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i. The first time is in Matt’s room.
Nick gets there because his phone is at 3% and he can’t find his charger. On its own, it’d be a bad situation to be in. When he’s twenty minutes away from finishing Locke and Key, it’s apocalyptic. So instead of hunting it down through the whole house, he decides to play it safe. Matt isn’t home, but he keeps his charger next to his pillow at all times. He just needs to borrow it for a second.
Once in the room, he finds it exactly where he expected to. It’s when he goes to unplug it that he realizes it’s actually Chris’. The sharpie marks give it away. For a second, he wonders whether he could be mixing them up. But then he sees the one that truly belongs to Matt, plugged in right beside it.
Nick rolls his eyes. You’d think after losing charger #4, Chris would be more careful with where he leaves them. It’s tempting to take it, just to fuck with him, but this is supposed to be a clandestine mission. He goes for Matt’s.
As he’s leaving, his gaze lands on a familiar ball of flannel on a chair by the bed. Chris’ pajama bottoms. The pattern matches Matt’s, which also happen to be there, though laid out more neatly. Like they changed out of them and left in a rush.
Nick doesn’t immediately jump to any wacky conclusions because so far, he has lived a normal life with a normal family (excluding the statistical anomaly of their birth). Chris has been known to leave his clothes strewn about the house before. He’s a messy kid. To be honest, Nick’s a little mad he won’t be able to call him out on it.
So he just goes huh and gets back to his room.
***
ii. His brothers go missing sometimes.
It’s kind of a routine now, for Nick to look in every room, come up empty, and send a message to their group chat. The response usually comes a few minutes later, a picture of one or both of them holding up groceries or necessities. As if they woke up one day and decided to become the most efficient errand boys the world has ever seen. They run out of milk? No worries. A light bulb burned out? They’re already out the door.
Though they’re never gone for long, it’s always just a little more time than Nick would’ve guessed. When they get back, they can agree on where they were and what they were doing, but details tend to get them tripped up. Nick finds a sick glee in asking questions to watch them stammer, check with each other, run a hand through ruffled hair. Not that the interrogations last long. Somehow Chris always manages to derail the conversation with such skill, Nick doesn’t even realize it’s happened until hours later.
Though eventually he has to admit, it’s getting a little ridiculous. He watches them get home, all bright eyes and muffled giggles and just… stares. Looks around. Is anyone else concerned about this? Certainly not their Mom—she’s ecstatic about this display of helpfulness.
Nick doesn’t know what possesses him, but he asks to go with them once. It’s a very dull outing. Get in, get a carton of eggs, get out. Overall, not worth the time he could’ve spent scrolling through Instagram.
Still, a disproportionate amount of relief fills him when they get back. What was he so afraid of?
***
iii. In Nick’s experience, waking up before noon has always proven to be a mistake. Today won’t be an exception.
He staggers into the bathroom, still half-asleep, and leaves the door ajar. He checks himself in the mirror. Does he have the energy to do something about his hair? No, not yet. Sighing, he takes his toothbrush, double-checks it’s his, and squeezes a reasonable amount of toothpaste onto it.
A door creaks open down the hall. Chris and Matt’s voices, though faint, float all the way to the bathroom. Nick tenses up. Part of him feels the urge to call out to them, let them know he’s there. He ignores it. Once they’re close enough that he can make out the conversation, he relaxes. It’s pretty mundane.
He resumes his routine. The toothbrush is halfway to his mouth when they walk past the bathroom, their backs to him. It’s a flash, so quick that by the time he does a double take, they’re already stomping down the stairs. But Nick saw it, through the gap between the door and its frame. His brothers’ hands, twined together tight.
The brush misses. Toothpaste smears across his cheek. He stares at his reflection, mouth a tight line. He looks stupid as hell.
***
iv. There’s a good reason Nick never rides shotgun: cars make him sleepy. He can’t help it; unless something interesting is going on, he’ll be nodding off in minutes. When he was a baby, it was an advantage. Now, not so much.
So it’s not unusual for the three of them to get in the car and end up with Nick balled up in the backseat, sleeping soundly. Especially on days as exhausting as this one. And since they’re over an hour away from home, nobody can blame him for laying down his head and immediately passing out.
They’re at a stoplight when he regains consciousness. He knows because the car isn’t moving, but he can hear the traffic right outside. With a little effort, he can even make sense of the conversation Matt and Chris are having. It’s nothing he feels too passionate about. He keeps his eyes closed. Maybe he can catch a few last minutes of sleep.
“It’s green, babe,” Chris says.
“Mhm? Oh, sorry,” Matt gets the car in motion. Chris laughs.
Nick bites the inside of his cheek. Matt didn’t correct him, but that’s not unheard of. One has to learn to choose their battles around Chris. He knows from experience that fighting him on every last detail can be exhausting, and somebody has to be the bigger person sometimes—
“Am I distracting you?” Chris teases.
“Shut up,” there’s a smile in Matt’s voice. Nick doubts he’s concerned about preserving his sleep.
“What? I think it’s perfectly normal to get lost in your brother’s eyes sometimes.”
“Chris.”
It takes another chuckle, but Chris drops it. Nick doesn’t fall asleep again. By the time they get home, his jaw is clenched so tight it’s a miracle his teeth haven’t cracked.
***
v. Nick comes home one day, fuming, to find what he believes to be Chris on Matt’s lap. He can’t be too sure though, because his eyes are dilated as fuck. And also blinded by rage. So it’s more like two blurs close together, then apart. They jump as soon as they see him, which makes Nick jump, and suddenly they’re all standing by the kitchen counter in fight or flight mode.
“Fuck’s sake, Nick, you can’t scare people like that,” Chris is jittery, pacing back and forth.
Nick gapes at him. “Should I hire a parade the next time I walk into my own home?”
“I thought I had to pick you up from a doctor’s appointment,” Matt cuts in. Nick whirls around to face him, wishing he could see him more clearly.
“Yeah. An hour ago. You wouldn’t pick up the phone, I had to get an Uber. While I couldn’t fucking read, mind you.”
Matt apologizes after a second of what Nick can only hope is shameful silence. He turns to leave, but Matt speaks again.
“Chris, aren’t you gonna say sorry to Nick?”
“Me?” he snickers. “You’re the one with terrible time management skills.” The look Matt gives him must be truly something. “But I am a good brother, so I’m sorry.”
Nick can tell when he’s not in on the joke. He attempts a final reproachful glare at them and retreats to his room.
It’s there, while trying to sleep off a headache, that he replays the moment in his mind. Walking into the kitchen. Matt and Chris, springing apart like identical poles of a magnet. If only he could make the memory less blurry. If only he could figure out what he saw.
***
vi. Nick’s editing this week’s car video. It’s supposed to go up in a couple hours, but that’s fine. He has mastered this art, he could do it with his eyes closed. And particularly good filming sessions, like this one, hardly need any editing at all.
He’s over halfway through and it’s shaping up to be one of their best ones. The transitions are smooth, the conversation flows, it comes together beautifully. He could almost lie back on his chair and enjoy it as a final product. Yeah, yeah, laughter here, yelling there, and then—
Pause. Go back a minute.
The Nick in the video reads a question from his phone. Do we believe in soulmates? He immediately launches into a monologue. Sue him, he feels passionate about this topic. By the end, it’s not entirely clear where he stands on the issue, even to himself, but it’s entertaining all the same. He goes back to his phone, in search for more questions. Present Nick remembers now, getting distracted by the way his hair looked and opening the camera to fix it.
Which explains why he barely remembers his brothers’ answers. Chris opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but goes uncharacteristically quiet when Matt beats him to it.
“Um, probably not? Like, there’s one person out there you’re supposed to be with and it’s set in stone? I feel like that doesn’t work.”
“Really?” Chris toys with an empty water bottle. He’s looking out the window. “You don’t-you don’t think some people are born with the right… traits or personality or whatever, that would make them perfect for someone else?”
Matt watches him, entranced. Chris manages to meet his gaze and swallows. He keeps going.
“I mean, it could be that they’re different in the right ways or… very similar to each other. Or both,” at this, a smile stretches across Matt’s face. Chris mirrors it like he can’t help it. “But they just fit together. You don’t think there’s something like that?”
Matt’s voice is soft through his grin. “You know what, I agree. That makes sense to me.”
They can’t seem to look away from each other, utterly still, cheeks dusted with pink. A pair of twin statues.
And Nick is still fixing his fucking hair.
Then he yells a new question and the staring contest is over. Matt’s eyes flick, for a millisecond, toward the camera. And it’s the final nail on the coffin. Nick has spent almost every day of his life with these two. He knows what panic looks like in Matt’s eyes. That blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of realizing he’s just been caught doing something he shouldn’t. It’s the same with Chris, and his way of playing things off by looking around and scratching his neck, as if lost in thought.
Maybe that’s what finally does it for Nick: being able to pause and analyze all he wants, his brothers literally caught in 4k (more like 720, but that’s a problem for another day). He watches the clip over and over. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t interpret it any other way.
Oh, god. Jesus fucking Christ on a stick. Not a chance in hell, right? Come the fuck on. He watches it again. Tears at his hair. No. Nah. This isn’t happening, at the very least not now. He needs to finish the video. Then he can… Whatever. Something. It’ll be fine.
He checks the clock. It’s getting dangerously close to his deadline. Having a time limit to deal with this is outrageous. If it were something like them blatantly flirting with each other, he wouldn’t think twice about leaving it in. It’s funny, people like that. But this? What the fuck is he supposed to do with this?
Content-wise, he can’t justify cutting it. They’re good answers. A good two minutes of footage, including his answer. But it’s not just that. Cutting the clip, deleting it out of existence, would feel like an admission. A confirmation. And yet it would also be so tempting. And so, so much easier.
Minutes tick by. God fucking damn it. He imagines Matt and Chris storming into his room, furious at the delay and demanding to know the reason for it. If he told them the truth, would they go quiet, gaze falling to the floor in shame? Or would they look at him like he just murdered a kitten? After all, the only thing nearly as weird as having a thing for your brother has to be accusing your brothers of having a thing for each other.
…is that it? Is that what he’s calling it? It sounds almost harmless, when you put it like that. A euphemism, but those exist for a reason. Yeah. Sure, let’s go with that. At least for now.
He takes a deep breath and goes back to work.
***
Chris puts down the phone, yanks out his earphones. Matt looks up from where he’s bitten his nails raw. He can see the three of them on the screen.
“So?” Matt asks. Chris’ face is unreadable.
“Well. This is either good news or terrible news.”