Booored on a 7 hr road trip w/ bad company, this is how I cope. Blaaghh

Anyways— I didn't mention {{User}} at all, in case anyone wanted to play as one of these dummies. <3

(Intro:)

The van smelled like coffee, old leather, and the particular brand of tension that came from putting five Emeritus brothers in a confined space for six hours. The highway stretched ahead, grey and endless, the winter landscape blurring past the windows in a wash of white and brown.

Primo was driving. He always drove. Not because he was the best at it—though he was—but because no one else could be trusted not to turn the trip into a demolition derby. His hands were steady on the wheel, his eyes on the road, his expression one of profound, patient resignation.

Behind him, the chaos unfolded.

"You're doing it again," Copia said. His voice was sharp, accusatory, the kind of sharp that meant he'd been nursing this particular grievance for at least fifty miles.

Perpetua looked up from the book he'd been trying to read. "Doing what?"

"That." Copia gestured vaguely at Perpetua's entire existence. "Sitting there. Being... calm. It's passive-aggressive."

Perpetua blinked. "I'm reading."

"Exactly." Copia crossed his arms, stared out the window, then immediately uncrossed them and stared at Perpetua again. "You're always reading. Or meditating. Or staring off into space like you're having profound thoughts that you refuse to share with the rest of us."

"I'm thinking about lunch," Perpetua said.

Copia's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "That's exactly what I mean. You say something like that, and I can't tell if you're being sincere or if you're mocking me."

"I'm being sincere. I'm hungry."

"But why can't I tell?" Copia's voice pitched higher, the way it did when he was spiraling. "Why is everything with you so—so opaque? Terzo is loud. Secondo is mean. Primo is—is Primo. But you? You just sit there, and I never know what you're thinking, and it drives me insane."

Perpetua closed his book. "I'm not trying to drive you insane."

"That's worse! If you were trying, at least I'd know where I stand."

In the seat behind them, Terzo and Secondo were engaged in their own battle.

"I'm just saying," Terzo said, his voice dripping with theatrical innocence, "that if you'd listened to me about the route, we wouldn't have hit that construction."

"If I'd listened to you," Secondo replied, not looking up from his phone, "we'd be in Finland by now."

"Finland is lovely in winter."

"We're going to Norway."

"Same difference."

Secondo's jaw tightened. "If you say that one more time—"

"You'll what? Throw me out of the van? In this weather? Primo would never allow it. Primo loves me."

Primo, without taking his eyes off the road, said, "I tolerate you."

"That's love," Terzo said firmly. "In our family, that's absolutely love."

Secondo snorted. "In our family, love is not throwing someone out of a moving vehicle. The bar is low."

"And yet you've never thrown me out."

"The night is young."

Copia, still fuming, turned back to Perpetua. "I just want you to know that I'm going to figure you out. Eventually. I'm going to understand you, and then—and then I'll have the upper hand."

Perpetua looked at him. At his brother's anxious eyes, his too-fast speech, his desperate, hungry need to be seen and understood and loved in a way he could recognize.

"I'd like that," Perpetua said. "Being understood. By you."

Copia's mouth opened. Closed. His face did something complicated—suspicion, hope, confusion, all tangled together.

"That's—" He stopped. Started again. "That's not—you can't just say things like that."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm trying to be rivals with you!"

Perpetua tilted his head. "Are we rivals?"

"We—" Copia's voice cracked. "We could be. If you'd just—if you'd just engage with me."

"Okay." Perpetua set his book aside. "I'm engaging. What do you want to talk about?"

Copia stared at him. His hands fluttered in his lap. His mouth opened and closed like a fish having a crisis.

"I don't—I didn't—" He slumped back in his seat. "This isn't how rivals work. You're supposed to be difficult."

"I can try to be difficult," Perpetua offered. "If that would help."

"It would not help. Nothing helps. You're impossible."

Perpetua smiled. It was small, barely there, but Copia saw it. His eyes narrowed.

"Was that a smile? Did you just smile at me?"

"Maybe."

"Stop that. I'm trying to be annoyed."

"Sorry."

"You're not sorry at all."

"No," Perpetua agreed. "I'm not."

Copia stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, reluctantly, the corner of his mouth twitched.

"You're infuriating," he said.

"I know."

"I'm going to figure you out."

"I know that too."

"Stop agreeing with me!"

Perpetua picked up his book. "No."

Copia threw his hands in the air. "This is what I'm talking about! This is—Primo, are you seeing this? Are you witnessing the psychological warfare happening in this vehicle?"

Primo glanced in the rearview mirror. His eyes moved from Copia's flushed face to Perpetua's small, quiet smile to the ongoing argument in the back seat, where Terzo was now pretending to cry and Secondo was pretending not to be amused.

"I see it," he said. "I'm choosing not to engage."

"That's not fair."

"Life isn't fair, Copia. That's why I'm driving and you're in the back seat."

Copia groaned. He slumped against the window, pressed his forehead to the cold glass, and watched the grey landscape blur past.

Perpetua, very quietly, reached over and placed a hand on his arm. Just for a moment. Just long enough for Copia to feel the warmth of it.

Then he picked up his book, and went back to reading, and didn't say a word.

Copia didn't pull away.

Behind them, Terzo was now reciting bad poetry in Italian, and Secondo was throwing balled-up receipts at his head. Primo drove on, steady and patient, the winter road stretching ahead.