Twinfestation

The tea pot was rather hellish to find. I was never the one to make tea, on account of I wasn't allowed to use the stove because something always caught fire. Silver was the one to make tea, do the dishes, and everything else so he knew exactly were it was.

The problem was, he seemed a bit confused this evening. Checking everywhere but the pockets of his pants, he didn't find that damn tea pot anywhere. Not that I'm complaining, all he ever drank was coffee, some sort of tea, and orange juice. It wouldn't kill him to drink some water.

"Silvester," Ash said in the gentle tone he always took with Silver. "It's okay, you don't have to make tea. Why don't you just go to sleep? It's pretty late already."

"No! I have work to do, translations to finish, homework to do, dishes to clean, baths to take. I have no time to sleep! You're mad, man, mad!" Spinning in circles, Silver eventually hit the wall and sunk to the floor. "Oh, god." He said while looking up at Ash and I, "I need coffee. I need coffee with extra sugar, honey, and sugar."

"Or maybe you could have a snooze instead of coffee?"

"Snoooze. Su-no-zo. Sonozo. I'm gonna name my cat that, Sunozo." Looking over at Cali, he pulled her into his lap and cooed at her. "You wanna be named Sunoza? No? How about your middle name? Cali Sunozo Ihtoo. Hehe, you like that name, don't you?"

"He's gone bonkers." Ash said bluntly, his statement causing me to nod in agreement. "He's absolutely mad."

Cali ran out of Silver's lap as he began to laugh manically. "S-Sa-Say...Say..S-say." he tried to talk through his laughter and failed miserably.

"Yes?" I asked, assuming he was trying to get my attention.

Silver usually only got like this when he was really happy and I saw no reason for him to have this amount of joy right now. I guess he's just never been this tired before, his brain seemed to be failing him. The way he was rolling on the floor in laughter worried me a bit. I guessed he'd had even less sleep then he led me to believe.

Silver's sense of humor was usually very tough to get to, so you can imagine how alarming this was to us. He'd smile when he was being friendly, but never really laughed if he didn't think it was genuinely funny. When someone he wasn't exactly friends with made a semi-funny joke that everyone would normally laugh at, he stood there silently, not even pretending it was funny to him. So this, this alarmed me greatly.

God, strike some sense into this boy.

"N-no." Silver gasped "Ash, sa-say it again. Mad, mad, mad, mad." Imitating Ash's accent, he made himself laugh so hard his eyes were tearing up. "Ju-just one more.....one more time."

"That's it," Ash pulled Silver's gasping body off the floor and tried to get him to stand up straight. "You're going to get your jimjams on, come on ."

"N-no! I'm all dirty, I'm gon-gonna get nasty on my clean clo-othes." He gasped as he staggered around. "And I have work to do, translations to finish, homework to do, dishes to clean, and...uh...um."

"Baths to take." I chimed in.

"Yes! Thank you Say." Sliding back to the floor, he looked like he was thinking so hard he might break something. "How about this. I do some dishes, then I take a bath, and then I do some work and homework."

"Silver, there are no dishes, you only have one manuscript to do, and I already did your homework."

"Oh, well then I take a bath and you," Silver pointed to Ash as he laid onto his back. "Come make sure I don't drown. I like drowning. Or you could take one with me! Baths are better with more people, there's water fights and....fun with...toys."

"Lets go." Ash said hastily, picking him up again, princes style. "I'm easy."

"No no no no." Wrestling Silver from Ash's arms for the second time tonight, I gave him an irritated look and said, "You're eas- you sick pervert, he's a virgin! Where's Yu when you need her? Yu! Come kill this bastard!"

"Calm down, Kitten." Though Ash's words were firm, he looked around the corner. "I just meant that it's all the same to me. Stop taking things so dirtily."

"Stop trying to molest my brother."

"Me! I've never taken a bath with him! How many have you taken with him, Kitten?"

"Oh, Say is a good person to take a bath with. " Silver was leaning on me as if his legs had given out to some giant, invisible presser. "We played shark one time and he ate me in one bite! I was like 'whoa Your mouth is huge!' Then h-"

"That's not the point!" I shoved my hand in Silver's mouth and, oddly enough, he started to lick it instead of the expected biting. "The point is you're not taking a bath with my brother, it's uncivilized."

"Civilize-"

"Die Satan!" Yu came hurtling around the corner and hit Ash so hard they slid across the room and into the dishwasher. "Knife, I need a knife! We'll cut off the hands of the devil, so he'll never hurt again."

"Deh eh he oh." Silver mumbled into my hand, saliva stringing off as I finally pulled it out. "They're in the top drawer under the toaster."

"Silvester!" Ash rolled to his feet and grabbed Silver from my arms.

"He totally just helped with your murder! You've been betrayed by your best friend!"

"Shut up, Kitten!" Holding Silver in front of him, Ash used him as a shield as he backed down the hall, Yu standing at the end with a knife in her hand.

"You're lucky you have the boy! He will not always be there to protect you!" Turning back around, Yu gave me a look and went to drop the knife on the counter. "You're just going to let him take Silver like that? What kind of brother are you?"

"You know, Yu, Ash really isn't as bad as you think he is." As much as I hated to admit it, Ash was genuinely a good guy. He was a bitch and did have a short, terrible temper but he looked after Silver. And I guess he wasn't really that bad a guy to hang out with, kind of fun too, I might say if it didn't make me want to vomit. "Why do you treat him like that anyway?"

"Why? Because he tried to defile Silver. Why do you not treat him that way?" Hitting me in the back of the head, she pushed me out of the way and went through the fridge. "Anyway, why do you care? People are all over your little brother. Shouldn't you be over protective? Ready to beat up anyone that comes near him? Stuff like that? I'm just doing your job." She shrugged.

"I think you've been reading too many American Dream stories." Taking a sip from the Tazo bottle Yu had pulled out of the fridge for herself, a loud knock sounded on the door and rang through the whole house.

"Holy crap!" Yu shouted, going into her ninja pose. "He's found us! Hide the girl, hide the dame!"

As Yu ran down the hall to whatever room she had hid the kidnapped Asian in, I headed down the stairs and ran to the door before whoever it was left. Mom was against getting a butler, I can't say I wasn't with her. After Layla went through her butler/employee porn phase, the idea was a definite no in my head. I mean, it would be nice not to have to run a marathon every time someone was at the door, but at least we had good endurance because of it.

"Woh!" Jumping back, I looked down at the smiling spiky black haired Irish man that had fallen back onto my feet, a book covering part of his torso. "Hey Conner. You uh, brought a book to sit on our porch and read?"

"Yeah, of course." He smiled up at me through thick rimmed 3-D glasses. "I keep a book in my car for such occasions."

"Um, may I ask why?"

"You guys take so long to answer the door! I get bored just sitting here, I have to keep myself entertained. And look! I'm already almost on the last chapter! I'd get none of my reading done if I didn't come to visit you guys."

"Smart man."

Taking my outstretched hand, Connor said something incomprehensible and picked up his fallen book. Not that I minded all of Silver's foreign friends, but it would be nice if they grasped the fact that that I only know English and struggled through Spanish one and two. When it came to understanding things, I had no problem. But when it came to understanding things in a different language, I was lost.

"uh....no habla espanol."

"Thanks, Say," He smiled at me "'Go raimh maith agat' means thanks."

"Hey, I'm not the Irish man here, I leave all that knowledge to you my good sir. So, uh, why are you here at two am?" I asked smiling back at him.

I always felt the need to smile around Conner, as if I owed him one for showing me his. When I first met him, he never really smiled at all, only gave off half no-teeth Mona Lisa smiles. I don't think he was used to smiling too much before he moved here. But now he smiled every waking moment I saw him, a huge grin that showed sharp canines and every white tooth in his mouth. It's a shame that there may have been fifteen years wasted without this giant, gorgeous, god-like smile.

I'm allowed to like this one, I thought. He doesn't love my brother.

"You know that foreign exchange thing my parents got into?"

"Yeah, they wanted to get you a nice Irish chick to spend time with, marry, and have three kids. I remember."

"Actually, it was four kids, two for my grandmas and two for my grandpas to name."

"Wow, that'-"

"My parents are weird." He said as his smile widened. "Anyway, I was taking her to a movie since she just got here this morning and spent all day unpacking. I wanted to take her out, maybe show her around a little. But then I lost her. I thought she might be here."

".....Conner, what on earth makes you think that a stray girl would wonder all the way from the movies to here?"

"Well, whenever I lose someone they're always over here. And I saw Misaki's car there and when I called to see if he saw her he said that Haru had his car today so I thought she might be over here too."

"Makes sense." It was quite normal for us to be invaded by Silver's friends, especially Haru trying to get away from her home. I don't mind it, I actually find it quite amusing, but sometimes when Haru starts something I want to kick her out and tell her never to return. "What would Haru want with an Irish girl?"

"Well, they didn't get an Irish girl, they got a Chinese girl. And since Yu likes to take my things I thought she might have her and that maybe Haru would be with her, you know, since they're best buds and all that jazz. And your house is a hide-and-seek paradise! Where else would they go!?"

"Chinese you said?" As the pieces started to slowly fall into place, I began to laugh. "Yeah, she's somewhere upstairs. They hid her in one of the rooms."

"Really!?" His eyebrows shot up and his smile overtook his face as he bounced then ran up the stairs. "Go raimh maith agat!"

".....Shalom to you too." Picking up the bag he'd abandoned, a pair of pants fell out. In curiosity, I rummaged through farther and found a shirt, a hairbrush, toothbrushes, and a set of girl clothes.

Unplanned sleepovers are our specialty, but I don't think Silver's really up for the challenge. He'd be all for it, sure, but I don't think his body was really up for it. Ash was right, he was running half dead and sleep was what he really needed most right now. If there was ever a person he considered a friend over our house he'd never get any. The way his friends spend their nights, he'd be dead by morning.

Plus, Ash was already on my ass about watching out for Silver. I'm not a pussy obeying orders to avoid my demise because I was scared of him, but I knew what it was like to love Silver and what I'd do to anyone who didn't do what was best for him, that's what scared me.

But what scared me most was the thought of Silver actually passing out or losing another pound. His friends were just too energetic and insane to be good for him right now. They'd have him sleep walking off of a bridge in no time.

Sighing, I headed upstairs to kick everyone out of my house.