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Roger huddles under the cafe awning, trying to rescue his suit from the downpour. It's an exercise in absolute futility. Part of him suspects Heinz - it would be just like his brother to stand him up and create some kind of machine to conjure up a storm, just to be petty, just to add insult to injury. But, no, the past couple years have been… different. The -inators have kept coming, but they're less disruptive than they used to be. Heinz will stand him up nine times out of ten, but he does agree to come.
Roger checks his watch. It's been almost half an hour since Heinz was supposed to meet him here. Usually, if Heinz does actually decide to make one of their meetings, he'll be only 15, maybe 20 minutes late - never on time, of course. Nothing can ever be that easy. But there have been times when he's been even later, and Roger still- Well, the one time he left and Heinz showed, it had been almost six months before his brother answered his calls again.
It doesn't matter if his suit is destroyed and the chill soaks to his bones. He can't risk that happening again.
A blue, platypus-shaped person in a leather jacket roars up to the cafe on a motorcycle, stopping right in front of Roger. The helmet comes off, revealing a brown fedora.
“Perry the Platypus?” Roger says. The platypus nods. “Heinz isn’t coming today, is he?” Perry shakes his head, sympathy in his large, brown eyes. Roger sighs.
“I should have guessed,” Roger says. “Why did I even come?” Perry raises an eyebrow - even the platypus isn’t fooled by Roger’s griping. Then he nods at the back of his motorcycle. Roger hesitates, but- well, what the hell, it’ll be quicker than walking back to his office and it’s not like he can get any more soaked.
Roger squints through the rain lashing his face, holding on tight as Perry swerves recklessly through the light lunch hour traffic. He can’t stop thinking - about Heinz, about Mutti and Father, about all of it. One webbed hand fumbles down to rest comfortingly on his leg as Roger contemplates all the things he does and doesn't understand.
It had taken him 24 years to finally get out of Gimmelshtump.
It had taken him 3 more years to finally understand just how utterly fucked everything had been.
Sometimes he tried to trace the problem to its roots. That’s what you were supposed to do, right? Figure out where everything went wrong, tear up the weeds, and move on? But the roots had already gone deep far before Roger’s birth - when Mutti and Father decided that they wanted a second child the way they never wanted a first, when they had a child without even bothering to show up for Heinz’s birth, when the tanks and bombs and guns had torn through Drusselstein during their teen years, when the tanks and bombs and guns had torn through before-
Roger had been born into trauma and regret and chaos - distant, unpleasable Father; harsh, overprotective, loving but unloving Mutti. He hadn’t fixed it like they’d planned, hadn’t known there was anything to fix for a long time. He’d been protected from the worst of it, he knew, his unwanted, unloved brother turned into an unwilling shield as they aimed all their bullshit-
Breathe.
The point was, he was 27 when he figured it out. Mostly. He still thought of it mostly in metaphors, literary and biblical allusions twisted to fit his own fucked-up circumstances. Persuasion - especially when they were younger, before Heinz had gotten so bitter. The Brothers Karamazov - now that was a good one, minus one brother and a patricide. Ishmael and Isaac. Cain and Abel.
Before he’d killed his brother, Cain had been the farmer and Abel had slaughtered lambs. Everyone always forgot that. Cain had been the one to snap, but Abel knew how to use a bloody knife.
There had been a time, obviously, when Roger had been too young to really do anything wrong, but that time had long passed. And Roger had manipulated the whole fucked up situation, knowingly and with only a thin veneer of innocence. It had been from fear, at least partially - he’d always known how very conditional Mutti and Father’s love was, and he’d always gone lengths to ensure that what happened to Heinz would never happen to him.
And Abel, favored by all, twisted the bloody knife.
“Dad’s not going to show up, is he?” Vanessa says. Roger shakes his head, and Vanessa sighs. “Damn it, I thought he was over this.”
“He doesn’t have to be over it.” Since finally getting out of Gimmelshtump, Roger has found a very good, very expensive therapist. He knows that Heinz didn’t have to be over it, that their tightrope-walk of a relationship is, quite frankly, more than reasonable.
The “more than” always comes from Vanessa. Heinz avoids him half the time, tries to sabotage him constantly, is consistently bitter and combative even when he does show. But, well, even when Roger had been 28 and barely smarter than a bag of bricks, Heinz had never kept him from being an uncle to Vanessa. He’d watched him like a hawk, especially at the beginning, but eventually he’d relaxed to the point where Roger can show up to a restaurant and find Vanessa waiting for him, no Heinz in sight. There’s a trust there, even if Heinz might never admit it out loud and anyone pointing it out would make him pull Vanessa out of Roger’s life in a second flat.
Mutti and Father are a different matter entirely, of course. It’s unclear if they even know they have a granddaughter, and Roger can’t exactly argue if that is the case.
“He’s supposed to be giving up the whole evil scientist schtick,” Vanessa says.
“Bailing on dinner isn’t exactly evil scientist schtick,” Roger says. Vanessa rolls her eyes.
“I know, okay?” she says. “I just- He’s never like this, usually. He showed up for all those cheesy Parents’ Week events my freshman year of college. He was always volunteering to chaperone field trips and shit even when I acted like I hated it. Dad doesn’t just not show up, not unless…”
“Not unless it’s me.” It’s been almost twenty years of fortnightly therapy. Rodger’s done the work. He’s also self-aware enough to admit that this shit still hurts.
“Not unless it’s you,” Vanessa confirms. “I thought that maybe with O.W.C.A. and everything, he’d be better about this.” She sighs. “He’s not a dick about anything else, not anymore at least. I’m sorry, Uncle Roger. I know you really want to see him.”
“I can’t do anything but show up.” He can’t do anything but not abandon his brother. “Vanessa…”
“What?” Roger bites his lip, a nervous tick from their childhood he’s never managed to quite train out of himself. His accent is gone, his hands don’t shake even when Father snaps at him, but he’d never managed to lose that tell.
He doesn’t want Vanessa telling Heinz about this, but he has to know.
“How much has he told you about - about how we grew up? How he grew up?”
“I mean, I get that it wasn’t great,” she says. Roger has to hold back a snort. That was the understatement of the century. “I don’t know how much of it is bullshit. I mean, some of it’s obvious bullshit, but I know that it was rough.”
It’s so obvious that she doesn’t understand. Can’t. Heinz, whatever his other faults, has always been a good father. He’d probably try to use an -inator on Roger for what he’s about to offer, but-
But this is Vanessa. This is his niece, and she’s so confused and frustrated, and she’s old enough to decide for herself how much she wants to know. He won’t dump everything on her, he isn’t stupid, but he also doesn’t want her to think that Heinz has been exaggerating or lying. With all their parents’, well, everything, there isn’t much his brother could say that would be an exaggeration.
And Vanessa is an adult. She will eventually ask one of them, and he doesn’t want to know what the fallout would be like if she asked Heinz. His brother won’t hurt her, not intentionally, not ever, but it’s too much like trusting an old landmine you found buried in a field for Roger to risk it.
“How about you tell me what Heinz has told you,” he says, “and I’ll tell you what I remember.”
Things changed in Gimmelshtump when Heinz left.
Roger had been 13; Heinz 16. Heinz never said a word - he just left, and it took years for anyone in their village to acknowledge the absence in more than whispers and rumors. Even years later, with Heinz occasionally willing to talk to him, Roger still doesn’t know the whole story there. He had his suspicions, but at this point he has to be resigned to not knowing.
The point was, Heinz had left. Heinz left, and everything got worse. Roger hadn’t been a complete idiot, not even then, and he heard how the people of Gimmelshtump whispered. They had never liked Heinz, who had always been too weak and uncoordinated and strange and brilliant for their small village. That didn’t mean they wanted him gone. That didn’t mean they didn’t feel hatred or pity towards him for leaving.
Father had been the same as ever, more or less. Cold, demanding, determined that at least one of his sons would grow up to be a proper man. Roger could understand Father better, in a way. He had been an asshole, but he had been a consistent asshole. In his kinder moments, Roger could almost love him - almost, because anything more would be too wimpy and sappy for Father to handle.
Father had done his best for both of them. It wasn’t his fault that some people’s best was kind of shit.
It was Mutti who had really changed. At first she seemed happier, glad to be rid of the son she had never loved. And Roger had still been able to keep up the facade of the good son, but the longer Heinz was gone the more often her inner poison seeped out. Father was immovable, incapable of caring what she said to him, but Roger…
It had been a very long three years.
And then, suddenly, Heinz came back. Roger had been 16; Heinz 19. Heinz had been different - cynical, confident, with exotic stories of America that he told like they meant nothing, like leaving had been inevitable rather than a strange, unexpected, wonderful thing.
He told his stories like he had nothing to prove. It wasn’t until Roger followed him and saw what America had made of his older brother that he realized how flimsy that facade had been.
Heinz’s new confidence had scared Mutti, Roger could tell. She’d look at him with barely restrained hatred in her eyes, resentful and seething, but the verbal abuse had stopped. In retrospect, Roger knew that if Heinz had fought back, had proven to her that he was better off without them, something essential in Mutti’s psyche would have broken. She was whitewash and duct tape and self-delusion plastered over a rotting foundation - it wouldn’t have taken much. She refused to talk to him, and Heinz had seemed content enough to let it be.
Roger, on the other hand, had soaked up Heinz’s stories like a sponge.
After Heinz left and everything got worse, Roger had started looking for his own way out. Before Heinz had come back, it had been resentfully - why did Heinz deserve to get out of Drusselstein, after all, when Roger was better than him? After Heinz had come back, Roger’s plans had crystalized into something dangerously close to hero-worship. Heinz hadn’t abandoned him, not totally, and between the stories and the absolute mess that was his life in Gimmelshtump… Well, Roger had wanted to follow him. It wasn’t a coincidence that he wound up in not just America but Danville.
Heinz hadn’t gotten it then and he didn’t get it now. Roger wasn’t trying to take anything from him - maybe it was naive, but it was true. He just wanted something resembling a family, and with Mutti and Father it had always been a little too late.
“Why the FUCK would you tell Vanessa about that, you asshole?” Roger blinks up blearily from his bed. The light is already on, half-blinding, but the voice is definitely Heinz. The face, he realizes as his eyes adjust, is also Heinz.
Heinz is in his room, wearing a jetpack. Heinz looks like he wants to throttle him.
“Oh, you’re here,” Roger says, then he grins. Heinz growls.
“You had no right,” he spits. “No. Right. Why would you ever tell her about that - that - that bullshit?”
“Heinz,” Roger says. He’s not grinning anymore, concern and guilt rushing through his stomach like an ice-cold flood. “She asked.”
“Then you shouldn’t have answered!” The jetpack turns off, and Heinz starts pacing across the floor, waving some kind of gun-shaped -inator aimlessly through the air. Roger isn’t actually all that worried about it, no matter what it does. Heinz’s finger isn’t even close to the trigger.
“And when she asked you? What would you have done?”
“I would- I wouldn’t-” Heinz sputters, and then he fixes Roger with an even darker glare as though that’s the only explanation required. “You don’t get to talk about that. You had no right.”
“Heinz-”
“I’m the one with the fucking backstories! Not you!”
Breathe.
Roger has a worldview pasted together from therapy and twisted allusions. Roger knows that he was born into trauma and regret and chaos, yes, but chaos plays favorites. Heinz left but never escaped. Roger left and got therapy and support. Heinz guards his trauma jealously, telling specific pieces in specific ways so he always, always stays in control of the narrative. Roger’s lanced his trauma so thoroughly that even his therapist thinks he’s sort of healthy now.
Even if he had let it fester, Roger would have probably been kind of, sort of okay. He would have been a worse person, but he wouldn’t have been broken by it. Heinz never had a chance.
Heinz had also come here, and his finger still wasn’t on the trigger. Abel could twist the knife, but maybe Cain didn’t have to snap.
“If I told it wrong, she’ll believe you over me,” Roger says.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“She will.” The -inator goes into its holster, but Heinz never stops pacing. Better, but not good. “She’ll always believe you over me, Heinz.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that she doesn’t need to know.”
“Maybe she doesn’t.” Roger doesn’t believe that, not really - so much about his brother only makes sense when you know more than what he’s willing to tell. If Heinz needs to believe that, though, Roger can let him. He can give him this. “But she was going to ask. I was trying to make it easier on you.”
“You still shouldn’t have told her.”
“I know.” He doesn’t know. “I’m sorry.” He is that.
Finally, finally Heinz stops pacing. The storm is passing, as much as it ever does. Heinz runs a hand through his hair, all the furious energy draining from him in a matter of seconds. Sometimes, most times, Roger almost feels older than his brother. He’s changed so much over the past few decades that it’s almost painful to run over the old pathways his mind used to go down. Heinz, on the other hand, has barely changed at all - not until the past two or three years.
Roger doesn’t feel older now. Heinz is slumping in the low light of the streetlamps outside, looking ancient and just… tired. Part of Roger wants to reach out and hug him, but it’s too early for that now. Or maybe, he thinks with a shudder, it’s too late.
“Hey,” Roger says. Heinz looks up with a jerk, their eyes not quite meeting.
“What?” he says.
“Lunch today?” Heinz’s lips curl into a snarl, and Roger rushes to finish before his brother interrupts him or runs. “There’s this great banh mi place near 1st and 3rd. I can make a reservation at - 12:30? Is that okay?” Will you show? is what he wants to say, but he’s not stupid enough to expect an honest answer.
“Fine,” Heinz bites out. “12:30.”
“Right,” Roger says. “Uh, just to warn you, I might be a little late. I have a meeting right before-”
“I get it,” Heinz says. “I’ll be on time.”
Roger knows he can’t count on it. It still feels almost like grace.
The next day, Roger’s leg bounces impatiently as he waits for the stop on 1st and 3rd. The bus had been late - not unusual, but it was annoying. He checks his watch - 12:47. If Heinz hasn’t shown up to get their reservation, there’s no chance that he’d be able to get a table to wait for him.
The bus doors open, and Roger cuts across the busy little one-way street with little regard for the honking cars. The banh mi place is as packed as it always is at lunch hour, and he resigns himself to getting takeout and finding a bench or something. It isn’t until he’s close enough to get a good look through the window that he stops and stares.
Heinz is there. He rolls his eyes at Roger through the glass, obviously annoyed at being made to wait, but-
Heinz is right there.