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They were born the same— same nose, same mouth, same eyes. They had the same hands and one heart. One soul.
When they were separated, they both ached for it. They both coped in different ways for their missing parts. For the first time they grew apart enough to have different sides. Sides the other didn't know of.
Black got tattoos and piercings.
White got scars from cutting himself on the ice outside.
Black got his from fights and road rash.
White drank vodka, Black stuck to beer. Their bodies developed differently on the inside.
But when White came back, within days he was catching up.
First the tattoos— they needed time to heal. White wished he could have been the one to smear cream on Black's skin.
Then the piercings. It felt like stealing when he took them off his brother's unconscious body. He realised what he was doing only then, when he clasped them painfully on. They hurt. The holes hadn't had time to heal, and it was a pain he welcomed, and deserved. A constant reminder. These earrings weren't his to wear, they were waiting for their owner like he was. He was a poor imitation and a placeholder.
He watched his brother sleep sometimes. They had the same marks now, and still they were so far apart.
White held his hand. He didn't have the same calluses. He hadn't held a gun long enough.
White stared at his friends. He didn't have the same heart. He hadn't held their ideal long enough.
He thought, he— hoped it'd be better when his brother woke. He'd make it right. Black always knew how to win a fight.
But it wasn't. There was the burn of his cheeks, the prickle of tears in his eyes, the ache they both felt in their heart. There was Black's hand skimming his back and taking out his painful earrings back. Without them he felt weightless, bare. Unmoored.
He wasn't White and wasn't Black.
He was a ghost of a ghost. The memory of a rich brat.
Then he was cold and alone and his love could be no more.
White had waited and waited and waited and his brother had come
and gone.
White had waited and changed, carved Black's marks carefully anew so they could again be the same and Black had told him it was all a bad joke.
Black had brought him back from where his foolish dreams had gone, of them together, side by side finally, of them together and their lives alright, fighting their righteous fight.
It was not to be. White was meant only for gilded cages under his father's careful oversight. White wasn't meant to fight, he couldn't bite. He was to be good and he was to never do what's really right.
He couldn't win this fight. Not against his heart. Not against his Black.
Still. He'd try. For his brother. Black always knew how to make things right. Black knew better. Black was up. Black was alive.
White watched his brother. He couldn't get enough – Black fighting, Black taking everybody down. And he knew their marks weren't what made them the same. They were just that. Marks. His brother had something else in him. A fire. A flame. A dark light.
He burned. He shone. He'd shone bright enough that he'd made their gang. Black was enough. And White was just that— too pale to compare.
Never enough.
Never enough to stand by his brother's side when it was all he'd ever wanted in his life.
White wasn't good. He wasn't strong and he certainly wasn't tough. He was mostly just sad and rich and he studied. At most, he was nice.
But nice wasn't enough. Nice didn't make the cut. Nice wasn't what Black needed. Black didn't want nice. The gang didn't want nice. The gang wanted Black. The gang wanted someone who could fight.
They didn't want him. His own brother didn't want him as close as White needed him. White needed him.
White wanted too much, he always had. He wanted his brother and his parents. He wanted to be himself and Black. He wanted the gang and Black. He wanted and wanted and never had enough. Usually, he lost both and everything in between had been for naught.
He just hoped he wouldn't lose everything this time.