Chapter 23: Brotherhood

Letting someone carry him while flying didn't sit well with him, but it didn't matter compared to his sister's life. Lisa lifted into the air and hooked her arms under his shoulders, which pressed her against his back, but it barely occurred to him to be uncomfortable. All that mattered was that this would be a much faster way of getting home.

Lisa's aura expanded around him and they lifted into the air. It had been a very long time since he'd flown with anyone, probably when he had been little and Uncle Frank had taken them on rides. This one was less smooth, but he was glad to see the city flashing underneath them. He directed Lisa to the apartment complex and they were soon touching down in the parking lot.

As they headed up he felt a twinge of embarrassment that Lisa would see his neighborhood and crappy apartment. Judging from how surprised she looked at some of the usual characters nearby, she was obviously used to nicer suburbs. But she was still going to help Melissa, so he would suffer much worse than that.

When he got the door open he forgot about Lisa entirely, rushing in to find his sister. Instead of shivering, she lay in bed with her back arched and her fingers clawing at the sheets.

She wasn't fading, she was on fire. Rick wasn't sure what to do, so he just sat down beside her and felt her lucrima. The sphere hadn't been consumed, but he felt an enormous ether void - that must be the flame burning hotter than usual. Since she didn't even seem to notice his presence, he tried to take her hand, slowly peeling her clenched fingers away.

Abruptly they snapped to grab his hand, gripping tightly. Melissa closed her eyes and made a soft painful sound, but he wasn't sure what to do. When he extended a stream of lucrim like usual, her spirit sucked it in like water on parched ground, so he extended more to her.

By the time it was over he felt exhausted and drained, but the fire seemed to be quenched. Melissa finally turned her head to focus on him, her entire body relaxing gradually. She let go of his hand and instead reached up to touch the side of his face.

"Thank you... I knew you'd... come for me..."

He held her hand in both of his own and maintained eye contact, keeping her from drifting away. "I'm glad you're alright now, but what's your condition?"

"It hurt a bit, but I actually made a shell... just a weirdly stiff one..." Melissa started to gesture to herself, then jumped a bit. Rick tracked her gaze and saw that she'd noticed Lisa standing in the doorway. The older woman was watching them with a smile on her face. "Oh... hi..."

"Hello, Melissa," Lisa said. "I've heard good things about you from your wonderful brother."

"Yup... really wonderful..."

Rick nodded between them. "Melissa, this is Lisa, the massage therapist I help train. She has lucrima techniques that should be helpful to you, if you still feel like you're carrying too much tension."

"Yeah, I am. That's just what I needed." Apparently feeling better with each passing moment, Melissa sat up and gave him a hug. "I can't believe you actually brought someone here. You're the best brother ever."

Smiling broadly, Lisa stepped backward from the room. "I'll give you two some time alone, okay? Melissa, I can give you a massage that should help loosen your lucrima and heal soul scarring, but it's not something to get into while you're feeling uneasy. It would probably be best after another round of exercising when everything is stiffest, if you're up to that."

"I'm feeling a lot better now thanks to my big brother! Just give me a few minutes to get back on my feet."

"Of course." Lisa backed out and closed the door.

Though for a moment Rick wondered what Lisa would think of their apartment, he soon turned back to Melissa and raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I get that you'd be grateful, but you are really playing this up. Are you sure you're okay?"

To his surprise, his sister giggled. "Oh, I was absolutely playing it up. Did you see how Lisa was looking at you?"

"What?" He just stared at her, prompting her to stifle another giggle and pat his shoulder.

"Big bro, guys who can be nurturing are really hot. Lisa's heart was just melting over there."

Though he felt immense relief to see his sister teasing him again, Rick just scowled and swatted her hand away. "Okay, I think you've had enough to drink."

"No, no!" She laughed and leapt to grab the bottle before he could take it. "I'm going to do just what she said and do the exercise again. In fact, I think with everything I've learned I can handle all the rest of this at once. If her massages can really do what she claims, then that should be perfect. It won't be exactly a permanent shell, but I'll be in better condition than I've ever been."

"Lisa is a professional with clients who have hundreds of thousands of lucrim. I'm sure she'll be able to help you, so if you're feeling up for it, we can try now."

Melissa's smile faded and she looked at him in concern. "That means she's really expensive, right? Can we afford this?"

"No, ah... she was insisting that we don't have to pay. I still want to, but..." He trailed off as Melissa smirked at him. "What is it now?"

"So she's offering to help you for free, huh? Yeah, I'm sure she's just an especially kindhearted individual with no interest in you whatsoever. Yup, that's definitely it..."

Rick rolled his eyes and stood up. "Okay, if you're healthy enough to mess with me, you're healthy enough to give this a try. Let me know if you need anything, otherwise I'll leave it to you."

As he walked out, he saw Melissa drinking everything remaining in the bottle of philosopher's elixir in one breath. That much high intensity elixir would have knocked him out, yet his sister was fine. When he felt her lucrima it didn't feel large or healthy, still a burning void within a shell, yet he had to admit that from the outside, she certainly seemed to be doing much better.

He and Lisa chatted for a bit, but soon Melissa called her in. They closed the door for the massage, leaving him abruptly alone.

When he started to sit down on the couch he practically fell into it, his body heavy. Perhaps it was the lucrim he'd poured into his sister, or perhaps his body was just exhausted from the stress. Though he couldn't entirely relax, he at least felt as though the worst was past.

With no current crisis looming, he was able to focus on his exercises again. They felt a bit like familiar friends now and it was good to focus on his own lucrima. His new core had grown, just as it was meant to, which was encouraging. When he began repeating Buffet's Buffer, he was surprised how much good he got out of it again. Apparently all his recent work had produced new gains to harvest.

Had the massage only lasted a short time, he would have been completely content. But as time extended on, less pleasant emotions began to creep in. He found himself thinking about how much he had spent recently and how much of his own lucrim he had drained. If he had invested those back into himself, how far could he have come?

Immediately Rick felt intense guilt and he tried to shove the thoughts from his mind, but he couldn't deny that he'd felt them. Maybe that made him a bad brother, but he was only human. Still, he was a human being who loved the only family he had left. It had been worth the sacrifice.

When the door opened he leapt to his feet, but Lisa raised a finger to her lips as she exited. He looked past her and saw Melissa curled up in bed, apparently sleeping peacefully. There was no shivering or draining and when he checked the medical app, it still displayed an ether void value, but also complete stability. That was probably their goal for now.

"Well, that was intense." Lisa spoke quietly and padded closer to him, having taken off her shoes at some point. "I feel incredibly drained, but it was worth it, just to experience a client like that. I had to stretch myself a bit, but I gave her what she needed to finish her work."

He wanted to reassure her again that they'd pay, but other issues came first. "So she's formed a stable shell?"

"It feels that way to me. The first one was dangerously brittle, but when I helped her relax she caught on quickly. I'm no expert on her medical condition, so I can't make any real promises, but I feel like she's in excellent shape."

"That's a huge relief. Thank you, Lisa."

"Oh, no problem." She dropped down heavily onto the couch and sighed heavily. "If you want to thank me, let me stay here tonight."

"Uh..."

Lisa went from tired and relaxed to flushing and waving her hands abruptly. "I didn't mean like that! I'm just really drained, and even if I restored my lucrim, I don't think I'm safe to fly. So let me crash at your place and in the morning I can check on your sister again. That's all I meant."

"Right." Rick nodded slowly. "Of course you can stay. We owe you a lot."

"It feels weird to be sitting while you're looming around. Sit down."

Since she seemed insistent, Rick sat down beside her. Lisa sat back against the couch, not quite touching him. She seemed far more relaxed than he would have been in a stranger's home. He wasn't sure what to say, so found himself drifting back to the subject of payment. "While I won't be able to pay your fee right away, I'm earning enough that I-"

"Oh, stop it." Lisa looked at him with a frown that slowly became a smile. "I'll be offended if you keep talking about payment like that. We've been sparring together long enough that we're friends, aren't we? Friends should be able to help each other."

"I... thank you, Lisa." He smiled back at her.

It was a warm, comfortable moment. But it was less warm because over Lisa's head, he could see into his sister's bedroom. No longer asleep, she had sat up to listen. When he met her gaze she wiggled her eyebrows at him. He wanted to groan, but that would just have led to uncomfortable questions with Lisa, so he kept his expression neutral.

"I admire you," Lisa said quietly. "I had two little brothers growing up and I don't think I could ever have taken care of them the way you take care of Melissa. Honestly, I'm not that close with my family at all. It's nice to see an older brother who cares so much..."

As she spoke, she leaned against him a little more, pushing against his arm. Rick resisted the urge to react at first, not sure if it would be the wrong move, but eventually decided he was being stubborn. He put an arm around her shoulders in a merely friendly way, supporting her while she rested. It was just companionable silence, that was all.

Over Lisa's head, Melissa made a circle with her thumb and index finger and then poked one finger from her other hand through it vigorously, grinning all the while.

Despite the circumstances, Rick grinned back and rolled his eyes at her. He wasn't sure if his sister was right or what he thought of such a development, but it didn't really matter. The fact that his sister was joking with him again was a significant sign that things were actually okay.

He felt certain that meant something new would go wrong shortly. But for a time, at least, he was at peace.