“ZOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!”

He almost crashes into a stack of apples, but Brian manages to steer Jimmy away from the precariously balanced fruit and push him into an aisle that contained slightly less breakable objects. It had been his idea to take Jimmy and Lisa to a store, just so Zacky and Lizzy could work out what to do with the photos that stupid fangirl had taken of them in the park, and he needed to clear his head anyway.

The conversation with his Dad had been awkward and had just evolved from chat to a full blown argument. Sometimes it felt like Brian was the parent instead of his Dad, and once he’d mentioned that, he’d been told to get out of his family home and bother someone who gave a damn. But he’d done what Lizzy had asked him to do, and that was all the mattered.

“Hey Jim Jam, can you go pick up some beer? You cleared me out” he asks his friend, who lets go of the cart in his hands, much to Lisa’s disappointment and salutes to Brian, who rolls his eyes.
“AFFIRMATIVE!” he announces loudly, earning himself glares from the other shoppers and races off to find some beer. Brian smiles and walks over to the cart, kissing Lisa’s forehead softly.

“Alright baby, what kind of Oreos should we get for you? Oreos solve all your problems, you know”
Lisa giggles and then grabs a bag of mini Oreo’s. Little Lisa sized ones he thinks as he puts them in the cart.
“Bwi-Bwi?” she asks and he looks down at the adorable little creature that’s sat up in the front of the cart.
“Yeah baby?”
“DUCKS!”

She’s pointing over at another large display, this time of plastic ducks, and Brian smiles at the thought of Jimmy already recruiting her on his team of Stallion Duck Chasing Ninjas. Yes, that’s their real name. At the moment it’s just Jimmy- but there you go. He wheels the cart over to the display of ducks and automatically, Lisa makes grabby hands for the purple one at the front, which he picks up and hands to her. She hugs it like a teddy bear, making Brian grin again.

Quickly, he pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of his sister and the duck, only to hear Jimmy singing as he walks up the aisles back to Brian, his arm full of liquor.

“THE BEER WILL BE DRUNK, TOMMOROW, AND BRIAN’S PAYING SO IT’S ALRIGHT- I’LL BUY IT ALL…TOMORROW, TOMORROW, I’LL GET PISSED TOMORROW- BUT ONLY IF I’VE RECOVERED FROM TONIGHHHHHTTTT!” Jimmy sings loudly as he serenades the shoppers with his plans for the next two nights. He throws the beer in the cart, leaving Brian to wonder how high his credit card bill will be this month (not that he can’t cover it of course) and hums to himself until he spots Lisa and the duck.

“It’s a miracle! SHE SEES THE LIGHT!” he yelled, falling to his knees and raising his hands up to the heaven’s, as Lisa and Brian stare down at him.
“Sir, if you don’t keep it down I’m going to have to ask you to leave” a security guard says as he walks past and Brian tips his fedora to the man, hoping Jimmy will keep his mouth shut.

“We’ll get you the purple one baby. Just make sure Uncle Jim Jam doesn't steal it”

***

As Brian pulls the last of the grocery bags into the kitchen, Lisa on his hip, he notices the whole band seems to have gathered at his house without him even knowing. It’s times like these when he wonders if he should just leave his house unlocked all the time so his friends can come and go- they seem to live there half the time anyway.

Their all crowded around a laptop, and as Jimmy bounds in, his energy suddenly drains once he notices what they’re looking at.
“Hey munchkin- did you get a duck?” Matt asks, noticing that there are three new people in the room. Lizzy puts her head in her hands and Zacky runs his hand through his hair- which can only mean bad news. Matt keeps trying to distract him, and Brian looks down at the girl on his hip, who’s clutching the rubber duck in her little fists.

“She sure did. She’s turning out just like Jimmy. What’s your duckie’s name, baby?”
“Duck!”
“Alright, a duck called Duck- how imaginative. Now Brian- we have a problem” Zacky says, and Brian’s walks around to the group of his friends, leaning over Johnny so he can look down at the screen. It’s a fan website, and it’s clicked onto a link of the LA Times- the entertainment section to be more precise.

‘PLAYBOY GUITARIST FINALLY FINDS LOVE- IN BEST FRIENDS LITTLE SISTER!’ the headline screams, and Brian gulps.

It was that fangirl, he just knows it. She’s leaked the photos of Zacky and Lizzy, and now without even trying- she’s going to become a target to every WAG hater of this band. He can never understand why their fans just can’t be happy for them. He always thought that was what they wanted, right?

“So what do we do now? This is a press disaster- we’re gonna get killed by label. And if they found about Lisa, then we are so screwed” Johnny asks, and the five of them look at each other- their silence only broken by Lisa giggling as her duck hit Brian on the nose as she waved it around in the air, trying to get her brother’s attention.
“Come on, baby. You don’t want me to have to get a nose job, now do you?” he asks, taking her away from the group of people and pulling the carton of milk out of the fridge.

“I can’t believe they called me a playboy…” Zacky mutters as Lizzy lifts her head up, her eyes sparkling.
She has an idea- it’s so clear that after all these years, Brian can practically read her mind.

“We’ve got to call up the L man. He’ll know what to do”