Mable: This is a request fic for Nightmare Kohona; I hope I did well! This is my first time tapping into this couple so I hope to do it justice. It's a little short, but I may do another 4/3 fic in the future. I don't own 9, Enjoy!

Pondering Siblinghood

They were twins so they could trust each other with anything. Even with Three male and Four female, they were quite similar, and loved the same things. Reading, writing, studying, collecting; every day was a quest for knowledge for the twins. Browsing through old newspapers weren't their sole means for learning either, neither were the books. Sometimes they actually decided to experiment as well. A long while back they had ran at each other with wooden sticks and tried jousting, last month they had attempted to learn the Foxtrot, and now here came a new curiosity.

They were merely reading a book when they came upon a scene between a man and a woman. The two were in love and now confessing such attraction before they leaned in and did a very confusion action. Three gawked and Four raised her stitched brows high as they read about the two putting their lips together. It was taboo and they curiously looked back through everything they could about the action. It was a mystery and they quickly searched out the name of the action.

'Kissing' was promptly looked up in the dictionary and was soon denoted as a romantic gesture. Two people could put their mouths together to signal that they had loved each other. This seemed simple enough to them and they decided to continue their work. However, Four was distracted, and Three knew it. So eventually they stopped reading and he confronted her on the matter. She seemed shy explaining what was wrong and he soon understood why; she wanted them to try kissing each other.

Three warned that it was supposed to be done between two people who loved each other and Four innocently responded that, as twins, they did love each other. She rocked upon her heels and looked down innocently. She knew what he had really meant and pretended to be oblivious to it. He had really meant that mates were supposed to kiss, not twins, not siblings, and so he seemed to slowly be prodded until he finally agreed that they should try it quick to see what it was like for future reference.

He leaned in, his sister shyly followed, and their lips briefly touched. Three doubted that it was supposed to feel as good as it did for twins. No, it felt too good, and it somewhat frightened him. He didn't tell Four though and instead pulled back and smiled, pointing out that now they would know for if any of the others wanted to kiss. Then he had to reassure that he meant if the others wanted to kiss each other, and not the siblings in general, so Four seemed to agree with this thought.

They couldn't get back to work. The novel was simply too awkward to read again and there was nothing else that needed doing instead of cutting out newspaper articles. With every snip of the scissors Three found himself slowly reverting back to the kiss. It was so strange that he couldn't stop thinking about it. The tingling, the warmth, and the fact that he cheated and did it with his twin instead of a mate. Logic suggested that this wouldn't feel the same, but it felt fantastic. This either meant that the gesture was that amazing or that he actually kissed his sister like a mate.

He nearly snipped the head off of a human in the photo he was cutting out of the burst of alarm. He couldn't believe that he actually thought of Four, his other half, is such a way. It was almost unclean since his sister was so innocent and he, clearly, wasn't. He swallowed it down and began to work once again. It wasn't the end, though, and once they were pasting he was met with it once again. This time Four initiated the curiosity. They were merely brushing the back of the picture with paste, the kind that would dry and secure the article to the book, when Four spoke.

She pointed out shyly that she had liked the kiss, out of the blue, and asked if it was wrong. Three was now the one to gawk at his twin before pondering the thought and answering with an honest answer; he had no idea. They both felt awkward and strange around each other and there was nothing they could do. That's when Four suggested that it was because they were no longer children anymore. Everyone thought they were, but they were technically older than even Nine. Three agreed and pointed out how unfair it was to them that they were considered perpetually children.

Four then make a shocking suggestion; that they were old enough to kiss each other if they wanted to and that nobody could tell them not to. Three looked clearly surprised at such a thought and Four went sheepish, repeating again that they knew they loved each other, so that it shouldn't be wrong for them to be together. Three's optics widened in alarm as he suggested that it sounded like Four wanted them to be mates. His twin stared back in alarm, going silent, they were quiet. Even as mutes, their chatter of flickering optics died.

Three tried to return to pushing the picture against the book, evening it out until his twin came and assisted him. There was tension between them. That's when Four quietly mentioned that the others would never see them as adults. They would never have mates anyway at this rate. This took Three for a loop, but not as much as when his sister started to cry afterwards, softly weeping into her hands. Three couldn't say that the realization didn't upset him as well. Four was completely right; none of the others would ever see them as adults.

He reached out and embraced his sibling, tucking her head under his chin, and gently caressing under her hood. He wouldn't deny that he loved her more than anything. A complicated love, yes, but did love her more than anything. That's when he pointed out that, being created by the same Creator, they were all siblings technically, but the others still were finding mates. Better still; human rules couldn't apply to them. They weren't made of flesh, their similarities didn't run any deeper than their appearance, which was judged by their Creator.

This was a hopeful thought and Four looked to him desperately. Silently asking it that meant he was willing to consider them being in a relationship, being mates, and being more than just two doppelgangers.

Three answered with another soft kiss.

FIN

Mable: I still take request fics if anyone else is interested and have a few that, honestly, I need to catch up on. *rubs back of neck* So expect those soon. I hope everyone enjoyed!