Brother's Home

[Flux]

Felix laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling and not seeing it at all. His headphones were plugged into a long cable that jacked directly into his computer's speaker ports; it let him go anywhere in his room and still hear his music without waking half the neighborhood. His playlist was set to random, rollercoastering him through one mood after another without much warning. At the forefront of all his thoughts though, was Banner.

Misfits playing? He's thinking of breaking Banner out of Cullen's. Barenaked Ladies? He's thinking of their cuddly moments and their silly ones. Game music? That would be the superhero career they never got to start. At some point, a face leaned into his field of vision, but he didn't notice it.

Frederick Thomas Fletcher cocked his head at his brother. Kid was all zoned out and crap; no wonder he hadn't responded to mom's yelling. Freddy crossed the room to the computer and checked it; it was playing Talk Dirty to Me by Poison. He shook his head with a smile, leaned down into Felix's face and yelled "WAKE UP!"

Felix jumped a mile, yanking off his headphones as he yelled back, "Dude, what!? What?"

"Man, you were gone," Freddy told him, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Mom's trying to get you to vote on dinner; she apparently told you to make up your mind half an hour ago, so we'd have it when I got here from ESU." Felix scowled at him.

"I was thinking about it," he said off-handedly. Freddy grinned knowingly and shook his head at the poor excuse, which made Felix look at his toes and spin his headphone cords around his fingers.

"Nah," retorted the elder Fletcher. "You were thinking of someone with long eyelashes, flowing hair, and a charming smile." He playfully punched his baby brother in the arm. "Mom says you've been in this kind of happy zen state for a while. I figured you'd met a girl, but we're waiting to hear from you on it. C'mon, let's go talk." He got up and walked downstairs. Felix sighed heavily, rolled his eyes, and followed. At the door he paused by the lightswitch, turning and looking back at his computer. The screensaver blinked into existence, and started scrolling the images in his MyPictures folder. Banner smiled at him from the screen, and he smiled back before hitting the lights and going down to the kitchen.

[Flux]

Sophia and Malcolm Fletcher couldn't help smiling at the thundering sounds of their sons coming down the stairs. Sophia turned from the counter where she was reading through several menus and Malcolm looked up from his newspaper as the pair stopped by the banister.

With Felix standing two steps above his brother, they appeared to be the same height. Felix, however, was much smaller and scrawnier than Freddy, who had maintained his track-star physique through high school and through his current college career. They could almost be twins, if Felix's noes and eyes didn't resemble his mothers, and if Freddy's jaw wasn't xeroxed straight off his father's face.

"Vote," prompted Sophia. The boys responded immediately, their words overlapping each other.

"Pizza." "Chinese."

"You gotta agree," Malcolm instructed, turning back to the paper. "We're not calling in both." Felix and Freddy traded a quick glance before starting a rapid-fire banter.

"I'm not home as much," Freddy said. "We should get pizza in honor of my return."

"I'm the baby," Felix replied. "I'm cuter and more likely to be upset if I don't get my way."

"I'm better looking."

"My girlfriend's hotter than your girlfriend."

Malcolm whistled, and Sophia fairly shrieked with delight. "Oh, you do have a girlfriend!" she gushed, going over to hug her youngest son. "Oh baby, this is so awesome! What's her name, what's she look like, where'd you meet her? Oh honey, sit down, sit down. Freddy, what do you want from the Chinese place?" Freddy rolled his eyes and went to the counter to look over the menu as Sophia dragged Felix through the kitchen to the dinner table and sat him down. Felix turned bright red and stared at the table, though he couldn't help grinning at himself.

"I want the sesame chicken," Freddy called from the counter.

[Flux]

"Me, too," added Felix. His father got up and went to the phone to call in the orders while his brother and mother boxed him in at the table. He squirmed a little under their expectant stares, until finally his mother prompted him with life-or-death urgency:

"So? Are you going to answer me or not?" Felix blinked, then remembered the questions she'd fired off at him earlier.

"Her name is Banner, she's a little bit shorter than me. Red hair, green eyes..." This drew an "ooh" from his mother and caused her to exchange glances with Freddy. Felix rolled his eyes and marched on. "I met her at the mall, in the giant book store. I was standing there reading comics like a nerd and she came up and started talking to me about them. It was pretty cool." His father hung up the phone, wrote down the total for the order, and joined the family in grilling Felix until the food arrived.

"So she's into comics. How much of your good luck did you spend on this girl, big guy?" he asked. Felix shrugged.

"Probably all of it," he sighed. "Her mother just shipped her off to some private school, so we're not gonna get to see each other that much. It's a shame 'cause we've only been dating for maybe a week and a half."

[Flux]

"Oh shhh...stuff." Freddy cut himself off; Malcolm was adamant about no swearing in the house. "Sucks to be you, dude. Did you guys get to go on any dates at all?"

"Uh...kinda? Like, we went to the movies and out for a few meals, but it wasn't like, a date date. I didn't go get her from her house, and we never got dressed up, and...I dunno. Didn't feel date-ish." Felix shrugged. "I'm such a loser. Should've asked her out on one, proper-like."

"Well, honey, at least you two managed to spend some good time together." She squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, then her expression turned serious. "You two didn't do anything, did you?" Felix's face tried to pale and blush simultaneously.

"We...what? What did we do?" he asked.

"Didja mount her?" asked Malcolm, in a scarily accurate impersonation of Grandpa Gustafson from Grumpier Old Men. Felix's hands gestured in a way that perfectly conveyed embarrassment and frustration in their purest forms.

"Oh my God, no," he yelled, hands finally finding a place in his hair to sit and hang on for the inevitable, high-energy freak-out. "No, dad. NO. We did not, in fact, do any mounting. No. Our pants stayed on the whole time. AND OUR SHIRTS!" he screamed, pointing an accusatory finger at Freddy, who Felix had successfully caught trying to exacerbate the situation. "We were perfectly fine. Just. FINE."

Felix felt himself a little calmer in the silence that followed, though only because he was staring at the table again. His mother was doing her "You poor thing" smile, and his brother and father were shaking with quiet laughter. "Sweetie, it's ok," Sophia told him. "You know we're picking on you." She pulled him into a hug. "It's alright."

"Dude, you always get so strung-out over junk that's important to you," Freddy noted. "You gotta work on that, it's gonna make you look stupid." Felix nodded, thinking of his freak-out, anger-venting blog post. He resolved to go back and ever-so-calmly clarify why he felt how he did.

[Flux]

"Anyway," said Malcolm, bringing the conversation to a new point, "Let's hear about you, Freddy. How is YOUR girlfriend doing? And what about those classes your mother and I are helping you pay for?"

Freddy sighed theatrically and began his exposition. "The Sheriff of Crazytown is doing as well as she ever does. Flipping out because of her huge chemistry labs that take up literally half her day, every day, and feeling unloved because our classes are keeping us apart a little more than we'd like. So, we're kinda feelin' Felix and Banner over here." He grinned ruefully at his baby brother, then continued. "Classes are going okay-ish. I'm not proud to report that I failed a test in my latest psych class, but I did do well in the political science class they make us all take for core." He shrugged. "Otherwise things are kinda standard."

"Is your roommate still addicted to Cheetos?" asked Felix. Freddy nodded, and was about to go on, when the doorbell rang. "Food's here," Felix announced unnecessarily. Malcolm got up to pay the man and came back with a large paper bag full of food. Meals were handed out, drinks were retrieved from the fridge, and the family continued to catch up over dinner.