A Child In A Grown-Up World

After making certain to appropriately get Raivis out of whatever funk he was in the morning, Peter left the house to get the reason he said he was coming to Hearth out of the way. Sure he said he came here to see his half brothers, but that was only so he could come along with Raivis. So Raivis would not think he was babying him. Or something. Raivis could really get all uptight about the strangest things.

"So... it's been how long now, aru?"

"Probably about– oh, lookie 'ere. Baby Peter."

"Look who's talking, old man," Peter retorted to Brian. Really, everyone was a baby compared to Brian, Brian was twice as old as Peter was! Not that he looked it. He hoped those genes came from their father's side of the family and that Peter would have them to. It would be nice to hit fifty and still look young.

Though he would rather just be healthy enough to act young. Who cared about looks anyway? Peter really did not. He had never quite gotten the point.

"Who is this, aru?" asked the Asian who had just been talking with his oldest brother. Brian shrugged, pushing his glasses further up his nose.

"Another brother."

"Aiya!" the man exclaimed, looking rather bewildered. "How many brothers do you have?"

"Too many."

"Nice to see ya too," Peter scoffed. "I'm here to see Arthur, not you."

"Thank God," Brian rolled his eyes. Peter stuck his tongue out at him as Brian turned about, gesturing off down the road. "Take a left down there. Third 'ouse ta yer righ' is Arthur's."

"Thanks."

"Ye've really grown, twerp."

Peter frowned again, but Brian was grinning and there did not seem to be anything he could say to counter that. It was true. People tended to grow, so what? Occasionally, Peter thought he was missing the point to most people's conversations. And insults.

Still, he continued down in the direction Brian had set him down, remembering the address and knowing he would know long before he got there if Brian had tried to set him down the wrong path. He wanted to see Arthur, get that over with, and head back to that mansion. It obviously was not haunted like Raivis believed it was, but would it not have been cool if it was? He sort of wanted to be here for Halloween just to set that place up like a gigantic haunted house. Actually, new idea. He would bring it up at work.

Peter started to think about what would happen when Uvo– erm, Lorinaitis brought Joan back when he was nearly barrelled over by another person. "Hey! Watch where you're–"

The tall (giant) man continued onward. Peter patted himself off, frowning once more. Man, it was as if the guy had not even recognized there was someone there at all. How rude!

Yeah, it was probably best you got outta here, Raivis, if too many people are like that.

Too bad it was not winter. It was easy to get back at people when there was snow everywhere. Instead, he took a mental snapshot of the man's face. He would ask Arthur who that was. Then he would figure out what to do.

With that future fun in mind, Peter walked on.


Notes:

Here is your chapter with Peter, the boy who, despite having grown up, has not really grown up.

It is not as if he does not like Arthur. As mentioned earlier, Peter and Arthur get along perfectly. Over e-mail and letters. Not so well in person. These are probably the only people I know of that still continue to contact each other even though they know in person they cannot stand each other. It is an odd relationship. One that has Peter thinking he has to show up at least once while he is actually in the neighbourhood. I would say 'just to be polite', but Peter does not think like that.

And the man in question at the end was Ivan. For anyone who was curious.

Delurk: Vera has changed quite a bit from Vash's initial creation of her. He went from making a character that Roderich would not want to marry to realizing Roderich based all of his opinions on what his mother wanted, so he tried to make Vera someone Theresa would not like. Which would be an awful lot like Theresa.

And thank you for that link, I enjoyed that story. But you will always know what I write, because unless I fill a request and I decide I have utterly sucked at it I will put it up here. Which has not happened yet. So there.