Author's Notes: There's an OC, but it's not a significant one. I'm trying to be careful with them, alright?

Chapter 12: Brothers and Sisters

"Hey, boss. Can I have that?"

Johnny Vincent didn't realize he was being talked to. He looked into the ground with his intense, dark eyes and kept bouncing a socket wrench up and down in his hand.

"Boss!"

Suddenly, the greaser king came to and, as he did so, he dropped the wrench. The loud clank startled him, almost making him stumble backwards into a broken moped.

"Oops. Sorry Lucky", he apologized and picked the tool up. Then he crouched to hand it over to the tall auburn-haired greaser who was on his back, ready to go back under the car he was working on. When he returned to his work, Johnny turned his eyes back to where they had been fixed moments ago and remained quiet.

The greasers were indulging in their extracurricular club activities at the auto shop, but as it had been typical of Johnny for the past few weeks after Larry's encounter with the preppies, the king was distracted. There were many things that could have caused that, but, unsurprisingly, this bout of moping had a distinct whiff of Lola.

Whenever things with the greaser queen reached a breaking point, Johnny would rant and rage about them to the nearest victim but, before that, he tended to be stubbornly quiet about whatever problems they had. There was also this agreement of sorts which greasers tried to respect the best they could: no talk about broads during club activities. Right now, though, it was about to be broken by one certain Hal Esposito, who was tired of looking at Johnny's brooding.

"A penny for your thoughts, boss", he said, giving a meaningful look at everyone present inside the room, making sure nobody gave him crap afterwards.

Johnny looked at Hal expressionlessly, then sniffed and shifted his weight on his legs. He was reluctant to speak – it's not like he loved to show how out of control his relationship was, much less burden his friends with his problems. Sure, he had always talked about them to Larry, but he had always assured it was fine with him.

"It's... It's nothing important", he harrumphed. Hal cocked his brow in doubt.

"Well, I... I messed up with Lola. Did somethin' I probably shouldn't have", Johnny muttered. Ricky and Lefty stopped working on their projects and raised their head to look at their king expectantly.

"Remember that night when Larry got attacked by preppies? That night, I managed to get Lola drunk and I... We...", he said, hesitating to continue.

Suddenly, he had the undivided, hopeful attention of every greaser in the room. Hal, however, rolled his eyes.

"Tsch, Lola, drunk? Boss, you oughta know better," he snarked.

"Wuh, what. What's she like when she's drunk?" Ricky asked, distracted from Johnny's distress.

"It's like instant PMS, innit boss? You oughta know", Hal said, grinning at Johnny suggestively. The clique leader cleared his throat and looked away.

"Anyway, I took her to the Blue Balls Pool Hall for some privacy, got her drunk, and I tried to get her to... Talk."

The anticipation, you could almost hear it crumbling.

"It's... It's kinda hard to get her to talk about somethin' she don't wanna. She just weasels outta it by distractin' me. But when she's drunk... Well. She don't try that shit when she's drunk", Johnny explained.

"So, what didja try to talk about with her?" Lucky asked, wiping his hands clean with a rag as he sat up.

"About that disgustin' prank she pulled, mostly. Or whatever that was, I ain't even sure. I still can't figure out why she did that, what Peanut, or me, could've done to piss her off", Johnny murmured.

He didn't notice it, but in the back of the auto shop, Vance's face suddenly turned sour upon the mention of Larry.

"What did she say?" Hal asked.

"Not much. She pretty much just laughed at me, like I was an idiot. Told me to figure it out by myself."

"Sheesh, boss. I know we keep pesterin' ya about this, but there are plenty of fish in the sea that aren't as high maintenance", Hal grumbled.

"... I know. But I don't wan't 'em", Johnny answered bluntly. The other greasers looked at each other, not sure what to say.

"Y'know, Peanut told me one thing about Lola that I hadn't really realized. Somethin' that makes her different: she ain't just a pretty face, she's smart. She's really smart", he said, a surprisingly mellow and sad smile lingering on his lips.

"Well, so? If you want a smart one, try that effin' nerd, she's like a walkin' dictionary", Hal snorted.

Johnny shook his head and sighed.

"Not smart like that. Lola's different. She looks at a person like we look at bikes. She knows people so well, it's almost scary. She understands the streets too, and she ain't no alley cat: more like an alley tiger", he said, pausing for a moment to organize his thoughts once more. Everyone else seemed to hold their breath – it was rather rare for Johnny to be this open about things like this in front of a crowd.

"She's like us, always true to the streets. She's a chick, but she's also a bro, y'know? Peanut helped me realize: that's why I love her", stated he, his voice very serious.

"It's embarrassing to get so worked up over a harlot like her, but I... I can't help it. I don't want a nice chick, I want her. If only she were satisfied with me..."

All of a sudden, Vance stood up, his abrupt movement pushing a tool trolley against another and making a loud bang. When everyone in the room turned to look at him, he let out a strangled noise from his throat, then stormed out with sharp, angry strides, almost bumping into Norton who was coming in with some spare parts from the yard.

"Wha- what was that about?" the black greaser asked, baffled.

Everyone else was just as confused as he was.

Meanwhile, in the center of the town of Bullworth, Larry Romano was standing in a hallway, dazed and hardly believing that he was really there. With that thought, he gulped and rang a doorbell. When the door in front of him opened, he was greeted by a woman somewhere in her twenties. Her hair was brown and wavy and her eyes were similarly dark as Larry's, but larger and more inquisitive and welcoming. The two stared at each other for a moment, the woman smiling at Larry's awkwardness.

"Hey sis", the boy finally said.

"Heyyy. Is that all your stuff?" the woman asked. Her brother looked at his suit case and his ragged, worn out backpack, then nodded.

"Come in, then", Connie Romano, Larry's only sister, welcomed.

Connie had always been a comforting figure to her little brother, even though Larry was reluctant to admit it. She was one of the very few who made Larry feel genuine guilt when he was scolded for not keeping in contact with his family. They had been very close when they had been kids, but they had started growing apart when Connie had become more interested in "girly" things in her early teens. The biggest blow to their brother-sister relationship had, however, been the time that Connie had spent in college in a different state. When she had dropped out and come back to Bullworth, Larry had reached the moody teenage years while Connie had already grown out of them. No longer did she automatically take Larry's side when he argued with their mother and stepfather, neither did she herself seem to particularly like Larry's rebellious behavior. She had become a "reasonable", "sensible" adult. Larry hadn't wanted another one of those in his life.

Now, however, the young man was very grateful that such a person existed near him. He had contacted his mother Diane first, but she had moved into the next town with Larry's and Connie's stepfather and half-brother. Unusual of her, she had listened to her son quietly as he had told her, with rather vague descriptions, what had happened and what his life at school had become. Perhaps to further separate him from his greaser friends, who Diane had never liked, she had promised to get him out of the dorms.

So there Larry was, standing in the middle of his sister's small apartment, about to start living there for the time being. He had agreed to do whatever he could to find a part-time job and help Connie out with chores and whatever came to her mind.

"Lemme see your hands!" Connie suddenly said and grabbed her brother's wrists as he put down his luggage. Larry let out a frustrated sigh as his sister raised his hands closer to her eyes and examined them. Then, she abandoned his left hand in favor of his right as she separated his fingers with hers and examined his nails.

"Hee, you have such nice hands and fingernails, but they're so worn out. Would you let me give you a manicure?" she giggled.

"What? NO!" Larry retaliated crankily. Connie worked at the Old Bullworth Vale Hair, Nails, and Beauty and she loved to tease his brother with things like this.

"Okay, what about a hand reading?" she asked and turned his hand around so she could see his palm.

"Nah. Besides, haven't you done a reading already?" Larry huffed.

"Things change, little brother! The left hand is the one we are born with, and the right is what we have made of it", Connie lectured. Palmistry and tarot readings and other nonsense was a little something she did on the side to her customers to earn a bit of extra. Larry's unenthusiastic expression told Connie that she shouldn't push it too much.

"Well," she said and let go of his hand, "one thing you are going to let me do is to do something about that hair."

Larry froze as he felt his sister's fingers pulling on a strand of his limp, uncomfortable hair. Then he nodded, a faint grin tugging his lips. He couldn't agree more.

Author's Notes: Y'know what I find hilarious about Peanut? When you see him in free roam at the auto shop area, he often has random "MUST GET BUSTED BY PREFECTS" moments, which is when he pulls out his slingshot and won't stop running until he finds a girl or a little kid to shoot at, right in front of a prefect.