So, this is a thing, a thing that has been running about my head for a while. It's a very annoying, persistent thing, and methinks it will probably be updated more often than my other works. Sorry!
Lukas pulled the edges of his coat tightly around him as he marched briskly down the avenue. He made a mental note to ask his mother to get out the winter coats; even though it was hardly October yet, it had already begun to feel like nature was losing its fragile grip on life for the year, and it had snowed only the day before. Admittedly none of it actually stuck to the ground, but it was still definitely snow, so light it didn't make a sound against his wide, embellished umbrella.
Said umbrella was bumping lightly against his hip uselessly as the sky threatened to make him use it. Still, despite not currently having a practical use, it stood out against the grey surroundings, proclaiming loudly for anyone who wanted to hear that he was Lukas Bondevik. The same could be said for any umbrella held in the hands of a passer-by. Lighter colors were in fashion right now, and you could easily tell how deep someone's pockets were by the amount of outlandish decoration that stood out on the mobile shelter.
The Murphys color coordinated, a mellow shade of orange, with a light purple for their kids. They also had black lacy spirals making gothic melting icicles when it was really pouring. David Manson was famous for being confused with a traffic cone, the neon yellow drawing eyes left and right when it rained. Not that his beard didn't do that anyway… Some of the really wealthy people in town went as far as getting customized crests emblazoned on theirs, like his parents for example.
His parents, now they were an interesting story. Through some stroke of luck -and probably a bribe to be honest- his great grandfather became rather good acquaintances with the Fuhrer, and was appointed to a high position in parliament after the first uprising after he 'warned the Fuhrer of an assassination plot'. At first Lukas had been surprised at finding his own family in a history book, and wondered how many people would find their name in an official record of the past, but then assumed if someone who was just a little boy could do that, then it must be rather common. He wondered how many people he passed on the streets had parents and grandparents who were heroes in the rebellion. It didn't occur to him that the bad guys portrayed in the books had names too. It had always seemed that they were obscured by the writer, just out of reach. His grandfather's position had simply been passed down through the generations, more as an honorary thing than anything solid. Soon it would go to him, Lukas thought queasily.
He would be able to take the public front, as well as the money, and keep his little brother out of the public eye. Not to say that the publicity would pass him by completely, however little Emil certainly took after his older brother when it came to his "outgoing" nature. Meaning, he wasn't. Both of them would much prefer sequestering themselves away in the family library and reading the days away with well-kept books and warm, puffy couches, not having to say a word to anyone besides each other. Most of their communication was tacit and almost telepathic anyway.
Lukas's dedication was second to no one else's when it came to his brother, and despite their reclusive nature, the bond between the boys was almost as famous as their parents' reputation. Anyone who knew of the Bondeviks knew of the twins. Despite the fact that they weren't twins, when they were awake they were almost exclusively together, a look shared between them the only thing necessary for them to make a decision. People started to refer to them as just 'the Bondevik twins' or some variation thereupon when they saw them.
When Emil had turned 5, their parents decided that it was time for each of the boys to have their own room, but within an hour of their bedtime, Emil was found sleeping soundly by his brother's side in the small bed left for Lukas. Eventually it was just left to them to determine their living arrangements, and sure enough, they took the queen bed that had been in the guest room, and moved back into the same room.
Now that they were older though -Lukas at 17 and Emil at 13- they had two separate beds, still in the same room however. They still fought over simple things, as siblings are bound to do, and each had developed a rhythm to their day that worked around the other's. Books were common ground, and each had their own bookmarks so as to not lose their place when the other read. The floor was littered not with clothing or toys, but many, many books.
A gust of arctic wind brought Lukas from his thoughts and he quickened his pace as he approached a small oak door inset in a relatively monotone red brick wall. It wasn't much, and would likely have been overlooked by the average observer in favor of the two bright shops to either side of it. With no sign in sight, it could easily have been mistaken for a practical joke, a door that lead to nothing, or simply another entrance to one of the neighboring stores. But Lukas knew better. So did Emil. As he opened the door and closed it quickly to avoid letting in the cold, the rain started pouring down right where he had been standing.
It wasn't surprising though, the rain had been elusive for far too long, and it was making the people of the town very jumpy. The soft sound echoing through the walls soothed Lukas as he ascended a very plain skinny staircase. He met another door at the top of the stair and opened it cautiously, attempting to be as quiet as possible.
"Hello Lukas." The voice came from a tuft of brown hair poking up from the back of a deep armchair in the left corner of the room. He hadn't even looked up. 'How does he do that?!' Lukas sighed and walked into the mildly lit room. Every wall was lined to the celling with bookshelves, and the wall opposite the door had a small patio overlooking the shops below it, but the doors were closed most of the time to keep the rain out. In the middle of the room facing the patio was a coffee table surrounded by a long couch and two armchairs that groaned with the wind outside when you sat on them. There were also two neighboring tall lamps, out of a total of five that were the only illumination other than the light from the patio. Books and coffee stains on loose pieces of paper covered a reception desk to Lukas's immediate left with three armchairs scattered about the room. Lukas sunk into the one by his friend, who still had yet to look up from the thick tome in his hands.
"What a surprise," Lukas began sarcastically. "I never expected to find you here Heracles." Truth be told he never expected him to be here without… Oh, never mind. A small white cat proceeded to take an interest in the newcomer and jumped up on his lap demandingly. Heracles shared the brother's tendency to avoid people, but more for the sake of sleep and the company of cats than for any dislike of the public.
Heracles was the owner of this small book nook, running it as an addition to the pet shop downstairs. While it didn't make any money, acting merely as a library, he spent most of his time at the top of the skinny staircase, preferring to let his demure friend from the east run the "business" part of his life. He just kidnapped the cats and took them as companions in the small room of books while he read. It worked well for him, not many people noticed the obscure door, and those who did tended to be like minded in just wanting a quiet place to read and slow down in life.
Emil was actually the one who had discovered the place. Four years ago in a monsoon of a storm that caused even the hardiest raingoers to seek the indoors, he had made a break for the nearest door, nearly losing his umbrella in the process. He and Heracles got on well from the start and it had taken two hours for Lukas to track him down, sitting amongst the books. It wasn't until he saw the two of them together that Heracles put the pieces together and learned they were Bondeviks. While both Lukas and Heracles were politically astute people, neither were very inclined to entangle themselves in the web of the country's inner workings, especially considering the whispers of a second resistance flitting about the empire. While Heracles was perfectly free to bury his head in the sand, Lukas wasn't so lucky. He did his best to keep his brother away from anything that might be dangerous, but being in the political spotlight didn't make it easy.
After finishing the page he was on and turning it, Heracles got up without a word and went over to the desk. Despite its disarray, Lukas could tell that its owner knew exactly where everything was. A large red book was shoved under his nose when he didn't respond to Heracles's quiet description and he took it without preamble.
"Was it hard to find?" Lukas asked in his normal monotone.
"I have my connections. It may not be on the fuhrer's reading list, but it isn't banned. Yet." The two of them shared an uncomfortable silence. Lukas had learned through his excessive childhood study that before the first uprising, the rebels had been printing secret propaganda, and that the Fuhrer had started to ban the poisonous text. Of course he learned later that it was hard to identify these books and that many were banned that had nothing to do with anything. In Lukas's opinion, blind stamping of a foot to kill an ant was an ineffective and perilous way to run a government.
Not that he was one to judge, he had never run a country before, and to be honest, he didn't want to. But if it came to that, he would do anything to protect his brother. Maybe it was an overreaction, but all he wanted was for Emil to be able to live a happy life. Have him marry a nice girl, have a few kids, and get to read all the books he could ever want. He already knew that there was a girl in his year at his school that he was crushing on, and he was hard pressed to not prod his brother into asking her on a date.
Of course for him, he doubted a future like that would be possible. Not only was his prospective career going to take up most of his time, but he didn't really take an interest in girls. When he had hit puberty, his body had woken up to the idea of intimacy with another person, but it had decided that, no actually girls were weird and baffling and a little bit concerning. He couldn't bring himself to look at them as more than walking, talking others. He could appreciate their aesthetic, but not their sexual appeal.
But it was no use dwelling on things he couldn't change. He would settle for being the uncle that spoils his niece or nephew. His brother's family could be the warmth that would fill his parent's large house, instead of him living alone there after his parents passed… but that wouldn't happen for a long time, he still had to reach the age of twenty to be old enough to even start worrying about that sort of thing. As would Emil. Hopefully he would lose the awkward nervousness he exhibited around small children, but Lukas had to admit, imagining his brother holding a child he had no idea what to do with was highly entertaining.
"Knowing your brother," Heracles broke his train of thought. "He'll have finished that before the end of the week." Lukas nodded. His brother loved ancient history –despite fervently denying it anytime he was asked- and the book he was holding was one of the few surviving books that held accurate knowledge about the Before. It seemed that anything that wasn't about their own country held little of the public interest.
"I'm sure he'll have questions for you when he's done." Emil and Lukas always had long discussions about the books they read, but it always seemed that the only one with concrete answers was Heracles.
"I'll be happy to answer them." He smiled politely, and after a pause that dictated the end of their conversation, turned around and began to pick his way back to his chair.
The rain had let up, but showed no signs of stopping anytime soon as Lukas stepped out of the mysterious door and opened his umbrella with the book tucked safely under his arm. Everything about rain soothed him. The sunlight was really a bother, it made him squint his eyes and look even more pissed than his usual facial expression. But rain was peaceful, when he was younger he believed it could wash away all the bad things in this world, and even now that he knew it was just water, and had no magical properties, it still made him feel that everything was okay.