Title: Four Brothers Plus One (1/?) Author: ScarletFBL a.k.a. Shoneé Fandom: Four Brothers Paring: Jack/OMC, Bobby/OMC, various. Summary: Jack Mercer gets the news that his mother died and falls into the waiting arms of his best friend, Daniel. Rating: Overall R, This chapter PG-13 Warning: Slash (a given), bad and racially charged language, implied character death, implied child abuse, and mpreg. Disclaimer: I don't own this. I don't make any money off of this or anything else, as a matter of fact. BETA: No one as of right this moment.

Jack Mercer laughed along with his band mates as they went backstage at the Spider Club in uptown Detroit.

"Man, we were on tonight. The crowd was loving us!" Jack said happily as he plopped down on a loveseat in their tiny dressing room. He placed his guitar down gently on the other side of the couch.

"Yeah," The band's drummer, Zack Rypkin agreed. "I think we might actually be asked back this time." He added half sarcastically. Daniel Ewing stopped strumming his base and threw a bag of cheetohs at Zack's head. "Hey!" Zack cried indignantly.

"Then shut your face about that, man. Of course they`ll ask us back, now that we`ve got Little Jackie Daniel's heading the band." Daniel looked over at Jack and enjoyed the pink blush that arose on the younger man's cheeks. He loved using his pet name for his younger band mate for one because it proclaimed his ownership to anyone who knew the band, and secondly, merely for the reaction it got every time.

Vince Messing, the other guitar player, saw the look that passed between them. "Oh, come one, guys! Don`t do that in here. Get a room, already, for crying out loud!" He teased.

Jack turned red. Daniel flipped Vince off. "Fuck You!"

"You`d like that, wouldn`t you, Lover boy?" Vince shot back playfully. He winked for good measure.

Vince didn't really dislike the relationship that was developing between Daniel, someone that he considered to be the closest thing he'd ever had to being a little brother, albeit an annoying one, and Jack, someone that he was fiercely protective of by nature because of his young age. Growing up on the streets tended to do that to you. Knowing that Daniel came from an abusing, broken family tended to do that to you, too.

He had come to accept that Daniel was gay six years ago when Daniel was sixteen and he was nineteen, and he'd found Daniel making out with a boy that was known to be gay in the part of town that they lived in. Things like that didn't stay so secret in their neighborhood when one wasn't trying to hide it, and Michael Richardson was outrageously flamboyant. No one gave Michael shit for it because his older brother was the drug dealer on their corner and was highly respected by everyone. That didn't mean others didn't get punked and beaten half to death for the very same reason in the very same neighborhood. People managed to turn a blind eye to those instances.

Vince was a little shocked, to say the least, but when he saw how distraught Daniel was, begging and sobbing because he thought that Vince was going to abandon him because of what he was, that he was going to be hurt like so many other boys had been hurt for being gay, Vince grabbed the trembling boy in his arms and held him tight, telling him that he would love him no matter what. He wouldn't care that Daniel was gay, as long as Daniel didn't care that he was straight. They both had a good laugh after that and ever since they have never kept a secret from each other.

Daniel started dating, and Vince protected him from anyone that might have a problem with it. And even though Daniel was a wild kid, and a bit of a serial-dater, he knew that Daniel loved with his whole heart when he did, and Daniel seemed to have more than just lust for the pretty, 18 year old Jack Mercer. As long as neither one of them got hurt in the process Daniel trying to get Jack to fall in love with him, he was fine with whatever developed.

"Ugh! That`s fuckin` sick, V." Daniel tried to look mockingly disgusted. "That would be -what do you call it?- incestuous. I didn`t know you were into that kind of shit, bro." He teased right back. "At least, not since Candy."

Vince glared. "Yo, she was a 3rd cousin, you butt muncher. PLUS, I told you to keep that shit on the D.L.!" Vince punched Daniel on the arm a lot harder than was playful.

Daniel winced. "Oops! Musta slipped my mind." He walked over and plopped down on the loveseat next to Jack and put his arm around Jack on the back of the couch, automatically making a possessive gesture. Jack, of course, managed to be oblivious. Daniel looked around the room and gave a glared at his brother especially, daring either of the men to say anything.

Vince rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever…" He walked over to the mini- fridge and pulled out a Guinness, staying on that side of the room, staking his claim to the frosty little box. Somewhere in the room, a cell phone rang.

Zack searched in the bands gear for the little device and found it. "Yo, Jack, it`s you." He tossed Jack the phone.

Jack caught it. "Thanks." He flipped open the phone and saw that it was Bobby, his oldest brother. He got up and went to a less inhabited corner of the room for more privacy, and answered it. "Hello?"

//Hey, Jackie, it's me.// Bobby Mercer's gruff voice could be heard clearly.

"Yeah, hey Bobby!" He barely managed to conceal his excitement. "I can hardly believe that it`s you. It`s been so long since you`ve called me!" He couldn't hide the pout in his voice.

Across the room, Daniel attention had been drawn to the other man when he had gotten up, and now he was even more focus on the other man as he gave out an excited cry. Who was this other man that Jack was so excited to hear from? A spark of jealously started in his heart, until he realized it was all over nothing. He just now remembered that Bobby was the name of Jack's older, adopted brother that he talked about every once in a while his, voice filled with so much hero-worship. There as nothing to be worried about, so he started a heated debate over which guys Vince would do if he were gay with his brother for kicks.

//Yeah, little brother. It's good to hear from you too. // Bobby paused. How was he going to tell his brother the horrible news? //I don't know how at tell you this…// He faltered.

"What? Is it bad?" Jack looked concerned. "Don`t tell me you got put back in. Jesus Christ, man! How many times is it gonna be-?"

//Shut up. It's ain't that, it's mom….She's dead, Jackie.// He waited for Jack's reaction. He knew that Jack would take their mother's death the hardest, being that he was still so emotionally dependent on her and he, in return, managed to worm his way deeply in the woman's heart.

Jack nearly dropped the phone. He brought a trembling hand to his mouth. A look of horror and utter disbelief came over his face. On the other side of the room Daniel stopped conversing with his brother and put all of his attention on the distressed younger man.

//Jack?//

"You`re lyin`…" Jack's breath hitched. "Tell me you`re jokin`!" He tried to hold back tears. It couldn't be true!

//I'm sorry little brother. Though I wouldn't fuckin' lie about somethin' like that, I wish I was. She was shot in a fuckin' liquor store robbery.// Bobby spat.

Jack squeezed his eyes shut, unintentionally unleashing his tears. He couldn't stop the sob that escaped. "Oh, my God…"

"Jack, are you okay?" Daniel asked. He stood. He was really worried about the other man, now.

"No…" Jack shook his head. "No…no…NOO!" He screamed. Everyone in the room was now looking at him in alarm. He leaned heavily on the wall and slid down facing the corned, his legs no longer willing to support him. The tears that he was so valiantly trying to hold back fell in what felt like rivers down his face and onto his thighs, dampening his black jeans.

Daniel rushed over to his side, but Jack didn't even notice.

"No, Bobby please-" he hiccoughed badly. "Tell me that she`s alright."

//I can't.// Bobby said truthfully.

Jack dropped the phone, it snapped shut, and cried like he hadn't since before he had met his mother, Evelyn Mercer. Before he had gotten away from his horrible, abusive, drug addict father.

Daniel took Jack into his arms as he crouched down behind him. He had heard enough to know what had happened. He didn't know what it was like to have someone so close to him die, but he did know what it what like to lose a parent. He'd lost his own to drugs and prostitution. His parents had embedded themselves so deeply into their way of life, that there was no way that they could function as a normal family, or even as normal human beings.

"It`s alright." He tried to sooth Jack.

Jack looked up at him and Daniel's heart nearly broke. "My mother`s dead. Nothing`s ever going to be okay again." he said. And then, as if his admission was the final nail in her coffin, that it, somehow made it more real, he let out a forlorn wail and nearly bowled Daniel over as he turned around and threw himself fully against the other man's chest.

"Shh. Everything's going to be okay." Daniel smoothed back Jack's hair like he remembered his mother used to do when he was younger. He could feel his chest being warmed by Jack's hot tears as they soaked through his shirt. Jack barely even noticed. Daniel looked back at Vince helplessly.

Vince, who was standing back with Zack at a respectable distance saw that Daniel was more than a little stumped about what to do in this situation. He looked so much like that twelve year old boy that had run away from his parents house in the middle of the night, terrified when one of his mothers Johns had tried to include him in on the `fun.' Daniel needed a little help.

"Danny, why don`t you take him to his apartment? Stay with him in case he needs you." He watched as Daniel nodded gratefully and stood up, bringing Jack with him. Jack wrapped his arms around Daniel's neck and buried his face in his shoulder, seemingly trying to hide from the world.

"You hear that, Jack?" Daniel asked, though he doubted that he actually did. "I`m going to take you home, okay?"

Jack nodded. Right now, he just wanted to be somewhere safe, somewhere familiar. The one place that was always on the top of his list was in his mother's arms, but he would never have that safe haven again. He didn't know how to put that into words without sounding like a baby. Besides, the arms that he was currently in weren't half bad. These would definitely do.

Daniel put his arm around the surprisingly tiny waist and took Jack out of the club through the back entrance, the other trailing not far behind with all of their belongings in tow. When they got to the parking lot and to his car, helped Jack in and closed the door. He turned to Vince. "Do you think that you can take Zack home in the van?" He asked, referring to the van that they used to transport their equipment.

"Sure, buddy. No prob. Just take care of him, now. He needs you more than ever." He grasped Daniel on the shoulder.

Daniel nodded in agreement. He went to the driver's side of the car and got in, and soon, he and Jack were on their way to Jack's apartment.

Vince watched as the guy he considered a brother and the man he loved drove out of sight. At that moment, he felt sorry for Daniel. What a horrible thing to bring two lovers together.

Chapter 2: Open to Sleep

In Jack's tiny, dark apartment, Daniel locked the multitude of locks aligning the doorway. He pulled a still sniffling Jack along with him onto a small, beaten up couch that had obviously seen better days, not to mention about three or four previous owners. The first time Daniel had come to Jack's apartment, he was shocked at the condition of the other man's living arrangements. What little furniture the man had was second, third, or maybe even forth hand-me- downs. There was a black and white television in the corner that was so dusty that you could write your name on the screen. He'd never been into Jack's bedroom, but he assumed that it would be in the same condition as the other rooms. It was no wonder that Jack spent so much time around the guys, then at home.

Neither one made to cut on any lights. The whole room was illuminated by the by the moonlight streaming in from a window in the kitchen.

Daniel searched for something to say. "Um…I really don`t know what to say, here-" He started.

"You know, I knew that this was going to happen." Jack interrupted. His voice wasn't loud, but in the stark silence of the room he could have been yelling in the darkness.

"What do you mean?" Daniel was confused.

"Look at where she lives. There`s nothing there but stealing, drugs and death. I don`t know why she wanted to stay there. I should have stayed with her. I could have protected her." Jack said. He picked angrily at a loose thread on the couch cushions.

Daniel frowned. "Don`t blame yourself for this. She was probably doing what she normally does, and was at the wrong place at the wrong time. You can`t predict the future." He stopped Jack's hand that was picking at the couch and held it in his hands. Jack snatched it back.

"You don`t understand! Everyone I love, anyone who loves me, ends up dead. Just like my biological mother, just like my best friend, Derrick, and just like her." He put his head in his hands. "I knew I should never have let her in. I never should have loved her as much as I do, otherwise she would still be alive! But she was just so nice to me…no one had been so nice to me in a long, *long* time, and I just wanted a mother to love me, and she just wanted to love me in return. She never wanted anything from me, like everyone else. She never fucked me over like everyone else. I`m all alone." He cried. He felt like he was opening a festering wound that he had only recently begun to let heal over.

Daniel lifted up Jack`s chin and looked into his striking light blue eyes. He brushed away any tears that marred Jack`s soft cheeks with his thumbs. "You can`t blame yourself for loving her. She was your mother. It`s not her fault that you loved her, nor hers for loving you. No one can help loving you. I should know." Jack drew in an inaudible breath. Daniel kept going. "Besides, you`ve still got your brothers, and the guys…and me. I`ll never leave you." He said quietly, but no less adamantly.

Jack's eyes widened. "Really?" He just couldn't believe what Daniel was saying, what he might be implying.

"Really." With that, Daniel leaned forward those last few inches and closed the gap between his lips and Jack's. The kiss was gentle and soft, barely even a touching of lips. Daniel didn't want to startle Jack by putting all of the passion he felt for him into their first kiss. After a moment of this, he began to get bolder and ran his tongue across the seal of Jack's full lips.

Jack somewhat shyly opened up to him. This was his first kiss with another man. What if he messed up, and Daniel just laughed at him? His worries were unwarranted, though, because to Daniel, everything about Jack was perfect. This kiss was perfect. And as Daniel explored his sweet mouth, his worries were thrown out the window.

Daniel couldn't believe that he was finally getting what he'd wanted for so long. He pushed down a little niggling feeling of guilt that a rose in him at the fact that Jack was very emotionally unstable right now, and that this might not be the best thing he could do right now, but it felt so right and he wanted to comfort Jack in the only way that he knew how.

As the kiss wore on, it became more heated and hands roamed over and underneath clothes. By the time Jack stopped the kiss, he was lying flat on his back on the couch with Daniel straddling his thighs. Both of their jackets were thrown somewhere in a corner of the room.

"Danny, wait." Jack panted.

Daniel pulled back reluctantly. "What? Is something wrong?" He could barely control himself right now. Jack didn't know how ravished, and hot he looked right now. Daniel wanted nothing more than to drag him into the bedroom and make love to him right then and there.

Jack shook his head. "No. Everything`s fine- great. It`s just… I`m new to this. I don`t know what to do. I`ve never been with a guy before and-" He stammered.

"Shh." Daniel put a finger to his lips to silence him. "It`s okay. We don`t have to do anything more than what we`re doing right now. I`m satisfied with kissing you and knowing that you feel the same way." Okay, maybe that was a little white lie, but Jack didn't need to know that.

"Are you sure?" Jack blushed. Could Daniel be any more *perfect* right now?

"Of course." Daniel gave him a chaste kiss on the lips before letting Jack up.

Jack sat up and straightened his clothes, a contemplative look on his face. "I was thinking, you know, after I get home and…" He couldn't say that he was burying his mother, he just couldn't. "… get everything sorted out, maybe we could be together. You know…like *that*. Be boyfriends and everything." God, he wished he wouldn't blush so much.

Daniel smiled and ran his hands through Jack's light brown hair. "I`d really love that. We`ll do everything at your pace, Jack.. You hold all the cards, baby." Damn, Jack was blushingly even redder at Daniel`s term of endearment. He was *so* not going to swoon right now. He wasn't some kind of girl or anything.

Daniel rose and held his hand out which Jack took and brought him up a well. "Come on. Let`s go to bed." Jack nodded and walked to his bedroom. He unlocked and opened the door, and heard a gasp behind him. "What?" He moved aside and let Daniel through the doorway.

Daniel looked awed around the room. This was nothing like he would have expected. The whole room was done tastefully in burgundy, dark woods and crushed black velvet. He had various, expensive looking electronic gadgets placed around the room. "I would never have thought that your room looked like this. I mean…compared to the rest of the house, this looks like a fuckin` palace!" He said, a bit slack-jawed. He turned to Jack. "No offense."

Surprisingly, Jack laughed. "None taken. I purposefully let my home look like that. It deters the burglars. They take one look at the place and change their minds about whether they want to rob this particular apartment. They don`t even make it to the bedroom. Hasn`t failed me yet." Jack closed the door behind Daniel.

Daniel laughed, too. "That *is* kinda clever."

They both began to strip down to their boxers, neither one having enough courage to look at the other; Jack, because his self- esteem decided to take a nosedive about his body, and Daniel because he didn't think that he could handle Jack's hot body in his half- naked state. They quickly jumped into bed and under the covers. Daniel immediately snuggled up to Jack, spooning himself against him, careful to kept his excited lower half a safe distance away.

Jack sighed, contentedly. He'd never slept in the same bed with someone that he cared so much about in a romantic way. Daniel put his nose into the hair at the nape of Jack's neck and inhaled deeply. His senses were filled with the aroma of vanilla and some unidentifiable spice that made the other man's scent decidedly masculine. It was wonderful.

They were just starting to doze when Daniel suddenly spoke.

"When are you planning on leaving?" he asked softly.

Jack shrugged. "Tomorrow. Within the next two days, definitely. As soon as I get all my stuff packed and settle the things I need to before I leave." He was quite for a moment. "I`d like for you to come with me. Meet my brothers." Daniel know that Jack was also asking him to be there for him, and he would.

"You don`t even have to ask. I`ll get my stuff ready, too, and I`ll drive you back home, okay?" Jack nodded and snuggled back into Daniel's embrace, unknowingly grinding his ass at points into Daniel's erection.

Daniel fought down his arousal and forced himself to get some sleep.

TBC

A/N: Special thanks to supercaptain182, buggycas, and Elizabeth Best for reviewing. You guys made me get off my butt and post another chapter.