Brotherly Love [The Manne Brothers, Alex]

[RC Manne]

“Jean, would you please keep your scarf around your neck and not your head?” RC begged tiredly of the twelve year-old bopping along the sidewalk next to him. “You’ll get sick.” Vermont post-Halloween was a hell-hole for RC. Being that he was always in a varying state of slight wetness, the icy air and cool breezes chilled him straight through. Even his trusty grey hoody couldn’t save him. Inwardly he lamented the cool afternoon, hugging his arms tightly around his chest.

RC had managed to get Jean down from his energetic high long enough to get him dressed for the cool weather and out the doors of the dorms to visit their eldest brother and his house mate. The dinner was meant to be just an informal reunion, and frankly, RC was glad for it. Conrad’s easy-going nature always put RC at ease. He was just…so cool! Secretly RC strove to be like Conrad one day, but didn’t see that happening.

RC couldn’t even talk to girls without spluttering like a sprinkler.

The oddball pair finally reached the door to Conrad’s place. RC
knocked, smiling excitedly.

[Jean Manne]

Jean was pretty excited about going to go see Conrad. It was kind of weird being around just RC and Conrad and not the whole entire family with them. But it was also pretty cool, since it was like spending quality time with his big brothers. Who were pretty fun, as big brothers went.

Except for when RC thought he was Mom. Super uncool, RC. Super uncool.

Jean skipped along the sidewalk, the cooler weather feeling nice on his face. RC was just cranky because he was always wet all the time and he got cold in the winter. He guessed it was one of the many downsides to being a giant human goo-ball. Inwardly, though Jean would never admit it, he was secretly grateful he had a cooler power than his brother.

Giving RC a look, he slung his scarf around his head like a headband. “RC. You’re not mom. ‘Sides, I’m not gonna get sick, I’m in two sweaters.” He shook his head at his brother, “I can’t believe you made me put on two sweaters. That’s just… that’s just weird.” He sighed heavily. One thing was for sure: RC needed constant coaching. It was a wonder he ever functioned out in the real world without Jean. One day he’d figure out how to pass some of his coolness onto his brother. Jean figured he could share some wisdom, he was just nice like that.

“Hurry up, hurry up, knock on the door!” Jean chanted when they got to Conrad’s house. He couldn’t wait to see his eldest brother again. Because Conrad was awesome. When he wasn’t satisfied with RC’s knocking, he hopped forward and rapped on the door himself. With both knuckles. It was like RC didn’t know how to knock on a door or something. Honestly, Jean had to do everything around here.

“Conrad, Conrad, Conrad!” Jean shouted when the door opened, jumping up and down in his excitement, forgetting that he still had his scarf tied across his forehead, “We’re here!” As if Conrad couldn’t guess. Without further ado, Jean launched into a report about his life: “Hammel is really exciting even though they still have classes like math and stuff, which I think is dumb because I don’t want to do things like fractions when I could be doing this!” Dramatically, he pulled out the same lumpy, misshapen piece of metal he’d been carrying around with him since the day he found out he had powers. Concentrating hard, he willed the metal to turn into… some other metal. He was so excited about seeing his brother and showing off, that he couldn’t really decide on a specific metal, so it shivered vaguely and turned a shade lighter. Not very impressive. Jean shrugged, “Well, it was better this morning.” He beamed up at his brother, “But cool, right?”

[Conrad Manne]

Okay, so two young men, living in a tiny rented apartment in a building that had given up being a hotel around the time of the Great Depression, one still in high school and one who was out of college, but only barely...yes, it was pretty messy. Conrad had never been particularly clean about his stuff when he'd lived at home, and his dorm rooms had always been littered with clothes in various piles of clean and unclean on the floor. At the moment, well, that's what the apartment he shared with Alex looked like as well.

But his brothers were coming, and he had to clean it up, or else Jean might report back to Mom that his older brother was once again living in a pig sty. He ran through the small, combined living room/dining room/kitchen, picking up things and hurried to throw them into his bedroom or Alex's. Some of the shirts that had been hanging over the back of the couch--the laundry room's dryer didn't work, no matter how often they complained to the building manager--might have ended up in the wrong room, but they could sort that out later, or Alex might again end up at Hammel wearing one of his shirts.

Luckily, by the time RC and Jean arrived, the main part of the apartment was clean, and he was able to close the doors to the bedrooms. With a grin, he opened the front door and ushered the younger boys inside. "That is awesome, Jean. Do you know what you turned it into?" Conrad could tell that it had changed, and how many calories his brother had burned doing it, but that was it.

Then he turned to the one of the three who didn't have a chemistry-related ability and gave him a solid pat on the shoulder. "How you doing, RC? You studying hard?" Okay, so maybe Mom would be asking him about the other two as well.

[Alexander McKenzie]

Alex... really didn’t help the clean factor in their little apartment. He didn’t like it when his hands were dirty, but his room? That was another story entirely. Much like Conrad, his clothing resided less in the closet and dresser, and more on the floor. Somehow it just never made it from the laundry room back to where it should be. If his mother was here, she’d be on him to clean up his room. But when Conrad was the same as him when it came to cleaning... well... that was what got them into situations like this.

He was running too, helping with the clean up. Whatever didn’t belong to him, they could sort out later. The important part was appearances. He knew Conrad’s brothers, and he knew that they were fully capable of tattling on their older brother for living in the shared mess. Which wasn’t entirely fair, as only half the mess was Conrad’s. So, yes. Alex was helping. He padded through the living room, kicking the last of the disaster zone behind his bedroom door. Of course it would just be easier to keep it clean, but what kind of fun was that?

Alex was lounging in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He liked to keep out of the way of the Manne brothers when they were all together, at least at first. They were family, after all. Granted, he’d often call Conrad ‘bro’, but it didn’t mean the same thing. He gave them a few moments before moving out of the kitchen and waved at the boys. “Hey, guys.” He knew the both of them, both through Conrad and through Hammel, and he liked them. Particularly Jean. He was a cute little guy.

“So what’s the plan?” He moved back to perch on the arm of the couch. “Jean’s gonna make dinner, right?” You’re so funny, Lexy. Not.

[RC Manne]

“Jesus, Jean take a chill pill. I knocked already.” RC whined, rolling his eyes as Jean tried to recreated the drum solos in STOMP! With his knuckles. Oh well. It wasn’t like Conrad and Alex didn’t know they were coming. Everyone was pretty used to Jean’s over enthusiasm by now.

RC leaned back slightly when Jean shouted and leaped with joy. Hell, Jean never acted like that when RC opened the door. How tragic. RC smiled at his older brother and opened his mouth to say hello, when Jean cut him off. He simply closed his mouth and looked a bit irked, particularly when Jean produced the lump of metal out of his pocket. That. Thing. Went. Everywhere. RC sighed. He couldn’t blame Jean for showing off, but eventually it got annoying. RC would never say anything though, because frankly he was amazingly proud of his little brother and how quickly he was catching on…

…even if he couldn’t do that much. RC snickered when Jean declared how much color the color-changing of the metal was in the morning.

RC tucked his hands in his pockets and shrugged shyly. “Yeah. I want to really keep up my grades so maybe I can graduate early.” He said, though he didn’t quite sound convinced. Frankly, RC didn’t like to talk about how hard he had to work in school. He got the grades, but man was it tiring. He wasn’t as smart as Conrad, and he didn’t have that measuring power, but he wanted to make his family proud. “And I swim all the time. Even though it messes with my composition I think its actually helping.” He added as he stepped inside, sounding hopeful. Every time he got out of the pool, he felt a little more solid than before, like he hadn’t soaked up as much water. It was a start, right?

He gave a half-assed wave to Alex. A smile finally breached his face when Alex joked about Jean cooking dinner. “Bet Jean could turn your pans to copper if he tried really hard….but cook?” RC shook his head. “I don’t wanna die, thanks.” He teased, pinching Jean gently on the shoulder.

[Jean Manne]

Jean waved energetically at Alex. Jean liked Alex, he thought Alex was cool. Alex could make force fields, which was awesome. It was almost as cool as his power. Jean puffed his chest out proudly at Alex’s suggestion that he make dinner. “I could!” Jean insisted as everyone laughed, “I learned how to make pancakes! I could make pancakes!” He looked around at everyone, expecting them to be duly impressed. He was not amused when RC pinched his shoulder. He batted RC’s hand away. “You wouldn’t die.” Jean rolled his eyes, “I make great pancakes. But I totally could turn your pans into copper.” He nodded vigorously to punctuate his statement, “I totally could. You want me to try?”

“My grades are good!” Jean piped up at Conrad and RC’s conversation about school, “School’s really boring though. I didn’t think we’d have to learn about math here.” He made a face, “It’s so boring. I thought Hammel would just teach me how to do my powers.” He didn’t really think normal things like math and science should apply when you had cool powers. That’s not what happened on T.V. anyways.

He looked around at Conrad and Alex’s apartment. “Man, this apartment is so cool. When can I get my own apartment, Conrad?” He turned to his older brother, “Next year, can you ask Mom if I could get one? I think I could handle it. Then, I wouldn’t have to worry about cleaning up ever and I could stay up as late as I wanted.” It sounded like a pretty good plan to Jean.

He turned to the group at large. “So… what are we eating for dinner?”

[Conrad Manne]

Conrad grinned and shook his head at his youngest brother. He actually was impressed that the kid knew how to make pancakes. It had taken him seventeen years to learn how to cook even the most basic meal for himself, mostly because he'd either been living at home or at Hammel. And even in college, he'd made friends with the girls who liked to bake, and liked (cute) guys who hung around, complimenting them on their baking. It was an ideal system, really.

"Of course you have to learn math. You also need to learn science and English and everything else so you can make it in the 'real world'." He shrugged as he said that, because honestly, Conrad could barely believe that he was technically considered an adult. He was a week away from being twenty-one, and a college grad with a job and an apartment. "Just knowing how to do your power won't help you when it comes time to pay your bills. So you study hard, like RC."

Though, knowing how to turn the recycling into gold certainly would. He made a mental note to ask about that, just in case he and Alex fell behind in their rent. (Not that it seemed all too likely, but it was just a backup. He didn't want to take advantage of Jean, after all.) "That is good for you." He said, referring to both of them. "Are you thinking of signing up for softball or soccer in the spring?" He'd been in the softball intramural league every year he'd been at Hammel, and really enjoyed it.

"No thanks, Jean, I prefer Teflon. It's easier to clean. And I was thinking chicken quesadillas for dinner. Is that all right with you guys?" He addressed that to the room in general, even though he knew Alex knew they already had the chicken and cheese in the fridge, and there wasn't really enough of anything else to feed four.

[Alexander McKenzie]

Just watching the Manne brothers made Alex marginally jealous of his best friend. He’d never had siblings. He might have, if certain things hadn’t happened. He shook his head. He’d just have to live through Conrad and play with his brothers when he had the chance.

Which was easy when RC was being a brat, and Jean was being... Jean. Alex grinned and waved back at Jean, moving closer to the grouping. But RC’s little comments about dying from his brother’s cooking, and the pinch, made him move closer. He wasn’t exactly huge, but he was still tall enough to grab at RC and attempt a noogie. “Be nice to your brother, RC,” he teased before letting go and offering his hand to Jean for a high five.

His enthusiasm over his power was actually nice to see. Alex had only ever found his powers useful, but not necessarily cool. He poked Jean in the side gently. “How about next time you’re over, we’ll let you make pancakes?” Unlike his best friend, Alex had always been decent in the kitchen. At the very least, when he ‘d moved out of the dorms and into their apartment, he’d been able to feed himself and Conrad without too much disaster ensuing.

Conrad’s suggestion was fine with Alex. He just shrugged and slung his arm around Jean. “It’s kind of all we have,” he admitted. “But nobody’s going to die from it.” He nudged RC in the ribs with a devious little smile. The kid could be a brat sometimes, but he was fun.

[RC Manne]

RC wasn’t a picky eater, and had never been really. Frankly, Chicken and cheese sounded just as tasty as what he could get in the cafeteria…which was usually a rather nice array of things. And the easy, college-esque meal was strangely comforting. He didn’t dwell on it, preferring to join the conversation about Jean’s cooking.

The pit of his stomach dropped when Conrad mentioned sports. RC loved sports, but couldn’t ever bring himself to play. Maybe soccer, but softball? RC chuckled and wiggled his fingers. “I’d be afraid the bat would slip loose or something. Knock some clean out, me.” RC said, shyly tugging at the hair at the back of his neck. What a nightmare that would be.

“Oh I know I won’t die---aie!” RC squeaked when Alex noogied him, squirming in the hold. RC was generally difficult to hold onto, being that he was so slippery, but Alex’s half-cocked attempts were just enough to get him to laugh. He struggled half-heartedly, and was released soon after.

“You jerk!” RC retorted, playfully shoving at Alex. He’d never hurt a fly, but rough housing Alex was just par for the course. He was like their other brother…the one you could beat up on and Mom wouldn’t yell at you too loud or too long. Alex was easygoing enough that the rough housing was never something painful: it wasn’t bullying; it was just fun!

[OoC:: XD This is terrible. Sorry! </3]

[Jean Manne]

Jean made a grumpy face at Conrad’s logic. Yeah, it made sense that he’d have to learn Science and English for real world and blah blah blah. But that didn’t mean he wanted to. Real world stuff was boring, power stuff was much cooler. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” He sighed, shuffling his feet. He didn’t argue the point though; Jean was pretty sure Conrad knew everything, so it would be pointless to argue with him.

He brightened at the mention of sports. He didn’t know Hammel had sports teams. “Yeah!” Jean shouted, bouncing on the soles of his shoes, “I wanna do soccer! I think I would do really good in soccer!” Jean didn’t want to brag, but he was a pretty fast runner. “When do you sign up for soccer?” He asked Conrad, looking up at him with eager eyes. Soccer sounded awesome.

As he zoomed around Alex and Conrad’s living room in a wide circle (showing how fast he was, for soccer, you know), he stopped momentarily at Alex’s answer to his food question. “I love chicken quesadillas.” Jean informed the room, “That sounds super good.” He enthusiastically returned Alex’s high five, jumping in the air a bit for good measure. “Yeah, RC. Don’t diss on my pancakes.” Jean teased his brother, grinning brightly. “And when I come over next, I’ll make you guys tons of pancakes.” He promised the older boys, looking importantly around the room.

At the sight of RC’s struggles and subsequent play-shoving, Jean did the only logical thing a twelve-year-old boy could possibly do.

He took a running leap and landed on RC’s back.

His arms twined around his older brother’s neck and shoulders, he squirmed around until he got a good grip on RC. “I got him, Alex!” Jean laughed, shouting near RC’s ear. “You should tickle him!” Still attached to RC’s back despite the slipperiness (hey, twelve years of practice can make one very good at tackling a slippery brother), Jean noticed the tattoos on Alex’s arm. “Hey, those are cool!” Jean said, not wanting to let go to point. “Did you draw them yourself?”

[Conrad Manne]

Conrad and Alex had started at Hammel a year apart, each when he was fifteen. And as soon as he'd met the younger guy, all of his "big brother" instincts had shown themselves, and they'd been friends ever since. Then he'd been off to college, but RC had started at Hammel, and the whole process of Manne/McKenzie bonding had started again. So when the banter gave way to roughhousing, it just made Conrad roll his eyes and smile, before heading into the small kitchen, calling over his shoulder, "No one's going to die. At least not tonight, because Mom'll be pissed at me about it." As he spoke, he pulled out the skillet from the cabinet, then started pulling things out of the refrigerator. "I'm going to start cooking then. Does anyone not want onions in theirs?" He hoped not, because seriously, who hates onions?

Conrad would have asked one of his brothers to come in and give him a hand with the cooking--despite the general taunting of Jean, he knew they weren't completely useless in this field--but their kitchen was really too small, and he didn't want to keep bumping into anyone.

The continued commotion made him poke his head back out into the living room, where he rolled his eyes again. "Jean, get off." Maybe his admonishment would have been more effective if he wasn't laughing so hard. "I don't know, be nice?" Eh, what was the use of telling them off? RC was slippery enough that he could get Jean off eventually, and trying to give direction would only end with him getting pulled into it.

[Alexander McKenzie]

For Alex, bonding with Conrad in that first year had been great. His friend had been there a full year prior to his arrival, and he’d been invaluable as a friend and guide to the school. It helped that Conrad seemed to automatically fall into a “big brother” persona, as well as becoming Alex’s best friend. And once RC had come around, Alex was happy to act the surrogate brother to him while Conrad was in university. He really did adore the Manne brothers. They were easy to get along with, and a lot of fun. Especially when they were all together.

Jean’s enthusiasm over the sports teams made Alex grin. He’d never been much for sports. Contact sports had always made his mother nervous, and honestly, he knew he was small. He had no desire to get squashed. He’d never been all that athletic. So, while Conrad had had softball, Lexy had joined up with the Art Club since his first year at Hammel. Obviously not as exciting as soccer was to Jean, but he liked it well enough.

“Onions are good with me,” Lexy responded to Conrad, before looking at Jean. “And that sounds great, Jean.” Pancakes were okay with him, no matter what meal of the day it was.

And then the roughhousing started. It never took long, between him, RC, and Jean. If Conrad could be pulled into the mix, all the better. Once Jean was on RC’s back, he was tempted to follow the kid’s instructions. But from past experience, he knew that would probably end in a liquefied RC, and he’d probably go sulk in the corner for a bit. “Naw, we’ll do that later,” he said with a little grin as he let go. The shove he received wasn’t mean, he knew that. He just stuck out his tongue at RC and gave him a little shove back. “You’re a jerk.”

Once Conrad had given his orders to let RC go, Alex really wasn’t sure if he expected Jean to listen. Thankfully, at least he could be distracted. He blushed a little and nodded at the question, his left hand tracing over the cartoonish figures on his right arm. “Yeah, I did. I designed all my tattoos myself.” Of course, he’d also gotten bored in English and doodled on his hands with a blue Sharpie. He held up his hand to show Jean. “I did these, too. Not so permanent, but they’re fun. Sharpie tattoos.” It was how he cured boredom in class, or how he tided himself over until he could afford new ink for real. Of course, the next one he was saving for was bigger. He was about halfway there, now. He grinned down at the kid and gently cuffed him on the shoulder. “And listen to your brother. Be nice to RC.” Who was probably going to get him back sometime in the next little while. And he’d look forward to it.

[RC Manne]

RC had plans on and off to join the swim team. He wasn’t sure he could do it, frankly, or even if he really wanted to. It would be wicked embarrassing if he couldn’t get himself back together after a swim. Maybe he would just settle for watching his little brother at soccer games, considering the spunky eleven year-old seemed pretty keen on the sport. And once Jean set his mind on something ‘cool,’ there was little distracting him from his goal. “You’d be good a soccer, Jean.” RC, rolling his head in circles to watch the little spit-fire zoom around the room.

“I like onions--OOF!” RC managed to reply just before Jean suctioned himself onto his back and squirmed around like a perturbed spider monkey. Immediately RC began to flail, trying to reach back and tickle his younger sibling. “Not fair! A sneak attack is so uncool!” He said, though the room was filled with his laughter. Rough housing was one thing RC didn’t mind being slippery for. It usually meant he won. Except this time around, when not only did Alex cop out, but Conrad stopped any subsequent attacks. RC managed to pry Jean off him and (holding the other one’s arms so he couldn’t reattach) leaned down, whispering to him a plot. “We’ll team up on Alex later, yeah?”

Then the tattoo discussion came up. Oh god. Frankly, RC dreaded the day Jean wanted a tattoo. While their mother wasn’t the most strict (she invited the of-age siblings to drink with the parents, and offered the occasional sip of champagne to RC on New Year’s), she wasn’t huge on tattoos. RC looked somewhere between discouraged and dubious when Alex continued to conversation. He tried to give Alex the look that said ‘don’t encourage,’ but he wasn’t sure it would work.

He leaned over, peering into the kitchen at Conrad. “Is there…anything I can do to help, Bro?” He called. RC was about as useful in the kitchen as a Siamese cat was in a forest fire, but he always tried to offer. And then tried not to burn the house down.

[Jean Manne]

“Awww!” Jean groaned loudly at Conrad’s orders to get off of RC, “But it’s so much fun! And sometimes he turns all gross and puddly! That’s always funny, right?” Nevertheless, Jean slid off of RC’s back, sulking a little as he did so. But he brightened instantly when RC whispered their new plan to him. “Okay!” he whispered back, grinning at his brother. Hey, Jean was a twelve year old boy; he had no loyalties, as long as there was wrestling guaranteed from somewhere.

Jean’s eyes widened as Alex showed him his sharpie tattoos. “Wow!!” Jean yelled, leaning over to look at his arms, “I wanna Sharpie tattoo! Can you draw me one? Can you draw one on my arm? I can get one, right? ‘Cause—‘cause it’s not a real tattoo, right Conrad? Right?” Jean looked at his oldest brother pleadingly, “Pleeeeeaasse?” He clasped his hands in front of him as if begging. He didn’t bother asking RC. By his other brother’s scrunched face, RC didn’t approve of sharpie tattoos. But then, RC didn’t approve of anything. Besides, they were just sharpies.

As RC slouched into the kitchen to talk to Conrad, Jean scooted closer to Alex, peering at his arms, “Soo… can you draw me a tattoo? Can you draw dragons? Can I have a dragon on my arm?” This was the most exciting thing Jean had ever done in… a few days at least. He leaned over to yell into the kitchen, “Don’t let RC touch anything Conrad! I don’t want goo in my quesadillas!” Why yes, Jean was a brat.

[Conrad Manne]

Thankfully, no one actually disputed putting onions in the food. Giving the option to his brothers felt polite, even though he subscribed to the same mentality that his mother always had: Unless you were sick or allergic, you eat what's in front of you. With as many children as the Manne's had, it had never been practical to make separate meals for finicky eaters.

As for the Sharpie tattoos, well, that was something that Mom probably wouldn't like too much, but what harm would it do? So long as Jean didn't get drawn on just before they went home for Thanksgiving, she wouldn't know, and he wouldn't get in trouble for letting it happen. (And Jean wouldn't get in trouble for it either, though that was a secondary concern.) So he didn't comment his brother and Alex's conversation.

When RC came in to offer to help, he shot the teenager a grin and pointed to one of the cabinets. "You can set the table. Dishes are in there, above the sink. Silverware is in the drawer on the left, and get the salsa and sour cream from the fridge." Their dishes were mostly a collection of mismatched plastic tableware, with a notable amount having been pilfered from the dining hall at Hammel--thank you Alex--and a few from Conrad's college. (It hadn't been him, seriously. His roommate had stolen the plates and then left them behind when he'd moved out. It was either turn them in himself and possibly get in trouble, or take them and put them to good use. His decision was obvious.) "And shut up, Jean!" he called into the other room. Had he been that obnoxious to Velma when he was that age? "You can come in here and get the napkins yourself, if you insist."