PLEASE, PLEASE READ THIS NOTE BEFORE CONTINUING TO THE STORY!

This is not a happy story. I've had it in the works for a while, because I like the idea of taking the characters as far out of their realm as possible while maintaining their characterization as closely as possible. I will warn you. This is very, very, very far outside the normal comfort zone of these characters. Especially Gene. I wanted to wait until I had some more stories including my idea of normal Gene before posting this one, because of the extremely dark nature of this plot. I won't waste too much of your time. Just be warned, this is something of an artistic exploration on my part. It's not going to be pleasant.

Warnings: Cursing. Non-graphic depictions of sex, death, sexual abuse/assault, isolation, child abuse, neglect, and murder. Please read at your discretion. I attempted to approach some of the darker scenes with delicacy, but I did not sugar coat anything. Please proceed with caution

No spoilers really. It's pretty AU

Disclaimer: you know the gist. Not mine

Quick note: This is only part one. There will be at least two more parts

Noll remembered every moment, every agonizing second as if the memories were etched into his skin, lingering sensations, an abyss in which he had no choice but to wallow. That's all he was really, a collection, but no, that implied some semblance of order, of intent. Rather, he was a pit, a hole to throw away time and the agony that was carried with it. And he retained it. He forced it of himself.

A scream, muffled. His fingers curled into his palm, cutting the skin. There were already scars there. Scars everywhere, really. Along his back, his arms, his legs, his chest, most of them were there, by the sternum. A roadmap of slaughter that didn't belong to him, but possessed him anyway.

Every time, they became a part of him. It was his punishment, his repent for doing nothing. For allowing it. One curious finger dipping into a stray drop of red, skimming along a blade or a drill bit or a scrap of fabric torn away in a lapse of that damnable control. Then another abyss, and he reveled in their suffering until he couldn't distinguish it from his own, until his eyes saw the monster they did, not the battered little boy.

It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault. The man made him this way. It wasn't his fault.

"Hey Naru!"

He'd never understand her nickname. He'd never understand her, to be completely frank.

"Good morning, Mai," he offered quietly, reaching for his apron. The fabric was always so rough, always a shock to his calloused fingertips. It rubbed red into his neck and left an indent that he'd toy with relentlessly while he walked home. He wondered how long they'd been there, if he'd found a nervous habit in his uniform. Ages, he felt, a lifetime of ironically serving coffee to strangers at a Japanese-esque tea house. The English were remarkably unadventurous, when it came to their tea.

Mai was serving an unadventurous customer at the moment, in fact, which explained her odd silence, as usually she would be chirping away while he tried valiantly to dissect her words. The customer, a very Northern sounding brunette woman, wrapped her arthritic fingers around a cup of black coffee. Apparently she didn't trust Mai's specialty blend of black tea. Pity. It was truly delicious.

"Thank ye," the woman chewed from her unappealing, flat-tire lips, dropped a few coins in the tip jar, and scurried out as if human interaction were a disease. Noll watched her skittering walk with something like dulled amusement. Humans were such predictable, rootless creatures. He much preferred ghosts.

"What are you thinking about, Naru?" It was ten already, the lull between the early morning rush and the lunch hour. Mai was using her time liberally, brewing a pot of black tea presumably for herself, not looking at him but somehow she always knew when he was more in his head than usual. He thought, maybe she cut her hair. The chestnut strands seemed sort of fluffy, textured in its layers. It suited her, such half-refined chaos.

"You," he replied, and never once did he think that maybe he shouldn't just say whatever came to mind on the rare occasions he did choose to speak. There was no purpose in dallying around more courteous segues.

"Oh?" Typically, he found that particular response uselessly coy, begging for redundancy on his part. Noncommittal in the most unintelligent sense. But Mai had a tendency to revamp his perception. The single vowel sound was merely curious, and full of surprise, judging by the attractive shade of pink tinting her cheeks. "What about me has you in Naru-land?"

Again, with her weird, roundabout expression of her unbridled thoughts. She was fascinating. "You cut your hair. It suits you."

"Oh," the inflection fell with her modesty, and pink turned red, "Thanks. Tea?"

This was the nature of their interactions. He was typically short, detached. Some days he hardly acknowledged her existence. It was necessary, to keep her at a distance, because she wouldn't understand. It's not his fault. She never pushed, at least not overtly, but her words resonated within him and lingered regardless. She crawled under his skin so when he left, her tea sitting warmly in his core while the ice of his surroundings pushed around his veins, she lingered too.

"Mai," the name left his tongue too naturally, dangerously. He lifted the cup she'd set in front of him to distract himself, or rather, to give himself something to do while he scrambled through too many thoughts.

"Yes Naru?"

That name. It burned him, and she didn't even know. "Why do you call me that? My name is Oliver."

"It suits you," was all she'd offer, his own words and a cryptic smile.

He watched her, because that's all he could do. Japanese, like him, but he was from America with a bastardized face from her home country. Where his eyes were the cold, dark blue of the ocean during the winter, hers were warm cinnamon. He was shades of black and blue. She was hues of gold and pink. She smiled at him with thin, shapely lips and long, straight eyelashes. And he protected her. He protected her.

No one protected him.

"Stop!"

A thump. No, thumping, rhythmic, then stuttering. The walls were thin, but still, he could never get through. Shrieking until his voice broke, and the sound was so much worse. Half a sound, more breath but it tore at his ears like talons.

"Naru!"

He wouldn't cover his ears, no matter how much his hands longed to block out the name. The book sat in his lap, pages fluttering in some breeze he couldn't feel, and he glared at the words. He'd wait until the sporadic thuds reached their limit. Then he'd whisper comfort through the drywall.

"P-please, n-no!"

Just a few minutes more. Beneath his skin something was pulsing. A glow along his veins. He'd tried before, the white, half-hearted patched-up hole. He tried and ended up sick in bed. Exploding from the inside, without Gene's hand, without Gene.

"Naru!"

Gene, on the other side of the wall. He hadn't seen him in months, not since the day they'd run away, only to get caught within an hour. A little pocket mirror was all he had of his brother's face. He liked to look in it when they whispered quiet stories to each other through the wall. Just playing pretend, that it was his brother's smile and not his grimace in the reflection.

Gene whimpered. Noll died a little more.

Still. Footsteps, retreating, past his room. The man, George or Greg or something with a 'g' sound but he didn't want to give him a name, he had tried once, picked out Noll first because he was the quiet one. The weaker one, but he lived in his mind and his mind was so much greater than Greg-George. He could slip away in other people's memories, live a day at a wedding to a woman he didn't know, or hold his first baby girl that didn't have his eyes. No response, so he went to Gene, who couldn't make the walls transparent and float away unless he was calm. Noll didn't understand that man's touch, his heavy hands and angry fists and sweaty eyes. He didn't understand, and he hated himself for it, because he couldn't stop, couldn't face what he didn't understand.

"Paula!" His damn guttural scream, like a pig going off to slaughter, lumbering down the hall. He was supposed to take care of them. She was supposed to take them to school. They hadn't been to school since Sobo died.

Over to the wall, his knuckles rapped once, twice against the chipping paint. "Gene."

Silence.

"Gene," he whispered with as much urgency as the volume would allow. Just a word, he needed a word.

"Naru." His little fingers curled into the wall, for lack of his brother's hand. "Naru, it hurts. I think I'm bleeding." He was off, careless in the tripping release of those words. Oddly fascinated, and Naru could picture his fingertips red and glistening, blue eyes curious and wide as they examined the staining blood. It was the first time he could ever remember in which the sound of his brother's voice plucked more fear from him than his screams. But he'd never fear his brother. Not Gene.

"Naru, tell me a story. Tell me about the lighthouse ghost. I like that one."

Murder and a vengeful ghost. Noll steeled himself. "A woman was asked to be a caretaker for just a month and no more—."

"Ssh!" From the wall, not the hall. "Someone's coming."

There was a giddy sort of excitement in his voice. Noll picked furiously at the paint and it flaked into his palm. Not Gene. Then there was a steady stream of words and laughter and he was useless while Gene talked to a ghost. A dead person. One-sided to Noll, just nonsense that made his twin seem mad, but he knew the truth of it.

And it was becoming a new comfort. Noll steeled himself. "A woman was asked to be a caretaker for just a month and no more…." He turned the book over in his palms. 'Unlocking Ghosts', it read, etched into the cover by his pencil.

"She died within a week."

Mai was waiting for him at the door this morning. He was supposed to open, but there she was, cup of tea in hand, that radiant smile in place. She always looked so happy to see him, even if he never said please, or thank you, or goodbye.

"Good morning Naru!" she greeted brightly, leading him into his workplace as if into her living room. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted that she didn't flip the sign to 'open.' At the forefront, he could think only of her perfume, which he hadn't noticed she'd worn before. A sweet floral scent, notes of something like clean linen and honeysuckle. He must have grown accustomed to it.

He downed the hot tea in one sip and set the cup on the counter with a clink. Her eyes followed the movement carefully, and nerves seemed to flutter across her lips with every quickened exhale. Something had her on edge. A shot of ice in his veins. Did she know? God, he pleaded that she didn't.

She took a step closer to him, so she had to look up at him through her eyelashes. A part of him found the sight endearing. The other screamed at him to run. But she was rocking her weight from side to side, a nervous gesture born more of anticipation than fear. Not fear. He relaxed if only slightly.

"Mai, what are you doing?"

She didn't slink back at his rather harsh tone, nor did she even blink. No, she just smiled at him sweetly. "I'm giving up."

"On what?" He could feel the warmth of her body like a whisper. It had been so cold lately.

"Being gentle." Another cryptic response. When had Mai become so covert? It didn't compute with his knowledge of her. Her impulsivity, her intuition that verged on paranormal, her emotional freedom. His mind was whirring, searching through every fact, every book he'd read, every statement he knew to be truth in a misguided attempt to understand her motivations without understanding the action itself. Parapsychology, ghost stories, PK, mediums, a thousand useless facts in the face of human emotion, human care. He clambered to keep up with her.

"Mai, I don't understand," he spat the words on an exhale. They were poisonous, those words.

"I know." She moved very slowly, gauging his reaction even as he sought futilely to comprehend this exchange. He kept his stoic eyes to her face until it blurred with the proximity, and he felt the first touch of her lips to his.

A kiss in the rain, under a lilac tree, she shoved the boy away.

Holding hands with her tutor, a boy with glasses that glinted even in the lowest light.

A kiss on the cheek, a warm hand atop her head and girlish fluttering because she'd never had a father before.

The memories hit him one after the other, every touch that brought strong emotion, every touch that would but he stumbled back, tore himself from her miniscule kiss. I can't do this. I'm not ready. I can't….

"Naru," she breathed, an apology, and she stepped back, a surrender. He couldn't look at her, not yet.

"Don't call me that," he pleaded, clutching the side of his head as it throbbed. The memories were settling into their compartment, a new file for him to examine should he choose. He never did. He couldn't bear to. "Please, call me anything but that."

"Noll," she tried again, her tongue a little awkward on the 'L' but she'd lived in London since she was fifteen and she'd learned. He remembered the tutor who'd taught her the 'L' with his own tongue. No, not my place, not my memory.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, collecting himself bit by bit. One finger unfurled, then another, another and another until all lay limp against his thighs. His heartbeat relaxed, his powers settled back under his skin.

She stepped closer again and he welcomed her intrusion. No words, but he looked at her softly, too tired to harden his stare. Try again. A silent command, one he didn't expect from himself. This time, her hand settled just above his heart, a line to reality by the solid contact, and she reached for him.

He was carried away. He didn't mean for it to happen. The old cliché, one thing leading to another, one touch, one sound slipping from someone's throat leading to another touch, another moan and they were in the back room, among tea leaves and dried fruit and the smell of coffee beans. He was as new to it as she was but she pulled him closer still. He learned her by ear, plucking sounds and sensations from her then committing the haphazard chords to memory. He took her, and she let him, and he'd hate himself for it in the morning.

For giving up on gentle.

"You smell like sex, little brother."

He didn't respond. Didn't say the 'you smell like bleach' resting on his tongue. A hand pawed at his t-shirt, tugging him closer so his mirrored face could inhale theatrically. Gene smiled wickedly, delightedly. He looked almost innocent for a moment, all sparkly-eyed and curious.

"Yep. Sex."

He had to. "What precisely does sex smell like?" They were almost normal, in moments like this. "Enlighten me, Eugene."

"Sweat, shame, and depravity, of course. You reek of all three." Noll snorted as he unpacked the few groceries he'd picked up. Milk, eggs, sugar, coffee, tea, biscuits, bleach, the second gallon in as many weeks. A reminder, that they weren't normal. Ever.

"Lovely," was all he could manage around the self-loathing.

"So you finally lost it. Did you cave and buy a hooker?" It was sad that he wasn't joking, that his guess was, in Gene's mind, the only logical option. He couldn't decide who it belittled most, him or Gene. Probably him. It always seemed to be him. No, not always, his mind viciously reminded him, you did nothing when it was him.

"No, it was—," he stopped himself. Gene could—but he aborted that thought too. Gene never hides anything from me. Nothing, even if I wish he would.

Gene looked at him expectantly, smiling encouragingly but it didn't meet his eyes. "Yes?" drawing out the vowel to be obnoxious, like when they were little and happy.

"It was a girl from work."

"Oh?" There it was, the arrogant inflection, the raised eyebrow. He knew that face, the interest sparking in his eyes. He didn't know what else to call it. Interest. It seemed too clinical. But there was no name he could give to whatever force subdued Gene and gave him Interest, at least until it slipped away for a while, and then Gene would be back, looking lost. He wondered distantly if Interest even deserved a name.

"Yes. It was nothing. A fling, I suppose," he lied, halfway. Lied because the nonchalance was false. He didn't want that. But he couldn't have the other option, if he even knew what the other option was. No, he could only have Gene. It was worth it, he thought, to have his brother safe, to be safe himself.

"You should have her over for dinner," Gene suggested carelessly, his eyes gleaming their stranger's taunt. He was testing Noll, pushing the edges of their bond, looking for weakness. He wouldn't fall for such an underhanded measure, not when Gene was stuck like this. It's not his fault. He can't help it.

"Perhaps. I'd prefer to keep it casual, though," he refused smoothly, keeping the thumping of his heart from reaching his voice. It was ridiculous, anyway, this fear blooming in his chest. He had nothing to fear. Not from his battered brother. "Now, if you're done reveling in my newfound sex life, I'd like to take a shower."

Gene laughed sweetly and gestured him down the hall. Noll paid no heed to his grandly sweeping arms, but rather to the apprehension in his brow. A test of his own was needed, a test of his brother's word. He started down the tight hallway, towards Gene's room instead of his own detached bathroom.

"Wait!" Urgency, too much. Noll's hand hovered over the doorknob. "What's wrong with your shower?"

"The hot water is faulty. I'll be quick, if you need to take one as well," he answered slowly, testing the strength of Gene's apprehension with his prodding tempo. For a second, he saw the contortion of his face into rage, then fear, then finally, blank resignation. Noll steeled himself.

"You should use your shower. Mine is a bit….messy at the moment."

He paused to absorb the implication. One two three four, in out in out, bunch and relax. Every muscles twitched in anger, in hollow sadness, before falling limp.

"You said you'd stop. After the last one, you promised me." His voice was low, dangerous, wanting to build into a scream but he couldn't. Neighbors, suspicion, bleach, that was his life. His collection in the pit of his being. He turned dead, tired eyes to his ashamed mirror image. "Someone's going to notice, if you don't stop."

"I'm sorry! It was just so easy!"

He turned his head. "I can't hear thi—."

"You were gone!" He screamed, and the words died in Noll's throat. A punch in the gut, a slap, a knife. It's not your fault. "You were gone, and that fat old bastard next door was watching porn and I could hear it! I could hear it through the walls. I just…I needed someone to talk to, and she was there. So obviously lost…"

The fear, the desperation leached from his explanation, replaced by intrigue, by longing. Noll shut his eyes. The others, the past memories popped up in a rapid montage, but he shot them down too. He didn't want to see his brother that way. His brother, the monster.

"We talked, for a long time, and I sent her on her way. She's happy now, because of me!" There it was. His brother, the angel. He looked at Noll with fiercely bright eyes, almost a child now in his passion. Made young by his bewildered pride. Noll forgave him his lapse. Expected it, really. They were never children. They'd both been toys or freaks or unwanted or evil. He needed this, and Noll would not deny him even if it condemned him.

"Alright. Just, no more for a while. Please, Gene. I don't want to move again." He rested his hand on Gene's taut shoulder, offered his own, shattered smile. "I'll clean up."

He grabbed the bleach and steeled himself.

...Make no mistake, most of this killed me to write, but exploring all possibilities of these characters is my job as a writer. I will not exclude atrocities for my own comfort level, but if you feel that I've glorified them or approached them in a way that was cruel, please kindly inform me. That is not my intention at all. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading. I promise most of the twins' background will be more thoroughly explained in the coming parts, but if you have any questions, let me know.

Thank you for hanging with me. I'll try to crank out something happy. I don't know about you, but I certainly need it.