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The first time Aaron meets his brother, Andrew is chained and bruised.
The first time Aaron meets his brother, they are separated by a cold metal table and cold metal handcuffs clamped tight around Andrew’s wrists.
Luther’s hand on his shoulder feels burning, searing into Aaron. It is not unfamiliar, but it is no more welcomed for it.
Aaron is used to weight on his shoulders and pills dissolving on tongues and the heavy gaze of dull, dead eyes bruised black.
When he found out he had a twin, he’d been happy. Excited. There was someone out there like him, someone he could talk to, someone to protect and protect him. He’d dreamed of it.
He hadn’t dreamed of bandaged arms and buzzcut hair. Of meeting in a juvenile detention center.
He would wish it was different, but Aaron has long learned that does nothing. Wishes are nothing more than wasted thoughts, wasted breath, wasted time. He doesn’t need it.
He watches Andrew. Andrew watches him. They say nothing for a long while, long enough Aaron’s leg is starting to go numb where it's folded underneath him.
Then Luther breaks the tense silence, sighing and standing. He is confident, even here, even as he eyes the boys around them with distaste. He doesn’t tell him where he’s going, but he doesn’t make Aaron come, so he thinks the bathroom or for a phone call.
It doesn’t matter, though, because as soon as he’s out of sight Andrew speaks and Aaron hears his twins voice for the first time.
“I told you to stay away,” Andrew says, and there’s no emotion in it. None in his eyes, either. He looks at Aaron like he sees right through. Aaron stares back, determined to make Andrew see him.
“I won’t,” he says. “Not now.”
He doesn’t have the words to say more. He doesn’t think he needs to, because something flares in Andrew’s eyes. It’s faint but unmistakable, compared to the bored apathy Aaron had already gotten used to.
“Fine,” Andrew says levely. “When I get out, we will make a deal. Think about what you want.”
“What do you want?”
“Me? Oh, brother mine,” Andrew says, and his voice, his eyes stay flat while his mouth twists into a chipped-tooth split-lip smile. Aaron wants to look away. He doesn’t.
Andrew leans forward. Aaron mimics him. Andrew’s whisper, when it comes, is a low rasp that makes anxiety swirl cold in his stomach.
“I want nothing. Like calls to like, see, and that’s what I am, isn’t it? ”
And then he’s gone in a whirl of clinking metal and shouted words, so fast even with his perfect memory Aaron can’t recall the details.
Luther arrives shortly after and ushers him out. He tells Aaron he’d made some calls, arranged some things, and.
And Andrew would be released next Saturday on ‘good behavior.’ He’d come to stay with Aaron and his their mother, though he’d have daily visits with his parole officer for two weeks and therapist meetings twice weekly.
Aaron absorbs this in silence. The bruises hidden under his shirt throb faintly, and his fingertips itch. He bounces his leg until Luther snaps at him to stop, and Aaron wishes he’d brought a couple extra pills with him when he’d packed. They’d only intended to be there for a day, though-fly in, visit, fly out and be home before school on Monday.
Aaron stares out the window at the unfamiliar scenery, and he makes a decision.
He knows what he’ll ask Andrew for.
He just hopes he won’t regret it.