Two never understood names.
Names were just words that you used to refer to something, and to differentiate whatever it was from something else. Like an apple's name, is 'Apple', and a banana's name is 'Banana'. Two found the use of names to differ him from One mildly offending.
One was his brother, and Two was proud of that.
When One and Two had first been hired by The Merovingian, neither of them had had names. They never socialized with anyone but themselves, though, neither of them particularly liked being part of a conversation, and, since they were connected with a bond that no normal human that did not have a significant other like them would have, they had no need of names.
The Merovingian found this ever so aggravating, and merely, in a fit of annoyance, after trying to get one of them to escort Persephone to the mall, becoming increasingly confused and aggravated when One and Two did not do what he wanted, through no fault of their own, The Merovingian pointed at One, screaming his name, then pointed at Two, screaming his. And thus, they were titled, and One was doomed to a full day of walking around a lingerie store.
Two could feel his brother's depression and unhappiness all the way back at the chateau. One never liked women.
Two found himself, while sitting alone in his favorite chair beside The Merovingian, as the program did his thing, sipping wine and speaking flippantly in french, Two twitched occasionally, feeling cold tingles down his spine, scratching itches that were not his, and feeling his brother's depression weigh him down completely, the chair beneath him creaking under the weight of the pure emotion of woe.
Two was nothing without One. If there was no one, then two would become one, and the next one would become two. But, there was no next one. Two didn't like that idea. He never liked being alone.
One liked his brother, and found their silent conversations that merely consisted with body-language and ever so subtle mental elements soothing, and, without needing to say a word, Two knew that One needed him too.
One was the dominant twin. Born three minutes and forty two seconds before Two. One would look out for Two, because, one without the other, was just wrong. It was like one hand clapping. It just didn't work.
One hand clapping was an odd predicament. Two, not the smarter of the two of them, had tried to get one hand to clap.
It was hard, he found out.
"What are we doing?" came a soft-spoken question by the door.
Two looked up, sitting on a silken cushion on the floor in his and One's room, his right hand raised in front of him. Apparently, One had felt his aggravation when he had yet to try and get one hand to clap, and came to see what he was so annoyed about.
"We are confused." Two replied simply, his voice as soft as his brothers', thin pale lips pursed ever so slightly.
One advanced to Two, silently looking down at his hand, circling him for a moment, before finally coming to a stop at Two's shoulder, staring down at the pale hand before him through dark sunglasses.
Two heard the word 'fingers' in his mind, and he tilted his head to the side, inspecting his own, before slightly flexing them, bending them down so they were placed against the palm of his hand, before outstretched them again.
Two looked up and over his shoulder at One, who raised his own ashen eyebrows at Two in questioning.
Looking back down at his hand, Two batted his fingertips against the palm of his hand, merely hearing a soft 'tap tap tap', receiving a soft twinge of protest from his fingers.
One hand clapping worked, but it hurt.
Why was a hand called a hand, anyway? Two mused this as he sat in the L seat with One, their hookah between them, tenderly smoking and filtering bitter smoke into the air in gently tumbling curls.
Two examined his hand again, an elbow placed against the back of his chair, keen eyes taking in the black nails and silver glittering rings. What did 'hand' mean? Why 'hand'? Why not 'foot' or 'nail'?
'bastard language'
Two looked up at One interestedly. "English is a bastard language...?" he asked slowly under his breath, pale lips moving as little as they could.
One nodded, a coiling breath of smoke gently falling from his lips to mingle with the air.
"Hmm..." murmured the curious twin, eyes behind dark glasses falling upon the hookah. What language was 'hookah' from? What was the use of a name no one understood?
"Arabic." One answered Two's question in a simple voice, pale tongue sweeping across a thin bottom lip, tilting his white face toward Two.
Arabic, huh? Two looked up as a pretty lady in a revealing, but hardly gaudy grey-green outfit winked at them both and swept past. Two felt One cringe.
Nudging the toe of his shoe against One's own, Two felt his brother relax. Though they had never deliberately touched each other, no matter how fleeting, since childhood, it was soothing to have their significant other so close. Something that had come from their time in the womb, One had suspected, constantly touching and being so close to each other had made them very intimate brothers.
Though they were programs, and programs were apparently not born from a woman's womb, but from a typists' fingers, One and Two had been given the thoughts and feelings of two young infant twins from their experience of the womb, the chamber of the fruit of new life. One and Two then were 'born', fully-grown, with that infinity with each other that those baby's had, and the knowledge that their creator had given them. Their 'childhood' was as long as any other childhood. They just looked older than they really were. Learning, growing, intimate relationship between the two of them becoming stronger.
'Intimate'. That was another name. It was a name of something or someone being closely aquatinted, familiar, or close to something or someone else.
One and Two slept on separate beds, though, they were only less than a foot or so apart. One usually awoke to find one of Two's hands gently wound around one of his own wrists, or placed against his ribs. Once, One had found Two had migrated during the night from his own bed, to One's, and had his face snuggled against his chest, his arms gently around One's waist. But, One had to admit, he was very comfortable when he awoke. Again, something passed down from 'their' time in the womb together.
One didn't particularly feel the need to awake Two until he really thought The Merovingian would kill them for sleeping in. Six hours late wasn't that bad, was it?
'The Merovingian'. What kind of name was that?
The name hit Two one night as he was getting ready to go to sleep, sitting on his bed, sunglasses yet to leave his nose, listening to the noises of One in the shower.
'The' at the start of a name usually meant nobility and/or the fact that no one will actually have a name like it, so there will be no mix-ups. 'Merovingian', on the other hand, was painful to say and hard to remember.
Two watched his brother as he made his way out of the shower, One dressed in nothing but a pair of black shorts, his unpigmented skin damp with droplets of water still clinging to it.
One climbed over Two's bed and Two's legs, which were already placed under the sheets, and threw off the covers of his own, before collapsing onto his back on the white sheets, that looked grey in comparison to his skin.
"Merovingian - Of or relating to the Frankish dynasty founded by Clovis and reigning in Gaul and Germany." One recited to the ceiling, eyes closed, pale muscular arms behind his head.
Two nodded his head in thanks to One; who was the more intelligent of the pair, but gladly told his brother his knowledge merely to help Two think.
Two was a philosopher, in a way. He dissected his first human to merely feel how warm it was and to see what was inside, even though he knew all the organs, he wanted to know how the organs felt. Their texture and consistency.
Two sighed as he lay down under the covers, blanket pulled up to his shoulders, lying on his side, facing One, glasses as yet to be removed.
One listened to his brother's soft, even breathing, eyes staring up at the dark ceiling, the only light coming from an Asian lamp in the opposite corner, sending long black shadows to assault the walls, a soft orange glow the only light.
One turned to his brother, propping himself onto his elbows, raising an ashen hand to remove Two's glasses, before leaning over Two, his chalky dreadlocks tickling at Two's nose as he placed the glasses onto the bedside table, beside his own, lying back down on his bed, usually-hidden eyes staring silently at Two's sleeping face.
Two had imprinted a little of his curiosity onto One, as had One imprinted some of his knowledge onto Two.
Where did the name 'name' come from?
((END. My first Matrix fanfiction, and it's of the twins. The twins are pure awesome, though. Anyway, i hope you like it, and, this fic basically wrote itself, coupled with my fangirlish-obsession with the twins and their flirtatious, soft-spoken and badass manner. If you see hints twincest in this, I didn't mean to put it in there. My fingers did it on their own!))
