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Carson had just sat down to work on an essay for his second-semester english composition class when there was a knock on the door.

"Really," said Carson, looking back down at his laptop.

There was another knock, more insistent this time.

"Fine," called Carson, hauling a** up off the bed. "I'm coming."

He opened the door.

He stared down at his little sister who was definitely supposed to be in California and not standing on his doorstep wearing the uniform of a local high school.

"Does Mom know you're here?" Carson asked Nell cautiously, a little bit afraid of the answer. "And what did you do to her hair?"

Carson shrugged back at Nell as she pushed past him - their father being the unobservant type, it wouldn't have surprised him. "Okay," he said slowly, turning to face her, "But when parents say you're grounded, they typically mean, you know, don't go to parties? Help out around the house? And not, you know, fly off to the other side of the country where we can't supervise you."

But then again, nothing about their family had ever been normal - so why start now?

"Where are you staying?" he asked, brow furrowing. "I just..."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I have so many questions, Nell. Like, you have no idea. Like, to borrow from Kanye West - am I responsible for this water bottle now?"

Someone had quoted that at him recently. He was having a bit of trouble remembering exactly who.

Carson blanched. "Yeah, well," he said, trying to maintain composure. "Lou's at an impressionable age. Not that you're a bad influence." But he wasn't sure she was exactly a good one - and Marcus had never adapted to their adoptive family quite so seamlessly as he had.

"And no," he added, gesturing to his very small apartment. "You can't stay with me. I can barely stay with me, the size of this place." And he was only here a few nights a week, anyway - Elke liked to cuddle.

Wait.

Carson narrowed his eyes at Nell. "You've been here a few days, haven't you?" he asked. "Where the hell are you staying? Does Mom think you're staying with me?"

Why wasn't I consulted? he wondered, feeling a little insulted.

Carson picked up a pillow and threw it, very lovingly, at Nell's head. "You," he said. "Are a stinker."

A stinker who'd probably been planning this prank on him for weeks, considering how much effort it took to schedule a move across the country and not tell your older brother who lived in the city. "So am I like, responsible for you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at her. "For like, making sure you're doing your homework on time?"

He hoped, sincerely, that she'd say no. And if she said yes, then Carson was going to call their mother and...

He wasn't sure. It was very hard to stay angry with Jenn Lawson.

Carson retrieved the pillow, watching Nell cautiously as she surveyed the room - he expected that she had another trap left to spring. Asking about his relationship status was probably one of them.

"Yes," he said, understandably cautious - although he wasn't entirely sure what he expected her to do with the information. "Elke. We have a bakery startup. We sell cupcakes at the farmers' market. I have completed my transformation from your cool older brother who works with explosives to your dorky older brother who sells baked goods from a tent."

Making all the obvious digs himself seemed like a good way to stop her from doing it.

Carson rolled his eyes. "Yes, that Elke Arma," he said, "and it might surprise you to know that I met her independent of any parental meddling." Not that he didn't think that their mother and father would have hit on the match eventually... just very far down the line, given their age difference. It wasn't immediately obvious that they would work well together.

"Would you believe," he said, "that this is honestly the first thing in my life I've done that isn't spurred by some kind of <******** you you're not my real dad rebellion? I am selling cupcakes because I am happy."

"Also, for the record, bomb squad is cool."

Carson perked up. Being Luke Rodham's kid wasn't an enjoyable experience for anyone, but he thought he sensed a new and previously unplumbed depth of disgust in Nell's voice. "Oh," he asked. "What did he do this time?"

It probably had something with an underaged teenager and inappropriate sexual liasons, like it had been last time.

Like it always was.

"Okay," he added, "I will give you the dorky outfit. But the commemorative t-shirts are really great. I have one of a snake eating another snake eating a spider eating a rat eating the first snake, all tied around a stick of dynamite."

Underaged teenager, natch, thought Carson, and decided that if Nell didn't want to dish about it then it was probably bad enough that he didn't want to know. "Yes, well, in exchange, you have to deal with me," he said, although he knew that wasn't much of a threat seeing as he didn't really want to be tasked with weekly check-ins to Jenn.

"I don't give anyone my commemorative t-shirts," he added defensively. "They're precious. A limited resource. They don't hand them out once you're out. I'm stuck with the ones I've got."

"Please don't ransack my apartment looking for one to steal."