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Austinbul was actually really lovely this time of year—at least, that was what she had been told.
Granted, right now she wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the mosques or spires or Meso-American flairs of the city or even the fact that that was a guy dressed up as an actual cowboy and if she wasn’t currently calling home to tell her husband that she was going to be late put Tadashi on hi honey Momma’s not going to be home until way after bedtime let’s say our prayers now she’d totally be a geeky annoying tourist and ask for a picture.
She gave the abbreviated story to her husband when he got back on the horn: her little brother was in trouble again and she was off to bail him out.
“What kind of trouble?” Kaijo asked. “Are we talking like ‘drunken disorderly come post bail’ or ‘I need help hiding the body’?”
“Bob doesn’t drink,” she pointed out. “And he’s got other sources for that.”
“Elaine, honey, you didn’t answer my question.”
Sigh. “Some guy’s after him, I’m getting him out of trouble. I’ll explain more when I’m back home.”
Sigh on the line. “Honey I know this is your thing, but I don’t really feel comfortable with you doing this.”
“I get it, I get it,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. “But at the same time I don’t want him to think he can’t come to me for help.”
“And I get that—just—please explain it to him?”
“Oh I plan to—just as soon as I’m done.”
Things had devolved into chaos immediately, peace was never an option—which was to be expected whenever there was a whole mess with her brother involved.
Said brother was cackling like some mad gremlin as she flipped a table and took cover behind it, mentally going through the calming chants she and Kaijo did to destress as she changed the clip in her gun, rolling away as it occurred to whoever was shooting at her to aim lower—aim back, start picking them off from a low vantage point—
A guy trying to pick her off from the side went down howling from a slice to the face, a pinkish afterimage the only sign that her brother had been there—
Okay, back to brass tacks.
Finally took out the last of the goons, cornered their boss—
“Why?” the man demanded. “Why would you, Shima, be helping him?”
She felt her eye twitch at being referred to by that handle, pulled the hammer back.
“I was coming after you anyway, Emir,” she told him—which wasn’t a lie, a creep who made his fortune trafficking people for the cartel were the kind of guys she made disappear on a regular basis. “You just jumped to the top of the list when you went after my brother.”
The man’s eyes went wide—
Didn’t do much after that.
She dug a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her gun clean as she picked her way over to said brother, currently teetering through the carnage and laughing, the little trog.
“Ah, this was fun,” he said, grinning broadly at her when she came even—winced a little when she socked his arm, not hard enough to knock him flat, but hard enough that she knew he knew.
“This. Was not. Fun,” she hissed at him. “I was on my way home when you called!”
“So this was on your way home and you get to pick up interesting souvenirs.”
“I don’t count taking trophies from guys I shot souvenirs.”
“Dis-a-pointing,” he teased—ducked the swipe to his head, straightened up from rooting in pockets for whatever. “Okay fine—how about coffee? Austinbul’s supposed to have the best in the country.”
“Coffee I have a plane to catch, Bob.”
“Excuse me!”
“You’re not excused I’m not calling you by some—some dumb handle I’m mad at you!” she said, jabbing a finger in his chest. “I have to catch a redeye now because of you!”
“I’ve got a place you can crash and you can catch a flight in the morning—”
“Bob.”
“What?” he asked, apparently legitimately baffled by the fact that she wasn’t happily moving on to the next topic. “Pardon me for wanting to spend time with my sister!”
“You know where I live, Bob,” she said flatly. “And I’m not going to some coffee shop after having a shootout at least let me get changed first.”
“Actually I took the liberty of picking up some coffee on the way,” he said, producing a thermos.
She gave him a dumbfounded look before socking him again.
“Hey!” he barked. “What was that one for!?”
“You brought coffee to a shootout?” she demanded.
“Why do you sound so surprised?” he asked, heading for the edge of the rooftop patio. “You were coming—it was a foregone conclusion.”
She huffed, blew a stray strand of hair that had come loose from her braided bun before stalking over, telling herself that shoving him off the roof after saving his life was counterintuitive.
“We need to talk,” she told him, watching as he sat down and dangled his legs over the edge. “You can’t just take it for granted that I’ll drop everything and come rescue you.”
The look he gave her was the same sort of cheeky grin he’d give her when he was twelve and she had been telling him she’d be graduating high school soon, please learn how to behave. Judging by their current location, all that begging had done just what she suspected and gone in one ear and out the other. “Sure. You’d just let your brother, whom you love dearly, go off and get himself killed.”
Groan, sit down, accept the cup of coffee he offered her. “I’m serious—I’ve got a husband and kids now, Bob, I’ve got to be worrying about them too.”
“Ah, no,” he countered. “Kid. You only have one of the little monsters last I checked.”
“No, I said what I meant and I want you to think, really hard, about what that means and what you dragged to this mess.”
Okay, the glance up and down was funny, but she did have to very lightly slap his arm for the thoroughly disgusted look he ended up giving her. “Ugh, another one?”
“Real supportive there, Bob,” she told him. “And you’re lucky Mom and Dad didn’t feel that way.”
“Yes, yes, I’m always told it’s a wonderful and natural part of life, maybe I should settle down and have one of the little brats,” he muttered into his cup. “I’ll have you know I’m perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
She had to take a slow glance at the patio, back at him. “Really? You want to stick with that?”
“You know what I mean.” Wave her off a little. “According to Carl—you remember Carl—”
“Misdemeanor Carl?”
“It’s Felony Carl now but yeah—he says that there’s a thing now, that they call a complete disinterest in getting married and having two-point-five kids being an asexual aromantic. So there, I’m validated, I win.”
“I’m curious,” she said. “What were you before?”
“Eccentric,” he declared, ignoring her snort. Glance at her again, this time with some concern. “Ah…so the camo never shows anything—”
“That’s the point of the camo,” she told him. “And about a month and a half—we had it confirmed before I went on my trip. And no, we don’t know what it is yet.”
“So there’s hope.”
“It’s going to be human, Bob, don’t be weird.”
“Oh please,” he muttered, taking another sip of coffee. “The head gremlin having anything but? Don’t make me laugh.” Smug smirk. “You know, it’d be a lot faster if we just threw water on you.”
“The notion that we’d accidentally make more of you is the only thing keeping me from throwing my coffee on you right now.”
“The only thing?”
Hedge…relent. “That and this is really good coffee.”
“See? I told you,” he said, tipping his cup in a salute. “By the way, if you’re feeling peckish there’s a really great shawarma place nearby.”
“Mmm—no,” she said, swallowing her coffee before pointing. “My friend Sam? He’s got a shawarma place that he got from a friend of a friend—that is the best shawarma I’ve ever had, you can’t top it.”
“Eh,” he noised.
She considered him for a moment. “You know you can come visit like a normal person, right? There’s nothing stopping you it’s not like we’ve banned you from the apartment. Despite having good reason to.”
“I’ll be honest, I was ambivalent about Kaijo until he helped in that regard.”
“That regard had him having to fight off like ten guys who wanted you dead and had you tied to one of our dining room chairs. And it was one of our nice chairs, Bob.”
“Personally I was worried he wouldn’t be interesting,” he countered.
“Interesting—not everyone likes to cause chaos, Bob.”
“I know, and that’s a shame.”
She heard something underlying there. “What? What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“You tell me or I throw you off this roof.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
“Fine I’ll give you a noogie. Now spill.”
He scowled, looked away—start counting, one, two, three—
“Fine,” he spat at around seven. “Kindly explain to me why I’m the only interesting one left in the family.”
“Excuse me?”
“You—you’re off doing the whole domestic thing, Cass is opening a café—” Take a drink, apparently trying to organize his feelings on the matter. “I’m the one doing the heavy lifting now.”
“Contributing to worldwide mayhem isn’t a job, Bob,” she told him patiently. “Nor does it pay the bills.”
“Yes it does.”
“Shut up and listen to me for a minute—someday, you’re going to have to actually settle down and stop all this.”
“No and you can’t make me.”
Huff at his idiocy, reflect that if she had ever been able to rein him in, that ship had sailed when their parents died and he had blown himself up at college.
“Bob,” she said finally. “I’d really like the kids to have their uncle around. I even give you permission to spoil them a little, but to do that you have to actually, you know, show up.”
“I suppose if I must,” he sighed, acting like she was asking him to present his heart on a spit.
“It won’t kill you to show up for Thanksgiving, you know.”
“You’re pushing it, Elaine.”
Elbow him, look around. “Shouldn’t we be hearing sirens by now?”
“The cartel bought the whole area off,” he said, leaning back on a hand. “No one’s going to investigate until tomorrow when the vultures start circling.”
“Ew, Bob,” she muttered.
Silence for a long time between them.
“What are you thinking?” he asked her, scuffing his heels against the wall.
“I’m wondering which one of us is the point five kid,” she said. “I think it’s you.” Scoff when he batted at her arm. “And fine, maybe we can try the shawarma place.”
“Excellent,” he said, collecting the cups and standing. “We’ll get you a poncho on the way so you can hide all that mess you’re worried about.”
“You want to talk about a mess? Look at yourself.”
He ran her to ‘his place,’ which was currently an apartment that felt like someone else lived here usually and he was taking advantage of their absence. He waved her concern off when she mentioned it though, told her to pick a different topic.
“Okay fine,” she said as they maneuvered about downtown. “How about what have you been up to? Besides getting into trouble.”
“Lots of clever little things.”
Gust a sigh. “Listen—all those clever little things you make you could sell—you could make legitimate money, Bob.”
“I could,” he agreed. “But this is more fun.”
“I had to save you from nearly getting killed. Again.”
“And that was fun,” he pointed out—skittered away a bit when she glared at him. “Ah—I’ve recently made some augmented-reality contact lenses. The idea is you can manipulate whatever the person is seeing.”
“And I imagine you have nasty conniving plans for them.”
“The main problem is getting them in the eye to begin with, so I was thinking maybe cross them over with nanite technology to get the rest of the way there.”
“Please don’t,” she said, waving him off. “Anything else?”
A canny grin now. “I’ve also made contact lenses that record whatever it is you’re seeing—it sends the images to a nearby chip that also records the sound that goes with it.”
“That one’s actually pretty clever,” she said.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, tugging a pen out of his pocket and handing it to her. “The recorder, by the way.”
“That’s—wait,” she said, pausing in her act of taking the pen. “Have you been—this whole time!?”
He barked at the hit to his shoulder but didn’t lose the grin, scurrying ahead of her as she ran him down and tackled him. “Hey! I have proof of this you know!”
“Proof this,” she growled, giving him a noogie.
The rest of the evening went well, all things considered. She got to take a picture with a cowboy, which was cool, and the different places they stopped had pretty good food. He protested at her ending the night early, but as she pointed out she had had an exhausting day and wanted to fly out tomorrow.
She was texting Kaijo to let him know about the change in flight schedules when her brother flopped into bed with her.
“No,” she said. “My bed. You lost your bed privileges.”
“Technically it’s my bed,” he started.
“No, technically it belongs to whoever you stole it from, but tonight it’s my bed.”
“You’re going to have to make me.”
She pushed him out, fluffed up her pillow and laid back down, intending to get some sleep. Wasn’t surprised by the feeling of someone crawling back into bed with her, wasn’t surprised to see him lying there grinning when she cracked an eye open.
Sigh. Yes, he was being an annoying little imp, but she also knew that deep down he was just thrilled to be hanging with his sister again.
“You come and visit,” she told him in her best no arguments tone. “Like a normal person. Bring a suitcase. Do not bring sharp knives.”
“You can’t ask me to visit Nueva York and not bring some form of protection. They’re crazy up there.”
“What happened to me being enough?” she asked.
“You’d have to pick me up at the Mason-Dixon Line—there’s something in New England water I swear.”
“There’s nothing wrong with New England water.”
“Says you.”
Sigh, sink into the pillow. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“Fair enough.”
She nodded, closed her eyes…gently squeezed the hand that snaked into hers.
“I love you too.”
Elaine woke up the next morning with the feeling she was being watched.
“Go bug Daddy, ‘Dashi,” she muttered, sinking further into the bed. Not now, not now, five more minutes—
Tadashi wasn’t in the habit of making tch noises—squinch an eye open to see her brother sitting there staring at her.
“You drool in your sleep,” he announced.
“So do you,” she groaned, rubbing her face—accepted the coffee he handed her. “What time is it? Did you turn my alarm off?”
“Yes, when it woke me up—you slept through it,” he said, huffing a little in amusement. “What, did having a kid ruin your ability to bounce back from a busy night?”
“Just a bit,” she muttered, sitting up to sip at her coffee. “Here’s another thought—you ever think I might be getting too old to be bailing you out of your shenanigans?”
Stronger huff this time. “You’re not old.”
“Someday I might be,” she said, massaging her face and feeling like today might be one of those days. “You ever stop and consider that?”
“If you stop doing it, that’s what makes you age,” he countered. “Ergo, you need to get out more.”
“I get out enough—let me raise my kids in peace. They’re only going to be small and cute once—I mean look at you. You used to be small and cute—now you’re just a terror.”
“But you love me,” he said.
“Against my better judgement.”
“Hurr hurr. How about breakfast? There’s this really great place downtown—”
“Bob. I am already late getting back.” Give him a stern look…huff at the one she got back. “Fine, but it’d better be on the way to the airport.”
“Eh.”
He was more inclined to agree after another noogie.
The taxi ride to the airport was relatively quiet, mostly because of the taxi driver, she knew—her brother was never loose-lipped around company.
Instead, they were sitting with elbows and shoulders touching, hands laced, reassuring each other that they were there through subtlety and affection. He never was a fan of physical contact, just his sisters and their parents, everyone else he used to stiffen up at before he progressed to reacting violently with. He still flinched subtly when Kaijo tapped his arm or patted his shoulder, despite accepting him into the family.
It almost felt like the airport rolled up too soon.
“Okay,” she breathed when they and her duffel bag were out of the taxi. Deep breath, turn to her brother. “You’re visiting. No excuses. Matter of fact, you get on the plane right now.”
“I didn’t pack anything, and you need a valid ID to fly,” he countered. “I’ll find my own way up, I promise.”
“When, Bob?”
“Soon-ish?”
“Bob.”
“Okay fine,” he huffed, adjusting his hoodie—look suspicious, why don’t you. “I’ll be up in a week or two, how’s that?”
“Better,” she said, hugging him and kissing him on the cheek. “And behave yourself, please?”
“No promises,” he said, hugging her back.
Scoff, ruffle his hair to get a reaction (she succeeded), went inside, taking a deep breath—the sterilized air of inside the airport meeting the diesel fumes from outside always smelled like the beginning of an adventure to her, even if she was heading home. It was the smell of travel, and despite everything she did love it. Turn to wave goodbye—
He had already disappeared.
Sigh, shake her head, make her way to the automated ticket booth, which she had much too much experience with thanks to the odd hours she flew. Got everything in order, hit confirm and get ready to pay—
Her little brother’s symbol flashed on the screen and the kiosk spit out her ticket.
“Bob I’m going to kill you,” she sighed, taking the ticket and leaning against the kiosk for a moment to school her expression. No, smiling wasn’t appropriate and she was sure he was watching from somewhere. Open her eyes and lift her head—saw that the symbol was gone and replaced with text.
Thank you for flying Obake Airlines, please enjoy your flight and watch out for the head gremlin in the plane.
Love you too, sis.
Okay forget controlling her expression but she was definitely going to have a talk with him the next time she saw him.
The rest of the trip through the terminal went smoothly, and aside from checking which gate she was going to she didn’t really look at her ticket until they were announcing pre-boarding and she checked to see what aisle she had.
She nearly choked when she realized it was first class.
“I’m going to kill him,” she muttered, looking skywards for strength. “I’m going to kill him. One of these days….”
She had to admit though, the seats in first class were comfy, and she got a window seat as well. Was texting Kaijo and letting him know she was on the plane when her phone buzzed with a new text.
Comfortable?
She felt her mouth twist at that, knew just who it was from and texted him back.
You little imp.
I’m surprised u didn’t put me on the wing.
Too obvious—people look for gremlins on the wing.
Huff, lean back in her seat—look back at the phone when it buzzed.
I’m cleaning up here, should be in NY in 8 – 10 days.
Enough time to disaster-proof the house?
Huff again, text back.
I could have a year’s notice and it wouldn’t be enough, u walking disaster.
Going 2 have 2 turn the cell off soon—behave urself.
Never.
Love u sis.
Smile, text back.
Love u 2 gremlin.
Sigh, got ready to turn the phone off—checked messages when it buzzed again to see a picture Kaijo had taken of himself and Tadashi, captioned excited 2 c u soon! Smile, texted back flapping faster luv u both before finally turning it off and stretching out in her seat. Oh goodness first class was roomy.
“Well kid,” she told her stomach. “I can’t guarantee anything—this family is anything but normal. But at least it’s interesting, right?” Gently rest her arm on her stomach. “I promise everyone’s…okay fine, but they make a good family, okay? You’ll like it here.”
And, watching Texas drop away, she felt like things would turn out fine. The world was once again a tiny bit safer, even if only for a little bit, and she was heading back to her little bastion of normality.
She’d make sure to savor it for a bit before disaster-proofing it—hopefully that crossed over with baby-proofing.
After all, if you asked her brother there was no difference.