Title:  Unnamed QaF Ficlet
Author:  darksylvia

Debbie Novotny didn’t believe in knocking. She never had. It was something other people did. There was very little that shocked her and even less that she felt she didn’t have an absolute right to know, so why should she knock? Her house was an open house. No one had to be ashamed of anything they were doing behind closed doors.

Which is why she didn’t even think to knock on the door of Michael’s and Justin’s old room. She just turned the knob and sailed in, carrying her plate of sandwiches like her diner tray.

They were sprawled out together, asleep on the bed. Both were in faded jeans, well-splattered with paint after today’s work, Brian in a white, stained wife-beater and Justin in an old, faded blue shirt. Brian had curved himself around Justin in his sleep, knees tucked behind knees, chest to back. He had an arm thrown over Justin’s hip and his face buried in the nape of Justin’s neck. Justin had one leg hooked backwards over Brian’s leg, his mouth open in a very soft snore. Their hair mixed together, sprawled across the shared pillow. She smiled.

The boys—all of her boys—had been working hard that day, painting her house. The house needed it, and she’d refused to let any of them pay for her to hire a professional painter, but she’d been unable to refuse their combined efforts to give her their labor for free. Ted had just left to go to a meeting, while Emmett, Michael, Ben, and Hunter were down at the kitchen table, joking and wolfing down sandwiches with Carl. But these two—apparently tired out by the party they’d gone to last night—had disappeared up here to nap instead of eat. Debbie snorted. They were both too goddamned skinny. And right now they were both completely knocked out. It must’ve been some hot party. She put the sandwiches she’d rescued for them on the bedside table and started to retreat.

But she stopped in the doorway just to look at them, her two surrogate sons, so good for each other that they’d managed to drag each other’s asses out of more problems than either of them should have ever had to deal with. And they’d done it without really meaning to, just because it had worked.

Six or seven years ago, this was something she’d hoped for, but never really expected to see, and yet these days she almost took it for granted. They would show up for dinner separately, kiss hello, and then—well—act like they normally did, except maybe a little calmer. Full of underlying contentment instead of underlying insecurity. Of course—Debbie chuckled a little and then clapped a hand over her mouth—there was still a lot of sex (like the time she’d caught them doing it in Brian’s office when she'd come over to bring them some diner food) but there were tons of other things now. Things you had to look for to see.

They showed best at times like these. Times in the out-of-the-way places when neither of those self-possessed men were aware of being observed, when she would notice how they really were with each other, see how it worked, and know that things were good. She smiled hugely, so happy for them that for a second she thought she might burst. If they’d been awake to see it, Brian would have rolled his eyes and Justin would have looked at Brian’s expression and laughed, until finally they might've given her sly little smiles and continued on with whatever they were doing.

She closed the door quietly on her way out and went to go see how the rest of her boys were doing on the sandwiches. She’d probably have to make more. House painting apparently took a lot out of a person, and they were all too skinny, anyway.