Chapter Text
Their mother used to say the twins were born wrong. That they never separated like they should have in the womb. She would say this while crying, angry tears about herself as a failure for producing such "a fucked up kid."
Court didn't understand.
He'd learned in school that twins were rare, and that there were different types. His brothers were the kind split from one cell, the extra rare type, meaning they were special. Holding them in his arms and seeing their sleepy faces blink slowly with gentle smiles when he rocked them, he knew they were more than just special. They were divine
Mom never held them. She called them monsters, going into hysterics when one of them would reach out to her. She would slam her door when they had nightmares, rebuffed their reaching hands as they took their first steps. She spent her time alone in her room, chain smoking with the TV turned up so loud she couldn’t hear the children she forgot strapped into their highchairs.
Court had learned early how to bottle feed, the way to check temperatures and how to balance one child on each arm. His father had walked him through the process, patient and kind. He showed Court how to kiss away their tears, how to change their diapers, how to burp and shush them.
“You were much more fussy than them,” Dad would say with a sad smile. “Always kicking. We used to say you were peddling to France.”
Court watched the circles under his father’s eyes darken, something harsh growing in the lines of his mouth. At night he would bundle the three of them up in Court’s bed, telling Court it was his job to keep his baby brothers safe the same way Dad had always kept Court safe, before standing and walking into the lion’s den.
It was hard to get the twins to sleep through the noise.
On their first birthday Court came home to blood.
It was smeared on the counters, screaming cries echoing across the dirty laminate floor. He found his mother in the kitchen, paring knife raised. It was like those old movies, the ones where people would cut open someone’s heart on an altar.
She'd turned, eyes wild, toothy grin pinning him to the spot.
"I fixed it," she'd said. "Now he knows which body is which."
From then it had been a blur. Flashing lights, white hospital tiles, his father sobbing in the chair next to him. People kept talking to them, and Court could numbly feel himself answering, but he had no idea what the words were.
Mom never came home. Dad said she was spending the night at the hospital, but when the run rose and fell again she still never appeared.
The twins came home after two days, and Court began to understand that his mother had been right.
Their mother had carved a wobbly star into the chest of one of the toddlers, the lines deep but blessedly not life threatening. The stitches pulled it into an even uglier shape, looking like something writhing, a curse.
Only one was injured, but both children were in pain.
They would cry at the same time. They would babble at the same time. They would both giggle when only one was tickled.
"It's one soul," his mother had whispered to him in the dark one night, standing like a poltergeist at the end of their crib. "One soul, two bodies. A monster."
Even still, Court thought she was wrong. Court knew monsters intimately, and the twins weren't that at all.
Blood on his hands. Three bodies on the floor.
For one desperate moment, Court was worried he hadn't saved even one of them.
Then a pained whimper. Then pained eyes cracked open.
Twin gazes looked up at him through one pair of eyes.
Court stumbled over, body going numb to every sensation. He bundled his brothers into his arms. He looked over at the other two bodies.
Their father was facedown on the floor, the gore from the gunshot trapped beneath his large frame and pinned against the floor.
The body Ryland had called home lay on its back, chest still, a ring of bruises around its neck.
Court looked down, watching his brothers’ eyes clear, watching one of them fade away, watching half of the soul he raised slip into the ether.
Colt blinked up at him.
Ryland remained still.
Sometimes, Court wished he could climb into their bodies with them. He wished he could help handle the pain from their father and stand up to bullies. He wished he could see that house Ryland had said they were building somewhere deep in the space between them.
That desire had tripled, as tears beaded along Colt's waterline.
“Ryland?” he whispered, teary.
Court wished he could climb inside and grab Ryland, could keep him from slipping away.
But he already knew the answer.
Ryland was gone.
Court only saw Colt one more time.
At the trial he’d been called up under both names to give testimony. The statements were exactly the same, the movements and full eyes told Court all he needed to know.
Ryland was gone, and Colt was now living two lives.