# Bro Problem

Title: Bro Problem
Status: Complete
Characters: Reed, Reeda
Rating: SFW
Classification: One Shot
Author: Anonymous
​
Chattering groups of students dispersed into all directions from Volcano High as the prom finally came to a close.
Among them was a certain pink raptor.
It had been a good party, Reed thought. Everyone had had a good time, and the spectacle had been enough to keep him distracted from his worries for a few hours. But as he now made his way home through the moonlit streets, the noise of the the other students wishing each other the best for the future and making promises to stay in touch fading into the distance, these worries returned with a vengeance.
It was a pretty safe bet that the band was over and done, Reed thought. That was of course Trish's fault. If not for her attempts to break up Fang and Anon, they might have still been a team.
Part of him knew that he was oversimplifying things. Hell, it's not like he couldn't have helped to prevent the whole mess. If he hadn't been so goddamned complacent then-
Well, no sense crying over spilt milk.
Reed stopped beneath a street light and lit one up. Inhaled deeply and looked up at the moon.
He guessed that after the events of the evening, a comeback was out of the question for good. He, like everyone else, had heard Fang play. She had been good. Not on the level of a professional singer, of course; she lacked the post production and the connections of a Rhinorex producer for that, but it had still been better than a school performer had any right to be. Better than any high schoo in bumfuck nowhere deserved.
She didn't need her bandmates anymore.
​
And perhaps that would be for the best. Looking back, Reed had to admit that the band had been run less than optimal. Just why had he felt the need to always go along with Trish?
To protect Fang.
From herself.
But now it seemed as if she had found someone who could do this far better than Reed had ever been able to.
And he was happy for her. For Anon, too. He could tell how much they loved each other whenever he saw the two of them together. He held no doubt in his mind that the two of them would overcome whatever life sent their way.
But without the band, what would he do?
He had never quite moved on from the plans they'd made before Anon came to Volcano High. Finish school, then buy some old van and drive coast to coast, playing wherever people would let them. Build a fanbase. Get discovered.
He'd never managed to let this fantasy go.
Now that it was dead and buried, he would have to find something else to do.
Probably deal a little more, until Fang's dad finally caught up to him. Who knew, perhaps he never would. Reed would just sell off what remained of his stash and then-
Then what?
Compete with some snot-nosed school kids for some entry level job stocking aisles in some super market?
Beg for an apprenticeship at his aunt's funeral parlor?
"I fucked it up," Reed mumbled to himself as he threw the stump of his cigarette onto the sidewalk. "Fucked it all up," he added as he squashed it beneath his heel. The sight of his family home looming in front of him had never inspired this much melancholia in him before.
He opened the door as silently as possible. Running into his parents was the last thing he wanted to cap off his evening. The dark hallway on the other side was a welcome sight. He'd just slide in, sneak up the stairs and fall into his bed befo-
"Hey, Reed, is that you?" called a familiar voice. From the living room, over the top of the couch's backrest, illuminated by the faint, blue-ish glow of the TV-screen, a familiar face was watching him.
"Rea?"
"Who did you expect, li'l bro?"
As she got up to give her brother a welcome hug, Reed realized how much he had missed her. Her lazy smile, that familiar top she always seemed to wear when she was around, the smoky smell of her ruffled mane as his snout sunk into her featherhair, it all came together to create a sense of relieved familiarity.
"I missed you," he almost whispered into her mane and at last she loosened her hug to get a good look at him.
"And I missed you, bro."
"I thought you'd be on tour," he said and Rea laughed that easy laugh that had always cheered him up.
"You know, until yesterday I thought so too. But you know how it is, things happen, and then they never seem to work out. But who am I to tell you, you get plenty of that yourself with your band, don't you?"
Then, when he doesn't answer immediately: "But hey, speaking of the band, how are you doing? Was prom all it's cracked up to be?"
"It was OK," he finally managed, still overwhelmed by the onslaught of emotions that raged through his head.
"I bet you guys knocked 'em dead!" Rea throws up horns "Yeah, VVURM DRAMA! Woo!"
"We didn't play, actually."
Rea lets her shoulders slack and tilts her head slightly as she processes this new information.
"You didn't? I thought that was what you've been working towards for the last year."
"Yeah, but things happened. Didn't work out." He didn't want to talk about this now. All he wanted was to go up to his room and empty a thermos of carfe to forget about the last few weeks. He didn't even realize that he was basically echoing his sister back at her.
But Rea did. The concerned look his sister gave him reminded him of their mother. Guessing his plan for the evening, she gently laid his tail around his hips.
"Hey, Reed. Wanna sit with me for a while? Just to catch up?" She gave him an open smile. "You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to. But if you want, I am here for you, bro."
Despite himself, Reed allowed her to nudge him towards the couch. He knew exactly what Rea meant when she said that he didn't HAVE to tell her. She wouldn't pry, but do her best to steer the conversation into a direction that would allow her to figure out the core of things. And while he'd rather forget about the band and his fucked up future, he knew deep down that talking to someone could only help.
Hell, Fang and Anon had demonstrated as much.
And if there was anyone he could open up to, it was Rea.
"The band won't play anymore," he told her as he flopped down onto the couch. Some talking head on TV was saying something about increased gang violence on skin row, but Rea turned off the sound with a flick of her claw. The look she gave him was incredolous.
"It's over. Done. We won't ever stand on stage together again, Rea." He didn't know this, and yet he felt that it was true. Some part deep within him had known ever since the slides of Anon had popped up in Naomi's presentation.
His sister sat down next to him. He saw her looking at him in the corner of his eye as he kept staring at the Dino on the TV. Rea put her hand on his arm, but didn't push him to go on. He was thankful for that. When he finally found the strength to go on, he could feel the tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
"So Lu- Fang got a boyfriend. Anon, a skinny. But a great dude. He's my bro too, you know." He smiled despite himself. "But Trish, she- she thought he'd drive a wedge between her and Fang. So she tried to break them up. Funny thing is, she only really managed to ruin her own friendship with Fang."
He was crying now. When was the last time he had cried? Must've been when those skinnies jumped him to get his supply and that one guy hit him with a mean kidney hook. That had hurt. But now, the hurt was a different one.
"So, yeah. The band is finished. Fang played alone tonight, and she was better than ever before. There's no way she's coming back now. Can't even fault her. Maybe she can do her own thing with Anon or something. But VVURM DRAMA is dead in the water."
He had dreaded saying out loud what he had felt for so long now, as if giving his thoughts voice would only serve to make them come true. But now that he'd done so, he couldn't deny that he felted as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
His sister slung her arms around his neck and pulled him in close again, resting her chin on his head.
"Man, Reed, I am sorry to hear this." For a while, they just sat there in contemplative silence, enjoying the closeness of one another and the rythm of the other's heartbeat.
Then, after a while, Rea said: "It's kind of funny, I always thought if any dude would end up with Lucy, it would be you."
Reed scoffed at that, inadvertantly blowing his nose into his sister's ratty top. If Rea noticed, she took it in stride.
"You sound like mom."
"Well, duh. I am you older sister. I am supposed to worry about my brother."
"You're just a year older than me, dude. People think we're twins."
"Yeah, but still..."
The sentence peetered out without ever being finished, but neither of them cared all that much.
"Rea?" Reed finally said.
"Yes?"
"You need to let me go."
"What do you mean?"
"I need to get a tissue or I'll get snot all over your top."
A playful shove, and Reed found that he was free again. But before he could get up, he heard a "Think fast!" and just managed to turn his head a few degrees before a pack of tissues connected with his face.
"Ouch," he said without really meaning it and started fiddling with the opening.
Next to him, his sister groaned. "Didn't you say you needed the tissue to prevent this, bro?"
Rea held the hem of her top and stretched it downwards to get a good look at its front. Even in the pale light of the TV there was a wet and slimy patch visible where her brother's face had rested.
"I'm sorry," he managed between two blows of the nose, "Should've said something sooner."
"Nah, it's fine."
Rea leaned back again and examined him with an unreadable gaze. "Man, that really sucks," she said. "I know how much the band meant to you."
He nodded and tried to throw the thouroughly soaked tissue onto the TV stand. He missed, and it flopped against the side of the stand before dropping to the floor. The politician on the news looked as if he were judging him.
"Don't do that," Rea said in a voice utterly bereft of conviction. In fact, she was smiling a little.
"Why not? If mom and dad were here, they'd've come down here already. Way I see is, there's no one here to complain."
"I am here," she said. Her long downy tail slung itself around his shoulders and pulled him close again. "Sooo.." She was unsure whether she should ask. Reed didn't seem like he was high, and in a way, that made him more unpredictable than usual. Still, he hadn't stormed out on her yet.
"...what are you going to do now that you've graduated?"
She felt the breath catch in Reed's throat and for a second she thought that she had ruined the evening, but then he breathed out again and leaned into her some more, his head leaning almost onto her shoulder."
"I don't know," he admitted. "We had planned a tour, you know? Get some banged up van like yours and just drive across the country. Bit like a gap year, but also building up something of a portfolio. 'Played there and there then and then', you know?"
His hands clenched. "That's gone out of the window now."
Rea didn't know what to say to that. "I am sorry," she tried, painfully aware of just how generic it sounded. Her hands found his and gently pried open the almost cramped fingers to entwine them with her own. His head rested completely on her shoulders now. She didn't know when the last time they were together like this was. Probably in their early teens.
Not like their relationship had soured or anything, but after a certain age it had become awkward to be overly physical with each other. This awkwardness was gone now. It felt good to just sit there and hold on to one another. Their embrace said more than a thousand words. Rea felt that it could perhaps almost make up for her lacklustre attempt to comfort him verbally.
"Hey, Reed," she tried again. "We'll figure something out, alright? Starting tomorrow, we'll set things straight."
She didn't think that she sounded particularily convincing, but she could feel his brother nod against her shoulder.
"I'd like, that, sis," he mumbled, "Id like that alot."
​
Rea woke up early the next morning as the first faint rays of light shone through the blinds of the living room window and straight into her eyes.
She groaned and cracked a neck stiff from a night spent on the couch. Splayed out over the other end of said couch lay Reed, his legs draped over her own. Her brother was still fast asleep and for a moment she entertained the idea that perhaps she could close the blinds just a little bit tighter, curl up in the area Reed's legs left her, and go back to sleep herself.
Nah.
She knew how her body worked. If she went back to sleep now, even just that kind of half-slumber that tended to catch her in similar situations, she'd be nothing but tired and cranky later in the day.
Rea didn't like being tired and cranky.
And a grumpy sister was the last thing Reed needed right now.
So she carefully sat up, gathered her brother's legs in her hands and lifted them just the slightest bit to slide off the couch, before carefully setting them down again. Reed fidgeted a little, but gave otherwise no indication of having had his sleep disturbed. Looking down at her brother, Rea shook her head. Poor Reed. The debacle with his band really must have hit him hard.
Now that she thought about it, she couldn't recall Reed ever saying anything concrete about his plans for the future. Sure, she had asked him from time to time when she had still lived at home and so had their parents, but they'd never been able to get much more out of him than his aspirations to become a professional drummer.
And that had been enough for them. Reed already was in a band, the rest would work out as well. Looking back, it seemed as if the whole household had agreed that things would go smoothly. Rea had managed to turn her interest in mountain biking into a career, travelling from extreme sports expo to sports show across the country, and it seemed they'd all decided that her brother would succeed at turning his hobby into his job as well. These things always worked out in the end.
Until they didn't.
As she looked at him, she felt a sense of guilt sneak up on her. Was she to blame for his lack of a plan B, at least partially? She figured that at the very least she probably hadn't set the most realistic example when it came to building a long-term career.
But at least she'd come home at exactly the right time to set things straight. She'd do whatever she could to set her brother up with something resembling a future. That was the least she could do.
But first she'd take a shower. You couldn't face the future smelling like cold smoke and stale sweat.
She looked down at herself and pulled a face as she was reminded of a certain stain's existence.
Add 'caked in your brother's snot' to the list, she thought.
​
When Reed awoke, it wasn't because of the rays of light that had roused his sister from her sleep, but rather the unmistakable smell of breakfast that wafted into the living room.
It took a moment for his still sluggish mind to remember just why he had come to on the couch, but even as he sat up the memories started to come back to him.
Man, he would have to apologize to Rea for just unloading all his baggage onto her.
Groggily he made his way over to the kitchen area. Wincing as the sun shone through the window opposite the door and straight into his eyes he made out just what going on in there.
The kitchen table was filled with a wide assortment of foodstuffs. Reed was pretty sure that if it had been in the fridge, it was on there now. Slices of bread, different topucs, bowls of cereals and sliced fruit, cups that steamed with piping hot coffee; it was all there. Rea was busy at the work station, humming along to the radio as she flipped something in a pan that sent steamy strings of succulent scent wafting through the room. She had swapped her ratty top for one of his shirts snd her hair was still wet from what must've been a morning shower.
"Hey, Reed! Finally awake, I see." she greeted him. "And with perfect timing, too. I am just about finished with the french toast."
With a flick of the wrist she sent the contents of the pan onto a plate before tossing the now empty pan into the sink where it sizzled in the water.
A little stunned by the display of gluttony, Reed slumped into one of the chairs. His sister sat down opposite of him and placed the plate of french toast between the two of them.
"What's up, dude? Not hungry?" Rea was already busy filling up her plate with a wide selection of the foodstuffs on offer while her brother was still taking in the selection.
"I haven't really eaten all that much breakfast lately," he said somewhat lamely, then snorted. "Jeez, Rea. I thought you were an athlete. Don't you have to, like keep in shape?"
He just managed to dodge a piece of thrown silverware.
"I'll have you know that it takes more than just sport to maintain these guns, bro." She flexed her biceps at him. "And calories aside, when you come home from some shitty event where all you had was some rank-ass catering, and see a fridge like you guys have here, chances are you just can't help yourself."
Reed seemed to deflate a little in his chair, his expression growing dim.
"Yeah, that must be pretty nice," he admitted.
Aw shit, here you go, you stupid bitch, Rea mentally berated herself. Way to lay a finger into Reed's wounds.
"I'm sorry, Reed," she said out loud, "I wasn't thinking just now. I didn't mean to-"
"It's alright," he cut her off. "No, seriously. Please don't do that whole walking on eggshells thing around me, ok? I- I am glad that you are around. And I don't want what's going on between my friends to drag you down as well. Right now I just want to get over the band, but that won't work out when you steer clear of things. Like, if things between us aren't like they usually are, then that'll just remind me of that whole mess. Does that make sense? At all?"
He sounded as if he were genuinenly unsure.
"Uh, yeah. But- okay, listen, Reed. I am sorry if I've hurt you. It's just that I am trying to find kind of a balance here. But hey, alright. No more false consideration. Just shooting the shit for however long I am staying. How's that sound, bro?"
"Sounds sweet."
Rea smiled as her brother finally started digging into the breakfast, but inwardly her thoughts were racing. Seemed like if she wanted to help her brother get his life (back?) on track, she would have to be more subtle about it than she had thought.