2020sight | (no subject)

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There's a nice little park on 57th Street -- fountain in the middle, baseball diamond nearby. It's busy in the summers, with students and tourists and kids on the playground.

It's November now, though, and getting chilly, and the only person in the park is a figure on a bench feeding the pigeons, long legs stretched in front of him.

He's not exactly covered in birds, but he's definitely surrounded.

No Hitchcock jokes, please.

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"With all these birds around? Not yet, you're not."

"Now, come on--"

He crumbles off a bit of bread and offers it to one of the pigeons on the bench beside him; it hops up onto his hand, polite as you please.

"Do you really want to suggest anything about these guys when I'm around? And already throwing things at you?"

Now you can make Hitchcock jokes.

"I knew you were gonna say that."

It never stops being fun, pulling that one out.

He refrains from reminding his brother that pigeons are commonly known in the vernacular as "rats with wings." Given that Epimetheus is tight with the rat community, Prometheus has no intentions of turning his day into a deleted scene from Willard either.

Cheerful -- "Asshole."

Equally so -- "Dweeb."

"No, seriously," he says, standing and sending pigeons scattering. "It's a good name for you. 'Cause you look like shit."

Prometheus crooks one side of his mouth. "I'm touched. You didn't smell me out just to offer me a makeover, did you?"

"Might've. That kinda thing's still lucrative, right?"

"It's all over the teevee. You get that where you keep yourself? Which, where the hell is it, these days?"

Epimetheus has the grace to look vaguely sheepish.

"Yeah, uh. Indiana, over the summer. Kinda all over the place before that."

"That close? Who's the asshole now?" But there's no heat behind the admonition. "Come on, you owe me a hug or something now." He even takes his hands out of his pockets, helpfully.

"Hey, I'm here now! And I was working. Can't leave the farm for Chicago on a whim."

"What the hell else is Chicago for if not for ditching good, honest labor and mixing it up with wild hellions? I'm confused."

He laughs. "You tell me, local boy."

That raises a grin. "Well hell, there's a set of lanes just two blocks that way. Assuming you're still stuck in 1957." He flicks the collar of Epimetheus' shirt. "There are better places for that in other parts of the city. But that's a quick fix, if you're just passing through."

Epimetheus claps his brother on the shoulder.

"I will happily wipe the floor with your sorry ass -- but not 'til I've had something to drink and pumped you for information."

"Two and three, we can take care of, but one ain't gonna happen without an arduous and epic fight."

...to hell with this manly standoffish thing. Prometheus pulls his little brother in for a hug.

He doesn't say anything about that. There's a reason he looks like shit, after all.

--Yeah okay. He can deal with this.

It's been a while.

"Good to see you, brother."

Prometheus clears his throat, and lets go. He nods, once, before meeting his brother's eye.

That's all he's prepared to allow himself in public, for the moment.

"If we're gonna go make trouble, I think your buddies might not squeeze past the 'no shoes, no shirt, no service' rule."

He eyeballs the pigeons. They better not have been staring just now.

One of the pigeons eyeballs him back.

(Nobody eyeballs like a pigeon. Except maybe a goat.)

Epimetheus snorts, and glances at the birds. "Go on, then."

The flock takes off in a clatter of wings and cooing; Epimetheus watches them go with a satisfied grin.

(Freaky damn goat eyes always freaked Prometheus out. He was certain Epimetheus had made them so weird-looking just because he could.)

A cluster of college students startles from the sidewalk. One of them catches sight of the two tall men and frowns, somewhere between puzzled and accusing. Prometheus smiles at her -- what can you do? The undergrads break away and hurry toward campus.

"Come on yourself." He starts off toward the baseball diamond, cutting through the playground toward 55th Street. "Before there can be pumping, there's got to be plying. Indiana, you said? What the hell, man?"

The implication is not so much Why didn't you call? as Dude, Indiana?

"Indiana's nice," he protests, following. "It's quiet."

He likes quiet.

"And farmy. And if we're gonna talk living arrangements, what're you doing out here in the Midwest? I figured you'd be in New York, DC, Hong Kong, somewhere like that."

"Chicago is Chicago," he declares, spreading his arms out as if to rally the city at his back. "It's its own damn creature. Besides, I've done all those other places. This one just agrees with me now."

They cross the street in silence for a moment. "How'd you find me, anyway?"

Casual -- "I visit the old country every once in a while. Called in a favor, found a guy who knows a guy who knows a gal who knows a guy. You know, like that Kevin Bacon thing."

Epimetheus wouldn't be imagining it if he thought he caught a flicker of panic in his brother's face.

His Adam's apple bobs as he tries to paint it over with a smile. "Loose lips sink reclusive weirdzos, right?"