After Ellen had gone to sleep, Jonathan called Arthur's mother to inform her that her son would be staying over that night. She didn't mind that in the least bit. To her question what had gotten her son to leave the house at such an ungodly hour in the first place, he gave the shortest version he could without giving away the gruesome details. She wanted to know if they were all okay there, and he answered that with 'a little shaky, but fine enough' and cut off the conversation by saying he still had to call Chloé too.

He did so with lead in his shoes. "Hello, Chloé. It's me."

"Hey, Jonathan. Is Abel there?"

"Yes, he's with Matthew now, and he'll be staying here tonight."

Chloé sighed on the other side of the line. "What happened?"

He sat down on the couch a little more comfortably and took off his glasses. "You know Ellen isn't all too happy about-"

"Yes."

"She was having a shouting fit about it, she used every, erm, unfriendly term you can think of, and Matt and Al overheard it. Nearly all of it."

"Ow. How bad was it?"

"Very. Enough to get them both crying. Although they'll kick me if they hear me say that."

"Are they alright, though?"

"I think so. We'll see that tomorrow."

"What about you?"

Jonathan took a few seconds to think of a proper answer. "Fine enough. I'm really scared of what will happen tomorrow morning, but-"

"Are you okay?"

"Hm. Yes, just a bit shaky. Okay, I'm at my wit's end. I've got no idea what to do with Ellen and-oh, god." He cut himself off to gather his himself. He didn't want to have the thought of having to choose between his wife and his kids. If Ellen was going to stand her ground, did he even have a choice?

"Calm down, John. What's the worst thing she's capable of?"

"As it looks like now, murder."

"Not good. You know what? I'm sure she just needs a friendly feminine push in the back." Chloé paused to look around at her husband. He looked a bit too obviously in the direction of the kitchen. She stuck out her tongue. "And if that doesn't work, there's waffles and chocolate."

Jonathan sniggered. "Distraction with food always works."

"What about Beth and I take her on a girls' day out tomorrow and get her mind off the boys for a moment?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"We'll be there at eleven."

"Chloé, you're a saint."

"Don't mention it." She hung up the phone with a sigh.

"Ellen again?" Willem asked.

"Yes. Turns out Abel wasn't exaggerating about her." She sat down and hung against his shoulder. "She got Matthew and Alfred crying, apparently, so I'm a bit worried about them."

"Don't worry. Matthew's now probably in Abel's capable hands-" He decided to break that sentence off before he could sound even more ridiculous.

'Capable'.
Yeah.
He'd wish.

'Infantile' would be more appropriate.

Matthew woke up relatively early in the morning, before his boyfriend. He subtly woke him up with a soft rub to his back.

"Hmm. Hey, Matty. You okay?" Abel asked lazily.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He said, but at the same time did huddle back against him a little more. Even though he knew his mother was in the room right next to his, he felt safe with someone by his side. There wasn't much that could happen, but just the sense of having Abel there was the bit of security he needed.

"No, you're not."

"I'm scared to death, alright. How sick is that? I'm scared of my mother."

"I'd be surprised if you weren't. Don't break your head over it. She'll be fine." Abel patted his head.

"Do you think she'll ever be okay with this?"

"I have no idea. If reason doesn't work, I can get Judithe and my mum to bribe her with waffles and chocolate."

"Do you think that'll work on my mom?"

"Works on everyone." Abel winked and there was a small smile playing around his lips. "I promised myself I'd try it on you if I failed big time in Paris."

"You did." Matthew rolled his eyes.

"So did you. You can't pick up obvious hints for shit."

"Obvious? You call that obvious?"

"It's not like you're any better. The only possible hint I got from you was when you thought I was asleep."

Matthew hid under the duvet in shame.
"Do you really have to bring that up?" He did not like being reminded of that action. He had really thought he was asleep! So embarrassing.

Abel dove under the duvet as well.
"Yes, because your reaction is just the cutest."

Before Matthew had the chance to hide away again, Abel had his arms around him and showered his face with kisses. Matthew weakly protested and did half-hearted attempts to get out of his boyfriend's arms, but he didn't actually try.

Just minutes later, they got dressed, but did lie back down again to enjoy each other's warmth a little longer. Limbs tangled together comforted, and soft, quick kisses eased the tension. They were still a bit slow and lazy from sleeping and the still relative darkness didn't do much to wake them up either. They didn't even bother jumping up when the door was knocked and Jonathan came in. It wasn't like he was bothered by seeing them cuddle.

"Hey, you two. How're you feeling?"

Matthew crawled up and sat on the edge of his bed. "Good enough to stay calm. Is mom okay?"

"No need to worry about her. She's fine."

Abel also reluctantly crawled up to sit next to Matthew. He yawned and stretched. "No more exploding from her side? Because I wasn't going to run my legs off here on a weekly basis. How much I appreciate having Matthew in bed, this wasn't exactly a nice setting."

"I hope not. And for your information, Abel: your parents aren't too happy about the whole sharing beds either, so I wouldn't make a habit out of it. Anyway, Ellen's going on a day out with your mother and Beth, so I keep my fingers crossed that she'll cool down."

"So do I." Matthew sighed. "Does mom know Abel and Arthur are here?"

"She does now, but she's a little too worn out to go on a rampage about it."

"Or she's just as much a morning person as Al."

"Yeah, that too."

"Not a morning person?" Abel asked.

"As much as the Pope is an atheist."

"Ouch."

Thursday, November 22nd, 2013

A few hours after school, Abel was done with his homework already. Since the idea to start on the stuff for next week wasn't exactly tempting, he left his room. He could never sit still for long, especially not when it involved homework. Unfortunately, this time of year wasn't exactly the warmest in Belgium, so going outside for longer than the time it took to finish a cigarette wasn't an option.

Luckily for him, his twin sister was also done with her homework and was busy in the kitchen. That was always good news. Simple equation: Judithe + kitchen = Heaven! It didn't take a scientist to tell you that.

"Whatcha doooin'?" He asked, poking his head around the corner.
"I'm making a birthday cake for León for tomorrow." She was too busy mixing in the bowl she was holding to look around.
"What kind?"
"What do you think?"
"Chocolate?"
"Bingo!"
"Yay!" He made a small leap of joy.

While she was busy, Abel thought she probably wouldn't notice if he'd nick a bit of the chocolate sauce she had made before that was now cooling down. Just when he was about to stick his finer into it, she slapped him on the hand.
"Bad!" She scolded and threw an apron into his face. "Put this on, I need a kitchen-slave."

Abel looked at the pink thing with lots of disapproval. "Kitchen-slave?"

"Yeah. Now help me with this."

He hated being the kitchen-slave. Making cakes and decorating wasn't that bad, fun even, but the fact he wasn't allowed to snack from the chocolate cake batter or pinch a few of the chocolate chips was annoying. Judithe wouldn't even let him lick the spoon! So mean. Then again, she was in charge, and he didn't like that either.

With what they were making it was even more difficult not to snack because basically everything was chocolate. Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, tiny bit of jam to make it all stick, and more chocolate! Not being allowed to eat anything was pure torture!

When the bell rang, Judithe commanded Abel to go open the door. She was up to her elbows covered in stuff while he was only doing the decorations. That could wait.

It was Matthew. As soon as he saw Abel, he crackled. "Nice apron."

"Har. Har. Har." Abel deadpanned before letting Matthew in. "Sorry, I sort of forgot you'd drop by." He flung the apron to the side and hugged Matthew.

Also Judithe came around the corner to check up, wiping her hands with a cloth. "Hey, Matthew. Are you stealing my kitchen-slave now?" She giggled.

"If you let me, yes."

"Can he?" Abel begged, pouting and giving his sister the puppy-eyes. "Please?"

She rolled her eyes. "Sure. I wouldn't want you two flinging dough at each other in the kitchen again like last time."

The couple pouted, looked at each other and then laughed. Yes, that had been fun. Even when Chloé and Willem had smacked both of them upside the head with a spoon and made them clean the place. They did, and that was the moment Matthew started to suspect Abel had a clean-every-square-millimetre obsessive compulsive disorder.

"Off you go." Judithe said, shaking her head and returning to making her cake. She really felt like a nanny at these times. Her brother could get so childish. She just hoped that he was less infantile when helping classmates with their homework. Half the class ran to either Abel or Ludwig for help with Physics since their teacher, nice as he was, couldn't explain. Half the day, people would be walking in and out their house because just as her brother, Judithe helped her classmates with subjects they didn't understand. In her case, Social studies and French.

Surprisingly enough, no one ran to Matthew for biology or chemistry. He was one of the best in his class, but as usual, overlooked. But chemistry was, how convenient, a subject Abel had a tough time with. Every week, they'd help each other at least once.

"So where is it you're getting stuck?" Matthew asked.

"The entire titration-stuff is abracadabra. I get the idea of acid-base stuff, but I couldn't come up with something like this for shit." He pointed at one of the example-calculations in the book.

"Okay. Let's take this calculation apart. At this point, they have added 6,53 mL of acid and the indicator is turning bright pink. That means that all of the OH- has reacted with H3O+ to H2O. This has taken out that. In the reaction here you can see how much of the acid is needed to take out how much base."

That was how he pulled the entire sum apart. He used drawings, arrows and coloured markers to show what was what, and which number went where in the calculation. In the end, Abel could, with some help from Matthew, redo the calculation on his own. Without peeking. This was one of the things they always asked in exams, so he had to know it. After an hour, they took a little break.

They went downstairs, had a drink and hung on the couch. Matthew put one leg over Abel's and leaned against him like he was the most comfortable pillow in the world. He was even more comfortable than that. Pillows didn't hug you back, kiss you or comb through your hair. Abel did, and for that he got rewarded with more snuggles and occasional kisses.

It was breaks like these that made the hours of homework-torture worthwhile. If only they could turn their schedule around and do this for hours and only having a tick on the clock of homework.

Abel leaned lightly on Matthew's shoulder and played with a strand of his hair. He liked doing that; his hair was always so soft.
"Hmm, Matty, can't you stay for another while after we finish homework?"

"No, sorry. My mom thinks I'm at Ludwig's, so I don't think I can pull that off." Matthew admitted.

"And what if you tell her you're here?"

"Grounded. For two weeks. Then she'll be scary."

"I'm so glad you're in no way like her. Just the hair colour and..."

"The surname. I haven't got a clue how she got that done. She said that if she had to carry us around for nine months, she'd have the right to give us her surname too. And she likes Jones more than Williams."

"O-kay. She scares me a little."

"She has that effect on more people." Matthew joked, but it was quite close to reality. He hadn't really gotten over the shock of three weeks ago yet. It was a rather harsh reminder of what she was capable of. Even though she had cooled down, she still got seriously annoyed whenever either Arthur or Abel's name was mentioned. She had forbidden Matthew and Alfred to ever visit their boyfriends or go on dates. That rule still stood.

Alfred avoided these rules by ignoring them bluntly and going to the cinema or a club with Arthur. Ellen had found out once, and he got grounded for two weeks. No internet, no phone and she checked his timetable to see if he went straight home from school.

Matthew wasn't as much of a daredevil. He and Abel had never really been out on an actual date, and he lied about where he was going every Thursday. He said he went to Francis or Ludwig for help with his homework. He felt guilty about it, he really did, but he easily forgot about it when he was relaxing with Abel and having a great time when doing so.

Unfortunately, the part in which he told his mother 'to help me with homework' was actually true, and he was about to face Physics-torture again.

Today was time to have waves explained. Surprisingly, he got it better than other chapters. Most likely because it was easier to visualise, but also because Abel was pretty good at explaining the stuff. Most their classmates disagreed; they thought he was messy and tried too hard to explain it clearly, but Matthew didn't really see that. Neither did his marks up until now.

The other thing was that Abel didn't allow him to get distracted. He let him make occasional jokes during their lessons, but they never really got off-topic. That way, Matthew could keep his head in the game without having a melting brain. Other than himself, Abel never got distracted when he was the student. He became all serious and focussed until he got his results.

Throughout, though, they both kept looking forward the moment they were done. When Abel closed the book, the serious hour was over and Matthew leaned back in his chair.

"What's there to giggle about, Matty?" Abel asked.

"Maybe that there's a gigantic Miffy-plush sitting on your bed?"

"My Nijntje? I got her when I was a year old." Abel said in a childishly whiny tone.

"Really? Then it was bigger than you when you got it."

"Yes, it really was. Judithe got something like that too. She got a huge Schanulleke."

"A what?" Matthew asked.

"I'll show you." He darted off to Judithe's room.

Matthew sat down on the side of Abel's bed with the Miffy plush on his lap to cuddle it.

Abel returned almost immediately, holding a doll, similar sized to the Miffy, with a red dress and several black hairs sticking almost straight up from the head.
"This one." He held the thing under the arms.

Matthew laughed. The doll looked so silly, but he was sure he had seen it somewhere. Oh, yeah. The comic shop around the corner. That was the doll from Suske & Wiske.
Abel laughed as well, but the little moment of joy was quickly cut off.

"Uhm, Abel?" Matthew abruptly stopped laughing and pointed to the door.

"Huh? Oh." He turned around and looked down into his twin sister's furious glare. She hit both Matthew and Abel on the head quite hard, before snatching her doll back.

"I didn't even do anything!" Matthew defended himself.

"Come on, sis." Abel said. "Take a joint. You look like you need it."

Judithe's eyes narrowed, she turned around, slapped him in the face really hard and left immediately with a slam of the door.

"Aaauw." Abel whined. "That actually hurt."

Matthew jumped up and threw the stuffed Miffy aside.
"She left a handprint on your face." He softly stroked it.

"Shit." He complained. "It's glowing. Ah, this sucks." He laughed a bit awkwardly.

"Want me to kiss it better?" Matthew joked.

"If you insist." He said, but sounded more like he was saying: 'yes, please!'

"Come on, then." Matthew pushed him to sit on the edge of his bed and sat down on his lap. In between sniggers, he kissed the glowing red handprint on Abel's cheek. Didn't actually work, or course, but it was funny and a good excuse for being clingy.

When Matthew got home later, the thunderstorm awaiting him wasn't his mother, but Alfred. As soon as he stepped in, his younger twin was right in his face.
"Have you met up with the porcupine again?"

Matthew jumped back. "If you mean Abel, then yes. Wh-?"

"The guy is getting on my nerves! During Economics, he was being a complete dick!"

"Al, calm down!" Matthew urged. "What happened?"

"He's a serious douchebag! He's super arrogant!"

"What did he-?"

"He had the entire class laughing at me! I don't even get what was so funny! Just going on and on about racist stereotypes. Belgians being dumb, English being posh, and 'Americans can't take a joke because no matter where you throw it, it always hits them straight in the ego'. What did he mean by that?! I don't have a big ego! They all thought it was funny. I didn't!"

"Al, calm do-"

"And then I gave him a piece of my mind and he laughed even harder! He's an asshole! Break it off before I break his nose."

Matthew rolled his eyes. Even though a kid could tell the silly jokes weren't supposed to be taken seriously in any way, Matthew was surprised at how much they actually applied to Alfred. A lot.

The worst bit of that was that now it wasn't just his mother telling him to stay away from Abel, but also his brother. Life couldn't get any better!

~o~o~o~

Tadaaah! Kijk eens, Aphrodi! Taarten van Abel! LOLOLOLOL. Blij?

The cake was a little inside-joke. Please…don't ask. *cough*Aphrodi's fault*cough* Now I hope I won't get shot for copyright-stuff or something...

I've played with their stuffed toys too. Nijntje (Miffy) is Dutch, Schanulleke from Suske & Wiske (Spike and Suzy (UK)/Willy and Wanda (US), Bob et Bobette(Fr)) is Belgian. ^_^