If you're looking for a happy story, with a cute, safe little town, a loving family, and the guarantee of a happy ending, you would be better off reading some other story. Though I can guarantee a small but loving family, the beginning is rather dreadful, the end melancholy, and the middle is downright despicable.
However, if you enjoy stories containing two ridiculously clever boys, a set of heartwarming, doting and possibly mad science nerds, a fluffy white cat with big shiny black eyes, and gummy bears, then please continue.
The day matched the news the Hamada brothers were going to receive.
Rain drizzled from the sky, not enough to bother the two, but enough to chill their skin and to mist across their cheeks. The skies were gray, as usual, like murky paint water after all the brushes have been washed out. Tadashi, the eldest by seven years, promised his little brother he would teach him how to skip a rock today. That's why they stood at the lake now, shoes covered in wet sand, footprints implanted in the damp ground, rock after rock splashing across the silvery surface of the pond.
Tadashi had been shaking his head and laughing as Hiro once again stomped his foot, huffing at another rock that failed to actually skip and just plummeted to the bottom of the lake. The eight-year-old, determined, ran to the back of the beach where the sand sloped upward and the tall grass began to grow, catching the wind currents that bounced off the waters.
Hiro, bright but painfully stubborn, ran into the weeds to find another flat rock. The sound of the grass grazing against each other was hushed against the sound of the lake lapping back where his older brother stood, and the birds cawing over the air. He hardly noticed when a man, his shape similar to a marble due to a very round belly, approached him.
"Are you the youngest Hamada?"
The boy gasped, head shooting up from his search. The childish excitement vanished as the stranger came closer. Hiro looked down at his shoes, hands tightly wrapped in the fabric of his pants, nodding.
"Where's your brother?"
"Dashi!"
The eldest whipped his head at the nickname, which, now that Hiro was older and more than capable of producing all the correct syllables, was strictly used when he was distressed. At the sight of the man he narrowed his eyes, but kept his walk calm when he noticed the stranger making no advancement on his brother.
"What's wrong?" he asked, subtly placing himself between Hiro and the man with the bulging torso. Instantly the child latched onto his brother's trousers, peeking his head of bushy black hair out curiously. Tadashi, knowing his brother was safely behind him, placed a hand on the boy's head and regarded the man.
Suddenly the man's hat was in his hands, its brim bending as he wringed it between his fists. His fidgety eyes refused to look the teen in the eyes, sending a flare of dread into Tadashi's stomach.
"There's been a…an…unfortunate accident."
Tadashi's hand gripped his brother's hair a bit tighter, mind subconsciously understanding the words but denying them at the same time. The man, solemn, bowed his neck briefly before the brothers, trying to show his sympathy. The teen looked emotionlessly back, finally shaking out of his thoughts when he was gestured to follow the plump man in a suit.
By the time they reached the house, the charred wood was soggy, the chilled water sizzling as it touched the burning parts, small puffs of smoke disappearing in the air.
Tadashi physically couldn't move. Their house had been grand, big enough for a giant library to keep both boys' busy minds occupied and for a lab in the cellar, where the boys weren't to go as their parents worked. The winding staircase was but a skeleton, boards a deep black color, some missing, and parts of the railing dangling onto thin pieces of threaded wood. The walls were gone, revealing each room through a stripped frame that once held up the wall. Like someone had thought about building a house and then stopped.
As he finally began to move, stalking slowly through the burned remains like a ghost, it only got worse. He wasn't sure if he was the blackened house that made tears come to his eyes, or the singed up objects within the house. A family photo that once held four grinning faces was now burnt up at the edges, a book his father had been reading to him and Hiro before bed barely had its cover left, and, to his dismay, him and his brother's prized inventions (mere trinkets he believed them to be, for they were tiny and nothing was rather extraordinary about them besides the time spent bonding to make them) were melted and bubbled in places they were not supposed to be.
Without thinking he ran to what would have been the reading room. Diving to a small trunk in the corner, he prayed that its thick mahogany walls protected the inside contents. He flung open the top, breathing in slight relief when he saw the giant scrapbook, was fine—stinking of smoke, but fine. The teen turned to the page he had dog-eared once, referring to it when he was down or simply feeling nostalgic (a rather weird and rare thing for a fifteen year old, proving a certain type of maturity beyond his years). His nimble fingers reached into the clear wrap of the page, pulling out his favorite photo and holding it close.
A pained cry interrupted his very brief and very bitter peace. Tucking the photo into his pocket, instantly he was up and sprinting toward the sound.
"Hiro?" he called, wincing as his foot hit a board too hard as it broke from under him. He cursed, pulling his foot out and calling again.
Sniveling could be heard from another corner in the house, and that's where Tadashi saw Hiro, bent over something and examining his hand.
The concerned brother approached the little one, gently putting a hand on his shoulder. Big, doe-brown eyes turned to meet him, glistening with tears the eight year old was trying so very hard not to spill by gouging his teeth into his lip. He sent an accusatory glare down at the object, sniffling.
"It burnt me," he said, holding out his fingers.
"What did? Let me see." Tadashi got on his knees to level himself with Hiro and took the hand offered to him. They were small, but the tips of Hiro's fingers were a raging red. He clicked his tongue, rubbing a thumb along the boy's palm. "Hold it out to the rain. Let the water help, okay?" Hiro nodded, spreading his fingers and letting the water hit them.
Tadashi, satisfied his brother would be fine, looked at the object. It was a metal sphere, and to his amazement completely unharmed by the fire. It looked to be made of copper, and was divided into a countless number of layers that swiveled and moved as the teen turned it. A series of clicks signaled something was happening as they moved, but the heck if Tadashi knew.
However, being the curious thing he was, he pocketed it, determined to examine it later.
"Can we find mom and dad?"
Tadashi's head shot up, looking in shock at his brother. "What? You want to what?"
Hiro looked at him with an eyebrow raised, confused. "Find mom and dad. It's cold, and I wanna go inside somewhere."
The older brother dropped his tense shoulders, completely defeated. He looked at Hiro with sad eyes, shaking his head. "Hiro, listen," he whispered, reaching for the little one's shoulders.
Hiro yanked away. "Listen to what? I'm cold, Dashi, let's leave, find mom and dad…"
The child began rambling, sinking his brother's heart further. Hiro was a smart kid, Tadashi knew. He constantly came home to the little runt disabling this or that, or to another tutor stomping out and refusing to work with such a smart-aleck. He just recently built a mechanism that allowed him to see in the dark without a flashlight, and spent days assembling a very complicated set of bells and pulleys and slides that could feed the fish when it needed to be fed. He was eight and, despite the fact he only really started talking when he was five, could hold a conversation better than most people Tadashi's age.
This reaction, however, was the painful reminder that he was still eight.
"Hiro," Tadashi whispered again, placing his wet palms on his brother's cheeks. Even when the boy tried to pull away, Tadashi kept a tight hold, forcing Hiro to look at his eyes and stop struggling. His coffee colored eyes were blown wide, and he gulped.
"What?" he mumbled, tiny hands coming up to grip the other's wrists.
Tadashi pulled him closer, wiping a raindrop away that landed on Hiro's cheek. He saw the child's chest heaving with breath, and the utter panic he saw building in his little brother made tears prick at his eyes.
He shook his head, voice still low. "You know where mom and dad are, Hiro."
Hiro didn't react at first, still heavily breathing. And then his eye brow twitched, his fingers dug deeper into Tadashi's wrist. He watched the water line the bottom of Hiro's big brown eyes, and the way his little brother's teeth once again dug into his bottom lip to stop himself from crying. The elder yanked the child to his chest before he could watch the tears fall, wrapping his arms around his brother's tiny frame in an effort to shield him from anything and everything.
Tiny hands came around his back, fisting into his white shirt. Tadashi lowered his head over Hiro's, completely hiding the child from view unless one looked really closely. He nuzzled the mop of hair, comforted by the familiar crow's nest. He held Hiro tighter when he felt the little chest constrict and start to heave.
Tadashi, too, would claim the two damp marks on his shirt were from the rain when Hiro told him they were.
Then they found themselves in a car. A car that very much smelled like cheap air fresher and wet animal, to the two's distaste. A single red suitcase was situated between the boys, filled with some used clothes (that smelled like rotten vegetables, Hiro blurted before Tadashi shushed him), some salvaged items, and the metal ball they were so curious about. The photo stayed in Tadashi's pocket.
"You'll enjoy this house, boys. Lots of things to explore," the gray-haired man called from the front, looking in the rearview mirror.
Tadashi tried to smile back, briefly meeting the eyes of their case-worker. He had stayed with the boys for the past few days as they struggled to find some type of relative or friend that would take them in.
Ends up they didn't have any other relatives. They feared being split up in foster homes until a man from their parents work graciously swept in and declared himself their guardian over a series of dramatic poses and snot-filled tissues. Their case-worker had appeared relieved as he heard of this exuberant man.
The car stopped, startling both boys out of their thoughts. Tadashi stared out the window, an interested, relieved smile coming to his face.
He gestured to his brother. "Come look at this, Hiro." The little boy clambered over to his brother's side, face pressed up against the glass as he too stared.
The house was quaint—a little home with blue shudders and peonies in the windows. Bushes lined the side of the house, made up of honey-suckle and bright pink roses and lavender. In the middle stood a fountain, with two small blue birds chattering away as they cleaned themselves. Hiro thought it looked like a house out of one of the fairy tales his mother insisted on reading him.
Tadashi smiled, opening the door. He grabbed the suitcase then helped his little brother out, holding is hand. "See? This won't be so bad."
The young man felt a tap on his shoulder, and looked up to meet the gray kind eyes of their case worker. He smiled down gently, then pointed to the other side of the street. "Not this house, son. Across from here."
Tadashi nodded, and then visibly paled as he saw the actual house. Hiro's grip on his hand tightened.
Give, the house was certainly bigger, but that definitely made it look more ominous. Three stories tall, the house was lined with glass windows that were either cracked or gone entirely. The wood was so old it no longer looked like wood, but had a faint greenish tint to it that looked like moss. Once upon a time, Tadashi was sure someone had tried to furnish the lawn with plants, but now all that was left was the scraggly dead branches of the bushes reaching up the walls of the house, and a single, tall, naked white tree in the middle of a brown lawn. The boy nearly jumped out of his skin when one of the precariously hanging shudders fell, landing in one of the dried up bushes.
Hiro's voice finally pulled Tadashi out of his horrified stare, but it wasn't comforting.
"…think Snow White over there will let us sleep over?"
Author's Note: Please read for warnings!
So here it is. The 'Series of Unfortunate Events' AU nobody asked for but I've been dying to write.
Things may be confusing now (specifically the part where I said they have no living family) but as you endure the twists and turns with me everything will make sense.
But! Here are the warnings.
One: You'll meet all the characters throughout the story, I swear. However, I do need to say that there will be character deaths and I'm really sorry if you like those characters. However, in order for it to be a Series of Unfortunate Events AU, people need to die like in the books.
Two: This will be considerably darker than the Series of Unfortunate Events. Possible gore. Maybe some curse words. I'm doing this cause I almost want to do an upped version of the books, but they were written for a very young age, so I'll be writing for a more mature audience.
Three: There will be no pairings. I mainly want to focus on Tadashi and Hiro as brothers, so I don't want to really add any romance.
I believe those are my few warnings. I'm planning on updating every few days, so please stick with me!
Side note: This story will be in the world like a Series of Unfortunate Events—like a modernized Victorian age, if that makes any sense. Its going to be a made up time period with super advanced technology but Victorian clothing and houses and stuff. The eeriness of it kind of makes the story.
NEXT CHAPTER: There will definitely be some more action between the brothers as they meet their first (and worst) caretaker. This chapter was more of a set-up, if not prologue. Hiro's gonna be a little sassy-ass monster, cause it's kind of adorable.
Let me know what you think, or if you have any ideas!