AUTHOR'S NOTE

Oh, God. Over six thousand words on these two, and it was supposed to be short and funny and what happened.

Sometime soon after "Kicker".

Margh.

Thanks for reading and enjoy,

Steph

Nick knows Jeff is sneaky. He's well aware of the fact that there are no boundaries, no lowest-of-the-low. If Jeff wants something, then he's willing to do pretty much anything to get it; shame becomes lost in his vocabulary, replaced with what and I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my victories. Still, Jeff is Nick's Jeff and he pretty much lets him get away with it, because even before they became the Nick-and-Jeff-who-eat-each-others-faces, they were Nick-and-Jeff-best-mates-for-foreseeable-eternity. Jeff will listen to the Voice Of Reason that is Nick's logic, and Nick will let Jeff get away with mischief sometimes, because even he has to admit, it is awesome being devious.

So, yeah, it's okay.

Unless Jeff's sneaking on Nick.

Then it is not okay.

Like now, for example.

Nick glares at Jeff bouncing on his bed like a puppy. "Have you been sniffing Blaine's sherbet again? Because I told you, I warned you what would happen, and now look, see what happens when you don't listen to me, you end up high on fucking sugar-"

A look of disgust crosses Jeff's face as he interrupts Nick. "Ew!" he says. "I am not sniffing Blaine's sherbet."

"I did not mean it like that, stop turning everything I say into an innuendo."

"And," Jeff carries on, still bouncing up and down on his knees, fringe flopping slightly in time to the bounces that crinkle Nick's nice clean blanket under his knees. "And I'm not on sugar. I haven't had any sugar for the last-"

"Two hours?"

"-four hours, thank you very much."

Nick sighs and shoves him over. "Yes, alright Mr. Pedantic, fine. So exactly why are you acting like you've just inhaled too much oxygen?"

Jeff tumbles over and stares up at Nick with bright shining eyes, huge wide eyes that pull Nick's in with huge dragging steps, and Nick gets this horrible sinking feeling in his stomach as it takes a nosedive to follow the Titanic and his brain goes on holiday. This is a bad look. This is Jeff's I-have-an-idea look that can only ever mean an oncoming headache for Nick.

He sighs and presses the tip of his forefinger against the bridge of his nose. "Fuck," he exhales wearily, scrunching up his eyes a little and settling back on the mattress.

"I'll suck you off until you cry if you say yes."

"Fuck." See? Sneaky. Nick can never resist the deadly combination of puppy-dog eyes and sexual favors.

"My parents invited you round."

Oh, God.

Nick's met Jeff's parents before - when they first met, actually, and Jeff was a wide-eyed transfer student that actually appeared quite quiet. Nick was supposed to show him around, and so he actually assured Mr. and Mrs. Sterling that Jeff was going to be okay and nothing bad would happen to him here at Dalton Academy. It took Jeff four days to join the Warblers with Nick, and another week and a half for his roommate to request a transfer, and Nick ended up with Jeff. That, of course, was two and a half years ago.

Nick's even met the Sterlings as Jeff's other half in the epic bromance that was their denial. This was about a year or so ago, and Nick had gone round for the weekend once, and they had baked cookies and had a water fight in the back garden and watched Beauty and the Beast until they cried. Nick had slept on Jeff's floor until he hadn't sometime during the night, but since they were both convinced it was nothing, that's exactly what happened: nothing.

Of course, now Nick remembers it as a complete waste of time, but it had been difficult.

Nick hasn't been back since.

Mainly, he's terrified what the very masculine-looking Mr. Sterling will do with his balls.

Nick opens his eyes and stares at the carpet.

Jeff crawls over to sit next to him, and Nick feels an arm wind around his waist. "You're not going to throw up, are you?"

Nick shakes his head faintly, and Jeff sighs, laying his head on Nick's shoulder.

They sit like that for a while.

"You don't have to," Jeff murmurs eventually. "I would have just told Mom no if I knew you were going to react this badly."

"Sorry," Nick replies quietly, fingers fidgeting on his jeans. "It's just the thought of having to explain to them that your roommate and their youngest son is defiled every night by me."

"It'll be fine," Jeff assures him, "I won't let Dad get his gun out, I promise."

Nick sighs and sticks out his hand to Jeff, who takes it and tangles their fingers together. "Yes."

Jeff lifts his head up and gives Nick a brilliant smile, one that puts the sun and the stars to shame. "Really?"

Nick smiles a little in response, because that, that there is totally worth being castrated. "Really."

Jeff squeals, squeezing Nick's fingers until he's almost convinced they're going to drop off. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" he babbles, throwing his arms around Nick's neck and choking him.

"Okay," rasps Nick, "air, I need air, Jeff, God."

Jeff releases him with a cheery grin.

Nick smiles back. "So, about that blowjob."

"You're going to meet the parents?"

Nick glares at Blaine's dumbstruck face over the steaming mug of Starbucks' finest in his hands.

They do this now, now that Blaine's sort of half-gone most days, making the trip to Lima to see his more fashionable other half and Nick rarely ever sees him during the week. The afternoon coffee after Warblers practice when Jeff's got homework that needs no distractions and before Blaine's call to the Hummel household is now a ritual of theirs. It's nice, catching up with his ex-roommate. Wes and David are good friends to him, but they're far too codependent for Nick to stomach - hypocritical much - and sometimes he hangs out with Thad and the others, but Blaine's... Blaine. There's just something about him.

So, there they're sat with their cups of coffee and gossip.

And Blaine's now looking at him like he's just turned purple and started singing in Gaelic.

"Why is that a bad thing?" Nick demands, grabbing a stirrer from the silver thing on their table and shoving it in the drink rather violently, scowling. "Why are you pulling that face at me, because you know Burt, you were the inseparable best friend before you told him you stole Kurt's virginity-"

Blaine does a little half-shrug and frowns. "You make it sound like I donned a Zorro mask, crept into Kurt's room in the dead of night, pinned him down with my daggers and had my wicked way with him."

"Wait, that's what I thought actually happened." Nick smacks a dramatic hand to his forehead. "Are you telling me that that's not how you take someone's virginity? Aw, shit, I thought I had it the right way, and Jeff wasn't complaining, but to be fair, I didn't exactly give him an opportunity to-"

Blaine waves a hand holding a stirrer at him, coffee flying everywhere. "That's not my point. Stop distracting me."

"You're distracting me," Nick mutters.

Blaine rolls his eyes. "Honestly, did you regress into a child or something? Do I have to call up an evil scientist to fix your attitude problems?"

Nick stabs his coffee again. "Sassy Blaine, calm yourself. Crawl back into the hole or give your balls back to Kurt-"

Blaine grins. "You dick."

"No, I like dick," Nick points out, "especially Jeff's, which brings me back to my original question, which you distracted me from, you dapper sneak - what's wrong with seeing his parents? I already know them, so-"

"How tolerant are they?"

Nick's forehead furrows a little. "Well, considering he has five brothers and Chuck Norris for a dad, and he's been painting his toenails pink since he was about seven-"

Blaine nods in understanding, taking a sip. "Like Kurt, then."

"And?"

"And Burt was extremely good about it. He still is."

"He didn't threaten to turn you into Blaine Stew or anything?"

Blaine chuckles slightly, eyes going a little gooey and fond. Nick recognizes the look; it usually comes with a anecdote about his and Kurt's epic love. "He told me if I ever hurt Kurt, that I wouldn't be able to run far enough because he would track me down and find me," he says, "but he also told me that he hadn't seen him happier, and if I was responsible for that, then he wanted to thank me and welcome me to the family, because he knew that I wasn't going to go anywhere soon."

Nick smiles a little. He's glad Blaine has this now, this family of his. Mr. Anderson never seemed like a nice person, on the rare occasions Nick caught a glimpse of him, always stony-faced and solemn, his mother a fragile-looking wisp of a woman. He had no siblings, no one else to comfort himself with, stuck in a family of bigots and the most boring Thanksgiving dinners in the world. The photographs Nick saw of Blaine's first Christmas at the Hummel-Hudson household were some of the most wonderful things he'd ever seen Blaine experience.

Nick shakes himself mentally. "So, nothing to be worried about then, because I thought I was actually going to throw up on the carpet, and then the smell of vomit would never disappear and we'd have to change rooms, and it took forever to move Jeff's stuff the first time-"

Blaine shakes his head fondly, smiling. "So long as you let them get a word in edge ways, then yes, everything will be fine." He sobers up a bit, but the twinkle of amusement stays there, like he's Father Christmas. Actually, Blaine could be, so very easily. "The look was merely surprise. I wasn't certain you'd realized yet."

Nick blinks. "Realized what?"

Blaine smiles. "How much you love him."

"Stop it," Jeff tells him as they pull up into the Sterlings' road.

"Stop what?" Nick says, ears ringing slightly. "I'm not doing anything, I'm not even panicking, because no, that would be stupid, and actually involve hyperventilating and having a panic attack, which is so not what's happening right now, because I'm not scared of going into your house and seeing your parents and explaining to them about the hickeys, oh, that's your house, why am I driving, can't we just drive away-"

"Nick," Jeff says firmly. "Stop."

Nick shuts his mouth. Instead, he contents himself by staring up at the house in horror.

"I actually feel sick now," he manages.

Jeff sighs and gets out the passenger seat. Nick watches him walk around the car in his black skinny jeans and rainbow high-tops, opens the drivers door and looks him straight in the eye. "Nick."

"Jeff."

"My parents like you."

"That was before I started giving you hickeys."

"On my hips, it's fine. They can't see my hips."

"I thought Chuck Norris has x-ray vision."

"Focus."

Nick can't help it. "Hypocrite."

Jeff sighs and leans forward to push his forehead against Nick's with his eyes closed, and oh, that's nice and calming. Nick shuts his eyes and breathes in, breathes in the smell of crystallized sugar and new books and Herbal Essences. He exhales.

They stay like that for a few moments, like they do in their room sometimes, when all the crazy dies down and it's just them loving the other.

Then Jeff asks, "Better?"

And Nick replies, "Better," without lying.

Jeff pushes off him and smiles. "Now," he demands, "help me with the bags."

"You do not touch the bags, we had to get Thor the Warbler to help get them off the gym roof, I don't even know how you managed to do that, Jeff, I really don't, I think it must have been magic or something equally as impossible for a normal human being-"

Nick's tirade as he opens the boot of the car is cut off as the front door opens and out comes Mr. And Mrs. Sterling.

God, they look like they've been together forever, the way they fit themselves perfectly around one another, the way they seem to be in tune, gravitational and momentum conservation all at once. They look like they're Jeff's parents, his mom dyes her hair like he does, his dad has his eyes, his mom his fingers, his dad the angle of his jaw - the boy he loves wrapped up in these wonderful people.

And suddenly, he realizes why he's scared.

"Jeff!" Mrs. Sterling cries, throwing her arms wide open and dashing up to hug Jeff around the waist tightly, beaming. "Oh, honey, it's so good to see you!" Jeff hugs her head - being as tall as he is, the giant - and smiles too. Nick tries to breathe through his nose and out through his mouth, like they do in marathons, but it doesn't work, damn it, it doesn't work-

-and oh, God, Mr. Sterling marches up to him with an arm outstretched in greeting to shake his hand like they do every time Nick gets here, except this means something else now, this means I'm watching and remember how I crushed your hand before you break his heart.

"Nick," he says in a friendly voice, but Nick knows how crocodiles look like bits of dead tree before they eat you.

"Mr. Sterling," he says faintly, and gives his hand to be crushed.

"Dad," Jeff says, and Nick turns to see him give the back of his dad's head a look, a look he gives Nick sometimes when he does something stupid, but it's not nearly as full of violent promises as this one.

The grip around his hand loosens a little. "Call me Joe," he grumbles, rumbles like a rhino.

"Sure," Nick replies. "Okay, fine."

"Nick!" Mrs. Sterling cries, releasing Jeff so he can give his dad a pat on the back, and she rushes over to give Nick's rib cage a deathly squeeze potentially more damaging that the hand death grip, and Jesus, Nick hasn't had this little air in his lungs since the last time he gave Jeff a blowjob, but argh-

-she releases him and beams, and Nick sees the intention to pinch his cheeks like an army tactical plan. "How are you, darling? How's school? Are they feeding you, darling, because if they're not, I can always arrange-"

"Mum," Jeff says, turning a little pink, and oh, that's interesting.

Nick smiles gratefully back. "I'm good, thanks. How're you?"

It's like someone just told her she's next in line for the British Monarchy; her smile almost matches the intensity of Jeff, and Nick's tempted to shield his eyes from the glare. "Oh, I'm wonderful, darling, just wonderful. Aren't you polite for asking? Joe, I wish our boys were nearly as polite."

Jeff and his dad do a synchronized eye roll behind her back. "Where are they?" Jeff asks. "I thought they'd be home."

"Oh, they did want to see you when you got here, but they're out at a game," she says, walking back to the house. "Joe, help Nick with the bags. It's something unavoidable, I'm afraid, when your boys play football as much as they do," she continues, linking arms with Jeff and walking back to the house. Nick smiles nervously at Joe as he takes Jeff's bag and leaves Nick to struggle with his own. His smile drops when Joe's not looking. He remembers the ways in which to protect yourself when under life-threatening attacks.

He sighs and troops after the Sterlings.

"Jeff!" a voice calls through the house, followed by catcalls by four other, equally as male voices. "Jeffy, we're ho-oo-ome!"

Nick freezes from where he's sat on the sofa, panic racing through him.

No.

Oh, no.

It's the Sterling Brigade.

Nick stares at the coffee table near his shins, and no, the gap between the floor and the shiny wooden surface isn't big enough to crawl under there like a Marine training exercise, God damn it.

Mrs. Sterling's in the kitchen making bits and pieces for dinner, after deciding that Nick is underfed and borderline starving and so stuffed cookie after delicious homemade cookie into his gob after he went into Jeff's room and dumped the bags on the floor - thank God the house is huge and Jeff doesn't have to share. Not that Nick assumes any of his brothers would share with Jeff; it's a bit like Dalton boys avoiding Jeff's organizational skills all over again. Mr. Sterling's gone with Jeff to greet the boys at the front door - Jeff's five older brothers, and holy crap, he's going to get the hurt him and you die speech five fucking times this weekend, he is going to just hibernate in some small space and hope that no one ever find him ever again. That leaves Nick all on his lonesome in the living room, on the Sterling family couch, staring at the picture above the mantle of the eight of them smiling, and suddenly he feels claustrophobic.

Nick doesn't even think he can remember all their names.

There's clomping footsteps, and a head looms into the doorframe and grins at Nick. It's large, blond and quite high up, so high it almost crashes into the top of the frame.

"Nicky, my man!" it greets Nick exuberantly.

Nick smiles weakly in return. "Nate."

Nathan Sterling is the eldest of the Sterling Brigade, and got all the tall hormones as a result. He lumbers into the living room, leans over the back of the couch, and claps Nick on the shoulder so hard it might have actually left a bruise, and God, the warnings have started, it has begun.

Nick winces. "Good to see you."

Nathan rumbles in response, something that may have translated into a verbal acknowledge of amusement, but Nick doesn't speak mountain giant. "How you been, buddy?"

This is something that Nick actually kind of likes about Nate, although he would never admit it; he treats everyone like his little brother, and Nick falls so naturally into this open-armed affection. "I'm good. How're you?"

"Perfect, my man, just perfect." Nate beams at Nick. If Jeff's a puppy, then Nate's the German Shepard.

Then-

"Nicky!" two voices screech in perfect unison, "where's our Nicky-boo?"

Nick freezes up and blanches so fast bile floods his mouth. "Oh, shit."

Nate booms, which is probably his equivalent of laughing or something. "Yeah," he says, oblivious to Nick's sheer panic and possible mental breakdown on the horizon, "they came home for the weekend, something about wanting to see their baby brother."

"Sure," Nick says faintly through the rushing in his ears. Maybe he can dash to the car and lock the doors-

-too late.

Two curly-headed blond blurs race into the room and crash on top of Nick, pushing his internal organs around and jabbing his bladder with pointy limbs and enthusiasm.

"Guys," he wheezes, "I don't think my liver is supposed to be next to my esophagus."

"But Nicky," one of the clones exclaim, fixing him with wide eyes so much like Jeff's, "we missed you."

"Jeff, too," the other says, settling down happily onto Nick's thigh, "but we still did."

Nate's laughing at him, Nick's pretty sure, but Sam and Tom don't seem to care anyway.

"Fantastic," Nick groans. "Just wonderful."

"Get off him," Nick thinks he hears Jeff say, but he knows that voice, that is Jeff's I-am-trying-to-help-you-without-laughing-but-it-is-really-hard-not-to-find-your-misfortune-hilarious voice, and Nick is not amused.

"Thanks," he says dryly.

"S'what I'm here for," Jeff waves him off, "is that Madonna?"

"Yours," Nate booms, "from ages ago."

Nick can almost see Jeff's beam, but he can't really see anything past the curly mop-top currently obscuring his vision. "Aw," he hears, "that is brilliant, I was wondering where that went!"

"Found it," a new voice comments, "under my bed."

Nick twists his head back at a rather unnatural angle to see Mitch leaning against the door casually, hands stuffed in his pockets with the laid-back comfort he exudes. He winks at Nick. "Hey."

Nick nods - or tries to, anyway, he hopes he managed it. "Hi."

Mitch smirks a little. "I see the twins found you."

Nick huffs. "Okay, stop laughing at me, why does everyone find this funny, move, you ungrateful sods, get off me, I need my limbs in working order to function, shift, go on, go throw water at each other or something-"

"Where's Day?" Jeff asks over Nick.

Mitch shrugs. "His cave?"

"Probably," the twins chorus.

Nick pants slight, trying to catch his breath back, and wondering if anything else could possibly happen to him, at all.

"You want me to get him to come down?" Nate asks.

Jeff nods. "I'll do it, I haven't seen him-"

Nick shoots off the couch, because no way is he going to visit Damian in his room - it's almost like an actual cave, they weren't kidding. And Jeff needs the time with him, he knows that, but he's not being left on his own with the Sterling Brigade. "Need any help in the kitchen, Mrs. Sterling?"

He races off to the kitchen before Jeff can make him feel guilty for not being more sociable.

It happens.

Jeff knocks on Day's door, and pushes it open slightly, smiling a little. "Hey."

The black-haired lump on the bed twitches.

Jeff sighs.

Day's room looks a bit like the Batcave, but with more rock posters depicting greasy individuals sticking their tongues out and setting things on fire, and the background music of a Nirvana concert. Despite Day's claims otherwise - including the attempt to dye his hair red, he had to settle for black in the end to get rid of the purple tinge - Jeff knows they're related, the two different souls in the house have to stick together, right? Even if they are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing," he says, taking a step into the room. Sometimes, he has to treat Day like the little brother, mainly because he's strange and lonely and just a little broken, and Jeff knows what it's like - God, does he understand. He was there, once.

And then he met Nick.

"M'fine," the lump grunts.

Jeff nods. "Right."

There's a pause, in which the gap between them seems bigger than ever, and memories of when they used to talk every day, about anything fill it instead-

"Go."

Jeff blinks and backs away. "Right," he manages, "okay, that's fine." He pauses. "I'll... see you later."

And he leaves him.

Again.

The Sterlings have a massive kitchen. Nick feels like he should've expected it.

"So," Mrs. Sterling says as she cuts the lettuce on the chopping board under the window into the garden, where Mr. Sterling - Joe - Nate, Mitch and the Terrible Two play a game of football and wrestling, "how's school?"

Nick stares at the potato he's peeling. "Fine, thanks."

"Work not too hard?"

He shrugs, then remembers he's standing behind her, idiot. "Not too hard," he agrees, "but exams are coming up, so they're testing us a lot."

"Oh!" Mrs. Sterling turns to offer him a concerned expression. "Tests? Oh, if I knew you were revising, I wouldn't have asked Jeffy to invite you along with him."

"Oh, no," Nick says, ears turning pick, "no, that's okay."

She smiles kindly at him and turns back to the lettuce.

Had Mrs. Sterling always been this kind to people that weren't her own children? Nick remembers the way she worries and frets over him, mollycoddles him like he's alone and needs the protection, which is nice with his own family on the other side of the country. He rarely sees his dad, his mum even less. It's like having a foster mum, however strange and new the affection may be. He should thank Jeff, he doesn't see them enough.

"I just wanted," she says, and Nick pulls himself out of his musing, "to have you both round for the weekend, have some time together with the family." She falls silent for a moment. "It's nice having you around."

"It's nice to be here."

"Jeff was a bit worried though, dear," she chatters, moving onto the next lettuce, and Nick stops peeling because worried, Jeff didn't seem worried, he was concerned how Nick would react, but- "He wasn't sure whether you'd be comfortable coming round."

Ah.

"I was a bit," he admits, staring down at the potato in his hands and sucked into telling the truth by the kind look in Mrs. Sterling's eye, "mainly because of how'd you react, but..." He sighs. "You guys are all so... wonderful."

He glances up to see Mrs. Sterling gazing at him with glazed eyes. "Oh, honey," she murmurs. "You're perfect for him. You've let him be himself, made him feel comfortable, he's the happiest I've ever seen him."

And just like that, Nick relaxes.

That's what he was worried about. Approval.

"You're part of the family," she says.

Nick smiles, heart bursting.

"Thanks Mrs. Sterling."

"Linda."

"Linda."

"Jeff!" Mitch calls, as Jeff walks out into the garden to see a tangle of brothers and father and why do they always do this. It's like they have to get their hands dirty and fight each other and ew, that is not happening.

"What?" he yells back, arms folded against his chest, the taint of his conversation with Day still lingering on his chest.

Mitch waves a hand. "Come on!"

Jeff scowls. "Uh-uh," he tells them, "hell no. You know I disapprove of anything that violates peaceful conduct."

Mitch rolls his eyes as Sam and Tom both aim kicks at his ass. He pulls their hair in retaliation. "Come on!" he tries again over the sound of catawalling from the twins. "Please?"

"No," Jeff tells him.

Mitch shrugs, and tackles Nate's legs. "Suit yourself."

"Yes," mutters Jeff, because yes, he will suit himself, thank you very much. He can do what he likes, whenever he likes, however he-

"So," his dad says, coming up to him and watching Nate pin the twins down under a hand each. "You seem good."

Jeff doesn't respond right away, still watching them fight. He sighs. "How long has Day been in his room?"

His dad shrugs. "I don't know what goes on inside that boy's head, you know that-"

"But you don't even try!" Jeff explodes, flinging his hands in the hair and fixing his dad with a furious look. "He just goes to his room and you play puppy pile with them! You don't even go up and ask how he is, you just carry on, like it's normal, like he should be holing himself up in that cave-"

"Hey," his dad warns him with a finger, "less of the attitude."

Jeff sighs exasperatedly, and folds his arms again.

"My parenting skills," his dad continues, "have worked out fine for you-"

"Them," Jeff says, waving a hand at the elder brothers on the lawn, "it's worked out fine for them, but not for us, not for me and Day-"

"You're fine-"

"Dad-"

"You were happy-"

"I wasn't!" Jeff screeches.

Silence.

The boys all turn to look at their father, who looks as though Jeff's just slapped him, white and red in blotchy places, eyes wide and slightly horrified. Jeff's chest is heaving, eyes slightly glassy, fingers twitching in fists by his side. At the back door, his mum has a hand pressed to her mouth, trembling slightly, and Jeff sees the look on Nick's face; he's steady and he gives Jeff a slight nod when their eyes meet, because he's heard it all before and now his dad needs to, too.

He turns to his dad and sighs.

"I was," he says shakily, "so unhappy. Every time you played with them and listened to them, and told me to go off by myself, it hurt. Okay? It hurt so much, just because I was different and not them, not the son you knew you could raise. Mum noticed, Nate, Mitch and the twins noticed, Day noticed, everyone but you, Dad. I was bullied at school, then never appreciated at home. That made me miserable.

"But," he continues, "but, it worked out fantastically, because I got that black eye and you moved me to Dalton, a-and Nick, Nick helped me, and my friends, and then I didn't care. I didn't care whether or not you liked who I was, who I am, because it doesn't matter, right? I'm my own person now, and I have people who care, and I don't need you, Dad.

"But Day, Day needs you still. He still needs his dad to love him and care for him. I know what he's going through, okay? He hates me for leaving him for Dalton, but I can't hate him back, because if the positions were reversed, then I know I'd feel exactly the same. Don't you see? He's different to everyone, but you don't know how special that makes him."

He stops in his speech, almost crying, everything he's ever thought or wanted to say on the verge of rushing out of him like an uncontrollable flood of words-

-but Nick's walked over and he's holding his hand.

Jeff closes his eyes and exhales.

"I don't hate you," a choked voice says.

And Jeff whirls around to see Day standing in the back door, tears streaming down his face, staring at Jeff and his dad like they're Jesus' disciples.

"I'm sorry," Jeff hears from his dad. "I'm so sorry," and the most macho man Jeff knows is holding his second-youngest son as they break down on the patio in their back garden.

"Well," Nick says to Jeff from the floor that night, in the dark of Jeff's room, staring up at the ceiling, "that was eventful."

They had all had dinner around the same table, and once the air of emotional resolve disappeared, the boys bantered and threw food, and Nick even got a threat from the twins, although Linda threatened Jeff that if he ever lost Nick, she'd whack him around the head with her Housewife Weekly magazine or something like that.

Still, the whole thing reeked of family.

Which is a good thing.

Jeff laughs softly and Nick hears him shift around in the bed a bit. "Yeah," he replies quietly, "yeah, been wanting to say that for a while now."

"You okay?"

Jeff's head appears from his bed above Nick's head, smile almost glowing in the dark. "Perfect."

Nick smiles back. "Good, because I need to know whether your mum's making that cheesecake again, and if there's any left over, oh, maybe we can take some to the park tomorrow, you think she'll let us, I hope-"

Jeff chuckles, and Nick stops.

"I like your brothers."

"You've mentioned that before," Jeff hums.

Nick rolls his eyes. "Yes, but now that I'm snogging you, I realize that they're still really nice guys. And your parents." Nick pauses. "She asked about my mum, your mum did."

Jeff sits up slightly, eyes racing across Nick's face. "What did you say?"

Nick sighs. "The truth."

Jeff sighs, too. "I'm sorry."

Nick smiles, slightly bitter. "I know."

Jeff pauses. "You know."

"What?"

"We never say it."

"Say what?"

"That we're-"

"Snogging?"

"Nick."

"You want to be that emotional and sentimental?"

Jeff's head disappears, and when he talks again, he sounds testy. "I know you don't like labels, and I'm not asking for one, but I just-"

"Jeff," Nick interrupts gently.

Jeff sighs. "Come here."

Nick sits up, gets up, and by the time he reaches Jeff's mattress, he's already pulled back the blanket in invitation. Nick shuffles in, pulling the blanket behind him and Jeff into his arms, pushing his back into his chest, so they're side by side like peas in a pod. The warmth is comfort and sexual and romantic, and it's just what they need.

"We are," Nick says into Jeff's ear, "incomparable. We are like nobody else. We're not Blaine and Kurt, we're not like our parents, we're not like Wes and David, we're not like your brothers or anyone else."

Jeff hums a little in assent. "I don't want to be," he whispers back.

Nick nuzzles the back of his neck. "I am in love with my best friend and my boyfriend, who I know everything about, from what his favorite shoes are down to the color of his dreams, who I want and need as much as he'll let me," he murmurs. "There's not a word for that."

"Yes," Jeff says, "there is."

Nick blinks. "There is?"

"Of course there is, you silly goose."

"Okay, then. Enlighten me. What word could possible capture everything that we are?"

Nick can feel the crinkle in Jeff's cheek as he smiles. "Nick and Jeff."

Nick's own smile is helpless.