"You boys better behave yourselves for once, I will no have ya tormentin' this poor girl the first time I try to go out in years." Ma admonished sternly as she waited for their babysitter to arrive, giving the twins a look that could melt glaciers and freeze hell. Connor crossed his arms and Murphy pouted ever so slightly, "Can't we just stay home alone?" They chorused almost perfectly in sync.
"I am not leavin' two eight year olds home by themselves, especially not ones like you!" Ma couldn't help but look vaguely frightened at the very thought of her boisterous twins left to their own devices. As it was she could only work days while they were at school and the charity day care the school ran out of a spare building, she had left them alone for roughly fifteen minutes to get bread and come back to Connor tied to a chair while Murphy applied makeup to his face, only to witness Connor bite Murphy in the arm and in the process tip the chair over, trapping both of them. It had been a difficult decision whether to help them up or watch them suffer to free themselves. They hadn't been left alone for longer than it took to look out the window since either, and tonight would not be an exception.
Before the boys had enough time to protest further there was a knock on the door. "I hear one word about you boys misbehavin' and you don't even wanna know what I'll do to the two 'a ya." Ma hissed quietly as she opened the door. A pretty young brunette smiled sweetly at her, "Hi Ms. MacManus, I'm Amber." She extended a hand politely, Ma shook it briefly, "Nice to meet you sweetie, the twins are a little bit of a handful sometimes but they shouldn't give you any trouble tonight. Connor, Murphy, you boys be nice and no fighting." Ma ruffled the boys' hair affectionately and kissed them on the cheeks, they scrunched up their noses and wiped their faces as if they could wipe away her show of affection.
The door closed with a final thump and Amber turned her megawatt smile on the twins. "So which one of you is which?"
"I'm Murphy." Connor spouted off immediately.
"No I'm Murphy." Murphy looked mildly confused for a moment before he caught on.
"Shut up Connor we're gonna get in trouble again." Connor groaned, Murphy finally understood the idea.
Ambers' smile faltered slightly, she could already tell this was going to be a long night. She wouldn't even know which one she was scolding when they started causing trouble, which there was no use denying they would at this point. She glanced surreptitiously around; she didn't even see a TV in the living room.
"What do you boys do for fun?" she asked, suddenly not sure why she had taken this job, especially when the boys looked old enough to take care of themselves, which meant clearly there was a good reason they still needed a sitter.
"Oh not much." Connor shrugged nonchalantly at the same time Murphy replied,
"Shoot things."
Connor elbowed him slyly in the ribs, a clear hint to at least pretend to be sweet little boys until a little later.
Amber adjusted her bag on her shoulder, "Well I'm going to do some studying, you boys need anything just let me know, I'll start making dinner around six unless you're hungry earlier." She smiled again, hopefully if they decided they liked her they wouldn't cause any trouble, and what would make a couple young boys like a babysitter faster than letting them do basically whatever they wanted. "Alright." One of them grinned, she just didn't know which, and probably still wouldn't by the end of the night.
"That bit with the names was genius." Murphy chuckled as they sat in their shared room, plotting what to do next.
"You didn't think we were actually just going to sit pretty did you?" Connor shoved Murphy in the shoulder playfully. "Now I have an idea." Connor leaned forward and began the whisper in Murphy's ear; one arm slung casually around his shoulder, Murphy giggled harder the more Connor explained.
"Murphy." Murphy screamed, "I thought ma locked all the knives up so you couldn't do this any more." Murphy went tearing out of their bedroom, Connor pursuing him with a large kitchen knife in hand. Murphy ran frantically through the living room, leaping over the couch and clambering up on the counter in the kitchen, Connor running behind intentionally slowly.
Amber almost couldn't believe what she heard, had one of them just said knife, she looked up from her novel to find Murphy cowering on the counter while Connor brandished a knife at him, leaping up but not actually hauling himself onto the counter. This had never happened before and she had no idea what to do, this kind of thing hadn't been covered in the community centers babysitting class and if something awful happened to one of these kids she wouldn't be able to live with herself. She stood up and approached the twins slowly, debating whether to try to coax the knife out of his hands or just try to physically restrain him.
"Murphy?" She murmured quietly so as not to spook him. Both boys whipped around to look at her. "Murphy will you put the knife down?"
Connor as Murphy turned to look at her, blade raised high, trembling ever so slightly. The knife slipped out of his hands, clattering onto the floor as he began shaking even harder and blinking rapidly as though he didn't know where he was.
"Murphy?" Connor looked up at his brother standing on the counter. "What just happened Murphy?"
Murphy leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Connor, "You did it again Connor, I thought you were getting better?" Murphy's voice cracked as Connor held on to him tightly. Amber shook her head slowly, not only had their mother failed to disclose the fact that one of her sons was occasionally a knife wielding maniac, she was relatively sure the one with the knife they had been calling Murphy had just called the other one on the counter Murphy.
"If you guys have that settled I guess I'll start making dinner now." Amber forced a cheery brightness into her voice as if she hadn't just witnessed what appeared to be a psychotic break. "Why don't you go sit on the couch and wait." The boys trudged off obediently.
"This is revenge for last time Murph." Connor laughed heartily and began to tie Murphy down to the spare kitchen chair in the corner of the room, a small detail of his plan for the night he had conveniently forgotten to mention to Murphy. Once Murphy was nicely secured Connor forwent the makeup idea and proceeded to tickle him mercilessly instead, having learned long ago where the best places to get him were. Murphy shrieked, a high-pitched girly scream as he squirmed as much as he could while tied down.
In the kitchen Amber heard a scream, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath she wondered what was more likely, a play fight or another dangerous weapon. Peering cautiously around the wall separating the kitchen from the living room she didn't see anything too dangerous looking and decided for her own mental health to just finish making dinner.
What Connor couldn't see was Murphy slowly working one of the knots loose behind his back, the only knot Connor had failed to secure properly. Before he knew what hit him Connor was on the floor with Murphy on top of him, half trapped under the chair as Murphy pulled the knot around his other wrist loose as well, tickling Connor back as they were ticklish in essentially the exact same spots.
"Dinner's ready boys!" Amber yelled, setting plates on the tables but leaving the knives in the drawer. The boys came running in as though they hadn't eaten for months and shoveling food into their mouths with their hands. Amber sighed and realized it wasn't worth her time to argue with them about the proper use of utensils, it would make her night easier to just let them eat like savages with fresh caught squirrels.
Things quieted down considerably after dinner with the twins back in their bedroom and Amber settled back on the couch with her novel. She should probably be concerned that they were being so quiet when they had been anything but all night, but unless they were like drawing on the walls they couldn't be doing anything too bad right? And they were too old for that weren't they? It wasn't like she would even know which name to yell out to ask anyway, damn twins, twins made everything more difficult.
Connor and Murphy counted out the Nerf darts and divided them evenly between each other, loading up their respective guns. "Phase two ready?" Connor asked.
"Your plans don't ever work the way you want them to Connor." Murphy groaned.
"Shut up." Connor snapped as he opened the door.
They flew out of their room like bats out of hell, Nerf darts flying. Connor leapt over the couch and knelt on the cushions, firing over the back regardless of Amber sitting right next to his vantage point. She sighed and got up to sit in the kitchen instead. They chased each other recklessly throughout the small apartment, crashing into walls, falling into furniture, barrel rolling across the floor and hiding behind anything big enough to conceal them. Connor tripped over the rope left abandoned on the floor, Murphy in trying to lunge over him became just as entangled their ankles basically bound together. Meeting each others' eyes they grinned and both aimed for Amber in the other room, quickly turning it into a game of which one of them had better aim.
"Your mother said she'd be home around ten, that's in about ten minutes." Amber informed them calmly as another foam dart bounced off the side of her head. They immediately began untying themselves and rushed over to the table, pulling out one chair between the two of them and both trying to scramble into it, resulting in sitting on top of one another.
"Are you gonna tell her we were good?" Connor asked innocently.
"She says if we were good maybe we can stay home without a babysitter next time." Murphy added with a grin.
Amber seriously considered it. She had realized babysitting was definitely not a good choice for her no matter how much she needed the money, maybe she would try again with a single child under the age of, like, six, but for now she was done with children. And filing a birth control prescription the next morning just to be on the safe side. She looked at the boys smiling faces, they were awfully cute, but she would never wish them upon another hapless teenager, or experienced babysitter for that matter. She wouldn't be able to live with that on her conscience. "Yea, I'll let her know you two were little angels." Amber smiled, hoping they couldn't tell how forced it was.
"We're going to go to bed." Connor smiled and hopped up, holding Murphy's hand as he led him back to their room. Both boys collapsed onto one of their beds, trying to stifle wild laughter.
Ma opened the front door at ten o'clock exactly as Amber was gathering her things. "How were they?" she asked as she pulled off her shoes.
"They were wonderful, sweeter than pie." Amber plastered her fake smile back on, "I didn't even need to be there." She threw in for not only their sake, but for whatever poor soul would have been stuck with them next. She collected her money and disappeared out the door, grateful to never have to see the MacManus brothers again.
Ma peered in at her boys and smiled, both of them tangled in Connors blankets together, innocent little grins resting serenely on their lips.
Author's note- Hey guys as usual let me know what you think of this I might go back to teenagers the next chapter but I'll definitely keep going back and forth between their ages, but do I need to let you guys know their ages in the chapter beforehand or do you pick up on it pretty fast? And I apologize if them wrecking havoc with the babysitter by randomly switching names confused anyone, if I need to go back and make things clearly let me know. I have a rather important message for you guys and an almost disaster story about my weekend and "meeting" Sean Flanery.
To start with, I won't have a computer from around May 20-24 until June 24 possibly even later. The computer I currently have is a school issued laptop that I have to turn in at the end of May, I'm on vacation June 11-20, and I may or may not have my own personal computer again by then. I figured I should let you guys know, I'm pretty worried I'll lose you guys as readers if I can't update for at least a month, I'll try to get a couple chapters posted in that time frame but I really can't write and post on my family computer so there's a distinct possibility I won't be able to get anything up. And I just really hope you guys will stick with me and my story for the time I can't update it because I promise as soon as I have a computer again I'll be back to frequent updates. Love you guys
If you're interested in hearing a rather interesting story about trying to meet Sean Patrick Flanery this weekend I might as well put that here too. It was a 45 minute drive to the convention in which me and my best friend almost got there fine then got all lost and turned around not even half a mile from where we needed to be and found ourselves trying to navigate with a freehanded map on a brown paper bag drawn by a friendly man who barely spoke English working at a gas station. We finally get there and get our passes for the day and go to do some general shopping and thinking I'll buy a Boondock Saints poster I pull out my wallet only to realize I've forgotten my debit card and only have about $15 cash, all autographs are $30 and I needed money for food. So instead of being able to get an autograph we decided to just wander about the convention room, passing the table where he was signing quite a few times trying to get brave enough to snap a few pictures. By the time she finally got out her phone to take a few he had noticed us walking repeatedly by and waved to us, we couldn't get too close because of the con security, and we weren't going to get in line for a picture when we didn't have the money, but he did blow me a kiss and we did end up snapping a few pictures from as close as we could get, blew him a kiss back just for you 9kids :P It was a lot of fun though, then we got hopelessly lost for two hours at 11 at night and wound up sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for her brother to rescue us, still fun :P If anyone is looking for a daryl dixon shirt rottencotton has the best/coolest/sexiest one, lots of love to the bestie for lending me a few bucks for it. Not sure why i thought you guys would be interested in any of that but thought i'd share. Last thing concerning that, if you guys didn't know already how old would you think Flanery was? Bestie didn't believe me when i told her 48, said he was too attractive to be over thirty :P
I think I've written chapters shorter than this authors note, so as always just keep in tune with this there's sure to be new chapters soon, let me know what you thought of this one, do you prefer just kids or just teens or is alternating between the two working out ok? And I really don't know much about kids so if they act entirely too mature for the age in the chapter at any point in any chapter just let me know, this might be lacking in comparison to others I've written, it doesn't really seem to have the same emotional depth as most of the others. And as for my other BDS fic, I'm working on the plot structure now but the sad reality is it may not even begin to get up here until the end of June. I'm also thinking I want to write a little more Daryl Dixon in the future as well I just don't know what. Please stick with me guys, this is really out of my control, I promise I'll do everything I can, I've really come to love writing this and your support really helps keep it going for me.
