Hello! This story marks two firsts for me – my first fanfiction and my first attempt at a different, simpler writing style than the one I usually have. As such, reviews would be much appreciated.

In keeping with tradition, I don't own any of the characters though it sure would be cool if I did.

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Spring comes early the year you both turn six; the sun unfolds its brilliant warming rays towards the middle of February, a magnificent golden sphere suspended above the world. Puddles of sunlight bloom a crystalline green on the grass in front of the house, and the sky stretches endlessly, cloudlessly overhead like a turquoise banner, exactly the color you would've picked yourself if it were up to you to choose such things. Breezes that glide through the opened windows and into the sitting room carry the scent of flowers that have freshly emerged from the soil after a winter's hibernation, bursts of eye-watering yellows and reds under the windowsill that chase away the last of winter's gray gloom.

Mum is in her usual spring cleaning frenzy, and as such has shooed you and your twin brother out onto the lawn to play while she works. "Stay where I can see you!" she calls after your retreating backs, though it isn't hard to comply: with the sun glowing as brightly as it is, she'll be able to spot it's light glinting coppery gold on your hair for several yards.

The two of you are crouched in the grass, the long blades brushing against your cheeks, the soil sun-warmed beneath your fingers. Both of you have your eyes set on only one thing, however: the small red butterfly Fred found perched on a stalk of grass, and is now holding in one cupped hand.

He trails his pudgy little fingers along the edges of the butterfly's delicate wings, smirking in a way that you can't make sense of. Taking your gaze from his face, which in all honesty is making you feel a little uneasy, your eyes fall instead to the butterfly resting in his palm as it beats its beautiful red wings ineffectually. Briefly, a memory surfaces in your mind, faded and blotchy like a watercolor painting left out in the sun too long, but focused enough that you can recall the specifics: your father grasping your fingers gently, steering them away from a butterfly resting in a patch of sunlight. "You should never touch a butterfly, especially its wings," he had warned in a tone that still held kindness even when admonishing. "A butterfly's wings are covered in tiny feathers, and when you touch them they fall off. Then the butterfly can't fly anymore. And if it can't fly anymore, it'll die."

It occurs to you that this is something Fred out to know, and it'll have to be you to tell him since Dad has obviously never told him about butterflies. "Fred-" you begin, your words already gathered and assembled in your head and just waiting to be said – only to die on your lips a second later when the hand holding the butterfly clenches shut into a fist. There's a small crunch of wings splitting and crumpling, of slender antennae snapping, of a life extinguished beneath Fred's fingers, before the world around you falls hushed as if muted by your own shock at what you've just seen.

When his fingers unfold again, splaying in the brisk spring air, the butterfly's wings are no longer beating against his palm. They lie in pieces, shattered shreds of scarlet scattered like drops of blood quivering on his skin. It's body has been pulverized, smashed and twisted amongst the destroyed wings.

"Fred!" This time his name is a high-pitched exclamation, surprising raising your voice several notches higher than usual. The broken husk in his palm makes your stomach squirm, but for some reason you can't draw your eyes away from it.

"What?" With a sweep of his hand, the butterfly falls to the earth. "It's just a stupid little thing. Nothing important." When you raise your eyes towards his face you notice, with a squeeze of something that feels like revulsion, that a self-satisfied grin has replaced the smirk that lay there before. Wiping his hand on the leg of his jeans, he steps neatly around you and starts across the lawn toward the house.

"Do me a favor though, and don't tell Mum," he mutters in your ear as he passes by. "Okay? She'd be mad if she knew, and I'd get in trouble. And then I'd be mad, Georgie-porgie."

Your ears don't miss the threatening undertone to his voice, like a jagged knife wrapped in pretty purple velvet. Besides, you know what happens to you when you tattle on Fred: you've only done it once, but the resultant bruise he gave you when he found out what you did splotched your skin green and yellow, a painfully pulsing reminder to keep your lips tight shut from that point forward. You learned then that the best thing for you is to go with whatever he tells you to do, or at the very least, not try and stop him from doing exactly what he wants.

The door clicks shut behind him as your gaze drops one last time to the butterfly's empty shell strewn on the ground. Crouching even lower to stay out of sight, in case he would happen to look out the living room window and see you, you smooth a handful of soil over it's body like a warm and earthy blanket. Patting it neat and flat, you get to your feet and run toward the house after your brother before Mum can wonder where you've gone to.

* * *

"Give me that." A hand extending towards you, fingers wiggling expectantly, the voice sounding over your head carrying a tone you recognize well by now – the knife-in-velvet voice, as you've come to know it.

"No." You're careful to keep all shaking, or anything else he could recognize as fear, out of your voice.

"But I want it." The voice has become noticeably sharper, the velvet that usually binds it beginning to tear and show the jagged silver underneath. He isn't used to you saying no, and when you do that's all it takes for his composure to begin cracking.

"Too bad. You got one too you know. Play with yours and leave mine alone." Shifting away from him, you drag your new toy racecar along with you, tightening your fingers around it protectively. It's smooth and sleek, completely free of any scratches or dents, and it's shiny bright blue paint glints through the cracks between your fingers. For yours and Fred's ninth birthdays you have been given a new toy car each, a luxury in a family where most gifts given are either hand-me-downs or homemade sweaters and candies.

"But mine is lousy yellow. I hate yellow. I like yours better. Now give it to me!" If you were to look up at Fred's face right now you know what you would see – clenched fists, teeth practically fused together in fury, eyes severe and slitted –everything to serve as a warning sign that trouble is on it's way for you. Looking into those hateful eyes would shatter what fragments of resolution you have left, and you know it. Directing your gaze firmly downward, you begin slipping the toy car into your pocket hoping this will end the discussion and make him leave you be for once.

The punch that lands squarely in your face a moment later sends a mushrooming of pain rocketing through your brain, and the car flies from your fingers as you topple backwards towards the floor. A short hiss is the only sound you can make through the crashing explosion in your head. The coppery taste that drips onto your tongue and slithers between your teeth lets you know that your mouth has been cut, somewhere. For a moment the only thing you can think of to do is lie there on the floor, sprawled with a rainbow's bouquet of stars popping before your eyes, knowing in the back of your seared thoughts that you look pathetic but finding it hard to care at the moment.

When the swirling stars fade you register that Fred is standing near your splayed feet, and he's dropping something into his pocket – a brief glint of blue before it disappears, and you recognize it's your – his, now – toy car. You're sure you'll feel sad about that in a moment, but at this point all you can focus on is how bad the blood in your teeth tastes and how much you want the stabbing in your head to stopstopSTOP.

"I didn't have to do that," Fred is saying, but in your frantic wishing to purge all thought from your mind, hoping that the pain will whisk away with it, you can barely even register that he's speaking, let alone unravel the meaning of the words. "You could've just handed over the car first and all this would've been avoided. But you like learning things the hard way, don't you?" He goes to leave, but pauses for a moment in the doorway. "Don't tell, okay? Mum wouldn't be happy about this, especially if she heard how rude you just were to me."

His footsteps fall loudly on the creaking stairs as you stay low to the floor, fingers at your lips trying to clean away the trickling blood. When he reaches the landing you hear his voice, stunningly loud for a nine year old and crackling with mirth.

"George'll be down in a minute. He just had a bit of an accident is all – tripped and hit his chin on the dresser. Clumsy Georgie-porgie…but always good for a laugh, eh?"

The burst of laughter from below, of six people chuckling in unison, sets the pain in your head throbbing anew. Ha-ha, you think, wincing with one hand pressed to your forehead as you try and sit up. Strangely enough, you're having a hard time seeing the humor here.

* * *

You're both fourteen, and on the night before school begins Mum makes a pudding for after dinner. She's a great cook, always has been, and tonight it's as though you can't shovel the spoonfuls of whipped cream and chocolate into your mouth fast enough. Fred keeps casting you furtive glances that can't mean anything good, but you're barely aware of this yet.

"Hungry, Georgie?" Mum says kindly, getting to her feet to begin clearing the table. Fred rises along with her, and takes your half-full bowl away as you nod in her direction, mouth too full to speak.

"'Course he is," Fred answers for you, snatching the spoon from your hand. Whipped cream splatters the wall behind him. "He's our little piggy. Georgie-porgie pudding pie!"

He says this quietly enough that you're the only one who hears, but that hardly matters because you're the only one the words were meant for. You feel your ears heat up and you're sure they've turned bright red like they always do when you're upset, an embarrassing habit you've had since you were a baby. Judging by the momentary smirk that flashes across his face before he moves past you and towards the sink, you know they have.

Nobody notices as you rise to your feet and push your chair back into place, your face a reflection of perfect calm and tranquility even while your thoughts thrash in your head like waves tossed in stormy winds. Little piggy? And people always said the two of you were identical. Casting a quick glance sideways at him as you make a quick exit from the kitchen, you see nothing wrong, nothing to say "little piggy" at all.

But as you look down at yourself, all you can see is fat. Disgusting fat jiggling on your arms, flowing over the top of your jeans, blooming out from your legs…you're almost running now that you're out of sight of your family, thoughts thrashing even more wildly and heart galloping against your ribcage so quickly it's almost painful. You make yourself sick. You make everyone sick. And you hate yourself for having not noticed it before.

Once in the bathroom upstairs where you know no one will hear, you throw the lock into place and hunch over the sink. The idea of what you're about to do makes your stomach churn, but you know it's for the best. For you, so you'll stop being so repulsive to look at. For everyone else, so they won't have to look at someone as bloated and disgusting as you are. And maybe if you were just a little bit thinner, Fred would back off some.

Anyways, you keep the thought in your head because what you're about to do is always easier when your stomach is already uneasy.

It takes a few tries, because it's hard to reach the soft place at the back of your throat without gagging and spitting your finger back out first – but after a few minutes pass, all of the pudding you just ate is lying in a disgusting puddle in the sink. Your fingers are stained, your throat and stomach ache, and your head whirls as you grip the countertop and stare at the floor, forcing your breathing to become even again.

From downstairs Fred says something unintelligible, followed by laughter that makes the loose tiles under your feet rattle. Reaching out with one stained and shaking hand, you turn on the sink and let the water run freely, watching it swirl and wash your vomit away down the drain until the laughter stops. You don't want to hear it. It doesn't matter what they're laughing at, though you know it's probably you, the eternal family laughingstock. The only thing on your mind at the moment is how happy they all sound, laughing and carrying on together, perfectly fine without you.

You tell yourself you don't care as you wipe at the annoying moisture clouding over your eyes. You learned to stop crying when Fred hurts you a long time ago, and by now you're not even sure if you remember how crying works. All you know is that it never does anyone any good – least of all you. Besides, you don't want him to know how much the things he does chips away at you, even when it feels like your soul is slowly burning to cinders and your heart is rotting with every nasty word and glare he sends your way. He's trying to break you, and though you may never know why, you know that you won't let him.

Quietly you slip from the bathroom and into your room, where nightfall has sent shadows spilling across the floor and clustering in the corners. Still keeping as silent as possible, you shut the door behind you and lie on your bed as the sound of family harmony continues from below. Nobody comes looking for you.

* * *

You keep wondering when all of it – the small kicks to the ribs and stomach, the slaps on the head, the times he squeezes your arms and shakes you so hard you worry your neck will snap like a flower stem – you wonder when you'll become numb enough to it that it won't hurt anymore. As a few more years go by you wonder if this is all life will ever be, a bloodstained and bitter cycle of perpetual motion, punctuated by bruised skin and scarred arms from the one person who, if all the old sayings about twins are true, should be your best friend. Your soul mate, other half, blah blah blah, without all the goopy romantic crap. You're beginning to doubt if things such as that even exist, and if so, why did God or fate or whoever it is that decides those things pass you up?

More than anything, though, you wonder how the smile stays affixed to your face for so long. Even as, behind your clownish grins and squinted eyes, your psyche becomes more and more fractured with every insult hurled your way and every shove that leaves you breathless on the floor. Even when your lips are sore from being split by Fred's fist the night before, even when the bruises on your arm hidden under your sleeve are fresh and throb ceaselessly, that smile never fades. You have to hand it to yourself, perhaps you're a better actor than you give yourself credit for – all it would take would be for someone to lift a corner of the secrecy blanketing your lives, and all the broken ruins beneath would be revealed instantly. But no one ever even ventures close to it, because of your damn plastic smile, your damn mechanical laugh that never goes quiet.

Neither does his, and you notice that he's the one everyone is immediately drawn to. You may be "the sensitive one," but he's "the witty one" and everyone knows that sensitivity is boring. Fred's the one who makes everyone laugh. Fred's the one who everyone wants to be around. Hell, Fred's the one everyone wishes they could be more like.

Even you.

- - -

I just want everyone to know that this is NOT how I think Fred and George's relationship actually is. This was just one of those ideas that popped into my head and wouldn't go away until I wrote. Thanks for this goes to that random idea and Chevelle's "Wonder What's Next" album for the inspiration, and a bag of gummy worms (perfect brain food.)

Review, por favor?