I have been spending way too much time on the kink meme. This sort of came to me. Oh well. Not well written but I just had to get it down.
Warnings: AU, Genderbending?, child abuse, death
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
There were two
In the beginning there were two.
Freckles speckled haphazardly against pale skin. Short stubby hair, bright orange that glistened even in the darkened lights, and muddy brown eyes.
They were identical in almost every way. Even mother couldn't tell them apart.
Walter was the strong one, always looking out for Wanda. Even when they were young, speaking gibberish that only they could understand, he always stood up for her. He learned to speak 'normally' first, voicing what she could not herself. He always made sure that she was fed even if the food was too sparse and never filled her grumbling stomach. And when the men came he shielded her from their gazes, from their hands. Even from mother.
Alone in the dark gloom of their cramped room, they huddled in their corner, embracing one another in an almost primal way. Tight enough to hurt, but comforting all the same. Lost within a mass of flesh and comfort, unsure of what was what and who was who. Hidden from the world and the horrible noises that came from the thin walls.
He would whisper to her, promising her that everything would be fine. That as long as they were together everything would be alright.
She didn't know how it happened.
She didn't understand why.
But one day there was only one.
She sat in their little corner of their room, grasping at his body, clinging to him as if she could somehow bring life back into his body through sheer will alone. But he kept on growing colder, stiffer, until she could only stare into his hollow dead eyes and beg him to come back. Beg him to take her with him.
When mother came into their room there was no horror in her eyes, no shock, no relief. There was nothing. Something in her twisted that day as mother stood above them, covering them in shadows and darkness, saying nothing and doing nothing.
There was a flicker of confusion in mother's eyes and she opened her mouth to speak. "Walter?" she tried, eyes glossy from the alcohol and something else entirely.
She stared up at mother with wide eyes, tears still staining her cheeks. Her hair was short, just like her brothers. Malnourishment had seen to her lanky, boyish figure, only protruding bones where curves should have been.
They were identical in almost every way. Mother could never tell them apart.
It only took a moment to decide. Walter was always the strong one, the brave one. He was the one that deserved to live and fulfill his dreams, instead of her lingering. There would be no dreams for her, only one alternative given. She knew what happened to women. She knew what she would become. But not Walter. Not him. Her better half in every way.
In an instant her eyes shuddered, emotions clamping down on her identity. Walter was the one who deserved to live. And so he would.
"It's Wanda," she whimpered, voice hoarse from grief, course and low. Almost masculine. "She won't wake up."
Mother grunted and nodded, reaching down to grab at Walter's prone body, tugging harshly when she wouldn't give him up.
She received a slap and an angry shout for her troubles, before finally her brothers' body was forcefully dragged from her clawed grip. She could only watch as mother took his body, carrying him outside of the room never to be seen again. Never to hold her again.
She turned back to their corner with blank eyes, tears slowly falling like pearls from her eyes. And in the darkness, she wrapped her arms around her pretending that it was his and pleaded to the ceiling.
When she (no, not she anymore. Hadn't been a 'she' in a long time) heard of Sylvia Kovacs death all those years later in the Charlton Home for Problem Children, she thought of her brother. Taken from her suddenly and quietly. There had been no fight in the night, not even a whimper. Just a broken body in the silence, hollow and empty, dead eyes gazing eternally at nothing.
Walter looked the man in the eyes with his own steely ones and allowed himself a surge of emotion, of grief and anguish and anger summed up in only one word: "Good."