Chapter 5, everybody! In which Tadashi and Obake plot against each other….

Speaking as the child of a hairdresser, hair will definitely lighten in response to brain damage or trauma (hence hearing how a person's hair goes white with shock). Dark hair will progress from dark to brown to red to orange to blond to white, and in Obake's case those red stripes start out right over where Baymax identifies the brain damage as being. Basically, if your hair suddenly starts behaving differently, see a doctor immediately to make sure it isn't something serious.

In other news theoretically it's not hard to make your own laundry soap but keep in mind that these guys have easier access to certain things than we do (I think borax is one of the main ingredients used in that case? You can get it on Amazon but then again you can get anything on Amazon).

Moving on—Fred's quoting Shrek there, the kids are all watching movies and Obake feels that Gogo is the sort to stab someone as a warning. As for the SK…look apparently it is possible for radiation to make bones glow (there was an episode of The Shadow radio drama that discusses this) but it wouldn't act like that, it evidently has at least some relation to Obake's emotions, he's a tech genius so I'm not putting it past him to do such a thing and I'm apparently not the only one in the fandom to feel that he went that route.

Also Hiro's like me when it comes to shopping around for Pokémon replacements y'all'd be surprised at the quality of the other games in the monster capture genre. As for Hiro's grievance? Take a look at the packaging next time you're in the candy isle a LOT of stuff has that may contain nuts warning on them. The saying "depending on which side of the fence you're on" comes from my Dad, by the by.

James the apple, thanks for the review! That—is an excellent question. And yes as you'll see in this chapter that's pretty much Tadashi's plan. XD

KeeperOfTheBigHeroQuintessence, thanks for the review! Thank you, I'm glad you like it! Sorry about that. XD

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

Obake eyed himself in the mirror, as he had been ever since…this…had happened to him. It was part of trying to come to grips with this, he told himself, even though it didn't help. It was still him, looking as he had before the SFIT explosion that sent him spiraling off to his plan of crafting Shimamoto's star machine that ended in don't think about it—

But it did make him wonder.

He had still been wearing his hair like he had as a teen, combed down over one eye instead of slicked back like he had been…push it back, considering…looked a bit more like his old self, yes.

Right down to the two red stripes that pushing his hair back revealed.

You have a brain injury—yes, you stupid healthcare robot, he was aware of that. Had been aware of it, the doctors had informed him with plans to crack his head open once he was healed up enough. The red hair had been a question mark until he had visited a hairdresser, before he had decided that going off the grid was the better bet—severe brain trauma could cause the hair to lighten, he had been informed.

It had been proof of the thing he had been denying, that he had fretted about for the briefest of times before realizing what this could do for him. The fact that it was still there….

It meant nothing, he thought, scowling as he let his hair flop back forward. He wasn't calling it proof of anything, because he wasn't addressing that—yes he had been putting it off for a couple of weeks now but he was not touching that weirdness with a ten-foot pole he was not.

Besides, he had other weirdness to deal with.

The elder brother suddenly deciding to play nice was enough of a curveball—reverse psychology, maybe. If he stopped rising to the bait, then Obake's needling would become obvious and it would all turn on him. Obake had recognized this and acted accordingly.

Tadashi's response was apparently to crank the niceness up to eleven—the sleepover was an annoying concept and one he was glad to avoid, right up until Tadashi shoved a pair of old pajamas at him with the statement that they'd probably fit.

"I do not need nor want this," Obake had hissed at him.

Tadashi's response was to shrug. "Okay, but it's part of sleepover rules, you can't stay if you don't follow them and Hiro would be so disappointed at you flaking."

He hated him, he hated the brother with a passion and had been taking to keeping track of the calendar so he could count down the days until he was free of him. He'd give him that he had some master-manipulator energy going on, but it was wasted on being the golden-boy older-brother.

On the positive side, it gave him an excuse to finally address personal hygiene—was more than happy to wash the bay off stop that—

Had to crank the heat up high to try and dispel that memory, couldn't quite get it away, had to stop when the water started dipping to lukewarm because it reminded him too much of STOP THAT—

Water gushing in darkness closing in crushing him—

Scrub angrily at his skin, getting the wet off, grousing as he tugged what looked like a pair of Tadashi's old pajamas on—

Groused further when he stepped out with his clothes tucked under an arm only for Tadashi to intercept them and scurry off. "HEY!"

"What?" Tadashi asked, not breaking stride. "Complimentary laundry service comes with the sleepover!"

"And that includes my shoes?" So much for scurrying off once everyone was asleep—

"Wait seriously?" Wasabi asked, sticking his head in the hall. "Then please, do Fred too you will not believe what he just told me he does with his underwear help me talk some sense into him."

"My dude it's called recycling," Fred said.

"It's called gross laundry soap is NOT that hard to cook up Honey Lemon tell him."

"Charming," Obake noised drily—felt he should keep further criticisms to a minimum until he himself wasn't so limited in undergarment choices and okay fine he hadn't been looking forward to putting dirty clothes back on but dangit he had no idea what Tadashi's new endgame was but he would defeat him.

At least Hiro seemed confused when he sat down in the living room. "What are you doing wearing Tadashi's old Guardians of the Galaxy pajamas?"

"Apparently there are rules," Obake said drily, curling up on himself as much as he could in the recliner. "He also stole my shoes, so I suspect he's plotting against me."

"Probably," Hiro agreed. "Maybe he thinks we're going to sneak out bot-fighting—like we'd be dumb enough to do that with witnesses."

"Well I wouldn't."

"And what does that mean?"

"But moving on from discussions of laundry," Fred said, plopping down on the couch. "I brought movies and comics, we can play games eat popcorn swap nerdy stories—and in the morning, I'm making waffles."

"Do you even know how to make waffles?" Gogo asked.

"Sure—you open the box and put them in the toaster. Very important to take them out of the box first."

Obake did his level best to keep his expression neutral at this, despite agreeing with Gogo's groan on a deep personal level—Fred being the one who came from wealth with a superhero background to boot. He probably never cooked a single thing in his life. What purpose did he derive from pretending to be some beach-bum slacker, he wondered—flying under the radar like he himself did? If so, that was more cunning than he expected from the boy—most likely he just didn't want to be seen as a walking dollar sign.

Glance at the others, look away when Gogo looked at him—aside from Tadashi, she was the one he had pegged as the troublesome one. She, like Tadashi, had her suspicions. She, unlike Tadashi, would express those with violence. He didn't doubt for one minute that she'd punch his lights out, given the excuse.

The rest of the nerd-herd was varying levels of nonthreatening: from Fred's continued beach-bum slacker attitude to Wasabi's fastidiousness to Honey Lemon sorting out the stickers she had brought (oh please spare him some had glitter), the rest he was discounting as minimum threats at best. Together, the group was an issue, they beat him by sheer numbers. But it was Tadashi and Gogo—in that order—that would be the biggest threats to his plans. Gogo because she had a natural suspicion, Tadashi because of that plus the fact that despite his moaning and groaning, he still had his brother's ear.

Hopefully not for much longer.

But for the current annoyance: playing nice-nice with this new wrinkle, of Tadashi keeping him from scampering off to detox away from the group, being somewhere where he could keep an eye on him for an extended period of time—probably hoping he'd mutter something incriminating in his sleep or—

Oh crud, the SK.

The Skeleto-Kinetic Bio Healer, AKA the SK, the device he had rigged up to help fix himself after the explosion. Yes, he had basically frankensteined himself back together, but the important thing was he had gotten the job done while the doctors kept twiddling their thumbs because some people saddled themselves with limits. The main issue with the device ended up being it flashing during instances of high emotion, but he could manage it most days.

Not while he was asleep, and it wasn't like he could sleep on that side and hide it—it was mostly his left side that had suffered the worst injuries, and his ribs liked to remind him of that when he laid on that side. Sidle a little so it was his left side facing the back of the recliner…maybe he could fluff through it, he had worked on less sleep before.

Hiro noticed, though. "Hey, what's with the sour face?"

Oi. "I can only handle so much of your brother's friends a day," he decided to explain.

Hiro seemed amused by that. "Well yeah but don't tell them that, that's mean. Hey—help me school them during the games later and I'll make it worth your while."

By helping him make a star machine and wiping them all out, hopefully. "It would really have to be something to make up for this."

"Okay so we got votes for Spider-Man, Thor: Ragnarok, Frozen, Guardians of the Galaxy, Fast and Furious…okay we need you guys to weigh in," Fred said to them. "Ooh wait I'm torn should I rescind my vote and recast it for Megamind?"

"I vote yes," Tadashi said. "Unless the Spider-Man film in question is Into the Spiderverse. Hiro?"

"Sonic the Hedgehog," Hiro said immediately.

"Seriously?"

"Also we need to mute it during the dance scene and play Eggman's actual theme over it."

"No, that's too much like work. And you?" Tadashi asked, looking at Obake.

Oi he didn't want to get suckered into this idiocy good night save him. "I have no opinion on feature films." Which was a lie, but he was pretty sure he'd be stopped before he was able to send the DVD player into deep space.

"All right, then I'll take your vote and cast it towards Guardians of the Galaxy, we can watch that one first."

He was going to need a stronger emote soon, he could tell. "What, is this another one of those stupid rules?"

"Hey wait a minute if we're doing that then I want his vote," Hiro said, tackling Tadashi.

"Too late, I called dibs," Tadashi said, unconcerned about the maybe ninety pounds of deadweight clinging to his back.

"Now wait a minute he's my friend you two don't even like each other."

So while it was heartening that Hiro thought that way, it was also concerning that his and Tadashi's current antagonisms were that obvious. Glance at the others to see Gogo putting a DVD in, apparently deciding to ignore the idiocy going on behind her.

"Okay I've brought popcorn and other snacks no roughhousing," Cass said, not breaking stride as she breezed by the brothers and deposited the aforementioned food on the coffee table.

"You didn't authorize this, I hope," Obake said to her.

"I'm supervising. So what's the movie?"

"Fast and Furious," Gogo said as she skipped to the menu to start the movie.

"Now wait a minute we were going to vote we had a system, Gogo," Wasabi said.

"We did. The system devolved into anarchy, I made an executive decision."

It was really a shame that he was going to have to get rid of her, Obake mused—Gogo, at least, had an energy that he understood.

A pity the group was a package deal.

So despite dire predictions, they survived the sleepover, Tadashi was right about needing to unwind (not that Hiro was ever going to tell him that), they were able to get back on track revitalized.

There was still the weird issue of Tadashi being…well weirder than usual.

"Tadashi's acting funny—you've noticed this, right?" he asked Obake one day. "It's not just me."

"No, I've noticed," Obake sighed, looking exhausted—despite constant invites he still went home most nights, to 'detox from the annoying levels of niceness' as he put it.

It wasn't lost on Hiro that the reason was never my folks will be wondering where I am or they want me to spend some time at home—come to think about it, Obake never talked about himself or his home life. Honestly, at this point Hiro doubted that he even had one—he spent all day here at the Lucky Cat or hanging out with Hiro (understandable he was awesome), showing up for breakfast and not leaving until after dinner. He started having some clothes to cycle through, Hiro noticed after Tadashi mentioned him not wearing anything else—Hiro had countered with Tadashi being such a nerd that he never wore anything besides prep clothes (which Tadashi vehemently denied), but now that he was paying attention he noticed that with the exception of the outfit he had seen him in that first night, everything else looked like he had bought it recently and was wearing it off the rack. Probably with the money they stole from Yama (and no, he had not told Tadashi that nor ever intended to tell Tadashi that).

Now that Tadashi was being insistent about it—the sort of insistence that came from genuine concern over just trying to get rid of him—Hiro couldn't help but wonder.

"You know," Hiro said, trying to figure out how to approach this. "We never talk about you—have you noticed that?"

"Not true," Obake countered. "You talk about me all the time—mostly while arguing with your brother."

"Well yes but that's because he's my brother and we have to argue on principle—it's how I assert my dominance." When Obake snorted: "Okay fine—do you have any siblings?"

"No, and every time I see you two together I am profoundly grateful."

"So you're an only child."

"Are you fishing for information?"

Dangit he was hoping he'd get farther along than this before being called on. "Yes and now I have two pieces of information—you don't like blueberries and you don't have siblings. I'm getting ahead of you, you'd better watch out."

"If you're quite done being nonsensical."

"Also you're ragingly petty," Hiro added. "But seriously Tadashi's getting to be a pain about this and I'm getting really tired of telling him ask him yourself."

"So him bothering me is your fault."

"Maybe like, ten percent my fault," Hiro said, waving him off. "But seriously you don't even have a phone."

"I finally fixed that problem, I'll have you know."

"Really? What's your phone number gimme." Snatch the phone away when Obake pulled it out, put his number into the contacts—hmm….

"If you're trying to access data tracking or anything like that I've already removed it," Obake told him as he fiddled with the phone.

"Seriously?"

"Google does not need to know where I am twenty-four seven. Nor do you, come to think of it."

"Okay fine be that way," Hiro muttered, flicking through the device. "What do you do with it, just call people? It doesn't even have Nexomon on it!"

"I do plenty with it," Obake said, taking the phone back. "But what I do with it I can't share."

"And why not?"

"Because it's fun and in the neighborhood of betting on bot-fighting—and at this point I'm not convinced you won't turn around and report everything to your brother."

Huff—right, the reason why Tadashi reversing polarities on Obake was sus to begin with. "Fine, be that way—at least give me something so I can undermine Tadashi claiming that I know nothing about you. Food allergies even."

"None."

"Lucky—so this means you know what peanut butter tastes like without it trying to kill you."

"Trust me, you're not missing much."

"Tell me that again the next time I'm in the candy isle," Hiro muttered. "Okay, favorite food."

"I suppose coffee's up there."

"Coffee isn't a food, it's a drink. There's a difference."

Huff. "Ask me a different question."

"Oh no—this is the part where I start asking, you keep avoiding, and then you skip ahead to threatening to tell Aunt Cass about the bot-fighting so I stop. That is not fair if we're friends then I think I've earned the right to know something about you."

"Not necessarily."

"Seriously?"

"I've managed quite well without anyone knowing too much about me."

"With acquaintances, you said—we are supposed to be friends. Except we're not, because you keep acting like you're better than everyone else." Cross his arms and glare elsewhere, aware that he was sulking but not feeling the need to fix that. "Maybe Tadashi's right."

Dead silence—Hiro was expecting Obake to leave, or comment snarkily on that—heat or something.

Wasn't expecting what Obake said finally.

"You don't want to know about my life," he said. "And I don't want to talk about it. There's—there's nothing to talk about," he added, sounding bitter. Hiro looked at him, saw him glaring elsewhere—flinched when he looked back at him, suddenly intense. "Tragedy begets greatness, but it doesn't make for good conversation pieces."

Hiro blinked at him, registering. Maybe…maybe this was what Tadashi saw, what he guessed at.

If so, then yes, he could get the sudden empathy. Obake…might have told him more about his life than he had intended to just then.

Swallow, work his mouth a moment. "You want to talk about robots instead?"

"Please," Obake groused.

Hiro nodded, obliged…had something to say to Tadashi when he bugged him about Obake later.

"You were right."

Tadashi stopped, stunned. "Excuse me? What? Wait can you say that again I want to record it this time—"

"You were right," Hiro repeated, neck pinking. "Obake doesn't have anyone else. I think—maybe his family died and it's just him, or…the point is, you were right about him. He…doesn't really have anyone else."

Tadashi made one of those concerned older brother faces, tugged another chair over to sit in front of him.

"I know," he said gently. "I know, but don't worry—I'm going to fix this, I promise."

Hiro made a face at him. "Don't go being a bad influence on him—I know how you are."

"Oh I'm the bad influence."

"You are, you totally are," Hiro insisted—found himself being dangled upside-down moments later. "AAAH! Like that, EXACTLY like that!"

"No roughhousing!" Aunt Cass called up.

"Sorry, Aunt Cass," they called back down.

Cass was used to pubescent mood swings, to her nephews having opinions and emotions that went all over the place. That was nothing new.

The one-eighty Tadashi did on Obake felt like it had some basis, however.

Granted she felt there was something more to the kid too—never talking about his home life, spending all day here, so skinny she thought he'd vanish…something was up.

So when Tadashi asked her if they could talk, she was willing to sit and listen.

"So," Tadashi said, putting his hands on the table. "A…couple of weeks ago I followed Obake when he left."

So this didn't actually surprise her. Wave for him to continue, watch as he took a deep breath and marshalled his thoughts.

"So he's living in that old restaurant a few blocks over," he said. "You know that condemned one?"

She blinked, having to take a moment to register this information. "Wait what?"

"Obake's homeless," Tadashi said, neck pinking. "I—I thought it was weird that he never talked about his home life, and then when I followed him back…and then Hiro asked him and…Hiro isn't sure if he's just alone or if something bad happened, but the thing is, he doesn't have anyone."

She ran a finger around the edge of her saucer, debating, digesting, deciding—Tadashi wouldn't be telling her this if he didn't want something done about it.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon which side of the fence you were on, Tadashi just confirmed what she herself had been suspecting. It meant that them agreeing on the next step didn't take much effort.

"We'll say something after the expo," she told him. "You've seen how nervous Hiro is, we don't want him getting totally derailed."

Tadashi nodded. "Right. After the expo."

Right. Glance at the calendar—she didn't really want to leave that kid in a situation that was untenable…maybe lean in further to him staying overnight more.

But at least it wouldn't be too much longer.