Note: Hm, this is random. Probably will only last three or four chapters but meh. If there are mixes with the tense, it’s because I’ve never written in first person, but I am determined to conquer it. Don’t laugh; it’s hard when you’ve written every story in third person omniscient beforehand. T.T

I think that, if I had known what things would happen in the next month or so, I would have run. Tripping. Screaming. Fleeing. I wouldn’t have faced the future if I had been given the choice. But fate feels no love, not like the kind I felt, and so it tore it away. It seems to me that fate, if you believe in that sort of thing, is only human. It’s only natural for it to want to destroy what it can’t have. Or, at least, that’s the only reasoning I could decipher of it.

            I lived in the upper levels of the bathhouse with my mother. In the mornings, light would stream in brilliant pink, yellow, silver rays like translucent rainbows, waking me from deep slumbers. We could have afforded beds, but mother said that futons allowed us to be closer to the Earth. I never understood that, as we were on the fifth floor and quite far from the Earth. Paper lamps of white and silver with crimson poetry laced the edges of each room like 3D wallpaper. The walls were white- Mother said she’d wanted it that way so the sun could paint them whatever colours it liked. Dressers were decorated with bouquets in white vases with blue paint of my mother’s designs. The blossoms were always white- they had to be white- their dark leaves fanned about the petals like fawning suitors. The moment the blooms began to curl and brown, Mother would throw them away and pick new ones from the garden of white tulips, baby’s breath, peonies, oleanders… Never roses, though. Mother refused to grow roses, though I couldn’t tell you why.

            I remember when the nights grew hot and Mother would sit out on our balcony, white blonde hair splayed like spider silk to the wind. She’d wear her white kimono, open enough so that I could see the pale crescent of skin sliding between her breasts until the fabric closed- even the white of the silk seemed dull by comparison to her skin. She looked strong, never swaying in the wind, eyes always trained on some distant horizon she’d never achieve. Her eyes were gray and cold- I don’t think I’ve ever seen them display emotion anyway. She’d turn to me sometimes and tell me to come so she could brush my hair, which took after hers. Sometimes I think she forgot I was a boy, the way she treated me. Other times, she would pretend I wasn’t there. She knew I was- she could always tell when someone was there; sometimes she simply chose not to acknowledge them.

            One night, she did something she’s never done with me. She asked me to come sit on her futon with her and look through a photo album. Its pages were thin and sparse, but each photograph was accompanied with a story, as though she only took photos of things that told tales. I buried myself in the duvet beside her, eager to be a part of her life, to know her. Her fingers turned each page as though it were a Pristine (that’s a type of flower so delicate that if you touch it or pluck it all the petals will fall off). She came to one photo and stopped, tracing a fingernail over the photograph. I couldn’t tell if it was an affectionate or hostile gesture, and her face didn’t betray the answer either.

            “Who is he?” I asked.

            “Your father.”

            “What happened to him?” I didn’t want to know the answer but I asked anyway.

            “I put a pregnant black widow in his bed. He didn’t wake up.” I fell silent, trying to remain as impassive as she, pursing my upper lip as though it had been a normal thing to do. “The bathhouse was his.” Sick as it was, that gave her reason, and thus I didn’t feel as awkward with the story. She’d murdered him for the sole purpose of inheriting his estate. Perhaps it was wrong, but my mother never had a fondness for laws and went out of her way to disobey them. I didn’t want to believe she was truly evil, anyway, being only twelve at the time…

            I shed tears for my father that night, if only to redeem my mother.

            The days were mostly spent attending to the guests of the bathhouse. It was a place where only the wealthy could afford service- and it was good service. My mother assigned me the hardest of jobs because it would build character. I resented her for it.

            “If you don’t like it, then kill me,” she would say, as though the solution to such a meager issue were so simple yet drastic. She wasn’t afraid of anything. She didn’t seem to think there was ever an ulterior solution- hers were always right. But she knew me better than I knew myself, and I could never kill.

            Of family members I have two. My mother despises my older brother’s existence- he was never meant to be. I was born as a deliberate excuse for a son that wasn’t misconceived, to show that no illegitimate son could break her unwavering control. She named me Thor just to prove it. It means lightning, and lightning never strikes twice. What happened with my brother would never happen again- I was meant to exist. My brother was named Syn. It means denial. Sound it out and it seems to mean something different.

            Syn works in the bathhouse- running towels to customers, draining baths, greeting guests at the door. I heard my mother tell him straight that it was because she couldn’t trust him with the more important jobs. I could see the pain on his face whenever she berated him. He’d never done anything to make her hate him so, except live- and to my Mother that was the greatest of insults.

            Once, I asked her why she didn’t kill Syn like she had Father. Her answer was simple, scalding to my sensitive ears.

            “Because you would know. And you would tell.” It hurt to see how little she trusted me, but it shouldn’t have because I knew it was true. I loved my brother like no other. I often visited him down in the cold wine cellar where my mother had given him a cot and an alarm clock to wake him up earlier than everyone else. We knew each other better than we knew ourselves; somehow that was a comfort to both of us. Perhaps my mother was a steadfast sword, driven in the earth and still gleaming malevolently about problems she claimed to never think on, but we could lean on each other without fear of being cut by the blade.

            The most amazing thing about my brother was that he refused to tell me about how he felt pertaining to the entire situation. Though I already knew- we could read each other’s faces like mirrors- I still wanted to hear him say it. Instead he told me to talk to him, as though I were the one hard done by. I was weak for that- a girl who needed to vent her feelings rather than a boy who’d bottle it up. I hated that about myself- how feminine I was despite the fact me and my brother resembled each other. He got the shapely jaw, the dark, blue-gray eyes and hair like our mother’s that hung in his eyes and just below his ears. People mistook us for each other because of our hair, though mine was chin-length. He joked that I was the one born with the looks and he with the brains, though. I didn’t believe him. He said it was my eyes that set me apart from our mother; they’re gray, just like hers, but they look lavender and are framed by lashes to rival even hers. I hate it- I look like a girl.

            He always acted as my protector. “Mother’s evil,” he said, when I asked what danger I was in. Sometimes, I don’t know why, but I felt as though he loved me more than just a brother. It was strange, because I liked it that way, and I’m not sure whether or not I felt likewise.

            I walked to my mother’s vanity one night, picking up the ivory brush with silver inscriptions and running the soft bristles through my hair, like she did. Sometimes I wished she’d done so more often- it was one of the few connections I ever made with her.      I stared into the pale reflection, never seeing what my brother did, but hoping if I stared long enough that one day I might. A scowl imprinted itself on my face as I looked to the sleeping figure of my mother. She looked like death and poison, I could describe it no other way.

            Once assured that she was asleep, I took the note I’d carried around from our mailbox and smoothed it in my fingers, folding it neatly before tucking it away in the locked drawer my mother had provided me. She said every man and woman deserved their secrets, and this was the place to keep mine. She didn’t know about my frequent visits with my half brother, or even that I had discovered that we were half brothers at all.

            I tiptoed through the sliding door, down the stairs until I was out of earshot before following hallways and doors to the back, where I made a clear escape. The flowerbeds were eerie at this time of night- swaying while the moon painted each blossom a different shade of blue and silver. I picked a careful route through the sunflowers (they’re white too, and no matter how many times I ask my mother how she grew white sunflowers she’d just tell me ‘they’re ghosts’ and leave it at that), weaving towards the bushes of peonies that grew taller than me.

            I heard a whistle not far off and gasped with surprise at the shrill note, relaxing at the familiarity of it. I followed the sound until I found my brother, letting him embrace me in his arms. I could never resist all his endearments- every enticing charm he wove without knowing he was doing so. I both hated and loved this weakness.

            He pulled away, taking my wrists and pulling them to his face so that he could turn them over and view my palms. I knew they were red and blistered from where they’d gripped the iron handle of the shovel. Filling the coal fires was my least favourite job- I worked the longest shifts with the worst tools as my aid. This particular shovel gave me raw blisters and was so heavy that, with the added weight of coal, it made my back ache after a single round. I’d worked six hours that day.

            “Shoveling coal again?” he remarked, tracing a finger over the raw surface of my palm. It should have stung, but I found it soothing.

            I nodded and pulled my hands away so that I could press myself to his warmth again. He was the only one to exhibit affection for me, pay attention to whatever petty needs I had. However pathetic I may be for needing him was irrelevant in my eyes. I needed love and he loved me. I didn’t even mind if he loved me more than an older brother should. Only two years difference…

            “Are you tired?” His voice was like hot chocolate scalding a path down my throat. It gave me the feeling of something warm boiling in the pit of my stomach. I nodded in response, relaxing into the tight embrace of his arms.

            Sometimes I slept in the wine cellar with him. He didn’t mind sharing the tiny cot, and his comfort always seemed sacrificed for mine, no matter how I protested that I’d be fine with less space than he provided. However, during weeks where Mother was painfully malevolent in her job assignments, it was crucial I got back to my room before she awoke to find me gone, and the wine cellar was even farther than the flowerbeds. Six floors underground, and Mother turned off the elevators during the night so that I would be forced to take the stairs.

            He’d brought a blanket, just like always, and laid it down on the bare earth for me. I lay against it, feeling the prickle of grass and soil through the fabric and enjoying it. I was sleeping closer to the Earth than my mother was now. I felt Syn settle down behind me, lacing his arms around me and burying his face against my nape like a lover would. I never understood his affections but I loved them.

            “One day, we’ll run away from here. I’ll protect you from her and you won’t be her slave anymore. I love you, Thor…” He said this before I went to bed every night, to assure I would never have nightmares. A part of me felt that he was afraid; afraid that I might rather have what little my mother gave rather than him. Right then, while lying close to him with those words echoing in my head, echoing such promise, I knew I loved him more than he knew. More than I knew.

            I woke before the sun rose, fear and threat acting as my internal alarm. The moment I stirred I felt Syn wake behind me, arms tightening around me. “Stay? Just a little while…” It was quiet and muffled against my hair, but I relaxed against him despite the sirens in my mind warning me against it. It was the first time I’d ever heard Syn ask something selfish of me- I couldn’t deny him.

            My eyes snapped open, however, when I felt his lips at my nape, soft and slightly damp against the sensitive skin. I shivered but pulled away before he could continue, afraid. “I’ll get in trouble,” I murmured, scared that he wouldn’t understand why I would refuse him the one time he asked something of me. I felt guilty but equally terrified. I turned to see that his eyes were still warm and was shocked by the thumb he traced along my cheekbone.

            “I know,” he answered simply, ruffling my hair and pulling me forward to kiss my forehead. He always did that. “Try to take it as easy as possible, alright? I don’t want to see anymore of this.” His voice was so stern as he traced a tender line down my palm, erasing the pain of yesterday. “Tomorrow is our day off. I’ll take you into town and buy you the jelly-filled croissant you wanted to try.” Syn was smart enough to know how to avoid my mother’s watchful eye, how to keep our relationship from the snooping gazes of those who were desperate for a name she was fond of. I conceded with a nod of my head and turned to run back to my room.

            I crept back in and found the sleeping poison was just as I’d left her. Sighing in relief, I curled up on the futon that I hardly used and feigned slumber. Minutes later, I felt the sunlight pouring through the windows, warming my face. A bell jingled, rung by my mother’s hand, resounding painful messages through my skull. Work. No rest. Exhaustion. Pain. Then, lastly, a thought that warmed me more than the sunlight: Syn.

            I was assigned the job of scrubbing floors that day. Perhaps the job would not have been so tiresome if there were not twelve floors to mop, scrub and dry. I passed one of the baths while scrubbing the halls, nearly tripping as a hurried servant rushed past with plates of steaming, fragrant-smelling food. I’d always begged my mother to let me cook, but she refused. As I righted myself, I heard hushed dialogue from the bath where two employees washed the inside of the giant, pool-like basin.

            “Syn wasn’t found in his room today,” one whispered conspiratorially. “Suppose I should tell the Lady about his disappearance?”

            The other shook her head vigorously, continuing to wipe the porcelain with her sponge. “No. He’ll turn up soon; you’ll only get him in trouble. She’d put him in confinement without food for a time, or give him the kind of job that kills ye. I wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone.”

            The other nodded, seemingly reluctant. I moved ahead quickly, before either noticed my eavesdropping presence, feeling anger boil in me at the other’s hesitance to abide by the woman’s advice. He must have wanted a place on my Mother’s inside pocket as well, no doubt.

            It took longer than shoveling coal for my job to finish, and by the end the blisters on my palms had opened and began to bleed a little. My forehead was hot and slick with sweat, making me yearn for a shower. My shirt had been discarded at the third floor, even my pants sticking to me. It was a hot day and not even the breeze from the windows could dispel the waves of heat rising from my skin. At least I wasn’t covered in soot, like when I shoveled coal. Mopping my forehead, I finished the last room (a dining area only used for those rich and royal enough to afford a banquet at their expense) and decided to retire to the shower room.

            “Thor.” I halted, reluctant to turn and face the voice of my Mother. She was cold and calculating in each step as she approached, sandaled feet making little noise against the polished floor. “Finished?”

            I nodded, fearing that glint of liquid silver through her eyes that reminded me of poisonous mercury. “Yes.” 

            “Tired?”

            I nodded again, resisting the urge to wipe the sweat from my brow as it trickled through my hair. I hated the feeling. Her face reminded me of the paintings of goddesses in books she kept to herself. I’d opened one against her will, but she hadn’t caught me. “As I expected. I wonder what transpired last night to leave you ill-rested?” I swallowed. Had she awoken to find my bed empty?
            “I slept well enough, Mother,” I responded, trying to sound as cool and defiant as she. Her lips curled in a smile that never reached her eyes and only seemed to produce a frown.

            “Ah, where did you sleep then?”

            I glared at her, hoping a sense of strength and pride would deter her. I knew that if I showed weakness that she’d only ravage me worse. “In my futon. You might have awoken when I’d gone to the bathroom in the night.”

            She knew I was lying, it was written in the commas at the corners of her mouth. She didn’t reply, merely swept past me. I’d satisfied her for now…

            Abandoning the mop and bucket where they stood, I scaled several flights of stairs to reach the basement level (one level below the wine cellar) and found the shower room painfully warm with steam rising in billowing clouds. I nearly gasped as I caught sight of a figure, just emerged from one of the shower stalls, holding a towel to his light hair to mop the excess damp from the strands. I could feel a magnetic pull tugging my eyes down away from his face.

            So beautiful… Every part of him is so beautiful…

            Syn stood before me, dripping from the shower and looking thoroughly bewildered and equally embarrassed at the current situation. It shouldn’t have been- we’d seen plenty of other men naked before and this should have been no different. I couldn’t tell whether the pink stain on my brother’s cheeks was from the heat of the room or my sudden presence.

            Trying to remain normal, I smiled and walked over to a basket of towels, taking one to hang outside the door of another stall. I promptly undressed, blood boiling in my face as I did so. I had to pretend like he was just another person that had just had a shower, not my brother looking more enticing than ever with nothing on. “Nice shower?” I asked, trying to sound confident and equally casual. It wasn’t working; I could feel my face heating with him standing a few feet away. He fastened the towel around his waist, erasing some tension in me. It didn’t stop me from staring (not of my own volition, I assure you) at his bared chest.

            I yelped as he suddenly stepped forward and took my hands, like he had yesterday, not daring to touch the palms now that they were so raw. I felt uneasy with him looking at me like that. I know I’d promised to take it easy but it was difficult when your mother assigned the most taxing jobs for you. “I-I’m sorry,” I murmured, trying to tug my hands away. He wouldn’t let me.

            My breath caught and stopped abruptly as he took my hand and began to press delicate kisses into it, tracing his lips up each finger. This wasn’t brotherly love, as I’d always told myself each fond gesture of his beforehand had been. A tiny whimper parted my lips as his tongue darted out against my fingertip, soothing all the raw burns, making my knees weak as crushed aluminum.

            We sprang apart as the door opened, admitting another one of the employees that was finished his shift. I quickly disappeared into the stall, shutting the door and pressing my back against the cool tiles, damp with condensation. I heard Syn grab clothes and change before his footsteps echoed out and through the noisy door. My breathing had started again, but it ran at a rabbit’s pace and made my body shudder involuntarily.

            I had planned on taking a cold shower- but the freezing rain seemed to wash away his touch and I wanted it to stay. So I had a hot one instead.

            That night I sat at my mother’s vanity again, staring out the window through the reflective pane. I wanted to jump into the mirror world so that my mother wouldn’t know that I was going to see my brother, couldn’t tell me when I was lying or not, couldn’t see what desires I held hostage deep within me.

            I loved my brother more than just a brother. There was no point fretting about the issue or dancing around it like you would a striking cobra. My mother wouldn’t have thought about it; she’d take what she wanted, even if it wasn’t being given to her.

            I think I was risking my life, leaving again when she’d known I’d been gone last night. Perhaps there was no note to solidify his presence in the flower garden, like there had been the night before, but I felt that he would be there.

            Indeed, I found him lying on the blanket in the exact spot from last night, facing away so that he could not see me. Perhaps he was asleep and hadn’t heard my approach?
            I sunk onto my knees and he started awake, sitting up and looking about for the site of the disturbance. When his eyes fell upon me the temporary caution vanished and was replaced with the warmth they’d held while he’d kissed my hand in the showers.

            “I didn’t think you’d come back tonight,” he whispered, as though the flowers were listening, eager to tell my Mother of our treason.

            I didn’t know how to answer, my lips kept moving in silent speech as I groped for some sort of phrase that would elucidate my yearning to see him again. “I needed to see you,” I said, resorting to the simplest of words. His smile was the kind that made me feel weak all over again, drawing me into the warmth.

            “What for?” I knew he was teasing from the glint in his eye (or perhaps it was the moon waning above us), but I shoved him anyway.

            “You know why,” I replied stubbornly, trying not to shudder as he moved closer.

            “I’d still like to hear it,” he replied hotly, huffing warm breath in my ear.

            I tried to keep the shiver from remaining visible, as his fingers played up my back and then beneath my shirt, tickling my skin. For the barest of moments, I questioned my desire and the emotions I felt. Then I banished the doubt- Mother would be ashamed to know I hesitated in taking what I wanted.

            “I want you to kiss me,” I said, hissing out a breath as his palms spread heatedly against the small of my back, pulling me closer so that I was straddling his lap. I was hopelessly aware of the blood rushing southwards, making me flushed. Doubt be damned; I’d wanted this for a long time and, from what I could tell, so had Syn.

            I had my eyes closed already as his lips pressed gently to mine, freezing me in my place until I was wracked with violent shivers of approval. I wanted more, to taste him and feel my skin against his, and I mean more than just the hand rubbing dizzying circles against my back. I opened my mouth for him, coaxing and demanding at the same time, mewling desperately as his tongue met mine. Sparks were exploding behind my closed lids and my heart felt too big for my chest.

            I whimpered protest as he pulled away, pressing a finger to my lips to silence me. “Not now, too soon,” he murmured, just as breathless as I. I liked the way he looked, memorized the colour of his kiss-swollen lips and the dark haze of lust over his eyes. It was too soon, so I had to ignore the ache between my legs as we lay down and slept once more. Now I knew that he cradled me differently than brothers should.

            “I love you, Thor,” he murmured against my cheek, letting me breathe the scent of hyacinths from him.

            “I love you, too…” I answered, before his soft humming soothed me to sleep.