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Diapers and Defensemen Ch. Twenty- Quinn Hughes

Summary: The best way to a man's heart is through his stomach, the best way to stay there is to keep it fed.

Warnings: Cursing (duh), mentions of people being assholes on the internet, Sick Quinn (puke mentioned)

WC: 2.9k

Notes: It's a filler (and a timeline aligning) chapter, but there's cute moments in there.

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First Chapter | Previous Chapter

Luke: Are you busy?

You: Am I ever?

Luke: well no, I guess you're not since Quinn’s in Detroit.

You: You accidentally butt dial someone one time..

“When are you coming up to Michigan?” Luke asked as you washed the few dishes in the sink. The TV was playing the afternoon game in Detroit, but you’d stopped paying attention when it became a 3-1 game in the Wild’s favor. There couldn’t possibly be a way they’d lose steam.

“I don’t know Lukey, that’s really a Quinn question.” You sighed, moving the frying pan you’d been scrubbing to the empty basin. “Why do you ask?” Luke sighed, making you stop what you were doing. The few times you’d talked on the phone with Luke, he’d always been emotionless but still caring. Him letting out any frustration was a rare sight, but he’d always seemed to be comfortable with you seeing that side. He’d genuinely started looking at you like a sister. “What’s going on?”

“I think I’m gonna have to have surgery again.” Luke responded, his voice defeated and irritated.

“Oh Luke..”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I didn’t know if you were coming up there to be with the family before the baby came, or if you were having her in Minnesota. Just figured it’d be nice to have a little company.”

“You know how Quinn is,” You said while looking up at the TV as the puck dropped for the third period, catching a quick glance at Quinn. “He’s not going to be too keen on me being far from home while he’s still playing.”

“Oh, I’m totally aware of how obsessed with you my brother is.” Luke confirmed, making you snicker. “Has he told you anything about what the off season schedule looks like?”

He most definitely had. Before the Olympics, Quinn had gone on and on about how most of the summer is spent in the sun, on the lake, lounging around or playing pool in the basement. Turns out that winning a gold medal meant having to be tossed around New York for public relations, parties, weddings, and other events in between. “Yeah, might be seeing more of Ellen and Jim than Quinn this summer.”

“That’s not totally true,” Luke immediately responded. “You could just stay at mine or Jack’s over the summer. This year just had too much excitement to handle it all during the season.”

“No shit, could you imagine if the Wild wins the cup? I’d definitely never see Quinn.”

“He’d find a way to make it work, he always does.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” You asked, completely abandoning the dishes and reaching for your phone, looking at the calendar as if it would tell you the obvious answer. “Stay with your parents in Michigan or see if Quinn would rather stay in the New York area?”

“We’ve got a lot of family in New York too, so either option would be helpful. We just want you to have a good support system, help you remember that you don’t have to handle it all alone.” Luke explained. “When are you due again?”

“June 19th, but my OB is concerned I could deliver early. She told me that if I am going to go out of state it should be before mid-May.”

“Mid-May.. You mean like Jack’s birthday? Halfway through the playoffs?”

“Yeah, halfway through the playoffs. So if Quinn’s still rocking the shit, I’m going to be away from him either way.”

“Okay, no. You’re coming to New York.” Luke’s Hughes genes had finally kicked on, trying to convince you it was the best option. “Some of the best doctors on the planet are in New York. Any of them would happily deliver that gold medal winning idiot’s baby.”

“Bitch, she’s my baby too.” You laughed. “I don’t know Lukey, if I go mid playoffs then I wouldn’t get to see him with the beard much.”

“Oh gross, shut the fuck up.” Luke fake gagged on the other side of the phone, making you cackle. “I gotta go. But you really should talk to him about it.”

“I will Lukey,” You promised, saying your goodbyes and hanging up.. Just in time to look up and see the game tied at four a piece. “I looked away for five seconds, what the fuck happened?” You proceeded to get lost watching the last five minutes of the game, cackling like a mad man when Patty Kane tripped up Quinn and then proceeded to cost the Red Wings the game. You were talking mad shit to the Television as if the game was being played in the dining area and the players could hear your every move.

“Jesus Christ, who have I become?” You said to yourself when you finally realized how you’d genuinely started to sound like one of those old school trash talking hockey fans, the type that would keep a pdf of the entire rule book saved on their iPhone ‘just in case.’ The awareness of your own embarrassing actions made you decide you were done with hockey for at least a few hours and shut off the TV.

By the time Quinn came home and draped his coat over the barstool, you’d already started cooking dinner, trying to make tonight as relaxing as possible. It was a rare occasion that he got to come home from his own game and still have time to watch his brothers play, so you wanted him to be able to just veg out on the couch with his favorite meal. Very.. housewifey of you.

“You’re cooking.” Quinn said, a confused look on his face as he rolled his suitcase just inside his bedroom before making his way over to the kitchen. “Who died?”

“No one died.” You sighed, rolling your eyes as you portioned out the vegetables on two plates. “Just wanted you to not have to worry about anything but watching your brothers play for once.”

“Fuck, I almost forgot their game was on.” He groaned, coming over and kissing your temple. “Thanks Doll, it looks delicious.”

“Well yeah, because I know what a spice rack is.” You snickered, slipping the empty pan into the sink full of water. “Do you want to talk about how the game went?”

“Fuck no.”

“Perfect, because neither do I.” You continued preparing the plates as he went to change into sweats, sliding into one of the barstools like he was at a diner. “Luke called. Told me something I should run by you.”

“What’s that?”

“You know how the doctor said if I’m going to do any travelling I need to do it before May?” He nodded, poking at a piece of steak with his fork. “Luke suggested that I stay in New York over the summer. Since you’re going to be there a lot for business and all of that jazz.”

“This is why he’s the smart one.”

“You’ve never said that before in your life.”

“Alright, I’ve never said that about Luke, but he does have his moments.” He chuckled, pushing the bite of steak into his mouth. “So what, you want to have the baby in New York?”

“It’s not a bad idea.” You exhaled, scooping some green beans into your fork. “Doesn’t seem like you’re going to be in Michigan much anyways.”

“No, I’m not.” He huffed, shaking his head. “I get it, everything we do is business and blah blah blah but all I wanted to do was give you a break from the hockey world after Nugget got here, especially since the season starts early next year.”

“I know you did, and that’s really sweet of you.” You replied, walking around the island and claiming the stool next to his. “But this is the kind of thing that happens when you go from ‘talented defenseman in the league’ to ‘olympic gold medalist’. You have to sacrifice what you want to give the people what they want.”

“Haven’t I sacrificed enough though? Haven’t we both?”

Quinn wasn’t wrong, and you had an entire comment section to prove it. While the fans that hadn’t given up on him were positive, and the team had started to welcome you in with nothing but excitement, there were a lot of naysayers that had a lot of nasty things to say about you. Nevermind the fact that you’d gotten pregnant while he was still in Vancouver, long before the chaos of the trade and everything that followed.

On top of that, your DMs on Instagram had become an absolute dumpster fire. Your account was private, and you hadn’t been tagged in Quinn’s very PR written post, but all those friends who’d brought Quinn into your life in the first place had emerged from the shadows, all judging you for giving up your independent life to ‘chase Quinn’. Like you were just supposed to stay behind and raise your girl all on your own. Fuck that.

“You’re not wrong, but it’ll be worth it.” You said, squeezing his arm lightly. “If you don’t want to think about it right now, we’ve still got a month before we really have to come up with a conclusion.”

“Yeah, just let me get through the rest of the regular season, and we can pick up this conversation before the playoffs.” Quinn’s body language suggested that he wasn’t really ready for the idea of you being anywhere other than home, and the thought of it being the best option wasn’t sitting right with you either. “Thanks for dinner, Doll. It’s delicious.”

After dinner, the two of you settled in to watch the Devils game. He sprawled out on the couch, you laying on his chest with your bump between his legs to not put pressure on your stomach but help with your aching back. Enjoying the final weeks of normalcy before the playoffs stole him away from you.

–––––

“Ellen I’m telling you, the man is dying.” Your voice travelled through the vents, but Quinn couldn’t tell where you were in the apartment. Not that he fucking cared, because his face had become one with the bathroom floor. It was the most horrific form of poetic justice a man could get, going through the same fate you’d gone through back in the fall. He was fully convinced that if the waves of vomit didn’t stop soon, his body was going to become one with the toilet, like some weird fucking toilet-human hybrid.

“I don’t know, he won’t let me come anywhere near him.” Your voice was growing closer, but he knew you didn’t want to be anywhere near his mess anyways. You hated puke, you complained about it relentlessly all those months ago. “I’ll ask him. Quinny?”

His forehead pressed against the cool tile for a moment before pushing himself up weakly and sitting up against the wall across from his new inanimate best friend. “Yeah Doll?” He responded hoarsely, wondering how his stomach could hold this much sick.

“Ellen wanted to know if you had a fever.” You questioned through the door. “I’d check myself, but..”

“No, no! I’m.. I’m a little warm, yeah.” He cut you off, trying his best to keep you as far away as possible. God forbid you catch whatever the fuck he had and cause a catastrophe for you when you were so close to delivering the baby. “I don’t think I could puke anything else up, if she wanted to send you her soup recipe or something.”

“Okay.” Your defeated voice pushed through before it started to fade, staying on the phone with his mom as you walked away from his room.

After sitting on the floor for another lenghth of time, part of which was him falling asleep from pure exhaustion, he was convinced there was nothing else coming up and stood on weak legs. A quick look in the mirror showed him much paler than usual, the bags under his eyes similar to those last days in Vancouver. Looking very much like an ill raccoon. He washed his mouth out of the bitterness left behind from his projections and hobbled to his bed, falling face first into the pillows and passing out again.

The next time he came to, his head was still swimming from the low blood sugar and you were poking in through the door. You stayed away at his request, but deposited a bowl of steaming garlic chicken soup and a sleeve of crackers before disappearing again. He managed to get across the room and collect the bounty of a dead man before making it back to bed, taking a sip of the broth gingerly.

His phone rang on the nightstand, completely ignored for the last 24 hours. What had started as cramps and a little nausea had become a full geyser he thought would never stop, and so the last thing that was on his mind was his iphone. The caller id was you, asking to facetime.

“This has got to be the weirdest thing I’ve ever done.” He said as soon as he answered, propping his phone up on the bedside lamp.

“I missed you.” You responded, but your face was full of worry. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks doll, that makes me feel so much better.”

Bro you were just saying you looked like roadkill, shut the fu-

“I’m just worried, Quinn.” You sighed, scooping your own spoonful of soup. “You’re supposed to be haunted by ghosts, not become one.”

For the first time since he woke up he laughed, shaking his head as he blew on the spoon in front of him. “Thank you for taking care of me. It was a rough morning.”

“I know it was, and I knew you were already upset about missing the last few games of the season.” Quinn nodded. Yeah, he needed to rest up and stay healthy enough for the playoff run, but all he wanted was to end the season on a high note. “You need to take better care of yourself you know.”

“I know, but I just want to get back on the ice.” The warm broth was starting to kick in, rehydrating him and replacing those ejected electrolytes. You smiled through the screen seeing him slowly come back to life. “Maybe a few days of rest and this amazing fucking soup will get me back to normal.”

“I hope it’ll help, because the batch made enough for a family of eight.” You chuckled as he chewed on a cracker, feeling more confident to put something solid into his system. “You’re not gonna miss the game on Saturday are you?”

“Miss an opportunity to go back to the playoffs? Fuck no.”

“Good, because you’re not you when you’re on dry land too long.” You smirked, grabbing your phone off the counter and walking around the kitchen. “You know, this feels kind of nostalgic.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Facetime dinners? Only difference is we’re in the same house instead of opposite sides of the continent.”

“Huh.” Quinn didn’t even realize how easy it was for him to eat with you on the phone, it’d been a while since the two of you had even had facetime dinners. “I didn’t even realize those stopped.”

“Me either. We should bring them back.” You’d propped your phone in a different section of the kitchen, starting to clean up your prep area. “Hopefully the next time they won’t serve corn with your salmon.”

“I learned my lesson. I always check the takeout box now.” He snickered, finishing the last few noodles in the bowl and standing up, much more confident. “Thanks again for taking care of me Doll. I’m lucky to have you in my corner.”

“I’ll always be in your corner Quinn.” You said confidently, wiping down the counter on the other side of the wall from him. He put his dishes and the empty sleeve of crackers on the dresser by the door, knowing you’d come pick them up when you were ready to do the dishes.

The last few months of having you around, he’d learned every routine you had, just like you did with him. You did a sweep of the entire apartment when you were doing dishes, so you wouldn’t ‘crash out’ when a random plate showed up five seconds after you drained the sink. You folded the blanket on the couch every night before bed, making the place look lived in but not tacky. His shoes and jackets always found their way back into the hall closet, and you always picked on him when the shirt he’d taken off always landed at the base of the hamper on the floor.

“I’m going to try and get some rest, but just know I’m going to be lonely as fuck.”

“A disaster of your own making really.”

“I’m not going to be the reason you get sick. I need you and Nugget in perfect condition until at least June.” Quinn slipped back into the bed, holding his phone close to his face since it was the only way he could hold you. “I love you.”

“I love you too, just call me if you need anything.” You blew him a kiss before he hung up. He was already feeling so much better as he fell back asleep, letting the rest take care of whatever lingering symptoms he’d had.

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Next Chapter (coming eventually)

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