my hands are searching for you

my arms are outstretched towards you

i feel you on my fingertips

my tongue dances behind my lips for you

this fire rising through my being

burning i'm not used to seeing you

'we must be,' kai whispers to his sister, tapping at the cafe-au-lait moon-shaped marking on the inside of her left wrist. the birthmark mirrors his own.

they're drawing, side by side, matching dark heads bowed over construction paper and crayons. jo's blue eyes flick to his own, contemplative and deep for such a young face, but then she is nodding her agreement.

'soulmates,' she whispers back, and it makes sense. she loves kai and kai loves her and they're best friends and it's them against the world, always. they swap papers and both are amused that they each drew their own rendition of a butterfly.

from that point, kai is strong in the knowledge, brimming with conviction, that josette is his soulmate. he had the thought and she agreed and they're magic - witches always have strong connections to their soulmates and he and jo share a mind. there is no stronger connection.

it's not so rare or so weird as people think whenever he mentions it - some cultures believe that twins carry the souls of lovers who committed suicide together and so became bound to one another. once he learns this, that's it for him. jo is the one and kai no longer has to worry about how much of a freak of nature he is or how alone he feels when he's not attached at the hip to his soul-bonded sister. he can ignore the way people shift away from him when he's around, when he says something that makes them giggle nervously. he can ignore how dull and boring he feels when he has to say he's only joking and he constantly plays a game of pretend with people who don't even know the rules.

their dad, the almighty coven leader, hates it of course, tells kai to shut up whenever he mentions it, keeps a close eye on the twins as they grow older when jo still doesn't refute the claim or put distance between herself and her older brother; it's a useless endeavor. they are soulmates, not because fate destined them to be, but because they chose to be.

besides, jo is jo and kai is kai and they're twins, soulmates, past-life lovers now made family. whatever they want to be. but kai no more wants to tap a beat against jo's ass with his balls anymore than he wants to set himself on fire. sex is for stupid, easy girls who giggle too much and want to play with him, even when he plays too rough and they cry about it. his soul is for the sister he gave it to, and that's how he likes it. he cares for nothing and no one except for jo. when they merge, they'll be one whole being, the way they were meant to be.

life is simple, easy. they practice magic, prepare themselves for the merge, neither afraid because no matter what, they'll always have each other.

it's two events that fuck it all up.

first, they turn sixteen and things change when a new brand blooms on jo's arm like a rash. he can't help but feel betrayed. he rubs at the soft brown crescent moon on his wrist, glaring into jo's apologetic face and ignoring her pleas.

'people can have more than one, kai,' she finally snaps, exasperated with his dramatics. 'and our marks are just birthmarks, not the real thing.'

the taller teen's scowl only deepens and jo's face is immediately apologetic. he knows that, he does. the siblings were never more than that, no matter how people whispered or glared or kai teased them. but that wasn't even kai's issue. his problem was that she had someone else. and he, he only -

'i only have you, jo.' his voice is soft, confessional. she instantly knows, thinks the echos of his thoughts because she knows his mind like her own. 'i'm weird, jo, and you're going to meet mr. or mrs. quill pen soon, and then i'll be alone.'

the young woman frowns down at the watercolor feather on her right forearm, opposing the side where the the soft moon birthmark rests just below the meaty part of her palm. it is a quill pen, she marvels, then looks back up to her gloomy brother. she wraps him up in her arms.

'you have me,' she mutters, moving his hand out of the way to press their left wrists together. the contact burns, but it's jo's magic being given, siphoned into him: nothing cosmic about it. but it feels safe and familiar to kai and he welcomes it. 'always,' his sister whispers. kai hugs her back silently and ignores the echo of doubt he feels in her head.

life stays simple, much to kai's relief, after jo meets alaric, who is a scrawny history nerd new to portland. his soul brand appeared the moment he came into town, he tells them. kai would hate alaric on principle, except the slightly older boy defers to him with something akin to hero worship. he treats his soulmate's twin with respect and kai can respond with nothing more venomous than apathy in the face of such reverence.

(this doesn't stop kai from pushing him into the pool when he finds out the other boy can't swim. it also doesn't stop him from laughing loudly and uncontrollably as alaric splashes about desperately, swallowing water and screaming for help until joey appears. kai is staggering slowly to the edge of the pool, trying to gather his wits so he can save jo's poor, helpless soulmate, but his younger brother saves him the trouble. 'i was only joking,' kai responds to their angry glares. 'i was coming for him.')

the twins practice their magic. jo grows stronger and stronger still. kai learns the different ways to control his siphoning ability. she becomes more dedicated to her magic in a way she wasn't before, spending hours talking with their father, who is growing harsher on both of them the closer they draw to twenty-two. kai knows she wants to win, for her new soulmate. it embitters him, but he can deny his twin nothing, even when she spends less and less time with him.

event number two happens in the form of another set of twins being born when they're eighteen. the spares to the heirs. their parents name the youngest in the brood of now seven kids lucas and olivia. kai's gut flairs. for all that he lacks his own magic, he's still a witch - his abilities as an empath are stronger than what his father wants to believe.

the air tastes nasty and kai sees goat skulls on the screen of his lids every time he dreams. the distance grows between he and his twin in tandem with the competition between them. everyone dotes on the babies, even him, but he feels so outside of it all. he misses the days when it was just him and jo against the world, when his chosen soulmate didn't constantly block him from her mind or give him the cold shoulder. in the future, when he looks back, he thinks that maybe he should have known. his sister has always been sneaky.

jo is such a fucking liar.

he snaps like an overly taut string when it all comes together and he never knew he could be so capable of violence. it surprises him since kai has no clue where the idea even came from - typically, he's the laid-back, fun brother, despite the bitter loneliness his coven leader imposes on him. he doesn't care who it is that gets in the way of his mission to kill lucas and olivia; he throws two of his siblings over the stair railing after dressing them with bloody faces and ropes around their necks. he feels nothing more than a sick burst of pleasure when he hears their necks snap. in his search for the golden brats, he follows a trail of jo's blood around the house, ignores the blind panic flashing in the back of his skull like a railroad crossing light. when joey tries to stop him, kai drowns his younger brother in the backyard pool. the struggle stops and kai is left staring at his brother's floating body. he remembers the incident with alaric. he remembers racing laps around this very pool with joey in the summers and he thinks that his brother was always such a good swimmer and he starts to laugh.

kai laughs and laughs and keeps laughing until his breath is caught and he feels like he's choking. tears wet his eyes; he can't tell if this is his pain or the lingerings of joey's final moments. he doesn't care. is the tight feeling in his chest the phantom sensation of his knife in his twin's spleen or her betrayal reverberating in his heart? he doesn't care. the chaos of his massacre washes over him like a tsunami. images of dead goats and ram bones flash through his mind. he feels sick to his stomach.

what a fucking bitch. what kind of sick person turns their back on their soulmate like that? the soulmate who came kicking and screaming into the harsh world with you, by your side from the moment existence took root, promising to stay there until the end of it all- what kind of twisted cunt abandoned that soulmate? she chose him. he chose her. he wouldn't let her just ditch him like this.

when he finds her, she's curled up in the fetal position, whimpering, dark bangs plastered to her forehead by sweat. he's not really there in the room when he questions her; he's completely checked out. he feels her fear when he kicks her stab wound. when he screams 'where are they?!' in her face and she lets out a cry. his left wrist burns - her magic festering under his skin. open wounded trust. the grip he has on the baseball bat in his hands (and when did he get that?) feels slippery.

two, tiny blond-headed figures run from the room and kai turns to them in aggravation. he ignores the way jo clutches at his pants when he makes to follow after the witchlings. he ignores her calling his name, ignores the way his wrist smarts angrily, ignores the wrong, wrong, wrong feeling he gets from leaving her hurt and broken. he leaves himself behind with her.

outside, he gets greeted by his father. the man stands there, stern and unnerving as ever, and kai feels four again, wants to rush to his daddy for comfort. make it better. this hurts, i hate this.

but he's not the four-year-old boy plastered to his dad's leg. lucas stares up at him with big, frightened eyes from his place behind the parker patriarch. olivia grips her twin's hand, her face buried in the other toddler's shoulder.

his father starts chanting then, and other voices rise up and join. the bat in kai's hand falls to the ground and he stares at his father, glassy eyes trapped in the angry gaze. a bloody hand grips his wrist and a familiar voice - his voice, because isn't she him, aren't they one and the same, didn't they pick that for themselves? - rings in his ear. the crescent beneath the bloody grip pulses and he turns away from his father's guttural reiterations to catch jo's eye.

he doesn't know what he sees there. anger or guilt or sadness or relief. he doesn't know her. his chosen, his other half, his best friend, his twin sister who was supposed to conquer the world with him...she was a stranger. he feels disconnected and then the magic between their bodies is gone. his wrist suddenly burns and then jo's gone. so is his dad and the rest of the coven.

kai is alone, but that's nothing new.

wherever he is now is dark and desolate and so lonely. it was like being dropped in closed inkpot, an abyss of blackness that he just floated in. no direction. no sensation. kai's not used to such quiet around him or such isolation in his own head; even when his family was determined to bar him, he could still feel their presences like a warm infection, because his natural ability overrode their defenses. there's nothing now but his own desperation and hatred. no trace of anyone at all, not in his mind or the wrist that now mocks him with its nudity.

jo had taken her magic back, and the connection she'd forged to him with it. kai was truly alone.

slowly, they start to appear, like ghosts - shadowy figures that weave in and out of the background. at first, kai thinks he's finally died, the shadowy world he's been trapped alone in finally sucking the life from him. the forms become more corporeal and the utter darkness that surrounded him for god knows how long dissipates and he is reinstated into the real world once more.

his relief is a heavy, palpable thing when his childhood home comes into view. too excited, he doesn't notice how muted and soft everything seems. unreal. rushing inside, he looks around - he can't find his father anywhere, so he heads towards the room across the hall from his own. the door is open and he makes his way forward, surprised to find stacks and stacks of boxes just piled up on the floor.

so enraptured in the barren, storage room look of jo's room, he fails to notice when she walks right past him into her closet. she's on the phone. her voice echos from the closet

'are you sure it'll be okay for me to stay with you for a little while, ms. sheila?'

whoever ms. sheila is, whatever she says brings palpable relief to jo's voice. 'thank you,' his twin breathes. 'i don't have magic anymore and alaric and i can't stay here. not with everything that's happened.'

she comes back out with a suitcase and a stack of clothes in her arms, the cordless phone pressed between her cheek and shoulder. he growls her name, but she ignores him. puzzled, kai eyes his twin warily. even with his own weird reactions to things, he thinks that in the face of someone who killed your younger siblings and holds a grudge against you, one would be less casual.

what the fuck?

he moves to stand directly across from her as she dumps her shit on the bed. she still doesn't acknowledge him. he snaps out her name angrily. nothing.

when she stretches her left arm towards him to snag a bra, he grasps her wrist as tightly as he can. his hand phases right through her. a shiver passes through both of them. she snatches her arm back and cradles it to her chest; an errant thumb runs over the now blank space on her wrist as she looks around the room and kai looks at her in horror. what did they do to him?

'kai?' she whispers.

'jo?' he breathes back. what did you do? he doesn't ask. he can't bear to say it out loud. heartbreak is something he could never understand, but he thinks that's what the ache in his chest is when he realizes just what his coven - his family, his sister - did. he finally takes note of the subdued nature of his reality, and realization sinks in.

they banished him. and jo, jo gave up her magic to do it. they locked him out of the real world into the ether. he was essentially a myth now, a freaking spook, an imaginary fiend. he's going to live forever in this plane of nothingness, unable to connect with anyone ever again, not even a fucking ghost, not even another poor, banished fool, because being banished to the ether is a curse that leaves a person utterly and completely alone, a fucking shadow peeking into the real world. tears sting his eyes. his lungs are actually collapsing in his chest.

he wants to scream. he does. he rages and throws things, but it's like he can only touch ghost images of them - the physical forms don't move at all. jo gets over her uneasiness and continues to pack while kai screams her name, again and again, his voice falling on deaf ears. the sting of betrayal is sharper the second time around, a scorpion strike to a bee sting. he wants to know why and he pleads for her to tell him as she packs her life away into boxes. why did you do this? why to me? i came the closest to loving you, iloveyouwhatdidyoudojo? what. did. you. do?

and worse still, the question he feared too much to let past his lips: why wasn't I enough?

AN: FFN fucking with my formatting got me all kinds of fucking riled. This should be all posted by tomorrow, there are only three chapters and the next two are being edited/finished up. See more notes on AO3 post if interested. Dedicated to my lovelies, Albion19 and respectable_alcoholic.