[For George & Jimmy]

[broken_brushes]

Apparently I had gotten it into my head that I didn't have enough to do between baking for an entire platoon and planning a wedding. Island days always seemed to stretch and feel endless, and I guess maybe I thought I needed to fill them up; running away from myself, running away from the harsh reality of the place. Teaching and taking classes on

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[gonnajumpnomore]

George hung in the doorway for half a second, looking between Shari and the guy that may or may not have been her brother. He couldn't see much of a resemblance, but you never knew. One of his own brothers resembled a bulldog more than him, but they were still related or so Luz hoped.

He coughed politely to get her attention. "Hey, Shari? You might wanna see this, doll."

[nightwandering]

George Luz, I'd discovered, was a joker, but not about this Holland thing. I was still trying to wrap my head around it and what he'd told me - that I was stuck here like everyone else. I didn't believe much in magic or forces, so I was still waiting to wake up somewhere other than this strange place. I stood just outside in the hall, waiting for George Luz to bring out his Shari. Or Sherry. Or Sherri. I could smell it from the hall, the sweets that were baking inside. I knew they were warm, I knew they were good... I knew they meant trouble, but I was still allowed to think about how they would taste and feel in my mouth. I leaned against the wall, closed my eyes and smiled and I waited.

[broken_brushes]

"Kinda busy here, hon," I replied without a blink, and didn't even bother setting the plate down as I crossed to the door. I figured I'd peek out into the hall and George would have taught the dog to roll over or something; the cake was an immediate, tangible excuse to return to what I'd been doing.

Needless to say, it wasn't the dog that he'd been trying to draw my attention to.

To my credit, I didn't drop the plate, at least not right away, although my arms went kind of slack and the cake slid right off of it and onto the floor with an anticlimactic plop, punctuated by my sharp intake of breath. There, leaning against the hallway wall like it was any other day, was my brother. My beautiful, amazing, sensitive soul of a brother, who was so much better than me in every, single way. My heart, my conscience, my-

I dropped the plate. It was plastic, so rather than shattering, it landed with a pronounced clatter that echoed down the hall before being engulfed by the strains of 'Stairway to Heaven' coming from the jukebox.

[gonnajumpnomore]

He really should've seen that one coming, but by the time George thought of it it was far too late to save the cake. If he wasn't sure they were related before then Shari's reaction was more than enough to prove it to him. Hopefully it would also be more than enough to convince the other guy that he wasn't crazy. But then again, showing him his dead sister might not have been the best way to start.

"This is Jim. But I think you already know that."