Jack got heartburn a lot. He'd polish off a hunk Sarah's meatloaf and a few hours later he'd be burping and burning and generally uncomfortable. It happened all the time, and yet he never stopped eating the meatloaf. It tasted as good as anything else she cooked.

He ate with Sarah and David almost every night, over at their little rat-hole apartment. When he'd first met them, he'd thought it was a little strange for a brother and sister to share an apartment without any parents. Wasn't that strange? It didn't hold up to families he knew. But then again, the "families" he'd known didn't really count as such.

Sometimes, the heartburn was different. When David's hand brushed against his, say. Or when they spent a night sitting at the scarred little table in the tiny kitchen, talking and talking and talking, all into the night, talking and laughing and sometimes poking each other.

After those nights, he'd go home with heartburn. It wasn't the kind of heartburn he could get rid of, either. He didn't really understand it. All he knew was that his heart ached, and continued to ache until he was with David again. Then it eased up a little, but not completely.

David with his schoolbooks and quiet reservations and disapproving lips pressed together, David with his curly hair and strong chin and those shoulders that for some reason Jack liked to clamp a hand onto, David was the Tums for Jack's heartburn.

As the months grew, so did the heartburn. Even when he was laughing with David, or when he was bragging about something or another (he did that a lot), even when he felt on top of the world, there was always that insistent, nagging ache in the bottom of his chest. And Jack, being Jack, learned not to question it. It was there; it apparently wasn't going away, so he would put it out of his mind.

But there were nights when he couldn't sleep, and the ache was great enough that he had to give it some attention. That was how Jack knew it was a part of himself—he was an attention whore and he knew it. The fact that this new little part of himself was needy as well didn't surprise him. He even felt a kind of affection for his heartburn; the kind of affection a person might have for a pet ladybug. He felt some affection for it, but he wouldn't be broken up if it decided to leave him someday. And one day it did.

"Hey Dave?" Jack asked that one day as they sat on the dock, legs swinging over the water but not touching the surface. It was too cold for that, and Sarah had threatened them with death if they got sick. She was a bit of a mother hen, Jack was finding.

"Hm?"

"Do you ever…" Jack was suddenly embarrassed. It wasn't something that happened to him much, so he ignored it and pushed on, bold as ever. "You ever get heartburn?"

"Heartburn?" David tested out the word like it was foreign to him. Jack knew it wasn't actually foreign to David; he wasn't sure there was a word in the English language that David didn't know. There was probably some technical, fancy word for heartburn that David knew and would tell Jack, some big word Jack wouldn't be able to pronounce.

"Yeah. Heartburn."

"Like after Sarah's meatloaf?"

Jack had to laugh at that. "Yeah. But, like, other times too."

"After a polish dog?"

"Never mind." Jack shook his head a little. It would've been nice if David had known what he'd meant. But it didn't bother him that he didn't. Well, not too much. They were quiet for a time, Jack picking slivers out of the wood and tossing them into the gray water beneath their feet.

"Like heartburn but different." David finally said quietly. Jack shot him a quick look, then looked away again just as quick. David sometimes got nervous saying what he wanted to say with eyes looking at him.

"Yeah."

"Like…not heartburn, but…kind of a squeezing on your chest. Like your heart's not all there."

Jack turned his eyes to David then, not caring if it made him squirm the way it sometimes did. "Just like that." He said quietly. And at the same moment, they realized what their heartburn was. David bit his lip, cheeks coloring, a slight wind ruffling his curls. Jack was always more action-oriented. He leaned in and kissed David right smack dab on the lips, right there on the dock with the water cold beneath them and the dock creaking.

With his eyes still closed, David mumbled, "Prolonged heartburn can lead to acid-reflux disease."

Jack shook his head. David and his fancy medical terms. He was thinking of becoming a doctor. "Wouldn't want you catching that disease." Jack said, kissing him again. David tried to point out that it wasn't a communicable disease, but Jack was keeping his lips too busy for him to say anything.