—november 21st

It's been over six months since Max finally surrendered his "villainous" ways, and I can definitely see a difference in some of his motives, but in all daily aspects nothing's changed. For awhile there he was openly competing with me to be the better superhero, and I was doing the same (all in good fun, I'd like to imagine), but even after that dropped he's been paying me a lot of attention. I can't help but have thoughts of pranks he's about to pull, of revenge for taking his powers, of waking up and learning he 'relapsed.' But then he's muttering some insult with only half his heart in it, and his eyes still locked on mine. My heart beats in anticipation of whatever he's planning, but nothing bad ever happens.

But I know he's doing something. He has to be.

—november 24th

He invited me to a party Oyster's throwing. And, honestly, Cherry probably would've invited me to that anyway as Oyster's girlfriend, but the fact he initiated it means something. When he asked me, he was so sincere and not joking in any manner that all assumptions about how he planned to humiliate me left my mind. I smiled at him and said I'd love to come, and he grinned — not even a smirk, a real grin — and told me he'd grab me at eight before he left. It all had a very different vibe, one that reminded me of… I think he's really changed, in a way.

—november 28th

...definitely a different vibe.

—december 3rd

I've avoided Max for almost a week, which is stupid considering we live in the same house and we like to train together and we're twins and literally everything else. But the party was… It was fun. I don't want to make it out like it wasn't, but the whole time we were there, it felt like it had an undertone of something else. I only drank a little bit, way less than Max or anyone else for that matter, but still he stayed around me and asked if I was okay and kept one hand on my back for most of the night. My lower back; not that it matters. Not that it means anything.

—december 7th

I think it means something.

—december 10th

Has he always looked at me this much? I mean sure, I look his way a lot too, either a glare or a knowing glance or a smile, occasionally. But this just seems a lot more open than our past shared glances. Or maybe I'm just paranoid. He's not plotting anything against me. He's just… Max. My brother. My twin brother who's been acting even weirder than usual since the party.

—december 15th

Alright, so maybe I'm paranoid. Whatever prank he's about to pull on me better be worth it, because I'm not going crazy about this for nothing.

—december 16th

We're officially on break from school, and I'm now thinking about whatever Max is doing 24/7.

—december 18th

I burned the pasta I was making for the family tonight. Fucking pasta. Max was in the room, and my eyes kept drifting over to his because I could tell he was already looking at me, and then I kept imagining whatever it is he's planning or going to say to me or do or not do — and then I burned the pasta. He laughed, but not his usual laugh. He didn't actually find it funny; it was more out of obligation, that much I could sense.

He's just a problem in and of itself. He's getting in my head, making me overthink and ponder on things I'd never considered before. Well, not really considered. Sometimes things just cross your mind whether you want them to or not, and I certainly didn't ask for the thoughts that have been crossing my mind lately.

It must be his "Dark Side." He must be contemplating going back, or maybe he's just intrigued, or maybe he's intrigued by me something else.

—december 20th

I've decided to try to talk to him about his intentions for being a superhero. I'm driving myself crazy by letting stupid ideas and scenarios manifest in my mind, and this will be an end to that incessant worrying.

—december 26th

It went about as well as expected. He flipped out on me and was very defensive. He seemed so flustered by everything I threw at him, sometimes just staring at me so intensely I had to look away first. At this point in time, I honestly believe he isn't really sure of what he wants. I think my questions made him explore other options, though.

I know that — as a superhero — I shouldn't want him to go back to his "villainous" ways. But as Phoebe — his si… tw… Phoebe. As his Phoebe — I just… want him to be happy.

—december 29th

It's potentially a very bad idea, but I'm going to talk to him again on New Year's Eve. I know he likely still wants to go out drinking with his friends, hero image aside, but Mom and Dad aren't letting him out of the house. And when they're worried for our wellbeing, something that's at its peak around New Year's, I know he actually acknowledges they're just concerned and not being buzzkills.

—december 30th

Depending on how this conversation goes, I could drive him to stay home or to defy our parents and get the hell out. But I'm worried for him too, in more ways than one, so I'm going to try with everything in my being to keep him at home with me.

—december 31st [new year's eve]

I'm not… I have no CLUE what to make of this. He stayed home, at whatever cost.

There's no way I'm using names. Max kissed me. Like. On the lips, in a tight, locked embrace down in his lair. And… I think I kissed him back.

I don't know what to do about this.

—january 2nd

Okay, so I've been thinking things over and… oh my God, I kissed my brother! My twin brother! How much more incestuous can it get?!

—january 7th

I still don't know if I can write this without freaking out.

—january 11th

I kissed him back.

—january 13th

I fucking kissed him back. Not just a little bit, but like I was… like I was starving.

—january 18th

What if I only use pronouns? Better than his name?

Maybe. Yeah. Sure. Alright.

—january 30th

I'm not letting myself dwell on it too much. Because, if I do, then I have to figure out what to make of this.

—february 6th

Still not gonna talk about it, but I'm fairly certain I just had a sex dream and it was not about anyone who isn't related to me.

—february 11th

There's this thing called memory repression. And it's not. Fucking. Working.

I can still feel his lips on mine.

—february 14th

I lied. I do know what to make of this. He loves me. He doesn't just like me. He wouldn't risk everything just for some little crush, some forbidden high. He loves me. And I think I might love him.

The… feelings that I'm having right now, that are bubbling up inside of me… they make sense out of everything. Everything that's happened, every way I've reacted to certain situations — so harshly, passionately — is because I love him. I do. I love him so, so much.

But I can't.

—february 22nd

I can. I kissed him again.

I don't think he was expecting it, not after this long of a break in our routine. Not that the sexual tension ever stopped, or that we didn't brush arms and fix our gazes on each other every chance we got. The difference was that there was no longer anything to hide behind. I couldn't blame my struggles on school-related difficulties, he couldn't blame his frustration on his band and Gideon hitting on our mom (God, our mom). He kissed me, and I kissed him back, and that's not something two months of essential silence can make disappear.

And then, last night, I kissed him again. I had no intention of going down to his lair, never even seriously considered it before I went down (bullshit. I thought and fantasized about it all the time), and then I couldn't recall why I'd walked down the stairs in the first place. It was well past midnight, he was every bit as shocked to see me as I was to find myself there, and then we were fighting. Verbally assaulting each other as usual, nonsense flowing from our mouths as he climbed out of bed and I let my heart take me closer to him. It seems wrong to say he kept glancing at my lips or I glanced at his here and there; we were probably looking there more than into each other's eyes. He was mid sentence, nothing of importance, when I lunged for him and attached his lips to mine as my fingers slid into his hair. He didn't even pause as his arms wrapped around my back, holding me in such a strong embrace that we were molded together almost instantly. A perfect fit.

And as much as I feel like I shouldn't put this in writing, we didn't just kiss that night. We weren't only molded together through a heated kiss. In all senses, in every single way, we were a perfect fit.

—february 28th

This marks a week that I've been waking up in Max's bed. I've always been an early riser, and while I haven't snuck out while he's asleep and instead wake him up with me and kiss him goodbye, I do manage to slip past Mom and Dad and our siblings back into my own bedroom.

We've almost talked as much as we've done other stuff. I don't always sleep there because I'm already entangled in him and his bedsheets. While our exact situation has been somewhat danced around, I do know the extent of his feelings and he knows how dragged out my denial was — well past the first time we kissed.

We also know more physical things. How well our hands fit together, that his thumb has to be on top but also that the dominance is very much split during sex. We share a lot of the same kinks, and the first time he sucked on my neck I moaned so deeply it ran through my entire body and my toes curled.

(Apparently a week with him has made me feel better about writing out the details. My diary's actually been kept in his room for the past three days.)

—march 17th

He pointed out to me recently that we're over three quarters of the way done with high school. Not much longer until we go off to college — the same college, if his improving grades and our entwinement indicates anything. I've had an overwhelming urge to move my belongings into his room, since that's where I am most of the time anyway, but it'll have to wait. Mom and Dad already think we're studying all the time (thus, the only reason his grades are improving, because I have to tutor him a little bit for it to make sense. I might use some uncouth tactics now, but they're working), so anything of the like would be even more alarming.

—may 5th

Prom's an opportune time to have the most romantic night of your life for most people, and I wasn't about to let Max get out of that just because I'm his sister and we couldn't publicly go to the prom together. He's actually a very romantic person, and when he traces patterns on my back as I'm falling asleep on his chest I'm always reminded how sweet he can be. But prom's an entirely different story. He can't tell his friends he's getting laid without making up some suspicious girlfriend, and I can't tell my friends that I'll be spending the night in a hotel with my boyfriend of three months but brother of eighteen years.

So I fake getting hysterically upset that I'm alone as the night goes on, and Max plays my brother who only sometimes shows he cares instead of the boyfriend who shows he cares every single night, and he whisks me out of the prom. We leave early, I let him assure our friends that he'll take care of me before our parents find me crying so bad, then we're off to a hotel he booked with ridiculous fake names and I have one of the best nights of my life.

—may 30th

The graduation pictures Mom and Dad force us to take together look telling to me. We never smile that intensely with each other, his hands are never that comfortable on my waist. Except they are, and there's a palpable tension between us even in a photo, and some part of me wonders if we've always been that intense when we touch. He smirks at me as if he knows what I'm thinking as we look at the pictures together, and maybe twin telepathy isn't a real thing. But once you have sex and a romantic relationship with your twin, surely things get a little easier to read.

His lair looks like a wreck later, from all of the packing boxes, not us (well, not us yet). He doesn't have to ask me to spend the night. It's unspoken by this point, and after we finish and are curled around each other in a way that makes all the sense in the world, I feel absolutely and utterly content with my life.

I'm not surprised when he tells me he loves me — it's not the first time we've said it either — but it holds a different weight that night. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Secrets aren't new to us.

—july 21st

Max makes the excellent decision of choosing not share his superhero name or color scheme with anyone besides me. Plenty of new heroes are cropping up everywhere, likewise with villains, and our parents have no clue where he fits into the mix. A lot of them match his physical description, and even more have similar witty remarks.

—august 29th

A certain superhero has been frequenting a college girl very often though. Rumors say they have chemistry. A bystander might even have caught them kissing once. ThunderGirl's getting just as much, if not more, action from the same superhero. Apparently he likes a girl in uniform. (I might be wearing it to bed from time to time, if our respective roommates are out).

sorry it gets a little sporadic towards the end, but i kind of like it that way and it's also two am. i might write snippets of the scenes she talks about, like the party, or nye, or when they have sex for the first time or something. prom, graduation? who knows. i want to though.

originally posted on ao3 on 01.01.2020