Twinfestation

My shoe slid off, followed shortly after by my socks and a tingling sensation in my heals as Ash dragged me down the hall. I think he was dragging me because I told Yu where the knives were. I wasn't going to let her hurt him, but I wanted to help her out. Yu was always after Ash, she' never actually hurt him before.....except for that one time he ended up in the hospital, but it was only a few stitches and she apologized.

My back hit the floor and Ash stepped over my head into a random room. Spotting the tree inside of it, I realized it was mine and he was going through my drawers. Pulling out a giant long sleeved shirt and flowy looking pants. He folded them back up neatly and placed them on the foot of the fluffed up mat I call a bed.

Who's are those? There's no way that they're mine. They' fall off as soon as I pulled them on. I could swim in those things! I'd drown in them! Fabric filling my mouth, almost impossible to breath through, that's worse than water! He's trying to kill me!

Ash came over and tried to lift me against my struggle to escape. "No! I don't want to change! You're gonna kill me! I'm being murdered! Help! I don't want to change!"

"Silvester! Silvester, stop it! You're not changing! I'm taking you to the bathroom!" Throwing me over his shoulder at last, he processed to walk down the seemingly never ending hall.

I don't remember there being this many doors in our wing of the house. It was like one of those never ending walkways, or how it is in cartoons. We should have been at the bathroom by now. That was about eighteen doors ago, It think. There's only one explanation for this multiplication of space.

My house has turned into a fun house. Now lets wait for the clowns. Pink evil clowns. Singing Pink. And dancing. To the macaroon. In gogo boots.

"This used to be a fun house! But now it's full of evil clowns! I'm gonna burn this house down! I'm gonna wear a crown!"

"Silvester, you're not able to see me, but there is a very concerned look on my face." Opening the door to the bathroom -I never thought we'd reach it- he sat me on the counter and ducked under my legs to get a towel from below. "And I'm not sure you even got the words right."

"What do you know!? You're not even from American! Hey, that's not my bathtub!" I yelled when he started to fill up the one set into the wall. "Mine's over there!"

"Well, I'm sorry! Normal people only have one tub in their restroom! And this room is huge, it's the size of my whole bloody house! More expensive too."

The sad thing was, he was only over exaggerating a little. Ash wasn't from the richest family and his family wasn't the most put together or great with money management. Most of the money in his house went to unnecessary, terrible, fight-inducing things like tubs of cigarettes and bottles of expensive wine that my mother didn't even drink and his family definitely couldn't afford. The money spent on the things sitting on my night stand is probably more than the money spent on his house and everything in it.

Plus, our bathroom was kinda huge, I guess. I suppose normal people don't have three bathtubs, a shower from the ceiling, and sinks facing each other with a double sliding mirror in between. But we complained about the bathroom being so huge and empty for so long that our mom let us pick out something bathroom-related for it. I wanted an old-time bathtub when Salem wanted some fancy, giant, small pool sized thing with water falling from the sky. We got his pool.

I can't say I didn't like it, but it took some getting used to, standing naked in the middle of a giant room or sitting naked in a pool. I was ten when we got it after all and even smaller than I am now. It was intimidating to have that much empty space around, anything could come out. Seeing that I wasn't comfortable with it, Salem, being the amazing brother he is, convinced our mother to get the one I wanted. Rubber ducks, fluffy towels, bubbles and all. The original bath was abandoned but still sat in the wall of the room, only used once in the past two years or so.

But right now, though I'm not much bigger than I was when I was ten, I wanted to bath in the pool. Before Ash was going to make me drown in fabric, I wanted to drown in water.

"How about this one?" He asked, stepping down into the mini-pool. "Is this one good? Or do you have another bathroom somewhere that I don't know about?"

"No, that's good." I smiled while swinging my legs. "And that way you can take a bath with me! Get the bubbles! Get the duckies! We're gonna have some fun!"

Unlike Salem, Ash didn't hesitate with turning on the water, pouring in bubbles, and stripping off his shirt to reveal even more colors splayed on his back. "Where are the duckies? Are they yellow or some odd, technicolor, radioactive things?"

"We all live in a yellow submarine! A yellow submarine! A yellow submar-" For the second time that night, a hand lodged it's way into my mouth. I could feel the pattern of his print running down his fingers, bone dry and slightly cracked. He tasted little metal. Why does everyone taste like metal? I mean, It's good because I like the taste of metal, but if I'm going to taste this all the time I want to know why.

"If you're going to sing," Ash said "sing a song I know."

I looked up at him through my lashes as I ran my tongue over his fingers once more. I really did like the taste of metal, but I loved the look that it put on Ash's face even more. I don't exactly know what look it was, but it makes me smile inwardly like I'd succeeded in hitting something in him. But, somehow, I always felt guilty after I got that out of him.

"ooh hoo higheeh." I mumbled through his hand.

He pulled his hand out so slow that I was ready to shove his shirtless-ass away, but then realized that I missed the taste of metal. "What did you say?"

"You know Vices, right?" I asked, wiping the drool running down my chin. "Sing vices with me! Don't tell me you don't, when I met you you were humming it."

Before giving me an answer, Ash wiped his hand off on a towel and suddenly grabbed me, squishing my head against him. His heart seemed to flutter in his chest, like a piece of paper in front of a fan. I didn't exactly pull away, unless hugging him back was pulling away. It was hard to resist a hug from him of any kind. He was warm, but not burning, big but not giant, hard but not brick, and strong.

I mentally scolded myself for noticing that about my best friend. Friends are meant to be friends, like bothers are meant to be brothers, nothing else. You can notice these things about them, but not when they embrace you like this, like he was gripping on to life, like he would never let me go. And you most certainly can not enjoy it.

I, of all people, know what happens when you enjoy it. You think 'This feels right, this could work, I have someone that is perfect.' Then, when it's over, when you've tried everything, shared everything, think you know everything, and one of you gets tired with it, then it ends and you're left with an empty feeling. A painfully alone feeling.

It's worse when you know what to expect.

"Uh, Ash," I finally spoke up after I sat there for awhile. I couldn't sit there forever. "Can I-"

"Thank you." Was what he cut me off with.

"For what?"

Finally letting me go, his hands held my shoulders so tight they ached but the look on his face stopped me from complaining. He looked so happy for some reason, but he also looked overwhelmingly sad. "For ever talking to me."

"Why wouldn't I?"

He only smiled and said it again. "Thank you."

In an attempt to make him tear his piercing blue eyes away from mine, something I was unable to do, I smiled and said "You can pay me back by shaving my legs."

"I would laugh," He said as he hung his head "but I know you're totally serious. Come on, get in the washtub." Grabbing my ass, he scooted me off the counter so I landed on my feet.

Okay, I know it's weird and probably one of the most strange things a guy can do, but yes, I shave my legs. It's not that I like the smoothness (which I so do), or enjoy the comments (which rarely happen since I never wear shorts), but if I don't, all I feel is bugs running up and down my legs. It's hard to sleep, concentrate, keep my sanity when I do. So that was the only solution I saw to the problem, shave them.

"You know, Silvester, you are one weird kid."

Reaching up on my tippy toes to ruffle his hair, I smiled. "Yeah. But, if being weird got me friends like you, I'm cool with it."