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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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?"

Epimetheus gives him a sidelong glance, opens his mouth--

--it can wait. Whatever it is. At least until they've got something alcoholic sitting in front of them.

"'Pparently so." He shrugs. "If you're looking hard enough, anyway."

Epimetheus is being vague. Maybe Prometheus is just being paranoid.

Well. It's served him well in the past. He'll let it roll until he has to face a direct challenge. They'll cross that bridge when they come to it.

"It worked for Guy Fawkes," he remarks cheerfully. "Or, you know, didn't. So, you! You sound like you've been vagabonding. There's gotta be an adventure or two hidden in a statement like that. You run into anybody else we know?"

It's as close as he'll come to asking How's the family?

He shrugs easily. "Not so much. Oh, wait" -- snapping his fingers -- "Artemis. In, uh, India, that was."

There's an exasperated fondness in his voice. "You'll never guess what she was hunting."

"India?" he repeats, warming into a grin again. It twists into a wry quirk. "Oh man, anything I say won't be nearly as gobsmacking as whatever it really was."

"Yaks."

"Excuse me?"

"Yaks. Up in the mountains."

"I know what they are. What is there to hunt? Don't they just stand there and stare at you?"

"Basically, yeah!"

He rolls his eyes. "Totally inoffensive. She said she wanted a pelt."

He snorts. "Girl is losing her touch." He contemplates this in silence as they pass a noxious orange dormitory and a small art museum. "A pelt. You made those beasties really stinky, didn't you?"

"Fairly pungent, yep."

A shrug. "Anyhow, I chewed her out and she agreed to go after something else. Crocodiles in Australia, I think she said."

"She saw that on TV!" he exclaims, full of indignation.

Epimetheus snorts. "Hey, there's an opening. Too bad, really. I liked that guy."

Prometheus is forced to concede that yeah, all things told, that Steve Irwin had been a good guy, and entertaining.

"Our family is weird," he observes, defaulting to wry platitude.

Steve Irwin got it. Reason enough for Epimetheus to like him.

"What was your first clue?"

"I don't like to reveal my sources, but my sprat of a baby brother was certainly the final straw." They push through the double doors of the Lucky Strike, the bar on one hand, the bowling alley on the other. "Whither first, o Great Lanemaster?"

Which earns him a punch in the shoulder. More of a love-tap, really. Really!

"Bar, thank you very much. You haven't told me yet what you've been up to, besides skulking around the Windy city."

How convenient, on his bowling arm! Jackass. Thought affectionately, of course.

The 'tender looks a little startled to see them take up seats. "Whiskey," Prometheus says, without preamble. "Whatever you've got that'll make his game worse than mine."

He leans on one elbow, shrugging. "Probably not too different from you. Tooling around, traveling. Fewer farm implements, though. More just plain making trouble." An entirely innocent look comes over him. "You've come on me in a time of distraction, actually."