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Quinn would have been furious if he found out that he’d been left behind after deciding to stay with Jack to… watch as people sprayed water onto a fire? Quinn had scoffed and bragged about how he would have been able to put out the fire in no time. He just needed to use his magic and poof, fire all gone. In theory. He hadn’t tried to put out a fire that big before.

However, he was exhausted by the time they made it to the diner. He didn’t even have it in him to look around more than just somewhat lazily as they sat down in a booth.

He yawned. At least three times. And made a face when Jack ordered coffee. He’d had some and cried about how he couldn’t sleep for hours after drinking it. He didn’t want a repeat of that, so he asked for water.

It wasn’t long before they were joined by the person Jack had texted now several hours ago. He lifted his hand in cheerful greeting to the man through the kitchen window, and quietly said a few words of encouragement to the waitress as they passed. He’d been there. Several times. And not always while off the clock, if the scorch marks in the back of the kitchen said anything.

“Dude, it’s so late for you. I hope everything’s okay,” Glenn greeted his brother with a friendly fistbump. It was clear that he’d showered at some point recently, but still smelled a bit like soot, and he hadn’t managed to get all of the grime out from under his nails, although he’d certainly made an effort.

“We had this crazy fire. Did you see the news already? Definitely arson, but who knows why anyone went after such a small building, comparatively. I’m not complaining. We’re taking bets at the station whether it turns out to be an insurance scam or something else. Hello, I’m Glenn,” he smiled brightly in the face of Quinn’s tired scowl.

A pause, raised eyebrows, and Glenn glanced back over to Jack. “Boyfriend?”

Luckily for Quinn, the relationship descriptor was not something the people on his world used to describe their relationships with one another, and so being a boy and a friend received an annoyed scoff from him because wow, Earth terms were so primitive.

But he also suspected that he might not quite understand the context when Jack laughed and then hesitated with his word choice.

Quinn scowled some more and crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned uncomfortably back against the bench.

Glenn didn’t seem to be put off by Quinn’s grumpiness, and offered him a sympathetic smile before turning to help the waitress with delivering the coffee he’d ordered on his way in, and gave her an encouraging squeeze on her arm.

Once she turned to leave them again, he slid into the bench across from Jack and Quinn, giving his brother a disbelieving look.

“Late night walk?” he repeated, as though he tried to process why, but in the end he nodded in acceptance. “Yeah, we’ve got some pretty crazy things going on. Horrible response times,” he admitted with a grimace.

“There’s only so much I can do as a rookie. I tried talking to the others about why it takes so long for us to get a call. Our reaction time to getting out of the station is pretty industry standard, but there’s some disconnect between the dispatchers. I guess,” he sighed, clearly frustrated by it, but was doing his best to work with what they had.

“But that’s pretty dangerous to be around those fires. Lots of weird stuff going on. Why…? Have you seen any of it? I swear there’s been people running around in costumes, but it’s pretty rude for the media to call them terrorists when it could just be a hobby.”

Quinn scoffed and grumbled and mumbled to himself while the brothers chatted. How anyone could be awake at this time of the night, he didn’t know. But he wanted to be there. He would rather be involved than be left in the apartment.

So he busied himself by fiddling with the strings of his borrowed sweatshirt, and pulled the hood up, and made the hole a bit smaller for his face, which was nice because then his ears weren’t so cold. He could probably pull his legs up into the hoodie as well. Which he did after picking his feet up onto the bench. He yawned and mumbled about not being tired, and blinked a few times to keep his eyes from getting too heavy.

“There are aliens too,” he mocked in a voice that was clearly supposed to be Jack’s, but mumbled about how he was being ridiculous with his obsession over aliens.

Glenn still didn’t seem to mind Quinn’s antics. He just smiled politely, even if he had to snort in amusement over the mocking voice.

The idea that the dispatchers giving poor response times was intentional was… concerning. And not something he wanted to believe.

“But why would anyone do that? So many people end up getting hurt. You think someone might not want people to be saved? They’re in the wrong profession,” he grimaced, but it was clear that what Jack said wasn’t sitting well with him.

“What do you know?” he asked, his voice lowered a bit as he leaned over the table. Jack had his oddities, but he was smart. Observant. He had good judgment when it came to a lot of things, especially when it came to people. If Jack thought there were terrorists then… maybe there were.

Quinn wasn’t stupid. He knew that Jack wasn’t telling his brother anything about the strange magical war that was going on to protect him. To protect himself. To protect Quinn and so many others. If the Negaverse knew -- as pathetic as Quinn believed they were -- they could easily cause so much chaos that everyone would be miserable.

He happened to like not being so miserable. Being with Jack -- his roommate -- wasn’t miserable. He liked his dog, too. He liked the company. He liked that Jack was nice to him and didn’t seem to expect anything in return.

He rubbed his eyes, blinking a few times to try and keep them open, but maybe if he let them close for a few moments, he could rest them and it would be fine.

Glenn sipped at his coffee, listening to Jack and keeping an eye on Quinn, who looked exhausted. And not as angry when he had his eyes closed. He hadn’t missed that he was borrowing Jack’s clothes, or at least his sweatshirt, but he didn’t press the issue when Jack already answered.

“Dude, that’s pretty insane,” he said, a bit dryly if only because hearing about monsters in Destiny City… well, he’d heard of the superstitions, but he couldn’t say he’d seen any monsters. Strange animals, sure, but he just assumed there were starved rats or strays on the loose that needed to be cared for and nursed back to health, not feared and called monsters.

“So you’re saying to keep an eye out and be careful,” he surmised with a patient nod. And then watched as Quinn slumped against Jack’s shoulder as he dozed off.

“I appreciate it. I do,” he promised. “I’ll take care of myself, and you take care of you. Run from monsters and nazis and terrorists. I’ve got too much to handle already than going around fighting gangs that like to dress up in costumes.”

After immediately straightening up and looking around as though he’d already forgotten where he was, Quinn grunted in response to Jack. And then clarified with, “Yeah.”

He didn’t want to cut Jack’s time with his brother short, but he might have been in over his head when it came to trying to stay awake after everything.

Hopefully he wouldn’t fall asleep on his feet.

Glenn smiled cheerfully and took another sip from his cup before shaking his head in response to Jack’s apology.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I have such a weird shift. Feel free to catch me when I wake up, ya know? That’ll probably be a more reasonable time. I usually sleep during daylight hours, anyway. But yeah, if I see or hear anything weird, I’ll let you know. But you better get back before he falls asleep again. It was nice meeting you, Quinn,” he smiled, to which Quinn grumbled and tugged on the sleeves of his borrowed hoodie so he could burrow deeper into the warmth.