"I know." I shrugged his words off, pretending they were nothing…after all they were, weren't they? Brotherly love, the bane of my existence.

"Y-you do?" he asked shakily.

"Well yeah…" I nodded, tearing off a piece of my final waffle and playing with it slightly. "I mean we fight but at the end of the day we're still brothers and we still love each other." I tossed the now sufficiently shredded bit of waffle in to my mouth.

"Oh…yeah…" he nodded in agreement, but I could swear his face fell slightly. Or maybe I saw that because I wanted to. No, I didn't want him to hurt, I just wanted him to mean that he loved me the way I loved him.

"We still on to go register today?" I asked through a mouthful of waffle. I guess I was too busy thinking about everything else to realize that I was still chewing. Oh well. I looked at Nick, one half of me hoping that he'd say no, he had other plans he'd forgotten about. The other half of me just wanted to spend time with him, to be close.

"I guess…" he shrugged. If breakfast was so awkward then what was the drive going to be like? Oh god…I shudder to think.

"So…did you uh…did you get any cool gifts?"

"Joe gave me Rooney shirt…" he shrugged. I didn't understand why he still liked them. I had too until I actually paid attention to their lyrics…or more until Anne forced me to read her analysis of them, proving that they were, in fact, sexist…after that I dunno, I just stopped respecting them even though we're toured with them.

"Cool." I nodded. I still felt bad that I hadn't gotten him anything. I'd have to remember to do that while I was out today. Wait, he was going to be with me. Fuck. I shoved the rest of the waffle in my mouth at once. Why did you do that? No idea…stupid popstar…dumb, dumb, dumb popstar, now you look even more lame than you already did. Nick raised his eyebrow at my less then flattering action and looked back to his cereal.

"Oh…and mom said I can get a dog…finally. It's been what…four years since Cocco?" What?! Why hadn't she run this by me? I knew he wanted a dog and I didn't care, I just felt out of the loop. Maybe because I'd taken myself out of the loop, that must have been it. Maybe if I appeared to care about Nick roughly half as much as I actually care for him people would tell me things like this…but no, I shunned him. That was just another of my many mistakes.

"Nick, I haven't been going about this the right way…" I said finally. He looked up at me, looking slightly hopeful. What did he think I was going to say? Maybe he thought I had a gift for him…that I didn't slack off.

"What?" I could tell that he was trying to hide it, but there was a definite hint of anticipation in his voice.

"Being your brother…lately I've gone off of the path."

"Oh." He seemed disappointed. I should have gotten him a gift. Stupid Kevin.

"Yeah…I mean I really do care about you, you're my brother." I began, choosing my words carefully so that they didn't display any of the hidden feelings I had locked away. "I've been running off when what I should have been doing was setting a better example for you to follow…" I trailed off, that was pretty much it right? Oh yeah…that and I love and I want to pull you on to my lap right now and kiss that dazed look right off of your face. "And last night when I…well…when I you know…" Wow, that was mature. "I didn't mean to freak you out."

"You didn't." Well now he was lying. I had seen the confusion on his face when he pushed me away…my kiss had scared him badly.

"Whatever…my point is that I'm gonna try to be a little better at this brother thing, because well…Hangover Joe isn't the best role model either...you know considering the whole Aileen broken vow thing and the uh…mysterious loss of a silver ring with a cross on it…" which I happened to know wasn't lost. It was buried in the back yard. At least he was having sex with his girlfriend instead of fantasizing about making love to his brother. Nick just nodded at me. "So, brothers?" I asked, looking at him hopefully, offering my hand for him to shake.