Dropping in to say I think about โpink flamingoes in the poolโ literally so much itโs So good and the part that always knocks me over is the line where Jack told 14 year old Quinn he doesnโt have any friends. This little thread of friendlessness here literally kills me.
โHe was always the first to make friends when they moved; heโd start getting sleepover invites and group chat invitations from his teammates, like, two weeks into the school year. Quinn would usually make his first friend around Hanukkah
There were a couple of years before Jack really understood what words could do where he said shit that will probably be lodged in Quinnโs brain forever; a particularly tectonic Thatโs why you donโt have any friends and you have to hang out with mine when Quinn was fourteen still shifts on him sometimes, still opens up some chasm inside himself that he can get lost in, if he isnโt careful.โ
Like OW! Absolutely perfectly painful. It stands out to me so much even among all the more adult and immediate things happening for the characters. It hits so hard! The childishness of sibling relationships. Things from the past/mean things said years ago can stick to us so vividly because that sibling relationship is so much more closely linked to childhoodโฆ lodged in his brain forever!
The feeling of loneliness comes across so perfectly here as well:
โLukeโs face goes blurry; he must be on another app. Itโs kind of funny, the idea that Quinn couldโve come out to him and Luke would have been busy maintaining his Snap streaks.โ
Thereโs something so lonely about this moment and Luke doesnโt even KNOW..
I really love this fic Iโve reread it several times!! Losing my mind about Thatโs why you donโt have any friendsโฆ.youre such a good writer!
And if I told you the loneliness and friendlessness and sibling stuff and these three specific passages are also my favorite parts about pink flamingos??? The way something you hear when you're 14 will just stick in your ribs and inform how you think about yourself and what you think everyone else can see when they look at youโฆwhew!! Thank you thank you, Iโm so glad you enjoyed. Reading this back and I have written a novel in response but this ask is like exactly what I love about this fic so :-/ had to do it to em.
A little silly backstory is that Quinn and Jack in this fic are completely inspired by my mom and her sister, and the โthatโs why you donโt have any friendsโ line is a direct rip from their lives (donโt tell them!!) They are super super close but had this insane monthlong fight during covid because my mom (via zoom naturally) was like โwhy would you say [thing Jack said] to me when we were kids? it completely fucked me up.โ and my aunt was like โIโm sorry but straight up I do not remember saying that.โ And I believe her. I really do think she would have owned it if she remembered. So my mom had, in the 40+ years since this happened, constructed this idea of herself as a friendless loser and made numerous real adult choices based on that understanding of herself, and the foundation was just something stupid a 12-year-old said to her and never thought about again. Which of course is so fucking understandable and real and painful and human.
Like Jack has literally no memory of saying this to Quinn. And I think he would be defensive at first, but then mortified and deeply apologetic in the long arc of time, if Quinn were to bring it up and explain how much it fucked him up. Did not realize as a smartmouthed 12-year-old that he was traumatizing his brother, there just werenโt enough Wii remotes for all his friends to play MarioKart at his bday party and later he bought Quinn a thing of his favorite candy and assumed they were cool and never thought about it again. I also think the โwhen you give Jack a card he plays itโ thing is Quinnโs outdated understanding of Jack, and probably in reference to something that happened, at the very latest, in 2015. Like Quinn has this idea that Jack and Jim are allies, probably left over from their teenage years, and Adult Jack is like, I do not know how to make this clearer to you: YOU are my ally. Our dad is kind of a controlling psycho and I have your back.
I wanted to write Quinn and Jack with all these ancient hurts that bleed into their present relationship. Like Jack genuinely wants, more than anything in the world in the night timeline, for his brother to hang out with what he rightfully believes are their shared friends and let his hair down and stop talking like Jordan Peterson and get laid! And somewhere in there, let Jack in on what has so obviously been eating away at him all summer.
And I think Quinn being closeted also has a lot to do with his loneliness. IMO you can't ever be truly at ease with someone when you are hiding a huge secret about the core of yourself from them. And I think both Jack and Luke have learned not to push, not to get too deep with Quinn, not to ask questions he doesn't want to answer, because heโll withdraw or heโll lash out. Luke is better at this, generally uses distance as a survival strategy to decompress from his deep intense family and their deep intense feelings. Like imo there are people Luke would push during the Snapchat conversation, but Quinn isnโt one of them, because Luke has learned (the hard way) that there are things Quinn doesnโt want to talk about, and sex and dating is one of those things. Okay, great. Luke will keep the peace and wonโt pry. You do not have to tell him twice.
Whereas Jack especially is super perceptive, can sense that Quinn keeps him at arms' length, is lying to him, was really hurting [the summer after Bradyโs engagement, but Jack didnโt make that connection] and wouldn't tell him why. And he really resents that Quinn lies and deflects and withdraws, and will sometimes push at Quinn, try to get the truth out by getting a rise. But for someone who is painfully transparent in so many ways, in my mind this Quinn is pretty masterful at shutting down, shutting him out, deflecting. I think for Jack the scene in the kitchen is this building relief/catharsis of Oh, heโs actually being honest with me? Is trusting me with something?? And then Quinn gets in too deep, flails with his โitโs team stuffโ and Jackโs heart sinks, but he also knows that itโs just going to make it worse if he tries to push Quinn, so heโs like for sure, man. Itโs team stuff. ๐
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