a brother can be this (deeply haunted)

☆ pj | adult | he/they ☆

⤷ !! always hrpf, sometimes nsfw, frequently feral !! ⤷ i talk a lot about qh43, his brothers, and the mn wild ⤷ memory issues probably ⤷ i follow/like from my main ⤷ please read the ask rules!! ⤷ tags & more info below the cut ⤵︎

☆ minors dni ☆

Like asking thousands of questions about something because he NEEDS to know why someone thinks that way. (That one Brock interview where he talked about it.)

The innocent questions like the one he asked when him, Jack, Brady and Matt were talking during the Olympics. (Something about winning the Olympics changing their lives and Q being like "You think so ?" so innocently.)

Then some answers to the Press. If you don't speak the Quinn Hughes, you might think he doesn't give a damn. Remember when he said something like he didn't care about goalies ? People on Instagram totally destroyed him because they took it literally like he doesn't care enough to play with/talk to Wally or Gus.

The whole dissociation thing ? Same tbh.

i won’t weigh in much here because my diagnoses are of a different nature but i appreciate you sharing your perspective, anon!! from what i will comment on, i think quinn definitely has a hockey hyperfixation. like that’s His Thing and i find his curiosity about other players’ play styles and perspectives really endearing. you can tell he cares a lot about the sport and about improving his own play as much as possible.

like he came as a rookie, very much aware of the distance between him and his family, not knowing anyone jn vancouver and a baby petey basically just adopts him, they're roommates, they are foodies who cooked for each other in covid, they are two wet cats comforting each other after bad games, and quinn is saying that he's so thankful he had petey. those two bothered chris tanev together who was practically their adopted father for food, got him to adopt a dog AND get an insta account

then there's brock, who's also a giant golden retriever (maybe it's just a brock thing lmao), who's like the other half of petey and loves quinn just as much! very loud with his love and touches

Conor also comes in later, just a small chihuahua who thinks he's a husky, he is even more open than brock with his affections and love, makes quinn the godfather because he wants his son to have a quinn in his hard times like he had quinn

JT Miller and Petey don't get along, but it was okay before, and miller may be an asshat but atleast he's a good player and then quinn's best friend shows up to the 24-25 season completely out of shape (he was also going through horrible things, he lost a potential child) and things between him and miller get a bit worse but management is spreading around rumors that are greatly exaggerated which doesn't make petey and miller worse but the locker room gets worse!

they trade miller (who was a good hockey player but maybe not the best teammate) and things start falling apart very quickly, and then all the years of canucks being terrible starts catching up because atleast there were a lot of moments in sunshine before, now they just suck and everything has to be on quinn. He's already maxed out on his social interactions, he's exhausted from all the ice time and injuries and honestly how can he fix this too when it's too big to be a quick fix!

things are extremely horrible, and he wanted out when he knew this season would be nothing like the pacific division winning season they had just last year because it would take a long and hard time getting there, especially with a management who has no idea wtf they're doing, and then by 25-26 season, the team sucks, nobody wants to win except him and he's resorting to just trying to win it on the ice by himself!

thankfully he gets traded, even if it's not to nj, it's to a good team, and even though he's apprehensive people tell him to try it out and he does and he loves it there! in just one and a half months, the wild completely win him over to the extent that he's at the olympics telling everyone how great of a team it is!!! and this is coming from quinn, who is not a man of many words but like what he says is still always truthful and impactful! and all of a sudden it's not just the wild who believe in their own team, but quinn also and with quinn, all the media attention and rest of the nhl who starts believing in them and their potential, that has gotta feel great!

this ends up also being both boldy AND faber's breakout year and things can't look better for the wild come next season honestly and more than all of that, quinn is extremely happy there

EXCELLENT INFO ANON this is going in my little folder of notes for things (also i'm laughing at golden retriever-ing being "a brock thing" bc it's true!!)

honestly 9/10 times i use vancouver as an antagonist of sorts because it's convenient (sorry to the canucks, but i am lazy), but i definitely don't think quinn hated his time with them. i think whatever ""bad blood"" may be there is mainly based in frustration about the way things unfolded/ended, and issues he had with management. i think it was a situation in which a lot of pressure was put on him, and then when things started falling apart, a lot of responsibility for it fell on quinn in ways/to degrees that weren't fair. and we don't talk enough about him becoming a captain so young either, and (as you mentioned) the influence of the media.

Been into the idea that The Canucks never let Quinn nest or do any other omega stuff because he was the Captain and he had to present a certain image to the team and fans.

He knows the Wild are not only okay with him giving into the urges, but even encourage him to do so.

But habits are hard to break, and the shame and unhappiness he feels around those instincts is more ingrained in him than the omega instincts at this point.

The first game he gets hurt and they lose, he disappears and they're not sure what to do. Do they look for him? They know he's still here.

And maybe they do find him in one of those spare rooms that would be a pack room with a nest if they ever get Quinn comfortable enough, but right now it's one still used more for storage.

Quinn is squished into one of the corners behind some of the boxes. Knees pulled up and arms around them to make himself smaller, bruise darkening on his face and avoiding meeting their eyes, a few little towels on the floor that could never even remotely qualify as a nest but they know that's what he was trying to do.

He smells like embarrassment and unhappiness, and like pain and some lingering blood.

He just watches them. They can't get mad, it's not a nest and no one on earth would ever be kind enough to refer to it as such. He did it somewhere they wouldn't see and he didn't snag any of their stuff for it. He didn't break any of the rules.

And he knows that not completely right, that he's getting them mixed up with the Canucks, but he can't quite straighten out his thoughts when he's teetering on the edge of pure instinct.

And I feel like they'd all handle it differently. Some of them having to leave because they can't push down their anger at the situation, at the Canucks and everyone else who'd ever had a hand in Quinn ending up like this.

Some of them so uncomfortable that it itches Because this is wrong, so wrong. And they can't do anything to fix it at this point.

Brock just sits down on the ground as close as he dares, because if Quinn wants to sit in his nest *said through gritted teeth and a forced smile* then that's what he'll do.

Jared doing the same, but a calmer air to him.

Kirill and Matt sticking around but a little further back. Partly because they can't quite smoother their scent as much, even though Brock's has a burning edge to it he hasn't quite managed to get rid of, and partly to keep from making Quinn feel too cornered.

I feel like some others might stick around too, more by the door. Because there's a lot of fucked up instincts in the room but keeping an eye on the door of a room they have several pack mates isn't one of them.

Eventually they coax him out. Brock immediately and carefully nudging him to the locker room to grab his stuff and then out the door, probably staying the night with him at either his place or Quinn's. Matt and Kirill either right on their heels or not far behind.

And he does it a few more times before they think of a way to get him to stop.

They make sure all the rooms are clear and set to a warm temp, and have a big cushion/mattress in one of the corners as a base and a big pile of blankets and pillows.

A few of them always stay with him, sometimes quiet and just providing comfort by being there and sometimes talking to him.

The first few times Quinn still goes to one of the empty corners but he keeps sneaking looks at the nesting supplies, brows furrowed like he's trying to find the trick in it.

The next few times he sits on the cushion/mattress but doesn't use any of the supplies.

Eventually he does but he always destroys it when he's done. Folding everything back up and leaving almost no trace he was there except for his scent.

And finally, finally, he makes a nest and leaves it. Spends more time in it than just when he's not feeling good, or they lost, or whatever.

Happier scents start clinging to the nest and the room, Quinn taking to snagging a few of them to actually drag into his nest wherever wanted the affection or thought they did.

They all spend a lot of time in the room, win or lose.

mmmmmmmmmm personally i love taking the angle that like. vancouver is ambivalent about it to a fault. like nesting is something that should be actively facilitated, but they put so much of the responsibility to make it happen on quinn that they effectively discouraged him from ever doing it. it'd be a violation of league policy to actually prohibit quinn from nesting, but there's no policy about more subtle methods of discouragement. and quinn's already doing a lot on his own to tamp down on those instincts, especially once he becomes captain, because how is he supposed to be a leader like that?? quinn's supposed to be a point of strength for the team, and (in his mind) there's no strength or leadership involved in indulging those particular instincts. so he just doesn't, keeps nesting strictly limited to his own bedroom, and the nest kind of sucks and it's not the same without pack scent, but it will have to do. quinn will have to make it work.