𝑯𝑶𝑳𝑳𝑶𝑾 𝑩𝑶𝑫𝑰𝑬𝑺.

Wesley opened the door before the second knock had fully died. He had been waiting for it, though he'd rather choke than admit he had been standing within earshot of the foyer for the better part of ten minutes. Anticipation was an embarrassing thing at this age. It belonged to teenagers checking the clock before first dates, not to a retired hockey legend with enough scars to know exactly what happened when you start arranging your evening around another person's footsteps. And then there was Noah.

The first thing Wes had noticed was never the face, despite what he always claimed. It was always the damage. The bruised knuckles. The faint stiffness in one shoulder. The exhaustion tucked into the corners of his posture like someone had stitched lead into the seams of his hoodie. Noah wore suffering the way other people wore expensive watches — without acknowledging it, as though everyone else was expected to politely pretend not to notice. Wesley, unfortunately for Noah, noticed everything. He hated himself for how quickly his eyes inventoried the injuries before they climbed to the familiar crooked smile.

"You haven't told me I was pretty in like six hours."

There it was again. That impossible instinct Noah had for wrapping barbed wire around a joke and handing it over like a ribbon. Wesley wondered if he even realized he did it. Probably not. Survival eventually became muscle memory. Some people learned to duck before a fist landed. Noah learned to smile before anyone could ask what had happened. A laugh escaped Wesley before he could edit it, low and brief, shaking loose somewhere beneath his ribs. "Christ," he murmured, leaning one shoulder against the frame as though he had not spent the last hour imagining exactly this moment. "Six hours? That's neglect."

noah likes wesley. he really does. not that he ever admits to liking anyone anymore. he's been burned enough times, he's been hurt by letting his feelings get twisted up in the wrong person. so he doesn't do anything serious, and instead relies on casual escapades. but wes said he wanted to know noah. wes said he wanted to stick around. noah keeps telling himself it's not true, it doesn't matter, he doesn't care. but that doesn't stop the combination of hope and dread that twists so violently in his chest, that he feels like he's making the wrong choice, and he wants to keep making it all at once.

noah tries to hide the damage from everyone, and he works harder at it, when it comes to wes. his shoulder is always a little more stiff than he wants to admit to, hard hit years ago that never quite healed right and flares up every time he struggles like his poor coping is a storm and the injury aches every time it rains. the bruises on his knuckles are so pervasive they often feel permanent, but noah is also a repeat offender. he puts his fists through the mirror, through the sheetrock, anything just to feel something. exhaustion sits in between every one of his bones because noah barely ever sleeps, too haunted by his own memory. hunger pulls at his ribcage, he can't remember the last time he had any meaningful sleep. that's why he's here, isn't it ??

noah's instincts are built for deflection and distraction. he spent so long being groomed into the perfect little participant in the awful things that were done to him. deflect, sidestep, distract, and no one ever sees the totality of what's happening. no one asks him anything, no one knows where to start. wesley's laugh lands like a prize, and the smirk stays plastered across noah's face. "absolutely is." noah agrees, pointed nod punctuating the statement.

Hudson had spent years building himself into someone who did not ask for very much. He had become extraordinarily talented at reducing his needs until they resembled preferences instead of necessities, at convincing himself he could weather almost anything alone, provided he was given enough quiet and enough time. Yet all morning, every instinct that usually kept him composed had been peeling away one by one, exposing something much older underneath. Apparently the body kept its own hierarchy of safety. Apparently there had once been a version of Hudson who reached for Noah without having to think about whether he deserved to. The realization hurt almost as much as the memories.

The room settled around them with a stillness that felt earned rather than accidental. The lights remained off, leaving only the pale wash of the morning filtering through the windows. Soft enough that Hudson no longer felt the need to squint against it. His palms still rested against the rug where Devon had guided them, its coarse fibers scratching gently into his skin every time his fingers shifted. The texture had become an anchor without announcing itself as one. The humming drifted somewhere beyond the living room; traffic still drifted faintly through the windows, somebody upstairs dropped something heavy enough to vibrate briefly through the ceiling. None of it disappeared. It simply stopped demanding equal attention. His breathing finally began resembling breathing again.

Across from him, Devon watched the change happen with the quiet satisfaction of someone who recognized a storm beginning to pass without expecting sunshine afterward. His gaze lifted briefly, catching Noah. There was something profoundly intimate about the look that passed between them. Devon had seen it before. Not this exact moment, not these exact memories, but the expression Noah wore now — that peculiar vacancy people mistook for composure when they had not learned to recognize the effort it took to remain standing while your own mind tried to drag you backward. Noah's shoulders were held just a fraction too carefully. His breathing had regained its rhythm, but only because he was paying attention to it. Devon knew that look because he had worn it himself enough times to recognize the cost. He did not say anything. He simply held Noah's eyes for one quiet second before giving the smallest nod. I know. Nothing more complicated than that. Noah didn't have to explain himself, and Devon was not asking him to.

Gavin had noticed the exchange without intruding upon it. That had always been one of the strangest things about him. Gavin possessed an almost supernatural talent for occupying space without demanding any of it. He lowered himself onto the floor beside Noah with the same quiet deliberateness he had brought into the apartment. He did not speak. He did not interrupt the silence to reassure anyone that everything would be okay, because all four of them understood better than most that some things were not made okay by words. His presence felt less like another person entering the room and more like another piece of furniture finding its rightful place. Steady and uncomplicated.

Hudson looked between them slowly. The sight of them all sitting on the floor of his living room struck him with an almost unbearable tenderness. Devon still sat opposite him, one hand absentmindedly tracing invisible circles against the rug as though reminding Hudson that the ground remained beneath them. Noah had folded himself inward, knees drawn loosely toward his chest in a posture Hudson recognized with painful familiarity now that he allowed himself to see it. Gavin leaned back on one hand, his attention drifting naturally toward Noah every few seconds without making a spectacle of it.

They had all come immediately. Without asking whether it was necessary. Without making him justify why. Guilt arrived as predictably as breathing. Hudson's eyes dropped to the floor. "I'm sorry." The words came quietly enough that they almost disappeared into the room. No one answered. Hudson was not sure whether they had not heard him or simply knew there was more coming. "There wasn't..." He rubbed his thumb against the heel of his opposite palm, chasing the lingering imprint where the mug had rested. "There wasn't anything you could've..." He stopped, frustration knotting briefly across his face as language refused to cooperate again. "I just..." He exhaled shakily. "You guys didn't need to drop everything." He glanced up for barely a second before looking away again. He let a brief pause settle between them. "I'm okay." Even as he said it, he knew none of them believed it. Hell, he almost didn't believe himself. "I'm calmer now. I just..." His shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug before folding inward again. "I don't want you worrying." There was the thing beneath every apology Hudson had ever offered. He apologized only for the inconvenience of existing while needing something. "I know everybody has..." His voice softened further. "Their own stuff."

his hand settles around his wrist, and noah relaxes just a little into it. selfish. he's remembering the worst moments of his life, and you're worried about being important. aren't you EMBARRASSED, NOAH? he held tight to noah, and noah remained close in response. that closeness was familiar. it was the reaction noah always had. a gentleness lives under his bones, one that hudson has always been offered in spades. noah loves him with such frightening consistency that nothing would stand in the way of him being a comfort right now. he wouldn't let it. there had once been a time hudson reached for noah without a second thought, there had once been a time where noah always knew that he would. but despite how much things have changed over the years, there was never a point where noah thought he didn't deserve it. there was never going to be a time where noah thought he didn't deserve it. hudson, as far as noah was concerned, deserved the world.

noah catches devon's gaze, and his chest heaves when he does. recognition has always felt dangerous, and noah knows devon is recognizing exactly the kind of issue noah's having right now. the kind of awful thing that noah never wants to mention, the way his mind functions on the knife edge of self loathing at all times. sometimes, it gets louder than others. but noah ignores it in pursuit of usefulness every single time. he'd let himself spiral into abject destruction if he could just help along the way. noah vanek is built on sacrificing parts of himself for everyone he cares for without so much as a passing comment about it, like anyone acknowledging it at all is something offensive to him.

gav settles on the floor beside noah, and it eases something unnamed in noah's chest. gavin, for as many fights as they've had, is a comfort to noah that he never really talks about, but never stops feeling grateful for either. they could be at each other's throats, and it's still more comforting than anywhere else in the world. gavin might not wear their last name on his back, but that doesn't make him any less of their brother. even if every time his gaze shifts to noah, there's an uncomfortable, guilty twist in his chest, like noah's done something wrong again.

now we're just blood brothers covered in papеr cuts with a bond like no other . was it evеr enough ?

and then his best friend had died. they weren't kidding when they said grief was unpredictable. some days were better than others. his moods were unpredictable.

and apparently, so were his boyfriend's. something was weighing on him. days turned into weeks and things weren't getting any better. in fact, they seemed to be getting worse. what was going on in that head of his?

they find themselves in indiana. he doesn't know how and honestly, he's surprised noah had even suggested it. sure, there was a house waiting for him to go through it, collect things that held memories - but he didn't think noah was really in any state to do so.

apparently, that didn't matter. he had agreed, tagged along, because there was no way he was letting him go through this alone. and sure, he didn't really know the whole story, only given pieces of it, but that didn't mean he couldn't stand by his side. help him sort through whatever he needed, and let him fall into his arms when it all became too much.

it wasn't their first bar of the road trip. it probably wouldn't be their last. they walk in, justin feels out of place, and they order their usual drinks. noah's never has calories. his does.

the taps taste like they need cleaned. he still drinks the beer anyway, doing his best to not let his eyes wander. these aren't his people. they probably never will be, either.

noah seems restless at his side. more so than he had been only a few hours ago. a voice inside of his head tells him it's something he needs to look out for. he continues to sip on the flat bud light.

it happens fast. there's yelling. a glass falls to the floor and shatters. justin jumps from his bar stool, immediately putting himself in the middle of the fight. he can hear the bartender yelling get the fuck out! once he has a hold on his boyfriend's collar, he's doing just that.

"you didn't have to be so reckless to prove a fuckin' point." he says, breathing heavy as the adrenaline wears off. the reaction he gets isn't one he was expecting. laughter. it fills the otherwise quiet air, sounding weird and foreign.

he's asking for a cigarette. it's justin's turn to laugh. "fuck off." there's no menace behind it. the older male is reaching into his pocket, grabbing one out along with a lighter. he sticks it in his mouth, cupping his hands around it as he lights it. blows the smoke in noah's direction as if he's proving a point. there's blood on his face. he doesn't know if it belongs to his boyfriend or the guy he had gone after. justin could feel his own drying underneath his nose, it getting elbowed in the process of breaking the fight up.

"don't care. doesn't mean i want you swingin' on someone." after taking another hit, the cigarette hangs from his fingers. he hesitates for a moment before passing it to noah. "what the fuck is up with you? don't bullshit me this time, either. something is wrong. you hear that sort of talk in the locker room all the damn time, and you don't go throwin' fists. tell me, what's going on in that head of yours?"

caleb's death has rocked their world. noah didn't think that justin was being unpredictable, he thought he was grieving. he thought it was obvious that things would be strange and different and hard. he didn't judge anything about it. perhaps that was why when noah had mentioned this ill-fated trip to indiana, he hadn't actually anticipated justin coming with him. he expected justin to tell him not to go, but he also expected justin to not want to come. perhaps that was stupid. he wasn't entirely sure anymore.

there is a part of noah that is doing this for insanely bad reasons. he wants to FEEL SOMETHING, he thinks. something familiar and painful and wrong. he wants to know if his blood is still smeared on the molding by the hallway door – wants to know if he can still see the holes in the walls from where he was hit too hard or threatened with a fist just beside his face. the only place he could think of that would have scratched the itch better, was the blake's home, and noah is pretty sure they still live there. which meant it absolutely was not an option.

fuck off. noah laughs again. he SHOULDN'T– he knows that it's concerning and manic– but noah can't seem to hold it back. his chest aches with it – he feels entirely snapped in half. noah can taste the blood in his teeth, he's pretty sure that there's a split in his lip and a bruise blooming on his cheekbone. not that he really cares.

Hudson had not realized he was moving. He had not realized he had reached for the closest thing near him. An untouched cup of coffee, held in his grip so tightly that his fingers began to ache.

The pain announced itself quietly, not as something sharp enough to demand attention. Just another sensation piling onto the impossible inventory his brain had already decided it needed to catalogue. The smooth ceramic beneath his palm. The heat that had long since faded from the coffee. The tiny chip near the handle where he had knocked it against the sink three weeks ago and never bothered replacing because it still functioned. Replacing things that still functioned had always felt vaguely irresponsible. His grip tightened anyway. He stared at his own hand with detached confusion, as though it had belonged to somebody else. The tendons stood out beneath his skin. His knuckles had bleached nearly white. Somewhere in the increasingly distant, impossibly inaccessible rational part of his mind, he understood that ceramic could break. He understood that if his hand clenched any harder, the mug would either shatter where he held it or leave his fingers entirely. His body always preferred movement when it no longer knew what to do with itself. Even as a child, stillness had never meant calm. Still had meant every feeling had nowhere else to go.

The apartment had begun rearranging itself around him. Not physically, he knew that somewhere, but perceptually. In the subtle, terrible way panic distorted proportion. The kitchen lights seemed far brighter than they had any right to be, each bulb humming with a frequency he had never consciously noticed before but could now feel vibrating behind his eyes. The refrigerator cycled on, its low mechanical drone expanding until it seemed to fill the entire room. Somewhere outside, tires hissed across damp pavement. A siren drifted through the city, distant enough that another person might not have registered it at all, but Hudson could not stop listening once he had heard it. The fabric of his sweatshirt scraped against itself every time he breathed. The seam inside his sleeve twisted against the inside of his wrist, becoming so unbearably present that it eclipsed everything else for a heartbeat before another sound replaced it. He could hear Noah breathing. He could hear himself breathing. Worse, he could hear the difference between them. Noah's lungs expanded with a slow rhythm. Hudson's caught halfway, every inhale snagging somewhere beneath his ribs before collapsing into another shallow attempt. He felt as though his body had forgotten which sensations were meant to be background noise. Everything demanded equal importance. Everything arrived without a filter. The world had become loud enough to hurt.

"I can't..." The words barely escaped him. He was not even sure what came after them. I can't breathe. I can't think. I cannot make it stop. They all seemed equally true. His thumb rubbed compulsively over the mug's handle, tracing the same groove over and over until the movement became frantic rather than soothing, the repetitive motion no longer regulating anything because his nervous system had already sprinted past the point where repetition could reach it. His wrist jerked. The mug shifted dangerously in his hand. Noah noticed.

Hudson did not see the concern move across his brother's face. Another memory surged forward before he could. Not the memory itself. Never the memory itself. Just the nauseating feeling that came before it, that awful certainty that something terrible existed just beyond the edge of conscious thought. His stomach folded inward so violently he thought he might be sick. The hallway flashed behind his eyes again. The blanket. A closed door. Someone shouting. The small, horrified echo of his own voice. He could almost hear it now, reverberating somewhere inside his skull. The sound was not in the apartment, and he knew that. He knew it with the same detached certainty that told him he was twenty-two and standing in his own kitchen. But another part of him, older than reason and buried much deeper, was no longer convinced.

The door opened before Noah could say anything. Devon did not rush, which surprised Gavin more than anything. The text from Noah had been enough to get both of them across the city in record time. Devon barely spoke during the drive, one knee bouncing hard enough that Gavin had reached over twice to still it without comment. Yet the instant Devon stopped inside Hudson's apartment, all urgency seemed to drain out of his movements. Devon recognized something. His eyes swept the room once, quickly, methodically, taking inventory with the quiet efficiency of someone who had spent years reverse-engineering his own nervous system. Hudson was not looking at anyone. His pupils were blown wide despite the daylight flooding through the windows. His shoulders had climbed nearly to his ears. The mug in his hand was one involuntary muscle contraction away from becoming a projectile. The overhead lights were still on, washing every surface in an aggressive white that reflected off the countertops and hardwood until the room felt harsher than it had any right to.

Devon reached the switch before he reached his brother. The click was soft. The change was immediate. The apartment settled into the muted gray of natural morning light, the brightness collapsing into something less demanding. The refrigerator was still humming, but it no longer seemed to dominate the room. Shadows softened the sharp edges of the furniture. Hudson didn't visibly react, but Devon watched the tiny muscles around his eyes release by the smallest fraction. Good. Still there. Still reachable.

"Hudson. Hey." Devon's voice was barely louder than the quiet hum. Hudson looked toward the sound without really seeing him. "Can I take that from you?" Devon prods gently. Hudson doesn't respond, and Devon doesn't move any closer. "I promise you, picking glass shards out of your hand isn't going to feel as good as you think it might." The familiar, matter-of-fact tone was not meant to distract Hudson from what was happening. Devon had learned years ago that pretending panic was not real only made it lonelier. You acknowledged it. You made room for it. Then you gave the frightened brain one manageable decision instead of twenty impossible ones.

Hudson blinked, finally looking down at his own hand as though seeing the mug for the very first time. "Oh." The word came out almost absent. His fingers didn't let go, they simply could not. Devon quickly recognized that, too. Without another word, Devon slid one hand carefully beneath the mug, supporting its weight instead of pulling against Hudson's grip. He waited. Patiently. The way someone waited for a skittish animal to decide that leaving was safer than staying frightened. Slowly, finger by finger, Hudson's hand loosened. Devon eased the mug away before setting it well out of reach on the kitchen island. The pads of Devon's fingers ghosted against Hudson's back, gently nudging him towards the carpeted living room floor. He cast a glance back towards Noah and Gavin, silently urging them to follow. "Come sit with me for a second," Devon hummed. Hudson remained with his feet planted. Every muscle in his body insisted that standing was necessary. Standing meant readiness. Standing meant escape remained possible. Sitting felt dangerously close to surrender, and somewhere beneath the panic, beneath the memories that refused to fully surface, his body still believed surrender got people hurt.

"I know," Devon said quietly, reading every hesitation as though it had once belonged to him too. "I know it feels wrong." Hudson's breathing fractured again. "I can't stop... The hallway... I keep..." Hudson's fractured statements are met with the patient understanding quietly vocalized by Devon. "You don't need to explain anything yet. Just tell your body something else is happening." Devon's voice is softer than it's ever been. It feels like a mimicry of all the times Noah had once talked him off the ledge, just like this. Hudson stared at Devon; confusion flickered across his face. It took a moment, but Hudson inevitably complied. The two sat like children again, legs crossed and sat across from one another. Devon kept Hudson's hands tucked into his own. He placed Hudson's palms against the carpet, his gaze never leaving him. "Here, push." Hudson frowned at the direction. "Hard." Automatically, Hudson complied. The coarse fibers pressed back into his skin. "Feel that?" Hudson nodded once. "Breathe into your hands."

he watched hudson's shoulders drop in the muted grey of sunshine pouring through the windows. he watched the expert ways that devon moved around the kitchen. he watched the way devon took the mug, and the way that devon convinced hudson to move toward the living room. blue eyes stayed so fixed on his two brothers, and he was reminded all over again just how much of an outsider he had always been. his internal world functions completely differently than either of his brothers. his nights are so often completely sleepless, it is a common thread that connects all four of them. but the things that noah does, the way that he bleeds before breaking, is completely different to the ways that either hudson or devon handle it. the ways he fights before he compromises are most similar to gavin than anyone else. he is all of their worst traits combined, he is so convinced of his own rot. there have been a million times, a million moments, where noah was convinced his brothers were better off with gavin than they ever had been with him. not that he ever mentions that, not that he ever would.

gavin drifts towards him, and noah doesn't really notice. he doesn't notice almost anything. he's too busy staring at his brothers, watching the way they interact with each other. hudson keeps mentioning the hallway, and noah feels guilt, selfishness, and an older, more ancient fear tangling in his chest. he wonders if gavin feels it too. the memory of the hallway – the way it smelled, the eight steps it took to walk between it and the stairs, the places where the hardwood bowed and the scuffs in the paint – all of that sits behind his eyelids with such startling clarity it feels painful. he knows what waits after those eight steps, he knows everything that comes with that walk so closely that he could crumble under it. he probably would, if he wasn't frozen, standing here, staring at hudson.

gavin's hand settles on the back of his neck, and if it were anyone else, he would flinch. but despite how often they have fought, despite how often things have come to physical blows, there is no one in the world that noah trusts more. the people in this apartment are perhaps some of the most important in noah's life, they're some of the most notable in his story. even if he feels like he's on the outside, even if he feels like the worst of them. he views himself as much worse than any of them – the things noah has done in the dark have permanently changed him. they have permanently destroyed any value he had started with. which is fine. it's a sacrifice he would make over and over again, if only to keep any of the rest of them from getting worse. there are so many twisted, wrecked, broken pieces of himself. ones that only gavin knew before that awful fight he and devon had gotten on. special.

you gotta breathe, too. he feels gavin's voice beside him before he realizes what he said. he didn't really know how to breathe right now. but he will – he needs to. he knows he needs to. and THIS isn't about him. it's not about him or his issues or the things that happened to noah or gavin in that house while everyone else was gone. this was about HUDSON, and noah would NEVER distract from that. so he nods, eyes fluttering closed, and inhales through his nose. it's a heavy breath, one that is so clearly labored, before he nods. "yeah." a beat, "'m fine." he starts walking towards the living room, hands shoved in the pockets of his sweatshirt. somewhere, distantly, he wonders if gavin can feel the sharpness of his spine at the base of his neck. it's easier to think about that. safer.

they walk into the living room, and noah's voice comes out soft as he stands at the edge of the room. "can we come sit ??" he asks, voice gentle and quiet despite himself. there's part of him that wants to cry, part of him that wants to scream, and even more of him that just wishes he could disappear. but he does what he always does. he slots back into the mask, the normalcy, the version of himself that shoves aside everything so he can focus on the problem in front of him. the problem, of course, being making sure hudson is supported through this.

For a moment, Hudson did nothing except exist inside the shape of Noah's embrace. It was strange just how quickly his body recognized the difference between being held and being trapped, though until this morning he would have sworn he had no reason to note the distinction. Noah never tightened his arms without leaving room for Hudson to move. Never cornered him. Never decided for him that comfort should come before consent. Even now, with his brother's hand resting between his shoulder blades, there was an unmistakable absence of demand. Hudson could leave whenever he wanted. The choice remained entirely his. His nervous system noticed before the rest of him did, the rigid line through his spine loosening by degrees so small they would have escaped anyone who had not spent a lifetime watching him survive. Somewhere beneath the panic, beneath the roar of sensations crowding his skull, his body made the smallest concession.

He followed Noah's breathing because there was nothing else to follow. His own lungs had abandoned any recognizable rhythm, snagging halfway through each inhale as though the air itself had become difficult to trust. Noah's breathing, on the other hand, remained maddeningly consistent. In. Out. Slow enough that Hudson's own chest began trying to imitate it without permission. It reminded him of skating behind someone stronger, like Noah, on fresh ice, letting their path break the resistance first. Hudson had always been good at following patterns. It was people he struggled to predict. Patterns made promises they actually kept.

Noah mentioned the nervous system, and Hudson let out a quiet, brittle laugh that barely qualified as one. "That..." He swallowed, rubbing the heel of his hand against his sternum again, more from habit than intention. "That makes me so angry." He hadn't expected those words. They surprised him as much as anyone. His head tipped forward, resting briefly against Noah's shoulder. Holding himself upright suddenly felt like one task too many. "I spent..." He paused, searching for numbers that no longer seemed meaningful. "My whole life thinking there was something wrong with me." His voice remained quiet, but it had acquired an exhausted honesty that only appeared when he stopped trying to organize his thoughts into something digestible. "The lights. The noise. People touching me when I wasn't expecting it. Getting... overwhelmed over things anyone else could just..." He made a vague gesture with one hand, fingers opening helplessly. "...Walk through."

His mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "I thought I was just bad at being a person." The sentence hung between them with a terrible simplicity. Hudson had never said it aloud before. It had always seemed too childish to admit. Adults weren't supposed to confess things like that; they were supposed to compensate. Hudson developed routines so rigid they looked like discipline instead of necessity. He memorized conversations before having them. He laughed when teammates called him weird or a little intense. Correcting people required more energy than pretending not to care. Hudson had become exceptionally good at translating himself into someone easier for the world to understand. He's not so sure where the translation ended, and he began.

He closed his eyes, and another piece surfaced. It was not a complete memory, but it was just enough. "I, uhm...." His breathing faltered again. "I remember a hallway." His voice had gone distant, not detached but listening to itself, as though every word had to pass inspection before he trusted it enough to release. "I remember..." He frowned, his expression tightening with concentration so intense it bordered on pain. "There was, uhm, yellow?" He shook his head immediately. "No. Not yellow." Another shake, shorter this time. "The walls weren't yellow. There was..." His fingers curled against the sleeve of Noah's shirt. "A blanket." His stomach lurched. "It had yellow ducks on it." The image lingered with such impossible clarity that Hudson physically recoiled from it. "I don't know why I remember that," his voice cracked, "I don't know why that's the thing."

It wasn't the worst part. His body knew there had been worse. The blanket had simply survived the flood. He could see it folded over the corner of a narrow bed. He could remember staring at it because it was easier than looking anywhere else. He could remember counting the ducks. One had a little blue hat. Another was missing part of its beak where the fabric had worn away. Hudson's fingers trembled violently. "I remember someone opening a door," spoken through another breath. "I remember..." His eyes squeezed shut so tightly it hurt. "I remember screaming." The words escaped him before he could stop them. His own throat tightened instinctively around the memory, phantom pain blooming where there had been none only moments before. "And then... Nothing."

Hudson's eyes opened again, immediately searching Noah's face with the desperate uncertainty of someone trying to determine whether he had just confessed something impossible. "I remember being alone," he said, looking down at his own hands. "They took me away. I kept asking where you and Devon were." Silence settled between them. The very kind that was weighted by things that had always existed between them, long before either of them had words for it. Hudson stared at the floor, blinking too hard against the pressure gathering behind his eyes. "I don't remember what happened before they took me. I just remember knowing something really fucking bad had happened." The knowledge sat beneath the missing memory like a shadow beneath a closed door. He never needed to open it to know that something horrible waited on the other side.

noah is grateful for the way hudson leans into him. this has always been the way that noah derives his worth. being helpful, being useful – those are the types of things that he has always relied on when nothing else makes sense. things like their memories – their history. noah knows so deeply what it feels like to be trapped, for someone to say they're offering comfort, but their arms are a cage. the same person who had been the reason for these memories, the same person who had done the things that were done to hudson, had promised noah the entire world in exchange for his participation. ten years old and making deals he didn't understand. twelve, and realizing all of the things he had lost in the exchange.

he notices the way hudson's breathing begins to align with his. he doesn't bully it into rhythm, but instead matches time in a way that is so clearly ingrained in his body, another memory locked in hudson's body rather than in his mind. across the whole of their childhood, there were many nights noah spent holding his baby brother, and reminding him that he could align his breathing with noah's. the two of them would be able to survive it, as long as they kept breathing. they would be able to make it through things, as long as they could align their breathing into the same stable, consistent pattern. patterns are predictable. every one of the vaneks has found a way to rely on them. noah is hyper vigilant, he studies the patterns in people, in hopes of being able to predict them. he has learned the way that people behave, he has learned how to protect himself in the margins of every single person's behavior around him. he has become exactly the kind of pervasive, over observant person he's needed to in order to protect himself.

hudson mentions being angry, and noah nods. he knows just how awful it feels, he knows just how difficult it is when everything feels wrong, and there's no way to explain why it feels that way. he knows just how difficult that feels, because it happens to him all the time. "yeah." his own brittle, exhausted laughter tumbles into the room between them. it's gentle in ways that noah has never been with anyone else, there's a softness in his voice that exists in hopes of hudson feeling both understood and cared for all at once. hudson mentions that he's spent so long feeling like he didn't know how to be a person, and noah's heart aches again in his chest. "there's nothing wrong with you." noah replies, voice even. the words are familiar, there's a well worn quality to them. noah has told hudson a million times that he is not overreacting, that something isn't wrong with him. noah has always said that he's getting through it all the best he can. he didn't know that hudson had been holding so much responsibility for it all, but he had tried so repeatedly to make sure he didn't.

noah doesn't remember the blanket with the yellow ducks on it. he had been through that exact event so many times, on so many nights, that some details ran together. and noah had focused on the ceiling, not the items in the room. he counted cracks in the ceiling, he traced patterns in it over and over again, like every picture he found amongst that texture was salvation from the awful thing that was happening to him. "i remember you screaming." noah murmurs, his own eyes clenching tight, like he's trying to brace against his own memories. his chest aches again, in a way that it has been twisting since they were in that house, with guilt and fear and frustration all at once. he knew he couldn't save hudson from everything, he even knew he hadn't saved hudson from this. but he wanted so badly to have done enough that he could have. he wanted so badly to take it all, if only to make sure that his brothers survived it.

noah's hands stayed settled on hudson, even as he pulled back and stared at his own hands. he looks at his brother with this wrecked openness he doesn't mean to admit to. "they didn't – they wouldn't tell me where you went. no one would let us come see you." he hates that part of things. he hates that there wasn't more that he could do in order to change things. he wanted to see hudson after he had been taken away so badly he could barely see straight. it was one of many reasons he made all of those sacrifices. if he just handed over enough, maybe someone would let him see hudson.

hudson asks for devon and gavin, and noah nods. in an instant, his phone is out of his pocket, sending messages off as fast as possible. he was glad he had reached out to devon in his half panicked, half desperate state when he got the call. he was glad he had been mending fences between himself and gavin.

"yeah, hudson. they're both gonna come over." it was easy to do whatever hudson asked. it always had been. his brother might find himself in this position of feeling like a burden, or a problem to solve, but noah has never believed that about him. noah believes in hudson with unrelenting loyalty. noah has always believed in them, in hudson, in devon, in gavin – they were all so capable, all so worthy and worthwhile. he regards them as perhaps some of the strongest people he's ever met. noah thought he was never going to make it out of indiana. noah believed wholeheartedly that he was going to die in that house. it was a justifiable sacrifice, in his own mind. he had struggled for so long, there had never been a doubt in his mind that he wasn't built to survive it the way his brothers had been. that was one of the reasons he was so intent on all of the things he had done.

Hudson felt Noah fold before he felt him cry. It happened in increments so small another person might have missed them: the weight settling more completely against his chest, the hands clutching at the back of his sweatshirt with less restraint than dignity would normally allow, the way Noah's breathing lost whatever careful rhythm he had forced onto it before he knocked. Hudson had spent most of his life learning the language of survival in bodies instead of mouths. He watched how it takes shape in his brothers — it taught him faster than any school ever could. Bruises appeared before confessions. Silence arrived long before apologies. You learned to read shoulders, footsteps, the angle of someone's jaw when they believed they were holding themselves together. Noah had always been the easiest of all of them to read, not because he was expressive, but because he worked so tirelessly to conceal himself that every crack became unmistakable.

He held him a little tighter, unconsciously rocking once, hardly enough to call it a movement. Noah apologized; of course he did. Hudson thought there ought to be doctors somewhere studying whatever disease made the Vanek brothers believe existing was something that required forgiveness. Devon apologized for leaving. Noah apologized for surviving. Hudson apologized whenever someone bumped into him. They carried guilt the way other families carried heirlooms, passing it down without ever remembering who had owned it first.

Hudson's shirt was soaked through now. Cold seeped into his skin where Noah's rainwater had transferred itself between them, but it barely registered. He was more aware of how sharp Noah felt beneath his hands, how his shoulder blades pressed through layers of wet fabric with a familiarity Hudson hated. It reminded him too much of boys who grew faster than they were fed, of cafeteria trays quietly abandoned, of Noah insisting he wasn't hungry long before Hudson understood that hunger could become a punishment someone chose for themselves. Some memories refused to stay in the past because the body insisted on recognizing them every time they returned wearing different clothes.

Hudson drew back just enough to look at him, one hand remaining on the back of Noah's neck, his thumb absently brushing rainwater from the skin beneath his ear. Noah looked exhausted in the particular way people did when sleep had stopped being restorative and started feeling like another obligation they could not fulfill. There was something unbearably young about him then. Not childish. Just younger than the world had ever allowed him to be.

His chest tightened with a familiar ache. It was strange how desperately Hudson wanted to protect people who had spent the better part of their lives protecting him. Stranger still that being needed never felt burdensome. It felt clarifying. As though every ugly little comparison he had built inside himself dissolved the second Noah showed up at his door instead of anyone else's. Hudson had always seen himself as the least remarkable Vanek. Devon possessed that impossible gravity that drew everyone toward him even when he wished they would stay away. Noah loved with such a frightening completeness that people reshaped themselves around it without realizing. Hudson had never known what made him different. Softer, maybe. Easier to overlook. He had worried for years that if he disappeared, life would simply rearrange itself around the empty space.

Noah had come here. Not to Devon. Not to somebody stronger or more accomplished. Here.

The revelation settled somewhere beneath his ribs with a quietness that almost frightened him. He hated himself a little for how warm it made him feel, because he would have traded anything to spare Noah this grief, yet there it was all the same: the undeniable relief of knowing he mattered in a way no achievement could have ever proven. He wasn't useful because he could fix anything. God knew he couldn't. He was useful because Noah believed he could fall apart here without disappearing entirely. Hudson reached up, smoothing damp hair away from Noah's forehead with slow fingers. "You really don't need to apologize for coming to me," he said quietly. "I'm really glad you did." His voice caught for only a moment before settling again.

"You don't have to figure anything out right now," Hudson murmured. "You can just stay." Beneath that, buried so deep he would never say it aloud, another thought pressed against the inside of his ribs.

noah has spent his entire life building himself into something smaller, more bearable, less of a burden on the people he cares about. he would sacrifice anything for his brothers – he would have done anything to protect any of them from the things he dealt with. every single thing – every single struggle – was one noah wished he could take from their hands and carry himself. the decisions he made, the things he felt, were things he had never wanted any of the others to carry. there was no world in which anything that he went through was something he'd wish on anyone else, but he would do it all again if it meant one easier night for hudson, or one more day where gavin didn't have to face down his father, or one more night where the door never opened on devon. he couldn't protect them from everything, noah knew that. but everything he could was something he would sacrafice anything for. there was a lot of complication that lived in his bones. there were many things that became confusing, in the aftermath of the things he had been through. these awful, terrible things that had twisted in his own mind, in order to find a way to understand. i was special. you called me your fuckin' angel.

hudson held him tighter, and noah felt himself fold further before he had the sense to stop it. he hadn't really meant to, per say, but there's a deep level of exhaustion and brokenness that settled so much deeper within him than he ever wants to admit to. noah learned so long ago that his body required apology, that every breath was something he had taken without permission, that every moment he took up space was one more thing he needed to repent for. he doesn't talk about the religiousness or the scripture, but he believes so completely in pain as a means of salvation that he could make the catholic church jealous.

noah doesn't even think about the sharpness of his body anymore. he doesn't have the time. every mirror has become a threat, every glance down at himself is a damnation. he can't think of the pointed nature of his shoulders or how pronounced his spine is, if he does he'll only spiral further. there's a history of meals split in threes, because his brothers are hungry and no one is feeding them enough. noah has so continuously loved his brothers, he has so continuously chosen them over himself. not out of obligation, never that, but responsibility. it was a sacrifice he made willingly, one he never regretted. not then, not now, not ever. but the consequences were still written into him, they still feel like they're at the surface of his skin, tearing at him from the inside out. noah doesn't admit that hunger is a punishment, but that doesn't make it any less true.

hudson had been such an important part of his ability to survive. there is no one that noah cares for more than his brothers. hudson is the most important person to him, he is the best parts of noah all combined together, he is the first call noah makes in the morning, he is the last thought noah thinks at night. noah leans on devon, but he leans on hudson more. hudson is always his first choice when he struggles, even if he so often worries that he's too heavy a burden for his younger brother. hudson might think he's less remarkable, but noah has never shared in that sentiment. noah thinks of him as the world. noah thinks of him as the remarkable embodiment of resilience. hudson is the best of them.

noah would come here every time. he would always come to hudson when things are hard. he leans on his younger brother much more than he wants to admit to, but that doesn't make it untrue. hudson offers noah something he has never known how to ask for. permission to break. to stop being strong and stoic and isolated, and just crack.

"i'm so tired." it comes out small. smaller than he intends, more cracked and broken than he has ever wanted to sound. you can just stay. oh, but isn't that the hard part?

Hudson had heard the question long before he understood the words.

Can I touch you?

It really should have been simple. A yes or a no. People answered questions like that every day without having to negotiate with every nerve ending in their body first. The question found itself lodged somewhere behind his ribs, and his gaze drifted toward Noah's hand without meaning it. It was so strange, the way his mind separated people into categories his body had invented long before he was old enough to explain them. Some hands demanded. Some hands corrected, others restrained. Those hands arrived too quickly, carrying intentions that changed halfway through the motion. Then there were Noah's hands, perpetually hovering at the edge of him, asking permission even when Hudson knew Noah would have every excuse not to. His brother somehow taught himself to become the opposite of everything that had raised them. Hudson wondered, with a fresh ache that seemed to bloom beneath his sternum, how exhausting that must have been. To spend your entire life translating violence into gentleness, to interrogate every instinct before acting on it because someone else had once decided that love and fear could occupy the same gesture.

Hudson gave the smallest nod he could manage. It felt enormous. His throat refused to cooperate, so he answered with movement instead. Movement tended to make more sense than language. Words required sequence, organization, confidence that the thing inside you resembled the thing that came out. His thoughts had begun arriving all at once, overlapping until they became noise. The refrigerator hummed too loudly. The air conditioner clicked somewhere behind the wall. A car alarm chirped three floors below before someone silenced it, but the sound stayed inside his head anyway, caught up in some invisible machinery that had forgotten how to filter what mattered from what didn't/ His sweatshirt sleeve had twisted beneath his wrist, the seam pressing into his skin with a maddening precision that suddenly felt impossible to ignore. Even the smell of cooling coffee seemed too bitter now, too present. His body had become one enormous open window, and the world was pouring through it unchecked. He pressed the hell of his hand harder against his chest without realizing it, searching for pressure more than comfort, something solid enough to convince his nervous system that it still occupied the same room as the rest of him.

When Noah apologized again, something inside Hudson recoiled before it softened. It was almost reflexive, the need to protect the people he loved from blame that had never belonged to them. Funny, he thought dimly. He had inherited that from somebody. Not from the adults who raised them, certainly. They had specialized in the fucking opposite. Somehow, between all the cruelty, they had all still managed to teach each other how to absorb guilt that was not theirs, passing it back and forth until none of them could remember who had been responsible in the first place. "No," he said quickly, the word rough around the edges from disuse. He shook his head harder this time, almost desperately, because Noah's face carried an apology so old it looked permanent. "Don't..." He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut for a heartbeat as another fragment cut through him with all the subtlety of broken glass. A hallway. Noah standing in front of him. Someone shouting. His own voice - high, raw, unfamiliar only because he had never heard it as an adult - tearing itself apart somewhere beyond a closed door. Hudson inhaled sharply, and the memory vanished before he could catch it, leaving behind only the sensation. Like waking from surgery with pain before recollection.

His breathing dissolved again. Not into sobbing, not even into crying, but into that terrifying place where his lungs seemed to forget the rhythm they had been practicing his entire life. He hated this part most. The betrayal of a body that insisted on reaction before he had reached a conclusion. As a kid, people had called it overreacting. Sensitive. Dramatic. Too much. He had spent years sanding pieces off himself in the hope that one day he would become easier to carry. Quieter. Less overwhelming. He wondered whether every meltdown, every inexplicable panic, every afternoon spent hiding in dark rooms after practices because the fluorescent lights and the shouting and the scrape of skates against concrete had suddenly become unbearable, had always been his body speaking a language no one around him had bothered to learn. The realization landed with almost as much force as the memories themselves. He wasn't breaking in a new way. Hudson had been breaking like this forever.

"I don't..." His voice failed again, but this time he did not force it back immediately. He stared somewhere over Noah's shoulder, watching sunlight crawl across the hardwood floor as though the apartment itself had continued existing without consulting him. "I don't know what's mine." The admission emerged quietly, almost curiously, as though he were examining the thought alongside Noah instead of just confessing it. "I don't know what's... what actually happened, and what's..." A dream. A fear. Something his mind had stitched together because it had finally grown tired of carrying blank spaces. He couldn't finish the sentence. He looked back at Noah with eyes that seemed too wide for his face, stripped of every practiced expression Hudson usually wore to make other people more comfortable. "But I know what it felt like that." His fingers curled into the fabric over his chest until the material bunched beneath his knuckles. "I know my body knew before I did."

The words settled between them with a terrible kind of honesty. Hudson had always believed memory lived in the mind. It seemed almost unbearably cruel to discover that memory had been living everywhere else first - in the way he startled at footsteps behind him, in the way unexpected touch could unravel him on bad days while deep pressure could stitch him back together, in the rituals he repeated until they looked like personality. He thought of every joke he'd made about being particular, every laugh about needing things just the way he needs them, every teammate who had called him weird with enough affection that he had learned to smile along. Maybe they had all mistaken adaptation for eccentricity because adaptation was easier to witness than injury.

noah learned a long time ago that there is a right and wrong way for hands to touch. there are touches that are welcome. there are touches that are comforting, or careful, or kind. there are touches that are unwelcome, ones that hurt or ache or take something from you. there are points of contact that your body holds on to forever, things that cannot be unlearned once they are taught. noah knows them intimately. parts of him have been taken, things that will never see the light of day again. he knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that there are also parts of hudson that have been taken, but he has hoped for the kind mercy of him never needing to remember what having them taken felt like. no such luck, apparently.

noah is gentle with his brothers. he always has been. it's the kind of softness no one else knows he has. the harshness of noah vanek is a lie he keeps telling, an armor built out of necessity, for when gentleness is punished too often. noah's kind hands have only been witnessed by his brothers, by the knights, and by gavin. to everyone else, they might as well not exist, because noah has built an entire structure of protection built around hiding every part of him that has been punished so harshly he's had to hide it. but noah doesn't regret that instinct towards gentleness for the people he cares about, he doesn't regret the care that comes with asking questions. especially not when hudson swallows hard, and nods, because words have failed him, the way they did so many years ago.

he reaches out slowly. his arms wrap around his brother, gentle but strong. bracketing his brother from his own memory feels like the only kindness he can offer right now. he pulls him tight to him, hand settled between his brother's shoulder blades. his thumb brushes a gentle arc against his back, soft shapes brushed into the fabric at his back, like he can protect his brother from every awful thing that ever happened to them. don't. oh, it feels so familiar in a way noah's so sure hudson doesn't remember. he's sure hudson doesn't remember being seated in the passenger seat of noah's car, telling his brother not to apologize for the things that happened in that group home. he's sure hudson doesn't remember the way noah apologized when noah heard whispers about hudson being sent away, he's sure hudson doesn't remember the guilt that settled underneath noah's ribs, because he tried every single bargaining chip he had, and it still wasn't enough to keep them together.

he notices the way hudson's breathing remains fractured, like he can't convince his lungs to expand enough to be anything but ragged aching pieces of himself. "listen to me, okay?" a beat, "focus on my breathing. we'll do this together." there has never been a moment that noah would want to be separated from him. if he had his way, his brothers would never have to face something alone again. the only person, as far as noah was concerned, that should have faced anything alone was him. there were far too many sins that noah had to pay for, but that had never been the case for his brothers. he would never let it be the case for his brothers.

"we can figure out what's yours when you're ready." noah murmurs, voice gentle and soft in the air around them, barely audible over the hum of the kitchen. his arms remain wrapped around him, the way they had been during so many points in hudson's childhood. like holding hudson was the only thing that tied noah together in the aftermath of everything that happened. he pulled back, eyes wide and glassy, and says something so heartbreaking noah isn't sure he'd have survived it if they had this conversation years ago. i know it felt like that. i know my body knew before i did. oh, his chest aches with it. "sometimes when you learn stuff so young, even when everything has holes in it, your body remembers it. it's like – a nervous system response i think." and if noah's being honest, he's just talking to fill the space. he's offering something normal, the even, quiet cadence of his voice, just so hudson has something easy to hold on to if he needs it.

noah has known his memory lives under his skin for his entire life. he remembered being a sad child. he remembered the way that at six years old his bones all felt too heavy, and he never wanted to get out of bed. he didn't even know why, but he remembered the feeling of dread before he remembered the things that he thought. if only he had prepared hudson better for that reality, maybe things would have been different.

"so we don't fill in the gaps today." noah replies, hands still settled on hudson, but looking at him with such a gentle care he wonders if hudson can see it written in every feature. i just... "i know." and he does. there is an exhaustion that comes from these kinds of memories, one that settles in much deeper than just surface level tiredness. it lives in between bones, it sinks into the marrow.

Hudson had always imagined that if one of his brothers came to him because the world had finally become too heavy to carry by themselves, it would arrive with some grand catastrophe attached to it. He imagined a phone call in the middle of the night, or maybe blood on someone's knuckles, or some other unbearable thing that had learned how to wear their family name. It came quieter than he imagined, wrapped in rain. The knock at his door was soft enough to disappear beneath the weather, and when he opened it, Noah stood beneath the porch light with his hair soaked dark against his forehead, water dripping from the sleeves of his sweatshirt in slow, steady lines that gathered on the weathered welcome mat like spilled grief. He looked as though he had been standing there for longer than Hudson wanted to imagine, his eyes carrying something vast and silent, something that had swollen too large for language.

For one suspended moment, Hudson only looked at him.

Noah had always carried himself like someone trying not to take up space, despite being taller, stronger, built for the lights and roaring crowds that Hudson still believed fit him better than they would ever fit himself. Devon, too, had always burned bright enough to leave afterimages behind whenever he walked into a room. Hudson had spent years feeling like the quieter note between them, the brother people forgot to ask about because the other two had stories that eclipsed his before he ever had the chance to tell them. He had grown accustomed to watching from just outside the center of the frame, convincing himself it did not sting anymore. Convincing himself that being overlooked hurt a lot less if he volunteered for it first.

Then Noah looked at him like this. Like he had nowhere else he would rather be. It loosened something in Hudson with an ache so profound it nearly embarrassed him. He didn't ask what had happened. He didn't ask why Noah was standing in the rain instead of inside. Questions could wait their turn. Some wounds shrank the second they were forced into words, and others only deepened under the pressure of explanation. Hudson had lived long enough to distinguish the difference.

He stepped forward, closing the distance without hesitation before wrapping both arms around his brother and pulling him inside. The damp fabric of Noah's clothes immediately soaked through his own shirt, but Hudson was none the wiser. He held him with an instinct that surprised even himself, one hand settling between Noah's shoulder blades as though he could smooth away years instead of rainwater. "It's okay," he murmured, his voice low enough to belong only to the two of them. "You don't have to tell me anything yet." The words settled gently between them, carrying no demand or expectation, only permission.

Hudson rested his cheek against Noah's wet hair and shut his eyes. There was something almost shamefully comforting about this, about being the one someone leaned toward instead of away from. It was not triumph. He would never call it that. Noah could never feel like a victory, but beneath the grief was a quieter feeling that Hudson had buried so deeply he barely recognized it anymore. The relief of finally being useful. Not the kid trailing after two brothers who seemed destined for brighter futures, not the brother forever measuring himself against trophies and contacts. It was an impossible standard he had invented in the privacy of his own mind.

noah never expected catastrophe. that wasn't what scared him. he's already been through some of the most catastrophic things anyone could think of. the wreckage underneath noah's ribcage was quieter than that. softer. like water trailing across stone, deepening cracks with every pass. some days, every breath felt like a labor noah never signed up for. like the expansion of his lungs happened without his permission, like he'd rather suffocate than keep carrying all of this on his shoulders.

he would have rather broken. he would have rather given up. if he's honest, the only reason noah hasn't is cowardice. he's too afraid of what it would do to his brothers, too afraid of the guilt of that commitment. perhaps, it's why he has become so accustomed to his own self destruction, why he so regularly says he's does not want to die, but never admits to the sickly, ugly thing underneath it, the part where he also doesn't care if he did. his body betrays him by continuing to run, because all noah wants is the peace of rest. he daydreams about it, putting his head down and closing his eyes, and letting everything fade into nothing. when things are too hard, when he struggles too much, and he doesn't know how to survive it, noah calls hudson. he always calls hudson. noah doesn't lean on many people, but his brothers are the only people he knows how to trust.

when hudson pulls noah into his arms, the first thing noah does is sag. he crumbles. his arms tighten around his brother, and for a moment he forgets he's covered in water. he forgets that he stood out there, in that rain, for ten minutes before he even gathered the courage to knock. he forgets that it had been pouring, that he hadn't worn a jacket, that his hoodie was waterlogged. he doesn't think about the fact that he's shivering, or that hudson might be able to feel every vertebrae where it stands out too far from his skin. instead, he just leans into the comfort of being held by his brother.

the guilt comes crashing over him almost as fast as the exhaustion had. he's gotten hudson wet. he was probably busy tonight, he was probably frustrated by just how often noah seems to fall apart. his thoughts keep running together, guilt and disgust settling over him like one more weight on his shoulders. god, noah wished he could be better than this. he wished he was strong like devon, or capable like hudson. he wished he had been angry like gavin– anything but guilty. but noah had always felt guilty. complicit in all of the suffering around him – like if he had just been BETTER he could have shouldered it all, and they wouldn't have ended up so wrecked in the aftermath. if everyone else was a stand in, then maybe noah could have prevented him from needing one. maybe he couldn't stop every closed fist, or every boot pressed into their ribcages, but maybe he could have stopped that awful, terrible thing that none of them ever wanted to discuss.

hudson told him he didn't need to talk, and something awful and painful and adoring twisted in his chest. hudson might think of himself as a footnote in the vanek family, but noah has always seen him as his whole world. noah has built himself around his brothers for his entire life. he has never regretted that decision, either. not when hudson was angry, or when devon was silent. he had never regretted anything about it – has always loved his brothers with a steady, uncomplicated intensity. it's alright, noah. hudson's voice cuts through every awful thought still running through his head, and his chest aches with it. "i'm so sorry." the tears run hot down his face, he's shivering and so fucking sad. so disgusted with himself. god, it all hurts.