Dear Reader:

This is a little thing I typed up really quick while the idea was fresh in my mind. It's just a little look into human lives of Al and Mattie. Also, I preemptively apologize for run-on sentences, but I just didn't have to heart to break them up...

Anyways...

I hope you enjoy it.

Read on, lovelies!

"Matt?"

A voice from the kitchen ripped him away from his thoughts.

"Mattie?"

He stood, making his way from his textbooks and papers to the source of the whine. "Yes, Alfred?" he replied to the teenager standing in front of him who did not have a test tomorrow in advanced calculus.

They looked almost exactly alike. His own hair was a tad longer, less unkempt, and a few locks waved a bit at the ends, but their tresses shared a bright, golden hue. The two had matching blue eyes with a twinkle of adventure, framed with practically identical wire-rimmed glasses. Their speech was slightly different – Matt peppered in some of his and his Papa's beloved French and his words didn't even come close to tumbling out of his mouth like his messier sibling – but with a glance out of the corner of a squinted eye, one could easily classify them as twins.

If you noticed the second, of course.

He had become too adept at not being "a bother" or "imposing", his prowess now gratuitous and unwanted. It took a good, long look; a few, but typically many, implications and hints; and the trying of his patience for anyone to notice him.

Sometimes he felt like he was nothing.

He was virtually invisible.

But not to his brother.

No, his brother called on him constantly, almost enough to make up for the loss of contact with others.

He would exclaim "Mattie!" in his loud boisterous voice and Matthew would come to his aid, this time joining his twin by a sink full of soapy water and stacks of unwashed cups, plates, and silverware that had probably sat out for the week while their parents were out in the Swiss Alps or the Brazilian rainforest or maybe even the Saudi Arabian desert or some other great country's renowned landscape on yet another business trip.

"Matt, could you do the dishes for me?"

His sky blue eyes glanced over his brother's shoulder at the bubble-covered piles of dishes strewn haphazardly on the other side of the sink. "But, Al… It looks like you've already done half of them. Why can't you finish them?" Matthew started to turn, but paused at his brother's explanatory plea.

"I think I cut myself," the boy stated, cradling a finger in his other hand as he looked at his brother with pleading eyes and a pitiful frown.

He saw no issue with such an indiscernible cut – it was practically nothing, bringing up his hand to show his brother the scar from a gash he had washed with a couple weeks before.

"I don't see any blood," Alfred cut him off before he could say anything, closely examining his finger once again, "but I think there's a piece of metal in it. Could you please do this for me?"

Face softened a bit, the invisible sibling let out a quiet sigh and said, "Alright, Al."

Al's expression brightened and he said nothing as he bounded away.

Where did he get all this energy? Wasn't he dying just a second ago?

Matthew, blankly staring at the dishes, turned on the water and let it run as he added a bit of soap and began his, well, his brother's work.

This always happened.

There. Some of the cups were done. Those were the easiest.

Not the specific situation of mundanely sponging off beans and salsa from plates.

He had finished the cups and one of ten plates. Great.

Alfred would ask to get out of work by guilting Matthew into doing it for him. He was probably off to play video games, leaving his twin to scrub old food from various plates and utensils.

Half of the plates: check. The other half? Oh, geez.

Matthew took the glassware in his hands and inspected it.

Why couldn't his twin at least rinse off his leftover food? If it were him, the plate would have been wiped clean by a piece of bread; nothing left on it except maybe the thinnest film of residue from a quick rinse under the water, not even a grain of rice – if they had eaten rice, that is. But no. Al wasn't like that. In his hurry to pronounce himself done as if he were some Olympic champion of finishing dinner, he never actually cleaned his plate. Matt was sure half of it was still there, just pushed around to make it seem eaten. Of course, it wasn't like Alfred didn't eat. There were the after-dinner snacks. And the before-dessert snacks. As well as the desserts, after-dessert snacks, second desserts, after-second-dessert snacks, midnight snacks, two o'clock snacks…

Matthew sighed with an amused smirk as he rinsed off the second to last plate.

Let's just say Alfred should stick to his year-round sports teams if he wanted to continue using Matt as a personal decoy in his clubs and classes. And at home, for that matter.

A small chuckle as he got to the assorted forks, knives, and spoons. Oh yeah, there was that spatula he had used for pancakes the other day.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his brother tiptoeing around the kitchen, grabbing a bag of chips and a pack of cookies with as little sound as plastic-wrapped sweets could make.

Focused again on the task at suds-covered hands, he heard an almost imperceptible mumble from behind him.

"…Mercy boo-coo…"

He didn't pause, but glanced in the general direction. "What was that?"

"Nothing."

With a swift closing of a door, Alfred sounded his retreat to the basement.

A smile slid easily across his face, crinkling the corners next to his eyes as he softly uttered, "De rien."

I dunno. I thought it was cute. Mainly because of the French "de rien" meaning "nothing" or "it's nothing", typically in response to some variant of the phrase "thank you". Al's trying to be French because he's thankful and Matt's just like: "Psh, 's'nothin, bro" as he washes dishes like a man...

That's all I got.

Oh!

Thanks for reading!

Merci beaucoup, loves

-babbitz