Chapter Text
Black was pretty sure he’d gotten the message White wanted him too, last night, but he dragged himself to the 7/11 the next morning anyways. Figured he owed it to White to keep trying, over and over, because White had never given up on him and Black was so much— more, now.
But White wasn’t at work.
Black didn’t always remember his schedule, White was always fucking switching, but he gave White a ride to work some mornings and stole White’s employee discount for coffee, so Black was pretty sure he should be here. Instead, it was Mint. “Hey,” Mint said, raising an eyebrow.
“Hi,” Black bit out, antsy. He’d fallen asleep last night worried about his brother and only woken up with minutes to spare to stop by here before his class. He’d skip, but Gumpa was fucking militant about making sure none of them missed a day before or a day after a mission. “Where’s White.”
“I swapped shifts with him,” Mint said sweetly.
“Great. Where the fuck is he?”
Mint inspected her fingernails. “Out.”
“Fuck,” Black said, throwing down the money for the coffee, without employee discount. “He didn’t come home last night, alright, I just want to make sure he’s safe.”
“Yeah, then you should try apologizing,” Mint said. “You hurt his feelings; he’s just a delicate boy.”
Black was pretty sure White was way too mean for that too be true. “Yeah, I’m fucking aware,” he said, because he was. Every part of him knew that he fucked up, was fucked up, every bit of him ached with it in a way that had entirely too do with his own failings and nothing to do with the way White was feeling at all. He could barely feel anything White was feeling. “You know where the fuck he is or not?”
“Go to class,” Mint told him.
Yeah. Of course. White was so good at getting people on his side. Based on the way Mint was talking, she did know where White was, and she wasn’t sharing.
But at least White was probably fine. Just fucking pissed as hell.
Good. Black was pissed at himself too.
“Look,” Mint said as he scooped up his change. “I’ll see if he wants to talk to you, alright? Come by tomorrow at midnight.”
“Yeah, alright,” Black said, and he would, but figured that day after tomorrow was probably just too late.
Black spent half the day finishing up White’s bike, like he’d promised he would. It was now an apology present, because Black couldn’t give a fucking gift normally, but it was looking beautiful.
Sean texted him that he’d headed over to Black’s place after Black’s classes started, like he might catch White sneaking in — pretty good guess, actually — but hadn’t found anything. Black texted back that Mint believed White was fine and he was going to wait for tomorrow to see if White was willing to talk to him. Sean texted back that Black was a fucking coward for giving up. Black texted back that he wasn’t looking to piss White off more. Sean texted back that Black needed to fix this and Black threw his phone onto the tool cart and tried not to grind his teeth into dust.
Everything was wrong.
He didn’t know where White had been staying, when he was busy being pissed at Black, but he weirdly missed him. Was unsettled in the way he had been the first two months he was twelve, when he had to put together the entire world from scratch and had to live with knowing forever that he’d done it wrong.
He’d get the apology out quick, Black decided, before White could decide it wasn’t worth it, and he’d have to say mushy shit because White loved that, but Black didn’t know how to get around the actual issue, which was that he’d meant what he said and White was probably not going to forgive him for that. Maybe it was a long time coming. Maybe White would have to take a step back. Putting it like that, Black wondered if maybe it wasn’t fucking easier to not apologize at all, just let White rip them apart, except for White was too stubborn to go back home and Black didn’t want him on his own and there was no way to fix a situation in which you didn’t want to let someone go but you just weren’t fucking good enough to be near them.
“Are you still being fucking pissy,” Sean called, wheeling his bike into the garage, Yok sitting on the back of it gleefully like he didn’t have his own damn ride.
Yok laughed. “Black’s never not pissy.”
Black ignored that. “You find him?”
“Yeah,” Sean said, smug.
“Where?”
“Nope.”
Black growled, low in his throat. Of fucking course.
“He’s coming over for dinner tonight,” Sean said. Was this pity? Was Sean taking fucking pity on him? Yok was making some sort of face that Black didn’t like, something sympathetic and slightly mocking, and Black stared him down until the half-smile fell off it and Sean snapped out, “And I promised him your ugly face wouldn’t be here.”
“It’s also White’s face,” Black said.
“Yeah, but only yours is ugly,” Sean replied, shoving Black back. “Fuck off, okay? He doesn’t want to see you.”
“Fuck, I know,” Black said, shoving him back. “You think I don’t fucking know that? He’s my fucking twin—”
“That doesn’t mean you get to treat him like shit!”
“I fucking know,” Black roared, and now everyone was staring at him like a zoo animal. He threw up his hands. “I fucking know!” Of course he knew. White was so accommodating; White was so familiar, White was so his, Black forgot that he drew lines that weren’t supposed to be crossed. Forgot that Black wasn’t the version of himself that could cross him. “Jesus. Fine. I’ll never fucking see him again, are you happy?”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Yok said, rolling his eyes. “Just say you’re sorry, did your parents never teach you that?”
“My mother thinks apologizing is for weak people,” Black said flatly,
“And we all try to be like your shit mom?”
Black punched him. Hard, in the face, none of that play shit. This time, instead of crying about it, punched back immediately, a clean hit to the nose that — well, it wasn’t broken, but it hurt like a motherfucker. Black launched himself at Yok, trying to get in a foot stomp when fucking Sean of all people dragged them apart.
“The fuck,” Sean said, slamming a hand into Black’s chest. “Why am I playing peacekeeper, huh?”
“Tell him to shut his mouth,” Black said.
“Don’t punch people!”
Black shoved back, breaking Sean’s hold on his collar. His nose hurt. He tasted blood in his mouth; his heart was pounding. Suddenly he did not want to fucking be here anymore, with everyone looking at him accusingly, all put together wrong. He snatched up his bag and stalked over to his bike.
“Dude, come on,” Yok called, already forgiving.
“Give White that when he comes,” Black said, throat tight. He jerked a thumb at the bike, White’s bike. A Triumph, like Black’s, and painted a deep midnight. “Tell him—” he cut himself off. Who the fuck wanted apologies?
“Tell him yourself!” Sean yelled as Black peeled off into the street.
White had clearly been by, at least. Black could hold onto that. He’d taken his cellphone charger, though, which to Black implied that White wasn’t interested in coming back, but he’d thrown yesterday’s clothes in the laundry bin too, which Black didn’t know what to think about. He kind of hoped that White could come by that night, after dinner with Sean.
But the door never opened and Black gave up and turned the light out.
He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep; he couldn’t sleep, he fucking couldn’t sleep. Todd had called him six times; left three voicemails that Black hadn’t listened too. His knuckles were red where he’d hit Yok. He’d smoked an entire pack of cigarettes, stubbornly still outside on the balcony under the orange of the street lamps. White had clearly come, picked up another pair of shoes and some clothes, there were the little traces of another person in the apartment that Black had gotten used to the past couple of months, but. But.
He couldn’t sleep without White there.
There was this fucking disgusting urge to check in him, this fucked-up worry that if Black wasn’t there to look at him, watch him, White would simply cease to exist.
He was on his way to the 7/11 when it happened. Just — pain.
It hit the back of White’s head beautifully, a starburst that made Black’s own vision scream white. He jerked the handlebars of the bike, skidding to a stop to the side of the road as he focused on not fucking passing out. Fuck. Fuck. He never had really thought about if White passing out would make him pass out but his vision was slipping sideways and he kept reaching up to the side of his head, where it hurt so bad he couldn’t even tough it without whimpering—
And there was no blood.
It was all White; it was White getting beat to shit and White’s arm being broken and White’s blood, definitely pooling on pavement somewhere and Black couldn’t fucking get to him because his mouth was numb and his vision was black and he hurt all over and he didn’t know if when the pain stopped it meant White was feeling it or there was too much and Black’s body had rebelled or if White was even fucking okay—
It didn’t exactly stop hurting, but it subsided enough that Black could get to the fucking convenience store and see spatters of blood on the front. “What the hell happened,” he demanded, because Mint was standing right there, her mouth a perfect circle.
“Some — some guys just jumped him,” she said faintly. “He was only a foot from the door.”
The great thing about having a twin, Black was finding, was that no one fucking stopped you at the hospital and asked if you were family of the guy who just got jumped outside the convenience store by four guys with baseball bats. Black could just go right the fuck in to see White laid out on the bed, neatly covered up with shitty hospital blankets.
“Asleep or drugged up,” Black asked the nurse.
“Sedation,” she told him as she carefully removed the oxygen mask. “He should be waking up soon. Don’t be alarmed if he says strange things, or gets upset — it’s pretty normal.”
“Okay,” Black said, settling into the chair and watching the slow rise and fall of White’s chest. He had a broken arm and a dissociated shoulder, a broken nose, four cracked ribs, and a concussion. The surgery had been relatively minor, apparently, something to do with — shit, Black might have been too fucking worried out his mind to know. Every fucking iota of White’s body was bruised and Black felt every inch of it, ache deep-set in his bones.
It’s fucked. This was supposed to be him.
White woke up about forty-five minutes later, blinking rapidly. “Phi?”
“Yeah,” Black said.
“I’m not supposed to call you that,” White said distantly, eyes glazed over with the pain meds. “My stomach hurts. Sorry. Black.”
“It’s fine,” Black said, because he’d lose his mind if White never called him that again. “Phi’s fine.” It was better than fine.
“Yeah?” White was crying, big fat tears, and Black reached out and brushed a hand carefully through his hair — it was shaved, on the left side, where he has twelve stitches in a pattern that looked a little bit like a snail.
“Yeah,” Black said. He had no idea how to do this but he couldn’t not try. “Go back to sleep, okay?”
Second time White woke up, Black was getting shitty coffee down the hall — it was probably two, three in the morning now, and he heard quiet murmurs and then the nurse cheerfully saying, “Sorry, it’s just your nurse! How are you feeling?” and then a distinct burst of panic of Black’s chest that had him abandoning the vending machine.
White was sobbing, thrashing while the nurse was calling from someone to help. “Phi,” he wailed.
Black went for him immediately, his cold hands on White’s overly-warm face. “White, it’s fine,” he said desperately. “I’m here, okay?”
“You left,” White sobbed, but he wasn’t thrashing as much at least, which had to be good. “They separated us—”
“I just went for coffee, fuck,” Black said, just as the nurse added something to White’s IV line. “I’m here, okay?”
“I’m never going to see you ever again,” White gasped, and pressed his face up against Black’s hand, even though the nose had to still hurt. “Again!” He hiccupped around the word then groaned — he still couldn’t catch his breath. Black felt his ribs raw and aching around his lungs.
“Breathe,” Black said, taking exaggerated breathes in and out, then, “And it wasn’t again, you literally saw me again, you’ll see me again, okay, you live with me, remember?”
“No,” White said, eyelids fluttering.
“Jesus,” Black said as White passed out again. “Fuck.”
“He tore his stitches,” the nurse said after a moment. “On his stomach.”
“Fuck,” Black sighed, climbing off the bed. He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be fucking doing that. “Sorry. We — is that normal? The freaking out?” His hands were shaking; he wiped them on his pants as if that would help any part of him stop losing it.
“It’s not common, but it’s nothing to worry about,” the nurse said kindly. “We’ll give him a little more sedation so he’s less likely to injure himself. Okay?”
One of the doctors swooped in, stitched him back up, and disappeared. The nurses didn’t make any mutterings about Black leaving, despite the hours, maybe because they didn’t want White to lose his damn mind and tear his stitches again. It’s normal for patients to be confused and upset especially under the influence of drugs, they kept saying. Great. That was awesome.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Black repeated, when White woke up and said, blearily, why are you here, you hate me. He knew — he fucking knew —
“Why are you here, phi,” White kept saying. “You’re leaving?”
Somewhere around eight a.m., Black thought to call Gumpa about what happened. “Retaliation?” Gumpa said thoughtfully.
“Yeah,” Black said. “And I know who. I’ll take care of it, hia.”
“Take care of your brother first.”
“Mm,” Black said, nodding. He hated to asked, but — he had to. For White, who had gotten a couple hours of uninterrupted sleep now, chest faintly rising and falling. “Can you send over someone? I don’t want him to wake up alone.”
Gumpa was silent a long moment. “Yeah,” he said, voice a little hoarse. Black hated him viscerally. As if that meant anything. As if it could be a marker of anything, when this was all Black’s fault, this was the least he could do. “Yeah, I’ll get Gram and Sean to go over, okay?”
“Okay.”
Black didn’t feel like he’d slept in ages, although he kept nodding off in the uncomfortable plastic hospital chair. One of the nurses had brought him an extremely tiny pillow, not that Black was about to turn that down, and he refused to move more than a few inches from White’s side. He was holding White’s wrist, carefully, around the IV cannula and the heartbeat monitor on his finger.
“Phi?” White struggled to sit up and Black turned around immediately, pressing his hand gently against White’s shoulders. “You’re here?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” Black said. “Not going anywhere, okay, nong?”
White’s face split into a smile. “I missed you,” he said.
“I know,” Black soothed. He felt like a live wire all over, about to explode, but White needed him contained, here, holding his hand. “I missed you too.”
“What happened?”
“You got hurt.”
White frowned. “Ouch,” he said. “I’m okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re going to be fine,” Black promised. The doctors all said so, said that everything was very clean and there wasn’t anything to worry about, White would just be on bedrest a little bit.
“Okay,” White agreed. “I’m hungry.”
“Okay, phi will get you something to eat,” Black said, running his thumb over the back of White’s good hand. White fell back to sleep two minutes later.
At nine a.m., White’s father walked in through the door. Black still hated to see him but at least he made the appropriately horrified sounds to see White in the hospital bed. “Oh, my son,” he said, hands fluttering around like he couldn’t even decide where to touch White without it hurting. “Black, what happened to him?”
“Mugged.”
“Tell the truth,” his father said.
“I am,” Black said. He was not. Black highly doubted White was a victim of a randomly chosen crime. Black always knew he’d get White hurt.
His father sighed. “This is dangerous,” he said, as if he knew what he was talking about. He clicked his tongue. “This wouldn’t have happened if he was at home.”
“He is at home,” Black said. “With me.”
“White is not like you; he shouldn’t be living with you. He should be safe.”
Black shrugged. Yeah, White should be. But Black’d learned more than enough playing at being a brother in the past few months to know that White was never going to choose that. White was the most reckless motherfucker Black had ever met, and he knew himself. White had walked back after a strangling. Black was terrified of losing him, but he also knew White was never just going to let him go. “He doesn’t wanna.”
“Black.”
“What,” Black said. “I don’t even remember him; this isn’t even my fault. He found me.”
“And you aren’t letting go.”
Black’s never once worked right. Everyone knew he was fucked up. Thing was, so was White. “I’m not,” Black agreed.
His father sighed.
Black sat back. “I don’t actually know your name,” he said after a minute. He felt — this time and the last time — that he should be feeling more upon meeting his father. But his head was still empty and this man wasn’t even someone who had apparently mattered. “I mean. Your last one I’ve got.”
His father was staring at him like he’d seen a ghost, and then White was waking up and his father wasn’t looking at him at all.
Gram showed up an hour later just as Black’s dad was leaving to go do — some bullshit, or maybe he was tired of Black glaring at him, or maybe he wanted to shit-talk Black to his ex-wife. “Hey,” Gram said. He sucked a breath. “Shit, he looks bad.”
Black kicked a chair out for him to sit. He’d had been here for ten hours and White had been awake for maybe ten minutes of it. It was morning now and he had to, at some point, go kill Todd.
“What the fuck happened to him,” Gram blurted out. “He looks like he went ten rounds with a baseball bat.”
“He did,” Black said flatly, remembering the blunt pain. White was missing a tooth in the back; Black couldn’t feel the ache of it anymore now that painkillers were involved but he kept running his tongue over the imagined gap anyways. “An old friend of mine didn’t like that we haven’t been talking.”
“So he beat up your brother about it?”
“He always did like getting answers,” White murmured.
“You up for real?” Black asked. White had been getting more and more lucid, generally, which was good — it could have been serious. White could have been dead. He was already smashed to a bloody fucking pulp. But he’d stopped being so worried that Black was going to leave and started being more generally confused about what had happened.
White hummed. He was more high than terrified, right now, which was good, because Black had to go set Todd straight as soon as he could, but he didn’t really want to leave White alone.
“White?”
“Mmm,” White said, following his own meandering conversation and smiling like he hadn’t ripped his own fucking stitches out being hysterical. That was good. He’d stopped waking up terrified out of his mind that Black would be gone or that he’d be shipped back to Russia or whatever the fuck it was that he was he couldn’t stand, and the nurse has stopped looking at him like he was a traumatized child. Eventually he slipped off into sleep again.
Black sighed. “I gotta take care of who did this to him once he’s a little more awake,” he told Gram. “Where’s Sean?”
“Gonna get here in another couple of hours, finishing up class,” Gram said. “You want backup?”
“Nope,” Black said.
Sean showed up a couple hours later, bringing takeout, which was gratefully received even if Sean himself wasn’t. By Black, at least. White was awake, beaming in Sean’s direction even though he wasn’t wearing his glasses and probably couldn’t tell who it was until Sean actually got close.
Black devoured his fucking chicken as fast as he could. “Sean, you can stay?”
“Yeah, ‘course,” Sean said. “Why, where the fuck you going?”
“Phi?” Whi said. “You’re going?”
Only because White was saying this a little sadly and a little curiously, instead of losing his shit, did Black say, “Only for a little.”
“Phi,” White said, clearly crestfallen.
Black leaned over, smoothing White’s hair back. “I’m just gonna go take care of whoever did this to you, okay, nong?” He didn’t really think White had a hope of remembering it, given how many times he’d woken up in the past eight hours remembering nothing and kind of terrified that Black wouldn’t be there. Fuck, Black’s really bad at being a brother. He thought he was doing pretty okay but this whole time he was just shit.
“But you’re never coming back?” White’s face twisted. “Who do I talk to now?”
“I’m gonna be back in an hour,” Black said. White drugged up as he was, he wasn’t gonna recognize the time passing anyways. “Okay? Gram and Sean are going to stay with you. Keep you safe. You can talk to them.”
White squinted at him. “But,” he said.
“I gotta go kill a guy for you.” Black squeezed his hand. “You can be good and wait for me, right?”
“For me?”
“Yeah.”
White blinked. “But how will I be able to see you in prison?” And once he wasn’t high as fuck, Black was definitely going to remind him that his only objection to murder was fucking visitation. Who cared about the ethical and moral ramifications of murder, apparently.
“I won’t go to prison,” Black said. “Okay?”
White frowned. “Okay.”
“If you get worried, just talk to Gram. Or Sean, I guess, but only if you really have too.”
“Thanks,” Sean said flatly.
“I don’t want to talk to them,” White said, which made Gram laugh. “You have to stay.”
“Can’t,” Black said. “I got big brother duties to do.” That made White laugh, pleased, eyes crinkled at the corners. Black leaned over to press a kiss to White’s forehead. It was way more sentimental than he thought he’d ever done in his fucking life, and he didn’t know if they did that when they were kids, but he wanted to do it and he didn’t care what they’d done as kids. They had something else now. “Stay in bed and don’t tear your stitches again,” Black told him, ruffling White’s hair. “I’ll be back soon.”
Sean followed Black outside the room, Gram clearly heard behind them stepping in to field White’s same five questions.
“He’s drugged to the gills,” Black said, some perverse need to defend White’s honor after their embarrassing show. “So don’t fuck with him, okay? Just make sure he’s okay.”
“You seriously think I’d fuck with your hospitalized, drugged-up brother?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Black barked out, scrubbing his hand over his face. He didn’t really have any worries about someone slipping into the hospital while White was alone and killing him, really, but apparently, he was fully capable of the fear of just losing White. Just because he was stupid. Just because he wasn’t good at this.
“Gram won’t let anything happen to him, Black,” Sean said, kind of annoyed and obviously and totally obnoxiously heartfelt. “Okay? Don’t worry about that. Just tell me where we’re going.”
He did not seriously think Black was going to take him along, did he? No fucking way. Black worked alone, he always worked alone, and this wasn’t some mission that Sean could try to take lead on. This was Black’s shit. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “This shit’s between me and him.”
“You haven’t even told us who him is,” Sean said. “Black. You need backup. Hia always says.”
“No the fuck I don’t!”
Sean caught Black’s wrist, thumb digging into the skin. “I’m not letting you go alone,” Sean said tightly. Annoyingly, he wasn’t angry or pissy saying this, just unrelenting. “We don’t do that.”
“Who the fuck is—”
“You don’t do that,” Sean snapped, shaking Black’s wrist as if he could shake sense into him. “Not anymore. Not since White.”
This was what White had done to all of them. White needed them all to come back.
Todd’s ugly apartment building looked just the same as it did a year and a half ago when they broke up. Easy to get in. Fucking doorman still recognized him.
“Who the fuck is this guy,” Sean said, watching the numbers climb up.
“Old friend,” Black said. “Don’t get involved.”
“Bullshit—”
“I mean it,” Black said. “He’s got security, so don’t push it. Unless it looks like I’m really going to die, don’t get involved. Promise.”
A dick move, making Sean promise. Sean would die before breaking it. The worst thing about Sean is that when it wasn’t his mission to leave, he’d follow. He’d give Black or Gram or Yok that respect. He’d argue if he thought it was a bad plan, sure, he wasn’t going to roll over, but he’d honor that authority. Honestly, Sean was way more of a peacemaker than he’d give himself. “Fine,” Sean said tightly.
“Good,” Black said. “This is personal.” It had nothing to do with Sean, or even the cause. It had every little thing to do with Black and Todd, and nothing else. Even White was only collateral, here.
The keycode hadn’t even changed.
Todd was standing at the fancy granite counter, holding a glass of whiskey. He looked up when Black came in — tired, in a way that made Black ache. There was a time he could have done something about it. “Black,” Todd said.
He’d timed it well; Todd was clearly a few glasses in. “Todd.”
Todd’s gaze shifted to Sean. “You brought a friend.”
“Yeah,” Black said. The weight of the gun in his waistband shifted with him, but Black didn’t even know if he was going to kill Todd yet. Todd was being a fucking bitch, he was being petty, but he was still someone Black had known his entire life.
Todd snorted. Displeased. “That’s not like you.”
No, it never had been. “Turns out I’m pretty invested in getting back home to White,” Black said.
Todd scowled. How many times had he patched Black up, saying, can’t you just come home safe? But this was never Black’s home. He didn’t leave just because his mom was a bitch. He couldn’t just skip on over to Todd’s penthouse and pretend that was any better. The entire time he lived here he just wanted to leave, and he had, and that was final, all the way up until now, when Todd dragged him back.
“You had your guys beat my little brother to shit, Todd,” Black said.
Todd had never been Black’s home either.
“I had to prove a point.” Todd was always saying shit like this, about things he had to do or things he couldn’t not do. Shit like that was why Black’d never be able to forgive him.
Sean snorted. “You couldn’t even do it yourself? Kind of embarrassing.”
“Who the fuck are you,” Todd snapped, glaring.
Black gave Sean a warning glance. Sean shrugged, stepping backwards and leaning against the wall, arms crossed, like a sullen bodyguard, and Black refocused on Todd. “You couldn’t come to me?”
“You wouldn’t have listened.”
“I’m listening now,” Black said. “Tell me what point you think you’ve proved.”
Todd didn’t say anything in his defense, which just pissed Black off. There was nothing Todd could have said and he hadn’t had any fucking point, anyways, he’d been pissed off and mad and wanted to hurt Black like Black had hurt him, except he had been, for ten fucking years, and after all that time, he should have fucking known Black couldn’t be taught any fucking point at all.
“Yeah,” Black said, and slammed his first into Todd’s nose.
It didn’t really feel good. There’d been a time when Todd was Black’s only friend, the only person he trusted, and the love of Black’s shitty fucking life. It was hard to forget all that.
Except that person never existed. If he had, Black would have known he had a brother this whole time. And Black was here, and he wasn’t even alone.
Todd swung back, dirty, a little drunk, and Black body-slammed him up against the cabinets. Todd yelped, embarrassingly high-pitched. “You fucker,” he said, scrabbling around on the counter for another weapon.
He slammed the glass of whiskey against Black’s head and Black grunted, staggered back, blood trickling down his cheek.
“You good?” Sean asked, voice deceptively casual.
“Fuck off,” Black snapped, and slammed Todd into the ground — kicked him while he was down there, the black silk shirt covered in glass and whiskey. He thought he’d be angrier, the way he had been last week when Todd texted him and White walked through the door; he thought he’d be boiling over with it, fucking blinded with it. That was the way it always had been, Black and his two states of being, anger that was hot and got him trouble and anger that was clinical, anger that just had to be.
“Fuck,” Todd wheezed out. “It wasn’t personal!”
“Yeah fucking right it wasn’t personal,” Black spat, slamming Todd back down before he could fucking get up. Todd’s eyes glazed, like maybe the thud of his skull against tile had fucked him over bad, but Black didn’t care. He pressed his entire arm against Todd’s throat, the way he did to White all those months ago. “He’s my baby brother.”
Todd’s face turned red, then purple. Black probably wasn’t gonna kill him. But he wanted Todd to know the feeling of losing his own life. Black’d known it a hundred times, all he’d ever known was loss; Todd never had. He’d made sure Black’s only ever known loss. Todd should understand now, his face fucking mottled and his nose broken and his eyes wide like he might not fucking get out of it.
In the corner of his eye, Sean did nothing, didn’t even move. He’d let Black kill Todd if he wanted to. He hadn’t said he wouldn’t. All he said was he was going to get Black home to White.
“Did you fucking feel it,” Todd rasped out, fingers curling around Black’s forearm. The fingernails dug in. “When they hit him?”
Black’s vision briefly went fucking white with the flare of anger that roared up. “How the fuck did you—” Black said, and Todd kicked him away, coughing, choking as he braced himself up on the counter.
Black reached across the counter and threw back the second glass of whiskey Todd had poured for him. Fucking bastard. “I’m fine,” he told Sean, who was tense. He wouldn’t want Todd to know it, so he was playing it cool, but Black could tell it was taking everything he had to not jump in. “Todd. How the fuck did you know that?”
Todd massaged his throat. “I was at the pool that day—” that day, as if Black would ever remember— “And White drowned. And I saw.”
So he knew. He knew everything.
Black pulled the gun out of his waistband. Todd stilled. He was probably concussed; there was blood on the floor. Black wanted to shoot him so fucking bad he ached with it, but his hands were completely steady. “You lied to me the whole time I knew you,” he said. Maybe he thought the gun would get him some answers. “My mother tell you to do that?”
“I was twelve—”
“Yeah, so was I,” Black said, “And let’s not pretend you were fucking worse off than me in that situation!”
“I was scared! Can you put the fucking gun down?”
“So was I,” Black said, kicking his chair. “I met you for the first fucking time and you lied to me. You could have told me fucking anything and I’d have had to believe it!”
He still remembered the first time they met, of course. Black, unlike everyone else in the fucking world, was twelve when he made all his first memories. The first week had been spent in the hospital, the second spent rotating through therapists and psychiatrist and neurologists. Having to meet his mother for the first time. Having to learn his name for the first time.
Black could still find the seams of where Todd had let him paste the world together wrong. He could have said I know everything about you. I know you have a brother who you love more than anything. And he fucking didn’t.
“I didn’t mean to,” Todd said, which was bullshit, then, rephrasing, “Your mom told me not to.”
“Of course she did.”
“It was fucked up, Black, I was twelve, of course I listened to her! You didn’t remember anything and she said telling you stuff might make you have to go back to the hospital. And I didn’t know she hadn’t told you about White until way later and by then, I don’t know, I thought it’d be better—”
“Did you think I was fucking happier like that,” Black said. “Not knowing anything but you?”
Todd ran his fingers over the glass on the counter. “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
“It did,” Black said, quiet. “And you know.”
Todd knew. Maybe that’s the worst of it all. Black couldn’t be surprised at all. Todd understood almost everything about Black; Todd knew Black better than almost anyone. As much as a person could know another, when they weren’t Black and White. Other identical twins weren’t like them. They didn’t have that pain shared in the well of their chest. Todd saw it, maybe, but he never fucking got it.
The only person who never fucked pulled this shit on him as White. Everyone else wanted him to be someone he never was, never could be, all White wanted was a brother. Whichever one Black could be.
“Black—”
“Don’t do it again,” Black said. “Or I’ll really fucking kill you next time.”
“You can’t,” Todd snapped out. “I’m your best friend! You’d have done it already.”
Black stared at him. Maybe that was true. He didn’t know. Maybe he could, if he was pushed. He still even wanted to lean close to Todd, depend on him, have Todd kiss the top of his head in that obnoxious way he liked to. Wanted to know him. Who knew what Black could do? “My best friend isn’t someone who ever existed.”
Todd gave him a look, fingers pinching his bloody nose. “Come on, Black,” he said, nasally. “Yes I did.”
Black shrugged. Todd could believe that. It wasn’t ever going to have been true. He flicked on the safety and tucked the gun back into the waistband of his pants. Sean uncoiled from the wall he was leaning against. Maybe he understood Black better than Todd did now; Black didn’t know and couldn’t bring himself to care. Todd relaxed against the counter, just a smidge, and Black slammed his foot into Todd’s. Todd howled. It sounded like he broke something. “It’s not personal, I guess,” Black said, like it could ever be anything but. “We’re going now.”
“You fucking bastard—” Todd called after him as the elevator doors snapped shut.
Black swiped his hand across his face, clearing up the blood under his nose and at his temple best he could when he only had the sleeve of his jacket to do it — his hair would disguise the thin line of blood, because Black looked wrecked. He hoped White didn’t feel it, with all the drugs he was on.
Sean stared at their reflections in the mirror on the wall as the elevator dropped, arms still crossed.
“What,” Black snapped. He’d forgotten Sean was there for the last half and hoped that it all just sounded like they were completely fucking insane. It was better than the truth. Sean had to think they were crazy, right? Black sure felt fucking crazy.
“Your friend sucks,” Sean said after a moment. His shoulders settled.
“Yeah,” Black said. “Tell me something I don’t fucking know.”
White was awake when Black made it back to the hospital. “—something about when he’s coming back?” he was asking, his voice hoarse but clear, which meant they’d kept him on the lowered dose, and Black was so fucking thankful, because he just wanted to see his baby brother. To look at him and have White understand that Black got it now, he got what White had been trying to teach him.
“He didn’t say,” Gram said. “Not sure how long a revenge quest takes.”
“At least two hours,” White decided.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” White said. “He’s always doing this.”
“I bet,” Gram said, thinly veiled laughter in his voice.
“I sure fucking do,” Black announced, shouldering his way back into the room. Fuck it, apparently that is what he did. He definitely couldn’t take White getting hurt again like that, he didn’t think he’d survive. That was who he was now. Maybe always had been, that didn’t matter. “And I did.”
“Phi,” White said, lighting up. Fuck, Black missed him. It was only like two hours. “You came back.”
“Yeah, told you I would.”
“I missed you,” White said, pathetically, which was the exact moment Gram started gathering up his shit and leaving, apparently anticipating that Black was about to lose his mind. He shoved everything in his bag so fast he forgotten his macroeconomics textbook lying near White’s knee.
Black appreciated this. “I missed you too,” Black told White, settling into Gram’s vacated chair. White reached out his hand automatically and Black took it automatically. “You feeling a little better?”
“Yeah,” White said. “You?”
“I’m not the one in the hospital.”
White squinted suspiciously at the bandage on Black’s temple. He’d stopped by their apartment to clean up a bit — seriously, there was fucking glass everywhere — and he’d slapped a bandage on the cut even though it probably needed stitches, but Black didn’t care at all. He didn’t want to leave White alone that long. “Okay,” White decided eventually. “How’s Sean?”
“He went home,” Black said. Black made him, more like. Sean had threatened to come back in a matter of hours, but Black figured that was actually kind of friendly, given the situation.
“Okay,” White said. “How’s Todd?”
Black closed his eyes, tired. Probably only White would even know how tired he was, from all of it, so Black didn’t really have to say anything at all. “Alive,” he said. “Might have broken a bone or two. Small ones.”
White hummed. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said, voice even. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“You’re my brother,” Black said.
White didn’t sound at all surprised when he said, “You don’t really call me that much.”
Not until yesterday night in this very hospital, no. When Black tilted his head over, daring to look, White was smiling at him, like it didn’t matter at all. Maybe to White it really didn’t anymore, Black didn’t know. It mattered. It had mattered so much. Black didn’t know when it had stopped mattering; when he had done a good enough job fooling everyone that it just became real. It seemed White had known it a long time ago. That Black was coming home.
“I’m not very good at it yet,” Black told him.
“P’Black,” White sighed, fond and exasperated. “You do fine. Good, even.”
You should have come home to a brother.” It would never have happened, Black knew that. He couldn’t go back.
“I did.”
“But you were disappointed,” Black persisted. “When it was me?”
White hummed. “I was always going to be disappointed,” he said. “You were always going to be a stranger.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
White huffed out a little laugh, brushing a little bit of Black’s hair behind his ear like Black was a child. “You know,” he said after a long moment filled only with the steady beep of his heart monitor. “Most of the time, I don’t think about your memories at all. You just are who you are.”
“Bullshit,” Black said.
White shrugged. “You don’t have to believe me,” he said. “But I don’t think I think about it as much as you do.”
“Guess so,” he said, like it hadn’t turned him inside for months, that. Black’s been trying to be someone who he never could be again. Maybe someone who was untouched by all the fucking bullshit, someone who wasn’t defined by loss. But maybe a better way to look at it is that no matter what had happened ten years ago, he’d be defined by White either way. His presence, his loss, his memory — there was version of Black that could exist without White. “I just — I could have been better.”
“Well, are you here?”
“Of course,” he said, exasperated. He was never going to go anywhere ever again.
“Are you going to leave again?”
“No!”
“Then I don’t care,” White said easily. “Phi, I really don’t. You are my brother. I came home to you. That’s what matters.”
Black pressed his forehead against the scratchy wave of the hospital blanket. Breathed in deep. White gave him a absent one-two pat on the head then returning to gently tidying Black’s hair like he was a bird. “Yeah,” Black said hoarsely. “You’re my brother.”