Chapter Text
White
“I don’t think he will join the group again.”
“Why not?”
“Sean, nobody wants to live in someone else’s shadow. My brother sacrificed this role to me. He’s going to find a path that belongs to just him.”
There wasn’t room for both of them. If White stayed he would cast a shadow in which Black would always stand. If Black stayed, White would have to fade into the shadows to make room for him. No, they couldn’t both stay. White was sure of it. That was why he hadn’t revealed his true self when Black woke up. He was ready to hand Black back his rightful place. He really did intend to give it back.
If not for the man next to him with his sharp eyes and soft lips and rough hands and harsh words and gentle kisses.
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Black
White was right; Black wasn’t going to come back to the group. It wasn’t his anymore. But even if he could leave everyone else behind, he couldn’t let go of his brother entirely.
His brother had been his to protect. White was just a bit smaller, slower, weaker. Black had to take care of him. But no; hadn’t White just proven that he wasn’t that little kid anymore? Maybe he hadn’t shaken all his naivety, but he could hold his own.
Black didn’t need to protect his little brother from the world, but he couldn’t stay away either.
“Hey.” Black dropped his harsh look and let a smile peek through at his brother.
“Hey, Can I ask you something? What was Sean like before?”
Ugh, Sean. Was this what his little brother wanted to see him for? “Why are you asking?”
“You lived with him before.”
Black was about to throw out a standard insult, but then an image of Sean’s face popped into his head. Rather than his usual feelings of rivalry and distaste, he felt a certain sense of warmth. “This is weird. I feel good about him all of a sudden.” He looked at his brother’s face, bright and happy despite the circumstances. “You don’t have to ask. No matter how bad he and I used to fight, it has nothing to do with you.” He reached out and placed his hand on White’s shoulder, looking him level in the eye. “Your life is yours. I can’t protect you like when we were kids. You chose this way to fight and you must accept the consequences.”
“I know that. You saw the change of the people. We still have hope.”
“We do. At least I accomplished one thing.”
“You dealt with Todd didn’t you?”
“Hmm.”
“I don’t want you to do that anymore. It’s too much”
“I know it’s too much. That’s why I couldn’t really do it.” Black thought back to that night. To the feeling of pointing the gun at his friend’s, no not his friend, his enemy’s, no that wasn’t right either his, his, his… Todd’s tear-filled face. All he had to do was move his finger just a few millimeters, but it had been too much. Instead he went quid-pro-quo. Not death, but close. And with his own two hands; skin to skin. That had always been the way to deal with Todd.
He and his brother talked a bit longer in that abandoned building.
This would be it; the way he turned his spot over to his brother; he had looked him in the eye and told him what he needed to say. That he wasn’t his protector; that White must fight his own battles. Then he would leave.
But when White asked him to meet again, he did. At that same building. At his apartment. They kept meeting and they kept talking and they started to get to know each other as the adults they had become rather than the children of their memories. White would ask him to meet at the garage, too, but that was a line he wouldn’t cross. He couldn’t go back there. Couldn’t see that spot in his crew’s lives filled up by his brother. See the puzzle he no longer fit into.
Nobody wants to live in someone else’s shadow.
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White
White had a lot of pieces to pick up. His whole life - his studies, his career - had just been blindly following in his dad’s footsteps. Then he threw himself into Black’s life. He didn’t know who he was or what he was doing when he wasn’t following someone else’s plan for him.
Looking ahead at his life and all the things he needed to decide made him dizzy, so he started small. A place to live. He couldn’t keep staying at Black’s apartment. He may have taken everything else from his brother, but he couldn’t take his home, too. So that’s how he ended up back at the garage.
Todd’s people had been the ones keeping them from the garage. Black might not have taken care of Todd for good, but for now he could stay there. With Sean. The one part of White’s life that felt stable and secure.
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Sean
Ever since his father’s death he had stopped caring about his life. He was ready to die for the cause. In fact, he was kind of just ready to die, the cause was at least half an excuse at first. But he latched onto it. It was ok to die - to WANT to die - if he made it about a cause. A singular burning desire. Destroy Tawi even if it kills me. God, I hope it kills me.
He wasn’t sure if he ever exactly stopped hoping for death. When he decided to confess to Black, he made a plan. He would go to the top of the building, walk to the very edge and fall backwards and hope Black would catch him. But a small part of him also hoped Black wouldn’t catch him and he would just fall and fall until it all just stopped.
He hadn’t stopped hoping for death, but the part of him that hoped to be caught, hoped to be saved, hoped to be held, had become stronger than the part that wished for death. That was ok, right? To hope for death and also life? To crave the peace he felt when his love’s chest rested against his, and their hearts beat together. Thump thump. But also to crave the fight, the way his heart beat as he ran from the fire he had started. Thump, thump . He could want both, right?
By the time they were locked in the back of the car, and it seemed they surely would die, the part that wanted to live had grown so much stronger. In the back of his mind, part of him sighed “ Finally, it’s all just going to be over. I get to stop.” But the rest of him screamed “No! I’m not ready. There’s so much more to do. I was supposed to have more time.” He thought back to the protestors who had gathered because of them; he thought back to crowds gathering beneath that rainbow flag. He thought of White’s joyful face as he jumped and shouted. And he wanted to live goddammit.
They had started something and he was going to see it through.
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Black
He started going to classes again. This was still his - he could see that from the way his grades had slipped while his brother filled in for him. Not that he was doing much better after missing most of the semester.
He saw Gram there. He felt angry every time he saw him. Not about stealing his girlfriend. He almost felt thankful about that part. She seemed happier. And Black got to stop letting her down; stop pushing her away and pulling her back in endlessly, because Eugene was no longer his Gene. He wasn’t angry about that. But he had thought Gram was his friend. And while he lay dying in a hospital bed, Gram hadn’t been there. He hadn’t even fucking noticed. He just replaced Black with the softer, slower version of him.
Black knew it was his fault for never telling them about his twin. What would they think when someone looking exactly like him, tattoos and all, walked into the garage? The whole fucking group had about half a braincell between them anyway. They could barely function to form a plan without Black. How were they supposed to figure out he had a twin who was impersonating him?
But Gram and Black were closer than the rest. They were actually supposed to be friends, not just two people thrown together with a shared goal. Black had taken Gram in, taught him to ride a bike, taught him about freedom. And Gram let White slide right into Black’s spot. And so Black didn’t take his spot back next to Gram. He purposely walked to the back of the lecture hall. Sat as far away from his former friend as possible. He had never been much for friends anyway.
After the lecture, Gram tried to catch him. To talk, he thought. He didn’t want to fucking hear it. He was on his bike speeding away before Gram could get out more than “Black, can we…”
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White
White was determined to not let Black cut himself off from everyone. Maybe he had successfully cut his other ties, but he wasn’t going to get rid of White that easily. And White could tell he wasn’t really trying that hard to get rid of him. Black always showed up when White asked. And when White swung by his apartment unannounced, like today, Black put on his best annoyed expression, but he left the door open as he walked back to his bed. And as he turned around, White could swear he saw a hint of a smile.
“What are you doing here?”
“I missed you; I wanted to see you.”
White flopped down on the bed next to Black and shoved his brother over a little to make space. Black let him.
They started catching up. White asked lots of questions about Black. “How was school going?” “Anything interesting happen today?” “Oh P’Mond, who’s that? I don’t think I met them when I was being you.” Black replied with lots of eyerolls and pretended to be grumpy, but White could tell he liked it, having someone to talk to.
After a while, they fell into a comfortable silence. White was absent-mindedly running his fingers along Black’s familiar tattoo. Black pretended he didn’t like to be touchy, but he never put up boundaries with White the way he did with everyone else.
“Did you get any of my letters?” Black broke the silence.
“Hmm. Your letters? When did you write me?” White wondered why Black would need to send him a letter when they saw each other more days than not lately.
“When we were kids. I obviously didn’t have your number or anything; mom wouldn’t give me a thing. But dad’s office had a public address, so I wrote it sometimes. I didn’t know if dad or his staff would get it, but I hoped someone would give it to you.”
“Oh Black,” White said, voice breaking just a bit.
“Of course you didn’t. I mean, I knew you weren’t getting them. Obviously.” White could tell that this hurt Black more than it should have. Their parents had kept them from communicating. There was no way their father was going to turn the letters over to White. But Black had clearly held onto some small bit of hope.
“What did you write?”
“At first, I was just trying to share my contact information. But when it was clear that wasn’t working, I started just writing to fill you in about my life. Like, on the off chance you were getting all the letters, but just weren’t allowed to reply. Damn, I was stupid as a kid, wasn’t I?” He laughed.
“No, that’s sweet. What kind of things did you want to fill me in on?”
White’s hand drifted down to Blacks. He intertwined his fingers between Black’s and closed his hand. Black closed his hand, too. White pulled their intertwined hands closer and carefully studied the scars and calluses covering his brother’s hand as he listened to him talk.
“Lots of stuff. I always wrote you on our birthday. And when my soccer team won a big tournament. Oh. I played soccer for a while. I started right after you left and I quit when we were 17. I was pretty good, but I eventually decided there were more important things than games. Oh! And I wrote you when I realized… Wait nevermind that’s stupid.”
“Wait! No! You can’t just tease me like that. Tell me what you were going to say.”
“No, it’s stupid really.”
“Tell me, Phi,” White laughed as he rolled to pin Black down and reached over to grab a pillow. He started smacking Black with the pillow to punctuate each word. “Tell - me - what - you - were - going - to - say -”
Black laughed too, as he grabbed White’s wrists to stop him. “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”
White flopped back down beside him.
“It’s really nothing. When I realized I was bi, I didn’t really have anyone here that I wanted to come out to or anything like that. But I kind of wanted to tell you. It made me happy; it felt like it was another way we were the same. Although you figured it out a hell of a lot faster than me. I still can’t believe you knew yourself that well, that young. I didn’t realize until I was practically slapped across the face with a stupid crush.”
“Aww Black. That’s not nothing.” White gave him a quick hug before eagerly asking, “Who’d you have a crush on? Do I know them?”
“Not telling.”
“Oh. I must know them!”
“Stop!”
The argument devolved into another pillow fight. This time, Black wasn’t above grabbing the other pillow on his bed and fighting back.
------
Black
It felt good to be soft with someone again. He had spent the last decade trying his absolute best to not get close to anyone who he could lose. But he didn’t need to keep a distance from White because he knew there was absolutely nothing he could do that would make it hurt less if he lost White. Again. So rather than pushing White away, he decided he just had to make sure that he never lost him again. He would keep him close; keep him safe.
Black only let himself be like that with White in private, though. He still couldn’t be seen being soft in public. He had a reputation to uphold. White had damaged it enough already crashing into his life and being so friendly and, ugh, nice. So he had to be twice as harsh in public now, to make people remember who he really was.
But they were behind closed doors now. So Black could drop all pretenses. He could ask White to stay the night. White agreed, quickly texting Sean to let him know where he would be. Black felt torn about that. It reminded him that White had people besides Black. People who would worry if he was gone for a night. People who used to have Black’s back. And Black was glad that his brother wasn’t alone. He was glad that the responsibility for White’s safety didn’t fall only on his shoulders, like it had sometimes felt when they were kids. But Black was also jealous. White had people. And Black only had White.
Black pulled White into his side and breathed in his brother’s scent. He tamped down his jealousy and relished the fact that he did have White. For so many years, he truly had no one. It was just him and his mother in that sterile house. He didn’t get love or affection from her. He didn’t have friends at school. At best, he had rivals or enemies. And to be honest, hating someone had felt like some sort of affection to Black. At least it was attention, at least it was something.
That night Black and White slept curled together in a way that had been so familiar when they were children. Black had been slow to let down his walls and orient himself in the world with White. White had been coming around his apartment, but this was the first time Black asked him to stay. The first time Black let himself wrap himself around his brother and feel 10 years old again. White might have been the one that left, but Black felt like he was the one coming home for the first time.