A/N: This has been sitting on my HDD for 5 years since I first saw the show and it's not perfect I'm sure but putting it out there because maybe someone will enjoy it and it's not like there's much fic about for the show.
Spoilers up to end of 1x05.
Warnings for mention of abortion and drugs use. Also warning for some transphobic comments, mostly Jeremy being confused and not very enlightened on the topic - about on par with the not so good comments on the show.
Jeremy has gotten a good number of girlfriends in the family way, not that he could be proud of that like he was some stud. His dad, or Dutch more accurately, had always gotten to them too and paid them off, a quick abortion and some hush money. In his opinion it wasn't necessary but it was what the family did, protected their interests. The prospect of being a daddy had never scared Jeremy. All you had to do was provide for your kid and love them. Easy, right. He was loaded so no money snafu to bungle that up and he has more than enough love to go round too.
Loving people he was good at. Some people found it hard, he didn't get why, but he loved all his family. Faults included, because he had faults too and you had to be able to dig it in others if you wanted them to do the same, was only fair.
Brian was an angry dude but if you rubbed him the right way instead of the wrong then he could be solid, a real pillar and mega philosophical. Jeremy made a point of listening to Brian when he was high, everything Brian said would spin out, a virtual metaphysical font of infinity or something. Brian's musing would get him giggling like a schoolgirl and then Brian would wonderfully break into laughter as well. Brian was deep in a way Jeremy could only grasp at but he loved him for it.
Patrick could be stiff, wound up by the political scheming their dad had that Jeremy swerved clear of by not being with it often enough for all that filibuster. But hell if Paddy wasn't even kinkier than him when it came down to it. Jeremy did girls, and man, lips were lips wherever they went so he wasn't opposed to some Sodom & Gomorrah action but girls who used to be a guy or maybe were both was a little more than he'd be able to cope with. Patrick was stand-up though, he loved and he did his duty for Dad, tried to limbo between both sticks you know. Jeremy hoped his brother could make it work out - not bring his happiness crashing down like the rest of them - he admired him for trying.
Karen was cool, she had the brains and Jeremy spotted it even if no one else did. He loved all of her, even that part that everyone was so quick to dismiss. It wasn't like she wanted anyone to see her as smart, sneakier deals could be wrung if they didn't suspect he bet. So he'd kept chill about people underestimating her, it worked to her advantage.
Nick. Technically, Nick isn't family and Jeremy gets that, but for him Nick had been there to look up to when Brian and Paddy were already far too grown up to relate to little Germs. Besides they'd left them, escaped, they'd gone out there making something for themselves – Brian travelling, Paddy campaigning.
Nick was the average bro who had fallen into their orbit and switched up the gravity with his mass, changed their whole solar system forever. Jeremy had never regretted it, not the first time when Karen and Nick had become a stupidly short-lived thing – the worst kept secret of that summer vacation – and not now as they were sucking the guy back in with the day-drum drama of the Darling's.
Jeremy wants to believe it's kind of fun for Nick, because it is for him, sometimes, when he goes with the flow and doesn't think about anything. Their lives are surreal like a dream and Jeremy doesn't quite know which bits are the good ones and what's the less than good anymore, everything blends into a colorful normal he has to smile at, smile through. The reason he likes Nick most – and like is more important than love in this case – is Nick makes them all better people. Especially his dad.
It's fundamental that you love your parents and Jeremy does, absolutely. They're not around a lot, they don't have oodles of time free and never have done but he understands, they're clever, busy people and that's why they have other people to manage their important stuff. When he does see her he tries his best to make his Mom smile and he rarely fails.
Jeremy's never had a problem loving people. Getting people to love you back, that's the tricky business. But Juliet's his constant there, the one person who doesn't judge him, who welcomes him whatever he's done or hasn't done.
That's why it made him sick, pretty much tore him down the middle, to have to pick between her and Nats. If he betrayed Jules then who did he have left if it was going too far and she didn't forgive him? He'd known Nats would never be enough, nobody could replace the dependable comfort of his twin. He had to have at least Juliet in his life because any less and he'd feel starved, not of food, but of the other basic need that scared him, the one money couldn't buy you. The only thing he could do was keep giving it away - loving life and everyone who came into it - hoping someone would feel the same and throw a little back his way. Maybe not today, but at least today, as he stands on the balcony next to his sister, he knows he still has his family.