Inseparable, the short film, from Charlie's perspective. I apologize for any errors, this was written on my lunch break. As usual, I own nothing.
Rating: K+
Implied character death.
...
He hadn't always been the bad twin. The Failure.
When they were children, Joe had been the awkward one. The little boy who always tripped over his own feet. Charlie had been the golden child. Captain of the Swim team and Valedictorian. When they had gone to college not much had changed. They both received good grades, but Charlie was outgoing and popular, whereas Joe was shy and withdrawn. They had both graduated in the top of their classes, tied, actually, since the twins had majored in accounting.
They both went on to work at a large well-known firm. Charlie had been the rising star again, finding all the glory while Joe worked steadily and quietly in the shadows.
And then Charlie messed up. For the first time in his life, he hadn't been five steps ahead of everyone else. He trusted the wrong people, fell in love with the wrong woman, and the results had been catastrophic. Within a year he had lost everything, his friends, fancy loft, and tailored designer clothes.
He was nothing. A sot and a gambler with nothing to show for it. He lived in a tiny box of a loft that his brother paid for and only showered when he couldn't stand the smell of sour beer and stale sweat any longer.
Joe fell in love with the right woman.
Joe made a modest living, but was trusted and loved by his friends and co-workers.
Joe had a son, a darling little boy that looked so much like their own baby pictures.
Joe…was dying.
Charlie could see it in the face that looked at him across the café table. The hopelessness in his twin's eyes matched what he saw in the mirror most mornings, but it was a look he had never before associated with Joe. Pale fingers nervously tapped a sheet of paper next to the cheap china cup.
"Please…" Joe's voice cracked and Charlie jerked away from the desperation he heard there. His twin swallowed, "Charlie?"
Do you know what you're asking of me? Charlie wanted to scream at his brother, but of course Joe did. This was the man's family he was about to hand over to the sloppy hands of his not-entirely-sober brother. They had discussed this before, when Joe called to tell him about the tests, but Charlie had never expected it to really happen.
How had it come to this? Charlie wondered and passed a hand through his dirty hair, causing the blonde strands to stick up in odd directions.
He studied his twin's blank face. Joe had mastered the 'stiff-upper-lip' in high school when people used to confuse them with each other. Charlie's friends occasionally mistook the older twin for the younger and he knew that Joe had probably been on the receiving end of more than his fair share of crazy stories and dirty jokes. Despite the affected stoicism, the corners of Joe's mouth were pinched and Charlie recognized the pain in the expression.
He blew out a deep breath and Joe smiled. A brittle acknowledgement of his brother's acquiesce.
"It's gonna be all right," Joe said later as Charlie sawed at long hairs with a quickly dulling pair of scissors.
The younger man snorted in reply to his brother's catch-phrase-how many times had he heard Joe say that over the years?-and they returned to silence as they exchanged appearances.
Just before they left the locker room, Joe handed him an envelope. Charlie raised an eyebrow in askance.
"My information," Joe said quietly.
Charlie glanced inside; bank card, insurance documents, and other important paperwork; "I didn't—"
"I don't…" Joe picked absently at a loose thread on the cuff of Charlie's old jacket, now his. "I won't need any of yours."
Charlie stared after his twin as the man walked ahead of him to the car. Slowly, he folded the envelope and put it inside Joe's, now his, suit jacket pocket.
…
Charlie flinched as his brother's heavy hand settled on the back of his neck. Comforting him. As if he was the one dying.
"Where will you go?"
"Does it matter?" Joe looked at him and smiled the small tight lipped smile that Charlie could remember seeing so often.
Joe's smile. The one way their mother always said she could tell them apart, if all else failed, was by the way they smiled. Joe rarely showed his teeth when he smiled, polite even when happy, and Charlie smiled like he lived, exuberantly.
Charlie shook his head. "I suppose not."
Joe squeezed the back of his neck and Charlie looked at him. All he could see in his brother's hazel eyes was grief and gratitude. The gratitude made the bile in his stomach claw its way up his throat.
"It's gonna be all right," He parroted back at Joe. His twin gave him a firm hug and Charlie could already feel the brittleness in his bones. Suddenly, he didn't want to let go. He wanted to tell Joe that they could work this out together, find a way around this mess.
But he couldn't do anything more than watch as his twin walked away.
Charlie wondered if he could have done it. If he could have given up his own life for his family's happiness. For his son.
No. No, he couldn't have. He was too selfish and too cowardly for that.
He was, after all, the bad twin. The Failure.
Charlie didn't know what made him wear Joe's glasses as he walked toward the house. The boy wouldn't question the lack of glasses and if he did, a simple "I don't need them anymore" would have worked with the child's logic to explain it away. Co-workers would accept that he got contact lenses. Jean would be told the real story, of course, but there was no need for subterfuge now. No reason for him to wear the glasses.
That was a lie, he decided, pausing on the walk up to the door. He had put on the glasses to see, even if it only lasted for a moment, if he really could be Joe. If he could fool the world into thinking he was a decent and good person. That was what made him put them on, human nature, sick curiosity, whatever you wanted to call it.
The why left an ugly taste in his mouth.
As if any good and decent person would try to trick a woman into thinking another man was her husband or fool a child by pretending to be his father.
That's why Joe came to him. Charlie could always be counted on to do the devious thing.
He almost reached for the glasses, to take them off, to abandon at least a part of the shame that would be coming when the truth was told, but before he could do it the door opened.
Jean, his brother's beautiful wife stepped out. She was smiling, a tender 'hey there you, what's new?' gesture that surely would have comforted even a dying man.
He tried, for her, for both of them, to smile like Joe did. It was easy, wasn't it? Just a soft upturn of the lips.
He knew by the way her own smile collapsed and she sank to the steps that he had failed.
Charlie could see the confusion and pain in her eyes. The stunned 'why?' she telegraphed at him.
He knew that she had probably thought it a joke at first, like when the twins swapped places at the rehearsal dinner, but when Joe didn't step forward immediately… Jean had realized something bigger was happening. Charlie saw the connection in her eyes, between Joe leaving that morning for the doctor's office and the degenerate twin's presence on her doorstep this evening.
Before he could say anything, he didn't know what he would have said, the little boy appeared. The child flew down the walk, happy to see his father, and wrapped his little arms around Charlie's legs.
Charlie stared down at that tiny smiling face and couldn't help but see the resemblance to Joe. Carefully, he gathered the child up into his arms. "It's gonna be all right," He murmured, more to himself than the boy.
And it would be. Joe always made everything alright.
Joe was the good twin. Not a failure.
...
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