"That's so unfair-!" Emil started the second Lukas said his punishment, but he snapped his mouth shut before he could finish his outcry. Grinding his teeth together, he dropped his eyes to glare at the remains of his dinner. Hopefully that complaint didn't count because he did try to stop himself before Lukas could lengthen his punishment. "I understand..."

Lukas said nothing about Emil's almost protest. He wasn't going to count that. Besides, if his brother behaved, he'd let the punishment go after only a couple of days. It wouldn't last a whole week. "You do know I don't like punishing you, right? But I want you to be the best you can be. Be a good person. A better person than me. And that means behaving in school and doing your best to succeed." he told him.

Emil sighed and suppressed the grumbling that was going on in his head. He didn't know if he could survive a week without video games. "Got it. I'll do better next time." He fell back into silence as they finished up their dinner and the waitress came back to take their plates away, leaving the check behind.

Lukas gave Emil a small smile as the waitress took their plates. He got his wallet out and pulled out his card, giving it to the waitress to pay for the meal. She took it to the register and ran it to pay for their food and brought it back. He put it back in his wallet and stood to leave. As he headed to leave, he was stopped by the girls from before.

One of the girl's giggled as she buried her face against her friend's shoulder, but still peeked out to look at Lukas. The more forward girl was read in the face, but thrust her phone out with a stutter. "You're Lukas, the model right? Can we please take a picture with you? I like...love everything about you!"

Emil wrapped both of his arms around one of Lukas' and glared up at him. He didn't like this famous side of his brother that got to flaunt in the attention of guys and girls alike. But he didn't outright say anything.

Lukas looked from Emil, when he wrapped his arms around his arm, to the girls and back to his brother. He could tell his brother was annoyed by the girls from the way he was glaring. But, he didn't want to be rude to them. And one photo never hurt anything, right? "Alright. But only if you make it quick. I'm trying to enjoy a nice evening with my brother." he told them, gently prying Emil's arms off of him.

Emil huffed and stepped back to cross his arms and do his best to ooze his dissatisfaction. The girls jumped forward to take his place next to Lukas. "Thank you so much!" the one girl said as she held her phone out and snapped the picture. And then two more for good measure. They reluctantly stepped back and the giggly girl glanced over at Emil. "So he's your brother? So cute! He should be a model too!" She hid her face again and the two girls ran off, still giggling.

Huffing, Emil muttered, "Don't wanna."

Lukas waited patiently while the girls took the photos. He watched them run off before turning to Emil. "Stop pouting. Let's go home." he told him, turning and leading the way out of the restaurant. He was hoping to get home before someone else stopped them. "She was right though. You are cute." he added, looking back at his brother.

Emil didn't quite stop his sulking, but he followed after Lukas back toward their home. "I'm not cute!" he huffed. "I don't want to hear that from you!" Of course Lukas would say he looked cute. Emil was his 'baby' brother, so that didn't count at all. Rolling his eyes, he quickened his pace a little more. "And don't you still have one more secret to tell me?"

"Yes. Unless I get a sudden call calling me in to go to work for some emergency I'll tell you when we get home." Lukas told him. He knew that a call was extremely unlikely. But there was a small part of his brain hoping his phone would ring so he could put off telling Emil. He still wasn't sure exactly how he was going to explain what had happened.

Emil nodded and they finished the rest of their walk in silence. It didn't take long and Emil kicked his shoes off wherever when they got home and went to flop onto the couch. He reached for the game controller out of habit, but had to change his hand's trajectory at the last second and grabbed a pillow to hug instead. "Well, then tell me."

The walk went by a lot faster than Lukas would have liked. He slowly took of his shoes and set them by the door, unlike Emil, and went and sat down on the couch, still thinking. "As you should know, a few nights ago I had to come home early from the bar but ended up being late.... I had left when I was supposed to... But... As I was walking home.. These men had grabbed me and pulled me into the alley..." he started, hesitating to speak as his voice started to trail off.

Emil stared at Lukas with wide eyes. Exactly what sort of story was this? Three guys grabbed him...grabbed him?! Emil jumped on top of his brother, hands fisted in the other's shirt a she shook his. "What are you saying here? Omg bro! What happened? Why didn't you say anything! I thought you were just acting weird because you were drunk!" He'd noticed something of course, but he never guessed such a thing and Lukas didn't even finish his story.

Lukas didn't really react to Emil shaking him. That was the sort of response he had been expecting from him, after all. "What was I suppose to say. Sorry I came home late? I could have been seriously injured or even killed and spent more than an hour at the police station filling out a report that took so long because I couldn't even think straight."

Emil stared at Lukas, so shocked by his response that he couldn't react. He opened his mouth, closed it, but never let go of his brother. "Yes?" he said finally, not quite sure. But not saying anything wasn't the correct response at all. He punched Lukas lightly in the wrong. "That's for making me worry."

"I didn't want you to worry. That's why I didn't say anything about it." Lukas said. "It's not like you noticed anything was wrong when I got home anyway." If Emil had asked then, while his head was still jumbled, he might have just blurted it out. But his brother hadn't noticed anything was wrong with him. So he had figured it was fine to keep this to himself.

"I-!" Emil didn't have a good excuse for that. He hung his head, feeling guilty as he pulled back to sit his butt on the couch cushions again. "Of course I was super worried that you came home late and I ate and entire bag of licorice waiting. But you didn't say anything and stumbled like you were drunk," he explained with a huff. "I was upset you made me worry for such a reason! But I guess I was wrong."

"You really shouldn't eat so much licorice. It isn't very good for you." Lukas told him. "And when have I ever drank enough to start stumbling around like that?" he asked. He knew he never drank enough to get to that point. Well, at least not when he had been at a bar. If he was drinking at home, he wouldn't care. But he wouldn't ever let himself get that vulnerable out in public where someone could take advantage of him. ".. I'm sorry I had made you worried. Even if you didn't show that you were at the time."

Emil rolled his eyes at the licorice comment. As if he cared what was healthy of not. He was a teenager. He had rights to be a candy addict. "I'm sorry I don't expect my brother to get mugged coming home from a bar. Being drunk sounded more logical," he complained. "And you still haven't told me why that annoying guy from earlier knows about it."

"The annoying Dane knows because he had followed me from the bar, I'm guessing at Tino's request. He was the one who stopped the guys from doing any serious damage to me." Lukas said. Sure, he felt bad that Matthias had gotten shot because of him. Even if the bullet only grazed him. He did save him from getting his throat slit.

"So the annoying Dane is actually a good person?" Emil asked, trying to get his facts straight. If the guy got his brother back home safe to him, he'd have to thank Mathias somehow. Even if he was annoying. Maybe he could send him a text message. That would be nice, distant, impersonal. "Do you have his phone number?"

"I suppose he is. Though he's loud and annoying." Lukas said. He wasn't sure if one good deed made someone a good person or not though. Only time will tell since it looks like the Dane wasn't going to be leaving him alone. So he could figure it out on a later date. "No I don't have his phone number. Why do you want it anyway?" he asked.

Emil shrugged one shoulder. He wasn't about to deny that the Dane was loud and annoying, but that wouldn't stop him either. "Too bad. I was going to thank him because I doubt you did so properly." He rolled his eyes. Lukas could be so stubborn about such things.

"Of course I thanked him..... I think..." Lukas said. Some parts of that night were still a blur, but he was sure he had thanked him. "He had said he would be back here tomorrow. You can thank him then. And are we done with the serious talk now?" he asked, standing and stretching. "If so, I want to get back to working on my book. It's almost finished."

"You think," Emil muttered. That meant no. "Oh right, he said he would come back. Well...I guess that's fine. And yeah, I'm done." He stood up too and went to his room after a quick word in parting. Not having any video games to play, he decided to play cards with Mr. Puffin until he fell asleep.