Who: Martin Boot and Noah Boot
What: Martin has a gift for Noah
Where: Noah's flat




Martin was a good brother. Oh yes. Probably the best brother in the world. He was almost certain that his little brother was going to want to sign him up for some kind of award or something once he informed him of what he'd done for him. Or, even better, he was going to make up an award himself. But either way, their days of not speaking and hating each other were sure to come to an end today.

Poising a heavy fist, he slammed it down on the door leading to the small flat just over the planetarium; he never could understand why Noah insisted in living in a place like this, but then again he didn't understand a lot of what went on in that kid's head. He waited a few minutes, impatiently shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and was about to bang on the wooden surface again when it opened. He greeted his sibling with a trademark grin, his unruly blonde hair in desperate need of a trim as it now hung to almost impair his vision. "Hey! Long time no see!" Someone witnessing this exchange might never even know that the two hadn't been on speaking terms for a while... it was an almost infuriating habit of Martin's to dismiss or blatantly ignore any hostilities that might still be left over from past aggressions.

There was really no need for babies. Other than to keep the world populated and pass on traditions and all that other nonsense, but other than that?

"No-ah." Noah looked straight into Eddie's eyes, smirking greatly as the baby stared blankly back. He'd gotten an 'Oah' before, which was definitely a start, but it seemed like he was more interested in spreading his spaghetti bit across his high-chair's table. "No-ah."

He didn't get to drill the word into the baby's head any longer because of the knock, and Noah sighed, pushing himself out of the chair and crossing. If it was Donovan with another complain about some tourist---"Oh."

Noah pushed the door open to let Martin in, figuring that maybe he would take Eddie off of his hands for a bit. Martin seemed like someone who would like kids, and with Macon's anal retentive sister picking up Eddie at exactly three, they only had a few more hours until he was off their hands.

"What's up?" Noah asked with a yawn, pushing the door shut and heading to the kitchen to find a wipe for Eddie.

Oh? That was it?! Hell, that was anticlimatic even by his standards. But he physically shrugged it off as he stepped past his brother into his house, shrugging his jacket from his shoulders as he went. "Not much. But have I got news for you." His grin widened to almost impossible proportions; he was just in the process of hanging his jacket over the back of one of Noah's chairs when a gurgle and a sudden splatter of red sauce against his shirt drew his attention to the little guy staring at him with wide eyes and an incriminating coat of sauce on both hands.

He glanced quickly to Noah, both brows dissapearing under his shag of hair. "Babysitting, huh? How long as he been here?"

"I've have him all week," and his voice suddenly rose a pitch into an annoying squeak, "'Seven a.m. on the dot, and he gets picked up three p.m. on the dot,' I fucking swear, Macon's sister needs a bloody sleeping potion, knock her out for a few weeks."

And it wasn't as if Noah was completely inept at taking care of Eddie, the boy didn't seem miserable which was good, and after a failed attempt of rocking him to sleep, Noah had come to find that one of his quilts seemed to knock the boy out cold. It was rather warm, so the moment Eddie started yawning, Noah swept him up in the 'magic quilt' (though he swore there were no actual spells on it) and the kid was out. Noah pulled the wipes out of the little container and came back over, eying Martin a bit cautiously as he took Eddie's chin in his hand to wipe the sauce off of his face.

"And what did I do to deserve a visit?" he asked, not as coldly as he might've a few weeks back, but it was still odd to have random, unannounced visits from Martin.

He snorted and leaned over to grab one of the wipes from his brother, using it to swipe half-heartedly at the new stain on his shirt. "Macon's sister? Never met her." He was about as in tune with his sister's life as he was with his brother's, he guessed. He made a face at Eddie to hide his momentary lapse into dissapointed silence, his brother's question drawing his attention back to Noah, reminding him just why he had come. "What, a guy can't stop by and see his only brother?" His face was the picture of innocence and mock hurt, but the charade didn't last as his excitement was ill contained.

Crossing over to his brother, he drew a slip of paper from his pocket and held it up for his inspection. "We're doing a raffle for Valentine's day, for charity and all. We being all the blokes on United, I mean. And get this... the winners get to go on dates with us. They're sort of buying us, see?" His brown eyes were alight with enthusiastic mischief now. "Ask me why I'm telling you all this."

Noah's jaw hardened slightly but his eyes were as wide as saucers. He wasn't dumb, oh, oh no. He was definitely not dumb. He looked back toward Eddie and raised an eyebrow, the little boy looking just as confused. Noah sat down on a nearby chair because he knew what was coming next would make him fall to the ground. His brother wouldn't want him to bid on him or...or well, no, that wouldn't make sense, but the thought of dishing out all that money made Noah turn green. Did he want him to go? Noah supposed it wouldn't be that bad of a thing, but really, what else could Martin want? It's not as if he wanted Noah to go on stage with him---

"Why are you telling me this?" Noah asked quickly as the thought startled him greatly. No, it couldn't be that. Martin wasn't that big of an idiot. Eddie splattered some more spaghetti and Noah got it on his cheek, but he didn't flinch as he waited for Martin's answer.

Martin watched the wheels turn in his brother's head, closely inspecting the varying degrees of horror that played across his face and waiting, just waiting for the right moment to throw a wrench in his gears. "Because I signed you up!" He jabbed his finger at the slip of paper he'd been holding up; it was a roster, a list of the names of all the men up for bid. And there, right under Martin's own name, was Noah's. "The Boot Brothers are officially for sale! High five, buddy!" And he held his palm out to Eddie, who was all to eager to smack his sticky, sauce-covered hand into Martin's.

When he turned back to his brother, his face held a slightly more serious expression.... but only slightly. "Oh, c'mon. It'll be fun! Besides, total hotties go to these things. Think about it! A date with a gorgeous bird wouldn't kill you."

He squeaked. Noah let out a squeak and wanted to swat Eddie's hand down and away from Martin's.

"How! How---why, why would you do that to me, fucking--fucking hell, Martin!" Noah slumped down into his seat, eyes wide and staring blankly across the room. Just the thought of standing in front of a thousand people was blindingly intimidating; but these people would be checking out how good you look or how much they wanted to date you or---or---Noah looked down at himself and even held out his skinny arms before looking back up at his brother.

"What made you think this was a good idea!" he exclaimed, standing up and putting his arms pleadingly, "Martin, you have to take me out, I'm going to be humiliated! I'm a bloody astronomer not a quidditch player! There is a very big difference!"

Martin made a face when a very strange (and decidedly unmasculine) sound erupted from his brother, who looked as though he'd just been informed that he had an incureable case of Spattergroit. He rose from the half-crouched position from which he'd recieved his saucy high-five and gave him a bewildered sort of look. "So what?" He was genuinely confused. "So you're an astronowhatchamacallit, who cares?" He gave a dismissive wave of his hand and leaned back against the table, folding his muscular arms over his chest. "Chicks dig all that fancy star stuff. Think it's romantic, or something." He made a face just to show what he thought of that nonsense, then shook a blonde curl from his face and beamed at him again. "And besides, it's too late to take your name off the list now. So suck it up. It's time to live up to your name! Us Boots are renowned studs." And with that he started flexing and making awful "Ahnuld" grunting noises.

He couldn't breath. Noah put a hand to his chest and stared at Martin as if he had six heads. He couldn't breathe. Fucking, fucking, fuck---if he bailed on a charity then Martin wouldn't hear the end of it and then the bloody media would get on Noah's arse about it and he'd never live it down and. And he couldn't breathe. Noah suddenly felt very light-headed and dashed to the kitchen, rummaging through his cabinets for a vial of potion he hadn't needed in bloody months and downed it quickly. A gust of air filled his chest and Noah made a gasping noise as he turned around and waved the bottle at Martin.

"I--am going to---kill you!" He hurried over and swatted Martin's flexing arms and let out another annoyed sound, more like an 'arrrrrrrrgh!' than anything, and started around the room again, "Kill, kill, I am going to---you are going---they're going to laugh," he moaned, finally slumping down into the couch with his face in his hands.

Didn't Martin know that Noah had intense jealousy/anger/completely chicken/nervous breakdown/doesn't like big crowd issues?

He was far too busy posing and strutting for both his and Eddie's entertainment to notice when Noah sprinted from the room gasping like a fish. It wasn't until he landed a good smack on his arm that Martin quit and looked down at him with a wounded sort of pout, even lifting a hand to sorely rub at the spot he'd hit. "Ow. What the hell? Laugh? Who the heck's gonna laugh? You mean at you?"

Clearly, Martin did not know that Noah had all those issues going on. How was he supposed to know, anyway? To be fair, the brothers Boot had never exactly been close... anytime that he had interacted with Noah, Noah always acted either completely pissed off (usually because Martin had used him as an unwilling wrestling partner) or completely nonchalant altogether. He honestly never once suspected that his brother was jealous, or that insecure for that matter.

Strolling over to the couch, he plopped down next to him and smacked him comfortingly on the shoulder. Sure to leave a bruise. "Noah. No one's gonna laugh at you. Do you really think I'd sign you up for this if I thought that those broads were gonna make fun of you? Don't answer that. I'll tell you the answer myself. No! No, I definitely wouldn't. Unless you'd done something to reaaaallly piss me off lately. Which you haven't."

Noah groaned at the 'comforting' pat and bit his tongue, looking across the room at Eddie before finally turning back to Martin.

"Promise me they're not going to laugh," he said slowly, to make sure Martin heard every word and couldn't mistake it for anything else. "Because if they laugh, I am going to send you on a rocket to Jupiter. And do not smirk or joke, because I can and will
."

He narrowed his eyes, watching his brother's expression to make sure that he understood. Martin was a simple being, it wasn't hard to read his expressions, so Noah knew he'd be able to see the clockwork ticking within Martin's head as he went over the threat (which was entirely doable, in all honesty). Seriously. A rocket. To. Jupiter.

He looked at Noah as seriously as he could and nodded. As much as Martin enjoyed antagonizing his little brother (it was his right, afterall, as oldest sibling), he wasn't really the type of person who would let other people get away with it. He had merrily beaten the snot out of many a bully that had been so unwise as to pick on Noah back in their Hogwarts' days just for that reason.

"I'm not kidding! No one's gonna laugh, I swear! It'll just be a bunch of hot whistling women throwing money at you and buying you dinner. Finn already pulled all the strings to get you in. Oh! And you'll finally get to meet Nick, if you want. But I already made her promise not to bid on you, so don't get any ideas."