Twinfestation

"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked the thing sitting on our front porch.

"I'm not here for you, kitten." He spat before he turned to my brother. Giving a wide, white grin he held out his arms and, instead of hugging Silver, picked him up princes style like I had earlier. "Hey Silvester." He cooed "You look like hell."

"Hey Ash." Sighing, Silver smiled and rested his head on that thing's chest. "I know. I haven't gotten too much sleep."

"Why aren't you sleeping now?" Ash asked as he followed me inside, Silver still in his arms.

I tried to ignore the hatred bubbling up in me. Silver hadn't spoken the rest of the way home, hadn't looked at me, his reflection in the glass hadn't even so much as smiled or changed expressions. But as soon as he sees this thing he smiles, like a child in a toy store, and curls up in his arms. Plus, I was none too fond of Ash to begin with. Not only has he told Silver that he loved him, but he's hot. Hot guys in puppy love with the one I love are never okay in my book.

Even more, Ash was foreign, English at that. Who wouldn't fall for that seductive accent? I know I did. Of course, all of Silver's friends were either rocker Japanese chicks or masculine foreigners. It was quite strange, actually, the people he managed to make friends with.

"What? Kitten couldn't even go get food by himself?" Ash's snide comment brought me back to reality as we climbed the stairs. "You could have been sleeping."

"Oh god, just shut up Ash." I told him "He's fine."

It didn't only make me angry that he was messing with me, but that I knew he was right. I could have let Silver sleep, but instead I woke him up and dragged him with me. And I had nothing to try and defend myself with. I couldn't tell him that I brought Silver with me because he'd looked upset and I thought seeing a friend would cheer him up, because he'd tell me I could have called someone to come over. I couldn't tell him Silver wanted to go, because Silver was asleep and I couldn't have known that. And I certainly couldn't tell him that I just wanted to have Silver with me, because god knows he'd have a field day with that.

"Do you not see the black holes under his eyes? Or how much he's messing with his ears." We both looked at Silver to see him pull his hand away and fold both together sheepishly.

That was just one more thing that made Silver so cute, he was like a child in how he looked and what he did. He pulled on his hair and messed with his ears when he was dead tired and had too much energy when he woke up. He still sat on the floor when he was watching television, complained about eating vegetables that weren't smothered in cheese, and took bubble baths whenever he could. All of these traits just made him that much more cute.

"Calm down, Ash." Silver said quietly "I'm only tired, it's nothing serious."

"Only tired? You're not eating, so don't give me that shit."

"Yes I am!" Silver shouted in defense. "I eat every meal!"

"Oh really? Then I must be lifting a hell of a lot of weights while I'm sleeping, because you're just too light. Lets go weigh you and see how well your statement holds up."

"I already know how much I weigh." By this time he was pouting, arms crossed, still in Ash's arms. Anyone could see the affection in Ash's eyes and I myself had to keep from showing how much I adored it.

"How much?" Ash asked. I couldn't say I wasn't wondering the same.

Silver only pouted and mumbled something incomprehensible into his scarf.

"What was that?" There was, to my surprise, no smart-assiness to his voice.

"One hundred two."

There was a moment of shocked silence and Ash looked over at me. He had the same look of horror I felt on my face. Just about two weeks ago, Silver was running around telling everyone how he weighed a hundred and thirty, the healthiest sized boy in his class. I knew he'd lost a few pounds, but I didn't think it was this bad.

Was it my fault he lost them? Maybe I needed to watch over him more carefully, make sure he really did eat every meal, and a lot of it at that. But I have work and Hayden to worry about, so I couldn't be around him all the time to make sure. Though my life revolved around him, my time was occupied with other things.

"Silvester, that's not healthy." Ash managed to get the words out before I could. "That's extremely serious, why aren't you eating?"

"Well it's not like I do it on purpose!" Shouting at us, he yanked his arms to his sides and hit Ash in the chest. The thump was audible but Ash didn't seem to notice. "I'm just too busy to remember to do it."

"Silvester, you are a sixteen-year-old boy. How does a sixteen-year-old boy forget to eat?"

"You forgot to eat breakfast that one time, remember?" Silver's eyes were wide and innocent, as they got when he was frantically defending himself like this. "Remember, you kept licking me and told me I tasted like chocolate strawberries!"

"That was one time and I'm seventeen." Licking his lips, Ash brought himself back to the more important topic. "But haven't you noticed you've lost weight? Tightened straps on your bag, looser knickers, tighter belt, more room in a seat, trousers dropping, visible spine, puniness?"

"I've always been this puny! And my pants are always down!"

"You've got a point there." Throwing him up in the air and catching him, he added. "But you've gotten so much easier to play with."

"Easier to- That's it, put him down, put him down." I wrestled Silver out of Ash's arms and held him close, giving Ash a death glare. "Sick, perverted bastard."

Ash only gave his wide, white grin and, as if to say 'What did I do?', held his hands out to his sides. "Me? I'm older and I've slept with less people than y-"

"Cali, that's not a scratching post!" I cut him off, yelling at Silver's kitten that lay curled up in the corner of the next room until now.

"Cali!" Silver shouted as he ran into the next room to stop his kitten from destroying the wall farther. "Cali, I told you, that's not a scratching post!"

The kitten was a present from our mom, she'd give us one at the beginning of each school year. We figured it was just something nice at first, just asking for little things like a game, CD, or book as not to get too cocky with it. Then we thought maybe it was to congratulate us on a job well done the previous year, asking for game counsels, phones, and, expensive clothes, thinking we deserved it. Silver never liked the feeling of receiving those gifts those years. You know, considering I did most of his school work for him.

Then we asked her about it and she told us directly: "It's a thank you for staying in school and not failing instead of dropping out and living a good life off of our family's money. You know, what most of the kids in America would do." After that, Silver didn't feel as bad and asked for the biggest thing a teenager could for his last present, a kitten. Whereas for me, I asked for the biggest thing a teenager with a license could ask for, a car.

Mom had no problem with this and took us out to the pound and car dealership the same day. Salem, bouncing in the passengers seat of my new jeep Cherokee, held his sleeping calico in his arms until we got home and it woke, starting to wander around the house.

It was a great fucking cat, I'll give it that, though I never really liked cats. All they did was meow constantly, crawl on you, and jump on your bladder when you needed to pee. But all Cali needed was food in her bowl and someone to let her outside once or twice a day. She slept anywhere, didn't go in the house, and drank from the toilet. The only real trouble she caused was clawing up a few things and falling in the toilet once or twice. Not to mention the awkward days when you wake up with her butt puckering in your face.

"Still hiding it," Ash said with a pause and obnoxious cock of the head on the last word: "Kitten?"

"Oh, stop calling me that." I spat back in disgust. "My name is as much like a cat's as Silvester's."

"But does his back bend like one?" His wide grin spread back along his face, taunting this time. "And does h-"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah yeah." Waving me off and leaning against the wall, I contemplate pushing him down the stairs he was oh so close to. "Still hiding your....tendencies from your brother?"

His words hit a bit harder than I would have liked them to, not that I wanted them to in the first place. Of course I didn't want Silver to know that. I mean, I wasn't a whore, no. But I've slept with more people than the average sixteen, almost seventeen, year old boy.

But the way he said the word, brother, sent a oddly cold chill through me. He said it like I should be scared, warned. Or maybe he was just letting me know of his knowledge, in that arrogant, snide, sarcastic way he has of talking to only me. I didn't spend enough time with him to know the difference and personally didn't care to.

"He doesn't have to know everything." I crossed my arms to look just as threatening or in power as he did. Ash was a few inches taller than me and about the same size, him being a bit more masculine than I. "Good role model and all that."

"Stop masking it, Salem." Hearing my name come out of his mouth was more shocking to me than the seriousness of his tone. For once, all reminisce of joking, taunting, or sarcasm was gone from his voice when he slowly said it. "It's easy to tell you love him, and not in the way a brother should love a brother. There are plenty of ways to tell that. I'm surprised others haven't figured it out. The looks you give everyone that walks near him, the things you do for him, the way your eyes dilate when you look at him."

I looked into the next room with him to Silvester. His frail body crouched on the floor, opposite the kitten's. His white hair hovering inches from his face, pushed by the thin bandanna, eyes narrowed as he stared at Cali, scarf wrapped around his mouth and nose to protect his freezing body. The sight made me not want to fight Ash, to tell him he was right. I loved this person on the floor. I loved his childishness. I loved his determination. I loved his face. I loved his voice. I loved everything there was to love about him. I loved everything there was to hate about him. My mind wouldn't let me deny that to anyone, no matter the cost.

"I didn't care before." Ash continued, me still looking at my unmoving brother. "You didn't seem to be doing anything about it and there didn't seem to be any hope for you anyway. Not that Silvester would completely reject you, as open minded as he is. If he would admit he's gay he'd probably give you a chance."

"He's not gay." The words came out low as I looked back towards Ash, shocked, like me, by the amount of despair in them.

Letting out a low chuckle he said, "I think we all know it's only a matter of time until he admits it out loud. Even if he did, you're smart enough to still try to keep it a secret. He's your brother. Imagine the problems it would cause, the despair it would cause you both. It's incest, imagine the people it would disgust."

"It's not disgusting." I whispered to the wall my eyes were glued to.

"No, I don't think so either. But other people will, and do." Pushing off of the wall, Ash sighed and uncrossed his arms. "What I'm getting at is that I don't care what kind of love you feel towards your brother."

He doesn't care? Then why would he say this? Why would he feel the need to verbalize it? It hurt enough to think it, hurt enough to know that I couldn't have him in order to protect him from people and things of that sort. I didn't need someone to voice it for me.

I don't need to know that I'm not just thinking worse case scenario.

"Then why are you bringing it up." I forced out through my teeth.

"Keep in mind, Salem," He growled back at me. "I know that you love him. But I love him too. And when you drag him somewhere when he's half dead, just because you want to be with him, I have got a problem with it. It hurts him, it hurts me, and it hurts you." He motioned to each person with each name and his fist landed hard against my already heavy chest, making it that much harder to breathe.

"What do you know?" Was all I could force out.

"I know running around this mansion doing all the work is a strain on his body and all this time spent wasted with you is time taken away from a chance to gain energy. He's been like this for almost a month now." He growled down to me, somehow seeming even taller. "Watch out for him Salem."

"I am."

"Do a better job. Because if he ends up any worse, in a hospital, passed out from exhaustion, lighter, if he so much as loses another ounce, I'm going to make you suffer so. The devil won't even bear a look."

I somehow brought myself to look him in the eye and saw that there was no hint of a joke anywhere in him. With nothing to say, I glared at his blue rimmed eyes.

"I take it you get my point." Looking up, he smiled his wide, white grin and, without as much as a shoulder bump to show his hostility, walked around me. "Silver, what on earth are you doing? If it's a staring contest, I think you've won."

Turning around, I could barely stand a glance at my younger brother. Why did he have to be like this? Why did he have to be my brother? My brother. It was all I could do to keep from letting the salt stream down my face.

"No, he talked." Silver said in I think the cutest, most serious voice I've ever heard come out of his mouth. "He clearly said 'I've killed Mufasa.' just a moment ago. Ash, I thin- hey, Salem?"

"Yeah?" I responded in the most normal voice I could manage.

"What's wrong? You look as white as the deer in the woods out back."

"Nothing, I'm just hungry. Isn't it almost time for Drarura?"

"Yeah, I almost forgot." Silver sat back down almost as fast as he shot up. "Stood up too fast. Feel like a merry-go-round. Minus the merry."

Ash strode over and lifted him again. "Anything that goes in circles is never merry."

"Tell me about it." Silver's perfect teeth showed as he leaned his head so far back his neck looked as if it would snap. "But I can walk."

"Na, I already have you" Looking over at me, Ash smiled tauntingly, as if nothing had happened. "Come on, Kitten, wouldn't want to miss it."

Luckily the confusing show took my mind off things fast, but it took everything I had to bring myself into the other room.

I love you. I thought to him. I'm sorry.