Here is the story that nobody asked for OMG I am so useless HAHAHA I know I know I should really be updating my other stories but no inspiration (esp for my Dani-in-BH6-verse series. help!) and this idea came into my head and I thought it'd be really cute! I mean, can you imagine Fred trying to be a big brother?

of course, i was trying to work on a Lilo&Stitch oneshot, but it wasn't really working out very well, so...

(seriously I PROMISE I will update my other stories, but if you guys have any ideas/comments/suggestions for my other stories, I'd be glad to hear them haha really stuck on them)

hope you enjoy, it'd be great if you could read and review hahaha

They meet when she's just five, and he's a whole four years older, tall and scary and intimidating at all of nine years old. She's worried, almost afraid, because she doesn't get out much, not really, her daddy doesn't like her too, and her mother doesn't care that much. But she's here, she has to be here today, because of some business deal that Father is trying to make and she's been invited too.

"On your best behaviour, Rachel," Mother says, and she nods and has to resist the urge to pull at her hair. Daddy's promised that he'll buy her that really big, nice new set of crayons and oil pastels if she is especially good today, and she really, really wants them, so she promises to be on her best behaviour, ever.

Then she is left alone with this boy, who is tall and lanky and kind of lazy-looking, scruffy-looking, and she doesn't know what to do, not really.

"Hey," he says, as if noticing just how worried she is. "You don't have to look so scared, I'm not gonna do anything to you! What's your name?"

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare," she finds herself saying, a little quietly.

He stares at her, and then he laughs. "That's a really long name," he says. "What about I call you Red? You know, like R-E-D. For your initials! Cool, huh? And it's your hair colour too, it's like a fire-engine kind of colour, you know, that's even better!"

She can't help it, she finds herself smiling, wider, more brightly, at this funny, tall, scruffy boy who doesn't seem quite so intimidating now. "Okay," she agrees, and then she remembers her manners, and she says, "What about you? What's your name?"

He grins at her, a kind of lazy grin, and he tells her, "I'm Fred."

She points out, as he brings her on a mini-tour of the mansion he and his family stay in, that Fred is really just the word red with the letter 'F' in front of it. He blinks, once, twice, and then he is laughing again, grinning.

"You're totally right, kid, it is!" he says. "Hey, that's so cool!"

He brings her around to see the cool sculptures and statues and paintings, even though he's not really interested in them and he isn't sure about them, not really, but he sees her face light up at the paintings, sees her eyes widen over the sculptures, tells him about how her parents have told her they'll buy a really nice expensive set of oil pastels, though she doesn't say it's only if she's on her best behaviour.

His brows furrow at that. "You like art?"

She nods, eagerly. "I like to draw!"

"I dunno, Red, I always liked superheroes and comics better," he says. "C'mon, they're really cool! You know, I thought it would be really cool if I could transform into a fire-breathing lizard – "

He leads her down corridor after corridor, until they reach a pair of double doors, and he tells her that there's really cool stuff inside. She figures it's superhero and comic-book stuff, and when the doors open, she's right. There are loads and loads of comics, and lots of action figures, and a huge screen with monster movies piled around it, and an area he's roped off where, he says, he's going to convince his parents to let him buy a huge monster figure. Or something. She's getting kind of lost with all the comic-book names.

But that's not why he's brought her here, he says. Instead, he brings her over to a table, digs around in the drawers, comes up with a bunch of oil pastels and colour pencils and massive sheets of paper.

"My parents were trying to get me interested in art a while ago, they bought all this artsy stuff from one of the major shops," Fred is telling her, as he spreads the stuff on the table. "I never really used them, but do you want to?"

It's like she's glowing, beaming, the way she smiles at him.

She draws him a picture, of him as a superhero, and though the proportion's a little off, it's streets ahead of anything he could ever do, and he tells her it's amazing and he immediately puts it up on the wall.

No one's ever done anything like that for him before, not ever. It gets kind of lonely in this house, sometimes, and usually all the kids who've been made to come here are pretty stuck up, or snobby, or can't appreciate his sense of humour or his comic books. Red's only really a kid, but she's a pretty fun one at that, and she's drawn him as a superhero. He's actually kind of touched.

"You really like it?" she says, almost shyly. She's a little out of her depth here, she's never had any real friends, not proper friends; usually all the people she meet are the daughters of her father's friends, prim, proper, laughing at her for wanting to draw and to paint, only interested in princesses and fairy tales and dresses and crowns.

(Not that she doesn't like princesses. She does. She just think art's cooler.)

"Are you kidding, Red? It's awesome! I love it! Totally cool!"

Daddy says that his business associates were very impressed with her behaviour during dinner, and she made a very good impression on their son Fred, so they let her buy whatever she wants from the really expensive art store not far from where they live, not just the oil pastels and crayons. And she does, buying paints, brushes, glitter, anything and everything that she thinks she might possibly use.

The next time round, it's not for some fancy dinner or anything, it's just another business visit, but Father says that Fred had asked if she was coming when his parents told him that Mr Dare was coming, so he's bringing her along, but he tells her not to make a nuisance of herself and that she still has to be on her best behaviour.

This time, Fred teaches her how to play video games. She's not very good at it, but he's patient, laughing and messing up her hair and telling her the best way to have fun while she's playing. She's not that into video games, it's true, and especially less after the two hours of playing it, but she guesses it's not so bad, at least not with Fred.

He tells her about cool stuff from his comic books, and she draws them out for him. She tells him about how her parents let her buy whatever she wanted from the art store, and he tells her stupid stories and makes her laugh, and he tells her that her hair is fire-engine red and she tells him that his hair looks like a mop. She's just five years old, and she's four years younger than him, but she tries to teach him how to draw properly, as they spread out paper and pencils all over the table.

It doesn't work out very well, of course.

"How'd you learn how to draw like this?" Fred wants to know.

She shrugs: "I don't know. I just always liked art. And I could do it. And I practised."

Fred thinks it's too soon when Heathcliff tells them that she has to go.

It becomes a routine. Whenever Mr Dare goes over to San Fransokyo, Rachel always follows, and she always spends the entire time with Fred. She tells him it's not healthy to sit inside all the time, and they wander around the grounds, and they play catch, and hide and seek, and anything else they can think of.

It gets so that Rachel tells him, about her nightmares, about monsters reaching up to her in the dark, about lightning and buildings toppling over and the world falling apart and it's all her fault. She tells him about the monsters that she sees on the streets, the ones that to everyone else look human, but she sees one-eyed creatures, ogres with yellowing teeth, female things with cruel fangs and mismatched legs, horrible, horrible monsters, and she tells him sometimes she thinks she's going crazy.

He tells her not to think that, he tells her she's perfectly fine. He tells her it's probably her imagination going into overdrive because she has too much of it, and she's not very convinced, and he tells her that he'd never let the monsters get to her anyway because he'll always be around to protect her.

"But I live in New York," she says.

"Doesn't matter," Fred tells her. "I'll fly over there and I'll take care of those monsters for you. 'Course, I'd be much faster if I could fly on my own, but I'll figure that out, you know?"

She smiles so brightly at him, he can't help but smile back.

He tells her, sometimes, that he likes to try and save money and use it to buy his own things. He tells her that he doesn't really like being all dressed up and fancy, and he likes being himself, walking around in scruffy clothes and big shirts and doing whatever he wants to do. Being rich is okay, he tells her, but it's much cooler to do what you want, to be who you want to be, right? It's not like his money makes him who he is, he says. If he doesn't want to be all prim and proper and all that stuff, it's cool, it's his life. He can choose not to wash his underwear for a week, if he wants to.

She tells him that's gross, but she has a look that's way too thoughtful for a five-year-old on her face after that.

Sometimes they walk around San Fransokyo, and sometimes Fred piggybacks her as they make their way along the streets, when she gets too tired, or when he just feels like carrying her. He races around, whooping wildly, and they stop to eat good food and ice cream and chips, and they stop at his favourite comic-book stores, and he follows her into art shops.

Once, he's carrying her as they go by a playground, and he asks her if she wants to play, but she tells him she's really tired, and can they go get ice cream instead? And he thinks longingly of the comic books he's been saving up to buy, but he says sure, no problem, ice cream sounds great.

"Aw," says a lady, standing with a bunch of other women, watching their kids in the sandpit. "Is this your sister? You're such a sweet brother! How cute!"

"Oh, yeah," says Fred, before Rachel can say anything. "Yeah, she is. Thanks, cool lady." And he doesn't really know how to respond to the 'sweet' or the 'cute' part, so he smiles a little awkwardly and carries Red over to their favourite ice-cream place.

"Why'd you tell her I'm your sister?" Red wants to know, as they're eating ice cream, and she is frowning, just a little.

Fred shrugs, "I dunno, I guess I kind of think of you as a sister," he says. "I dunno, I've never had a sister." I've never really had friends, he thinks, but he decides not to mention that part. He's got acquaintances, for sure, but he's got very few people he'd really classify under 'friends'. "But I guess you're not so bad, Red."

He grins at her, ruffles her hair.

She sticks out her tongue at him, swallows more ice cream.

"I've never had a brother, either," she says.

Of course, it's too good to last.

The deal falls through, disagreements come up, Mr Dare swears that he's never working with Mr Lee ever again, tells Rachel she's never going back to San Fransokyo because he's never going back there, not ever. He hauls her out of the mansion, and she only has time to say goodbye and fling her arms around Fred just once before Mr Dare drags her away, tells her they're never going back, and Rachel can see the anger in his eyes and doesn't dare to say a thing, and she can only look back at where Fred's run out onto the road, watching them drive away.

Mr Lee doesn't say much to his son. Just tells him that the deal didn't work out, they had far too many conflicts, and he's sorry that he and Rachel didn't get a proper goodbye. He tells him that besides, he should make friends his age, anyway, that Rachel's only five (he ignores Fred's comment that "Red's turning six next month"), and that it's all for the best. The Dares are not the best people to work with, not the best people to know.

He didn't even get to say goodbye.

He leaves the superhero drawing on the wall.

i don't know. i thought it'd be cute. yes? no? thinking they'll probably meet again sometime in the future, i dunno. but yea please do leave comments if you have any heh thank youu hope you enjoyed it!