A Case Of Mistaken Identity

[Rush Khatri]

@'Eilis Hooligan' @'Clarissa Cosgrove'

It was not the usual practice of the shop to go around searching out the various family members before they moved on for the day if they weren't in the shop at the time. All of the Khatris were adults, after all - and even when some of them technically hadn't been, they'd always been able to look after themselves. They had all (except Yasmina) found their way into the shop at some point or other, and could survive just fine on their own for a day if they missed its departure. Still, Rush liked to look out for his youngest 'sibling' when he could - mostly because of the stunts she'd pulled in Chicago a few years ago. He still worried, occasionally, that she'd up and disappear and not make her way back some day.

She'd been gone two hours, though, and the shop was going to leave in twenty minutes (according to the constantly-resetting pocketwatch that he was carrying), and he still hadn't seen hide nor hair of her. He was beginning to think that maybe she'd slipped out of London entirely, which would have been bad - or perhaps that she'd just made it back to the shop after he'd gone out looking for her, which was much less bad. He'd look around another ten minutes before heading back, he figured. At the end of the day, Yasmina would have to take care of herself just like the rest of them.

Still, it didn't sit well with him, leaving her to her own devices. He was relieved when he caught sight of a familiar-looking head of brown hair headed away from him down the street. "Yasmina!" he called, but she didn't turn. "Yas!" he said, picking up the pace until he was nearly jogging. Had she not heard him? She certainly wasn't running away, but she hadn't turned to acknowledge him either. He reached out to grab her elbow and slowed to a walk as he slipped his arm lazily around her shoulders, looking over at her with a grin - before realizing that the brunette he'd chased down was not, in fact, Yasmina.

  

[Eilis Hooligan]

Eilis's life of trying to go on the whole 'straight and narrow' thing was hard. It was infinitely more fun to drink men under the table, play bar games, get into bar fights and all that fun stuff than this whole proper way of life crap. No wonder the uppity's all had sticks up their arses a lot of the time!

On top of that, she was still salty about Yaz seemingly disappearing into the stupid sea. It had been long ago by now but still - she had been as good as married to the idiot.

Thus, she was already in a pretty foul mood when she heard someone calling out Yas. Not Yaz but it was close enough for her heart to quicken just a little bit in some weird hope - that what? It would turn out Yaz had faked his death or some stupid thing like that? Had miraculously come back to her? Unlikely. So she ignored them and kept walking since they were clearly not speaking to her.

Then someone was grabbing her elbow and her already stormy mood only got stormier as this bloke had the gall to slip his arm around her shoulders. She was a good and proper woman now, dammit. Even so, her temper was it had always been and it would be no surprise to anyone that knew her well that her response to this strangers grin was to ball up her fist and send it flying into his face just like she had with that uppity girl back in Hogwarts. She always had been more of an action first, words probably never kind of person.

  

[Rush Khatri]

He realized even before he'd gotten a good look at her that the girl he'd grabbed wasn't Yasmina. She was too short, and his arm fell to the wrong angle when he put it around her shoulder. She also didn't look anything like Yasmina, now that he could see her face. The apology was on the tip of his tongue as he started to remove his arm from her shoulders. Obviously he hadn't been trying to accost some stranger off the streets of London - though she apparently thought that he had!

Rush barely had time to see her fist coming and register what was happening, and no time at all to duck out of the way. She hit him square on the jaw, with the sort of strike that implied she had done this before. He went reeling backwards into the street, which drew more attention than he would have liked from the passersby. One hand rose immediately to his chin, though of course there wan't much he could do about the blow after the fact.

"¡Joder!" he swore (Spanish was, for no particular reason, his language of choice for words one shouldn't use in polite company). "Ay! I didn't mean to - I thought you were someone else," he explained, still rubbing at the spot on his chin that she'd hit.