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At first glance, most people assumed the worst about one brother, while assuming the best about the other. It was an easy mistake to make. Cael was like the sun, with his easy blond hair and infectiously charming smile. Mickey, in contrast, shone like a crescent moon, slicked back hair, black as night; he was distant and sometimes cold.
But even the sun and moon share the same sky and those assumptions about the brothers were often wrong.
This worked in their favor.
With Cael’s ever innocent presence, no one ever looked twice at him while he maneuvered around bars or diners, pick-pocketing cash and jewelry. He doesn't draw attention when he’s climbing into cars that he doesn't own. No one is the wiser when he short-changes an unsuspecting cashier. He’s warm and comforting, easy to bask in. But all that sunlight is blinding, and all that warmth can burn.
Mickey’s touch is not light like Cael’s. Mickey is the distraction: Be wary of the tattooed fingers hustling you in a billiards game, pay no attention while his brother empties your wallets. Mickey, though distant like the moon, looms in your face, he takes money directly from your sweaty palms. He is a hustler, a bruiser, and if needed, much worse.
They never stay too long in one place. Staying in one places tends to make people put their guard down, makes them screw up. Mickey and Cael can’t get comfortable. They can’t screw up. They were taught better than that.
The twins break away when they enter a bar. At first, Mickey takes a seat, orders a beer while he carefully watches groups of people huddled around billiard tables and dart boards. Every once in a while, he looks for Cael in the crowd to make sure his brother is okay.
Mickey is only ten minutes older, but those minutes might as well be years by the way he looks out for his twin. He worries about Cael and his innocent face, the easy way he moves around the room. He worries that one day, when he’s not around, someone will take advantage or hurt Cael, without him by his side.
The truth is, and Mickey knows this, that Cael is more than capable of handling himself. But when it’s you and your brother against the world, sometimes logic takes a backseat, and you end up worrying for no reason.
Cael is smooth as he maneuvers through the busy establishment. This is his element, lots of people, lots of marks, lots of distractions. A simple gesture to make people turn away from him, a distracting tap on the shoulder, like pulling strings of a puppet. He lifts watches and jewelry and wallets and credit cards, passing cash off to Mickey when he walks by.
There’s a method to this that he has gotten down to a science. Take what you want, what you need, but don’t get too greedy, don’t go overboard or else it will blow up in your face.
Something that had to be drilled into his and Mickey’s head from a young age: Don’t draw attention to yourself. If you do, that means you screwed up. And you can’t screw up.
But not everything is always in their control. And it's times like these where quick feet come in handy.
By the time it happened, Mickey had already hustled over four hundred dollars from a group of cocky fraternity brothers from the college campus a few miles down the road. The college kids patronize Mickey through false sincerity, complimenting his FUCK U-UP tattoos, his whole look. He swayed on his feet, feigning intoxication, pushing down the urge to knock their teeth so far down their throats they'd start chewing their own asses. So he laughed loudly with the college kids, belching and slapping backs, telling them bullshit stories. Cael had even wandered over to play the ‘lets stand next to each other until they realize we’re twins’ game.
But then, and this happens every once in a while, one of the frat boys, in a moment of clear-headedness, started putting the pieces together. Both Mickey and Cael, ever the vigilant duo, their blue eyes on constant watch, saw that they had overstayed their welcome.
“Wait a minute,” Frat Boy shakes his drunken head, pointing at both Mickey and Cael.
“Shit,” Mickey hisses as Cael grabs his elbow, pulling him toward the sea of people that separates them from the exit.
“Hey!” Frat Boy yells, “They fucking hustled us!”
“Yeah, well serves you right! Dumb buffer prick!” Mickey calls back. half laughing, he sticks his tongue between his teeth and shoots a middle finger up. He’d be lying if he said the prospect of a good bar brawl didn’t sound like just the thing he needed. But it’s not the right time. Cael is loaded up with valuables and stolen credit cards, while Mickey has a .22 tucked into the waist of his jeans —which he always carries as a precaution.
A chorus of “Hey grab them!” and “Get them!” and “Don’t let them leave!” is muffled by the dozens of conversations and music and laughter. Cael pushes through the crowd, making a trail for Mickey to follow. By the time they reach the entrance of the bar, the frat boys have caught up.
So they run.
It would have been easier to get away from a few middle-aged beer drinkers. But after running down alleys, their shoes skidding on asphalt, scrambling around dumpsters, and climbing up chain link fences, the twins somehow manage to lose them.
Mickey feels like he’s free falling, barely able to catch his breath, he rests his hands on his knees. Cael is laughing, thumping Mickey hard on the back before leaning against a brick wall to catch his breath. He takes out a pack of cigarettes, passing one to this brother. They light up, stand still for a few minutes to clear their heads and figure out where they are.
“That was close,” Cael says, a grin pulling at his mouth.
“I wanted to hit that one guy.”
“The one in the shorts?”
Mickey nods, “Fuck, he was annoying.”
“It looked like he was flirting with you,” Cael shoved at Mickey’s shoulder.
“Fuck off,” Mickey laughed. "The day I bang a guy who wears shorts above the knee, is the day you need to put me out of my misery, okay?"
"Deal."
They made their way out of the alley and started down the street to where their car was, two trails of smoke floating behind them.
Cael looks up at the night sky, barely able to see any stars. He misses seeing stars, misses when he and Mick go through small towns in the middle of nowhere, where he can lay out on the hood of their car and just stare up at constellations for hours. But they haven't been in a small town like that in months.
Cael knows that Mickey misses the small towns too, but not because of the stars. Mickey misses old, shitty diners and two-pump gas stations and walking past little old ladies who look at him like he was the reincarnation of Ted Bundy.
Maybe after they leave this city, they could find a little town like that and stay for a week, two weeks at most. They’d have to load up on money though; Mickey and Cael never feel right about stealing from small-town people since most of the time it seems that they’re struggling enough as it is. And their parents taught them better than to steal from the poor.
After a while, Cael breaks the silence that settled between them, “Hey Mick?”
“Hmm?”
Cael is silent for a moment, pulling a long drag from his cigarette.
Mickey sighs, looking over at his brother. He sees the wheels turning, sees his brother wanting to ask something or say something that's probably going to piss Mickey off. “What’s going on Cael?” he asks, biting back as much exasperation as he can.
“You ever think about mom and dad?”
And there it was. “They’re gone, Cael.”
“They’re not—”
“They’re gone.”
Cael bites the inside of his cheek, sighs, pulls on his cigarette again. It’s one of those times where Mickey feels like those ten minutes that separated them at birth stretched into years. Cael isn’t some immature little dreamer, he knows exactly where he and Mickey stand when it comes to their parents. He knows that even though Mickey is angry and distant like the moon, he hurts too.
“We should go to Oklahoma,” Cael says when they reach the car. He’s finished with thinking of parents who all but threw them away, who didn’t want them anymore. He wishes he could reflect the moon like Mickey.
Mickey scoffs, “The fuck you want to go to Oklahoma for?”
Cael empties his pockets, tossing plastic baggies full of valuables, cards, and money at Mickey before getting behind the wheel, “Isn't there supposed to be a bunch of small towns there?”
That makes Mickey grin, “Fuck yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here.”