline. The careful destruction masquerading as ambition. Noah had become so impossibly skilled at bleeding in ways that looked respectable. The revelation settled over Devon with the suffocating weight of sheer failure. Noah never deserved any of this. Devon hated every person who had ever taught his brother that pain was proof of devotion.

Devon felt something inside him recoil so violently it bordered on panic. There was no longer room left for restraint. "No," he said, and the word came out low and firm. It carried more grief than anger despite the tremor beneath it. "He loved what he could take from you. He loved what he could convince you to surrender to. He was sick. He was evil, Noah. He fucking..." His voice drops, his head gently hitting the wall behind him. "You were never special because he chose you to torment. You were special before he ever knew your name, and the only thing that piece of shit ever recognized was the brightness he wanted to snuff out." His breathing faltered beneath the weight of his own fury, and he scrubbed a hand over his face as though he could wipe away the image of Noah believing himself complicit in his own abuse. "Do you hear yourself, Noah? Do you understand how fucked up this sounds?"

Devon hated the word special more than he had ever hated another word in his life. It echoed every memory he had spent years trying to bury. Against every coach who had praised them because trauma made them disciplined athletes. The foster parents who had smiled for social workers before locking the doors behind them. Every adult who looked at the Vanek boys and saw usefulness instead of children. People had been calling them special since they were old enough to lace their own skates, and every single person who used that word had expected something in return. Their grief. Their obedience. Their talent. Their silence. Their bodies. Devon felt sick with the realization that Noah had learned the lesson too well. Now even the most monstrous violation had become another transaction in his mind. Just another debt paid for the privilege of being wanted. "I'm angry 'cause you're so... You're so fucked up by all of this that you're convinced being chosen by a sick man was the closest thing you'd ever have to being loved. You should fucking hate him, Noah. You should want nothing more than to spit on his grave. I just... I don't... I don't understand."

His gaze dropped to Noah's hands, to the blood dried around the tiny glittering fragments of glass still embedded beneath his skin. Another wave of despair rolled through Devon. Noah had been trying so desperately to erase himself for years. Some part of him still believed smaller meant safer, emptier meant cleaner, hungrier meant less deserving of another pair of hands that would mistake vulnerability for invitation. Devon's chest constricted until he thought it might collapse beneath the enormity of it. "You don't have to tell me not to talk about it 'cause you're afraid I'll hate what I hear. There isn't gonna be a version of this story where I ever stop loving you, Noah. There isn't gonna be a word you say that can make me look at you and see anything except my brother."