“I get it, Jake. I get it and I have been listening. I get that you were doing what you were told. You were doing what you thought was right. What was best for the pack. Your family. I get it. But… but what kind of life is this?” Noah asked his brother. “And maybe… you’re probably right. It is unfair. But… but you loved him in a second. In a freaking second and I’m glad, don’t get me wrong. I want the world for that little man. I want to give him everything I ever wanted, every opportunity I missed out, everything I could have and ten times more. I want give my son the world and I’m so happy that he gets to have an Uncle who adores him. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t scare me. I don’t want him to lose you. I don’t want him to ever go through that, but I’m trusting you and I believe you when you say you’re always going to be there for him. But… and it’s so freaking selfish, I get that and I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud, but… what about me? I get why you were always with dad. I get why you were never around. I get why you kicked me out. But… but you don’t hesitate when it comes to loving them. Two people and, in instant, they’re your family. Life or death, you’ll do anything for them without question. And forgetting the past, right now, be honest. Do you think of me like that too?” He asked, knowing he was probably sniffling like the cry baby of a baby brother he always used to be in comparison to Jake. “Do you?” He asked again. His tone almost hopefully, despite the voice in the back of his head preparing himself to be let down again. “Yeah. I’m angry and, yeah, I resent you. But, that’s only cause I fucking love you. This much. God, you’re my brother, Jake. I spent years, chasing after you, drowning just trying to get you to notice me. And now I see myself doing it again and I just… I don’t want to hate myself anymore for feeling like I might not be enough for you. I just… I want to be enough for you, man,” Noah said, looking away as he used his sleeve to whip his nose and his fallen tears. “Am I enough for you? Rick?”
“Disappointed, probably, but- but she loves you too. More than you could ever know. You were the one she had always wanted. And I know that after I was born, she loved me, I do, but… back then, she didn’t want another kid. She was happy just with you. They were happy just with you. I was just… a strategic decision that one grew to tolerate and one grew to love. And you could have kicked me out without abjuring me, you know? Seeing that we lived together and all. I couldn’t bring myself to eat a person. It wasn’t like I was trying over your throne. But… putting that all aside, just… just answer me this, okay? Please? … If one of our old or your old pack members came back into your life now… Right now, would we be the same to you? Or would you care about me a little bit more? Honest answer?”
“Of course I loved him in a second. He’s your son. He’s a part of my little brother. If he was some random kid, he could be on the cover of babies I don’t care about.” Rick sighed. “You’ve got to stop holding me to the standards of who I used to be. I’m not dad. I’m not going to come into a kid’s life and fuck it up by being shit and leaving. Yeah he might have died but he still left and his death could have been avoided. So no I don’t plan on leaving. And you want to know why it’s easy to love them? Because JJ looks at me without any preconceived notions he’s a baby. He just likes people no matter what. He doesn’t know my past, he doesn’t look at me with resentment or judge me. He just lays there and laughs or babbles or ruins my expensive shirts with spit and spit-up. And Sabrina knows everything about my past and she accepts that I’m a different man now. And I love you as much as I love them, but no matter how many times I say it you will never truly believe it, will you?” Rick frowned. “I don’t even know what that means. Be enough for me. You don’t have to be anything but you. Maybe you have to promise to never cry again because I don’t know what to do with that situation. But other than that just be you. I’m not your Pack Master and you’re not my enforcer. I’m just your brother and that’s all you have to be.”
“I wouldn’t describe either of them as “happy” with just me. Content maybe, but I don’t think those people knew happiness. I couldn’t but I also couldn’t. The decision I made for you would have been the decision I would have made for someone else...actually probably would have just killed them in front of the pack and made them watch. Had I just kicked you out anyone who did want to over throw me would have just exploited my weak spots. You and mom.” With Noah gone and his mom at a distance, no one saw either of them as weak spots to exploit. To be honest they feared and respected him more because it seemed as though he could never be distracted by other attachments. “Honest answer? No. You wouldn’t be on the same level. I only cared for them as much as I did because I was the leader of the pack. The dynamic was that pack was family. My family is my family, now. Old pack members are just old friends you run into and smalltalk with and tell each other you’ll make better effort to keep in touch.”