Essence of Quinn Parts 3 & 4 (MxM)

The Ties That Bind

“Fucking hell, seer!” Earth barked. Quinn looked up at the massive earth ghoul. The massive earth ghoul who’d just knocked him onto his ass on the gym floor. “Get up!”

He offered his hand and Quinn took it, snarling when Earth dragged him to his feet with very little effort.

The ghouls were sparring and Quinn had lost his focus for a moment. His mind had wandered to the fruitless hunt in their home dimension, the hunt that had been going on for three months now and had seemingly gone nowhere.

“Go again,” Quinn snarled.

Earth shook his head and laughed.

“No fucking way. You’re sitting the rest of this one out.”

Quinn growled.

“Fuck off, Earth! I’m fine.”

Earth snorted, raking his gaze down Quinn’s shirtless form, down to his feet and back up again. He folded his arms across his chest and levelled him with his stare.

“You’re not fine. You need to sit the fuck down and you need to eat something.”

Quinn rolled his eyes. Not this again.

“I ate before we left.”

“Oh really? What did you eat, Quinn?”

Quinn glanced around at the others who had stopped what they were doing and suddenly focused their attention on he and Earth.

Fucking Earth.

“I mean, it was an apple. I ate an apple,” he said quietly, knowing full well that it wasn’t enough fuel to be doing a full on physical training session on – especially after the last few weeks.

Earth shook his head again and growled.

“Enough is enough.” Earth went and snagged a handful of protein bars from the snack area in the corner and threw them at him. He let them drop to the floor. “Eat those for starters and then we are going back to the lair and we’re going to watch you eat a full meal. There’s no way you can hunt tonight with no fuel inside you. When was the last time you ate properly?”

Quinn was barely holding his temper in check, but he took a moment to think.

“I mean, I...” He pursed his lips and shrugged. Ever since the hunt for he and Calista’s missing kit had begun, he’d had no appetite, surviving on the bare minimum. He knew that Air was worried about him but at least he understood and had gently tried to make him eat small things here and there. He didn’t push him too hard because he knew that Quinn would dig his heels in if he did. Air had persuaded him to eat a sandwich the night before. “I ate last night. Air made me a sandwich.”

Earth didn’t look impressed by that. Ghouls needed a lot of fuel because they were usually pretty active and burned a lot of calories.

“I’m putting you on food watch again. Secondo told me to keep an eye on it and I’m making the call.”

Quinn glanced at Itzal who was looking at them with an expression of mild confusion. He didn’t know about any of the Calista stuff or the kit stuff. He would probably find out eventually, but for now Quinn wasn’t ready to talk about it with those who didn’t already know. Itzal didn’t know about Quinn’s self destructive streak either. Not yet. But apparently he was about to find out.

“That’s not necessary, Earth,” Quinn protested weakly.

Earth snorted again and curled his lip.

“Really? Because you’re losing weight again. We’ve all noticed.”