Corrections: I screwed up in the last chapter. I listed Roxie as an Inner twice, once with Leah, and once with Sinead. I meant Ringo and Sinead.
Warnings: Slash, cursing, mentions of rape, mention of nudity,
Chapter Five: Gemini
Marz groaned softly, and rolled over on his back. "Jesus, Andro." he grumbled. "Are you /finished/?"
"Just a minute, just a minute." his twin shot back. "I'm almost done. And will you please stay still? You're making the bed shake."
Marz rolled over on his stomach, going tword her, in response. He grabbed his pillow, and folded it under his head, winding his thin arms around it. He gave her a lop-sided grin. "No." he answered, brightly.
Andromeda glared at him sharply, but her expression softened instantly. She stretched her legs out, and cross her ankels.
"Did you finish with the Familial Charms?" she asked, as she reached for her crystal goblet of sweetened red wine. She eyed him over the rim, as she sipped from the glass.
He returned her gaze, and waited until she had placed the wine back on her bed-side table so reply. "I stopped off when I left the house last, and finished." he said, very deliberating forcing any trace of emotion from his voice, and expression, though he knew it wouldn't matter, with Andromeda. They could very nearly read eachothers minds the majority of the time. The only exception was when they actually /could/.
"Good."
"Why are you so bloody insistant we help with all this, anyway?" he asked, the thought striking him for the first time. "It's not our case. He can handle it."
"Maybe." was the response. "But I like helping."
"We have our /own/ jobs, Dro-chan."
"Nothing pressing. Half of them won't become crucial until the next election, another quarter are just observation and raids, half of the remaining ones won't become crucial, and all but one of the rest are just assistance cases."
"What's the last one? I wasn't aware we had any cruicals."
"I just got the memo today. Angel and Muse had an argument. We start tomarrow."
"What over this time?"
"It's complicated."
"Isn't it always? Give me the memo."
There was a breif shuffleing of papers as Andromeda sorted through her blue plastic folder to find the requested document. As she handed it to her twin, he asked another question. "Why do /we/ always get stuck cleaning up after them? Isn't there someone else who can do this?"
"It's Actor work, Marzy." she answered.
"We aren't the only Actors." he shot back.
Andromeda sighed in long-suffering manner. "We're the only ones familiar enough with the case." she explained, patiently. "Besides, no one else could take it, at this point. Twitty's too wrapped up in his own case- besides, his partner can't even be described as being wet behind the ears yet. And Venus and Nothing have issues with Sydney, remember?"
"What about Sam and Helios?"
"They have their cases from Apollonia. Besides, can you see Helios helping someone as -well- angelic as Angel get back together with somone as flat-out hot as Muse?"
"If Sam were naked the whole time."
Andromeda dropped her head, and didn't answer, simply reaching for her wine glass in frustration. Marz grinned at her.
~
The next day, Twitty banged loudly on the door of their room. Without waiting for a response, he threw the door open, and, slamming it behind him, threw himself onto the blue suede chaise in the corner nearest the bed.
Neither of the twins had moved all the much in the past twenty-four hours, remaining on their bed, though Marz had crawled up to Andromeda, and lay his head on her shoulder, leaning ageinst her. She had wound one arm around him, and let him fall asleep on her. Now he was awake, but hadn't moved, simply because he was comfortable.
"Good morning, sunshine." Andromeda said.
"You look happy." Marz added.
"Things with Louis-"
"-not going well?"
"How do you do that?" Twitty asked, not bothering to specify if he meant finishing each-others sentaces without missing a beat, or reading his mind, simply because he meant both.
"It's a twin thing." Marz said, shrugging. "As for the Louis situation-"
"It's more then a little obvious." Andromeda finished, laying her papers next to the wine glass.
"Well?" her twin added.
"He's driving me nuts." Twitty said. "I told you about how he hugs me every time I see him, and it's driving me crazy. I mean, do you have any idea how frustrating this is? To be able to touch him, but it not mean anything?"
"Imagine not even being able to touch him- comfort him." Andromeda said. "Imagine him tensing every time you get within arms reach. Imagine knowing he loves you, and wants you to touch him, but he can't let you."
Twitty stared at her. What was so amazing about her words wasn't their content- though it got through to him- but that Marz hadn't taken up her words once. In fact, he realized, Marz had rolled over on his side, and curled up as close to his twin as he could, half-burying his face in the side of her breast. Twitty could still see one magenta eye glittering with what looked alarmingly like tears.
The atmosphere in the room had changed completely, and it seemed /wrong/. The twins always seemed half-drunk, but now Andromeda looked at him with an age-old pain in her eyes, and Marz stared at nothing through liquid crystal-coated eyes.
Then, the moment broke, as Marz regained control of himself, and said, "Did you say something to him?" Though his voice lacked its usual happiness, he didn't sound sad- he sounded gaurded.
"I told him I wished he would stop."
"I wish you would stop doing this to me?" Andromeda asked. "That may well do something for you. It's worked before."
Inadvertantly, the twins grips on eachother tightened, and Twitty decided he didn't want to know.
"Don't you have a meeting with Annie and Reno?" Andromeda asked. She'd begun stroking her brothers hair gently, seeming focused on him.
"Yeah. I better go." Twitty understood her unsaid words.
~We need some privacy, if you don't mind.~
As he stepped out, Marz called after him. "Good luck. I hope he's more responsice then me."
Twitty looked back at him, confused. Marz burrowed deeper into his twins embrace, and began sobbing softly. Andromeda looked at Twitty for a just a moment. Just long enough to smile through her tears.
Twitty watched as Andromeda slid down, and they wrapped themselves around eachother, until he couldn't tell where one began, and the other ended. He turned, and left, listening to their sobs melding into one voice even after he was a mile away.
~
As Twitty approached the tree in the park where he had to meet Reno and Annie, he was releived to see only the former had yet arrived. She had been around longer then either him, or her lover, so he figured she'd know what had gone on with the twins.
Reno was only an inch shorter then him, and had long, shimmering grey-green hair, and eyes only a few shades darker, flecked with navy. Like all of them, she was pale, though her coloring showed up more then ever, today, next to her black cordoroy skort, long-sleeved black shirt, and black leather boots.
She smiled crookedly at him, and rose to meet him. They hugged breifly, and exchanged greetings. Once they were seated at the base of the tree, Reno, showing typical World Dreamer form, said, "I suppose there's a reason you're lost in the Black Land* of your free will."
"I was talking to Marz and Andro` before I came." he began. Before he could go on, she interrupted him.
"I know what you're going to say." she said. "And it's none of your damned business, but I'll tell you what half the grotto already knows.
"Back in the late during Beatlemania, the twins were right in the middle of it, clinging to eachother- in more then one since- trying to figure out why the world was going crazy over their friends from Liverpool. Yes, the twins knew the Beatles before they became famous.
"But, anyway, they went to a concert, and were walking home after-words, when Marz ducked into an alley to throw up. He'd eaten something bad, and had been puking his guts out all day, even though he hadn't eaten a single thing. He came out a few minutes later, and told Andromeda he'd be a while, and to head on to their flat, at the time, and he'd meet her later. Ordinarly, she wouldn't have left, but she was tired, and didn't feel so well herself, so she did as he said.
"When she was about half-way there- it was a pretty long way, and they didn't have much money, so it was something like a half hour- she suddenly got a bad feeling. Not the kind of bad feeling that comes from paranoia. The kind of bad feeling that comes when the other half of your soul is in danger.
"She froze, and just stood there for a minute, before she got a really bad pain in her ass. That's an understatement, of course. She dropped where she stood, and couldn't move. It was over an hours before it subsided enough for her to start going back to where she'd left Marz.
"When she got there, he was laying on the ground, not unconcious, but nearly. She went to him, of course, and she knew what had happened- she could feel it herself- so she sent a Code Aqua out. I was the first one there, along with Annie, of course, so me and Andromeda took him back, while Annie waited for anyone else to show up."
She stopped there, and looked at him appraisingly. "I don't suppose I have to tell you what had happened?"
"I can guess." Twitty murmered.
"After that," Reno continued. "He wouldn't let anyone touch him- not even Meda`- for at least three years. You showed up a couple years after he started opening back up, and he was almost back to his old self. That's how the twins became asexual. Neither of them were keen to get involved with anyone, after that."
"I can imagine." he said, softly. "Wow. I never knew."
"They don't like talking about it." Reno replied. "I mean, it's not something you say when you're introducing yourself to someone- 'I'm Andromeda, and this is my twin brother Marz, who was raped more then forty years ago.'- and you don't really bring it up in conversation, either. They've buried it, and moved on, and they want to leave it that way." She looked around, then added, "Where the hell is Annie?"
~
Annie slipped into the infirmary, knowing quite well she had to meet Twitty and Reno, and not giving a damn. Roxie had given her instructions to show Louis around, and that's what she was going to do, and if they couldn't handle that, fuck them.
Annie went to Louis' bed, and squatted next to it like a frog. She stared up at him, completely ignoring the strang look he was giving her, then said, "I bid you a good morning."
"Annie, what're you doing?" he asked. "It's three in the afternoon. It's not morning."
"Who cares?" she asked. "Get up. Roxie told me to show you around, and explain some things to you."
~
What happened next was a whirlwind of information, color, and the noise of laughter, song, speech, and the far-off sounds of sex.
Louis learned far more then he'd ever wanted to know about the Rings history, as well as more of what he'd already been told.
He learned that the Dionysian Ring used to be about half the size it was presently, but the Apollonian Ring had been attacked, and disbanded about ten years before. Sam and Helios were originally from the Apollonian Ring, as were Ringo and Sinead.
Seers, he learned, weren't so much a rank of their own, as assistants to the Actors and Dreamers, though they were technically higher up, status-wise. Most of the Seers, however, had gone to help suring the Apollonian attack, and been killed, so the only ones left were Gaia and Nothing, a heterosexual couple. More of them were being begged off of the Aphroditian Ring, which had more Seers then Actors.
Dreamers, meanwhile, were a bit like Actors, but they worked with people inside the dreams, and fantasys of others. There were alot of them, though they were mostly freelance, and very few worked in the Rings. There were two different groups of them- some, like Annie and Reno, were Universal Dreamers, meaning they went to small altrenate realities (Reno works the feild (World Dreamer) Annie acts as a link between the two universes (Home Dreamer)) to work, while others are Muse Dreamers, meaning they hang around in peoples heads, inspiring them. Annie works as a Muse as well, when Reno's on an extended mission, and doesn't need to go back and forth much.
Helpers, as he already knew, wandered the earth, looking for natural borns, and bringing them into their Rings. He was a bit surprised to find out that Helpers, unlike all the other ranks, didn't all work in pairs. Some did, a few in trios, but mostly they worked solo.
~
Louis also received the grand tour. Annie led him into the dining hall, where they were quickly approached by a girl in a Japanese school uniform with green eyes, unnaturally thick blue-black hair cut severly across her shoulders. One of her eyes had a film over it, and there was a raw pink scar that cut in a curve coming out of her hair in the middle of her forehead, and moving in a ragged line around her eye, acrodd her cheek, and back under her hair above her temple.
"You're Louis, right?" she said. "I'm Gaia." She looked at Annie. "I heard you'd be bringing him through today. I wish you'd waited until tomarrow."
"Why?" Annie asked.
"Cause` Nothing works today, and tomarrows my shift. He wanted to meet him."
"What for?"
"Bastard wants to do a reading. Says he had a feeling."
"He has 'feelings' about everyone."
"Well, still, he won't shut up until he meets him. Do you have /any/ idea what effect that has on our sex life?"
"I can't even imagine."
Gaia was about to speak agein, when a boy in an outfit (if you can call it that) made entirely of black fishnet and small squares of black leather with short, neon purple hair, and eyes to match- though a bit lighter- ran up.
"Ga--ia!" he crooned, grabbing one of her hands in both of his. "We're wai--ting for yo--u."
She grinned at him. "Coming."
With a quick wave to Louis and Annie, she let herself be dragged off.
"Who the shit was that?" he asked, baffled.
"That was Ryo." Annie said, eyes going dull. "He's without any useful talents, so he's a Raiser. That means he makes money for the Ring. He's a stripper, though he manages to stay completely loyal to his partner, Jonothin."
"Oh."
She led him out, after pointing out the large crack she'd made crashing into one of the walls at about seventy miles an hours ('long story, I'll tell you later'), and telling him not to eat anything there, if he could avoid it.
They went to the library next, and were quickly shooed out by a girl with one brown eye and one green, ankel-length red-black hair in thousands of little braids. She had been a black spaggetti-strap dress that reached just above her knees with a flowers wrapping around one side, and black cotton slippers with silver buckles and silver Chinese-looking symbols on them, and looked seriously pissed off about something.
"What's up her ass?" Louis asked, glancing back at where the librarian was still glaring at them.
"That was Meko." Annie answered, smirking. "Her girlfriend, Seazi, was probobly in there, and we interrupted them."
She was about to continue, when two identical girls with dark, bloody red hair, and eyes the color of holly leaves came running at them, skidding to a stop before them. It was, of course, clear they were twins. They were even dressed alike, in black pants, black suede high-tops, and grey t-shirts with rainbow-colored letters he couldn't quite make out, for the loose cotton jackets they were wearing. The jackets seemed to be the only real difference. One wore purple, and the other red.
"Hey, Annie!" they said, as one.
"Have you seen Meko and Seazi?" the one in purple asked.
"They're in the library, right?" inquired the other.
"That /is/ the logical location, isn't it?"
"I thought so."
"Thanks." squealed as one.
They bolted to the library, nearly breaking the door down in their hurry.
"What the fuck was that?" Louis blinked owlishly at Annie.
"Who, you mean." she answered. "That was Rainbow Gemini." At the look on his face, she rolled her eyes. "Yes, we refer to them as one person. Come on."
They continued walking, and Louis kept glaring at Annie, sencing a story.
Finnaly, she threw up her hands in defeat, and gave a huge, exagerated sigh. "Oh, fine!" she said. "If you /must/ have their indevidual names, they were Viper- in purple- and Vespera- in red. There are four sets of twins around here, and they're all known as the Geminis. No matter what their technical jobs are, they're also the Geminis, and have dutys as such, which I don't know about, because I'm not among them, and I really didn't feel like finding out.
"Viper and Vespera are the Rainbow Geminis because they're from a village some-where in Ireland in which children are divided into groups of seven, and given colors of the rainbow, which they wear. We never found out the reasons behind it, because no one would say. Viper and Vespera kept wearing their colors.
"Andromeda and Marz- you've met them, right?- are the Indemnis Gemini, because they're both completely asexual, and, by our standards, virgins. Indemnis is a very rough translation of 'innocent' in Latin, though we used an on-line dictionary we weren't sure how to operate, so I'm not so sure.
"Anyway, the Opuesto Gemini is Oro and Plata. Opuesto means 'opposite' in Spanish. We used Spanish both because we were wary of Latin, and because their names mean 'gold' and 'silver' in Spanish. We aren't saying their opposites, we're just saying they're of opposite genders.
"The last set are the Ulovlige Gemini. I can't tell you what that means, because I don't know. Roxie made it up, and all we know is that it's Danish for something, and we're forbidden to look it up. Their names are Jack and Sam. That's not the same Sam that's in love with Helios. Yu've probobly seen them before. They're completely identical. Ruby-red hair- and I mean /pure/ red- and eyes like emeralds on fire. They wear leather quite a bit, and look like sluts, and they aren't drag queens, even though they dress like it sometimes."
Louis had, in fact, seen these twins before. They had struck him as beautifal, but like a forest fire is beautifal. They'd seemed dangerous, and something to be admired from a distance, lest you be burned.
Annie, literally reading his thoughts as only a Home Dreamer can, "You must have seen them on one of their duty days. They're Watchers. All most Watchers do is, as the name implys, watch. Despite that, they do much more then watch. Much more. They're like the guardians of the Ring, or something. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they're assassins. And they're good at it. They aren't usually like that. Usually- eh- you'll see. Supposedly, there's one more Gemini, who leads them, but no one know who they are, because each of them have a third Shell**.
"Anyway, come on. We've got alot of ground to cover."
Next, they came to a large, metal doorway with two green panels in the middle.
Annie lay her hands on the panels, and the door opened.
As they stepped in side, Louis looked around in awe. It was, quite possibly, the coolest place he'd seen yet. They were in a large, cirular cave, with a round waterfall in the middle, pouring into deep, narrow (probobly as wide as his hand was long) streams that criss-crossed randomly around, then joined a stream- about twice as wide- that went around and the edge, as well as down the middles of three tunnels, leading off onto other parts of the cave.
There were small tents, and stands scattered everywhere one or two on each little island formed by the streams, and small caves that had evidently been carved out of the wall on the other side of the stream. All the little caves, and tent doorways glowed with yellow lamplight. There were alot of people milling around, going in and out of tents and caves, and hopping over streams.
"Last stop of the day. This is the grotto." Annie said. "Or rather, this is the stone center of the grotto. The underground is here. This is where the ancient folk, and their descendants live. It's also a center of trade, and center of all the other aspects of Olympian life."
"Why are the Rings named after Olympian gods?" Louis asked, voicing the question that had been knawing gently at his brain for some time.
"They originated with thirteen Greek high priests, and preistesses of the Gods who were natural-born. They created the rings." Annie explained.
"Thirteen?"
"According to myth, the Goddess of home and hearth, Hestia, gave up her seat in Olympus to Dionysis, god of wine, to prevent a dispute. Thirteen gods would have been back luck, of course."
She looked around slowly, and Louis followed her gaze, and spotted the twins at the same time as her. They were dressed in loose black cargo pants, dark spaghetti strap green tank tops, brown leather sandles and black leather jackets. They were standing by a flower vender, and looked up when Annie called to them.
"Jack! Sam!" she yelled. "Get over here, and assure the newbie you aren't /always/ homicidal maniacs!"
One of them held up a hand with three fingers, then pointed to the other, smiling faintly.
Annie grinned in response, and saluted, then rolled her eyes at Louis.
The one talking to the vender handed what Louis supposed was money to him, and took a small bouquet of yellow tulips from him. He sank into a kind of half-kneel, and presented it to his twin with unnessicary flourish. The other smiled, and accepted him, then grabbed him, and thanked him with a sloppy, exaggerated kiss. Then, he linked arms with his brother, and led him over to Annie and Louis.
They hopped nimbly over the stream (which, Louis realized for the first time, was running in front of the small indention that seemed to be the entrance to the grotto), and embraced Annie between them.
"You promised you'd visit us." The one who'd purchased the flowers scolded, when they'd stepped back. "We were looking forward to "
The other was looking at Louis, and said, "Finnaly! One with some sence of /syle/! I /love/ the curls!"
Louis stared at them, as it took all his self-control not to scream in terror when they suddenly embraced him, as well.
Then, as the twins stepped back. The one holding the flowers glanced at his watch, and gasped.
"I'm sorry, Annie, dear." he said. "We /must/ dash."
"It's time for our meeting with Roxie." added the other.
Then, they were gone.
"Are they alwasy like that?" inquired Louis.
"Nah. They were just messing with your head. Usually, they're just evil, sarcastic, and too bloody cute for you to be mad at. Though they do stuff like the thing with the flowers alot."
~
"So what's the meeting about?" Sam asked, as they approached the confessional.
"I dunno." Jack answered. "Something about the Cambio, I guess."
"Damn. So soon after the newbie comes?" Sam sucked his lower lip into his mouth, and focused emerald eyes on the ceiling.
"We'll have to ask Roxie." Jack answered. He removed his arm from his brothers, and slipped behind him.
They were pressed very tight together as they entered the booth, though they were rather smaller then most of the others. They often thought the booth contracted and stretched depending on who the people using it were.
Despite being so cramped together, they used as much grace entering the room beyond as they ever did.
"I bid you a good morning, Ulovlige." Roxie said, smiling at them. "I assume you've guess we're here to discuss the Cambio. It takes place in three weeks, and I'm putting you in charge of the liquidation."
To Be Continued...
*'lost in the Black Land' is a term used which implys you're thinking hard about something negative.
**A Shell is a physical body. Most vampires only have two- their natural form, the form they take in the outside world. 'He/She has a Third Shell' is also used as expression meaning someone has something to hide because spys, and Geminis no one knows about have more then two Shells.
Disclaimer: I don't own the cast of Even Stevens, or a few people who belong to themselves.
A/N: This took longer then I would have liked, simply because it's so bloody long. I kind of forgot about Annie giving Louis the tour, because I got caught up in the thing with Marz and Andromeda. Sorry there was no actual slash here. I had to get the subplots going. We'll be seeing more of Jack and Sam, of course. (By the way, Jack was the one buying flowers.) I'm thinking Twitty is finnaly going to tell Louis how he feels in the next chapter, and maybe some other stuff.
Warnings: Slash, cursing, mentions of rape, mention of nudity,
Chapter Five: Gemini
Marz groaned softly, and rolled over on his back. "Jesus, Andro." he grumbled. "Are you /finished/?"
"Just a minute, just a minute." his twin shot back. "I'm almost done. And will you please stay still? You're making the bed shake."
Marz rolled over on his stomach, going tword her, in response. He grabbed his pillow, and folded it under his head, winding his thin arms around it. He gave her a lop-sided grin. "No." he answered, brightly.
Andromeda glared at him sharply, but her expression softened instantly. She stretched her legs out, and cross her ankels.
"Did you finish with the Familial Charms?" she asked, as she reached for her crystal goblet of sweetened red wine. She eyed him over the rim, as she sipped from the glass.
He returned her gaze, and waited until she had placed the wine back on her bed-side table so reply. "I stopped off when I left the house last, and finished." he said, very deliberating forcing any trace of emotion from his voice, and expression, though he knew it wouldn't matter, with Andromeda. They could very nearly read eachothers minds the majority of the time. The only exception was when they actually /could/.
"Good."
"Why are you so bloody insistant we help with all this, anyway?" he asked, the thought striking him for the first time. "It's not our case. He can handle it."
"Maybe." was the response. "But I like helping."
"We have our /own/ jobs, Dro-chan."
"Nothing pressing. Half of them won't become crucial until the next election, another quarter are just observation and raids, half of the remaining ones won't become crucial, and all but one of the rest are just assistance cases."
"What's the last one? I wasn't aware we had any cruicals."
"I just got the memo today. Angel and Muse had an argument. We start tomarrow."
"What over this time?"
"It's complicated."
"Isn't it always? Give me the memo."
There was a breif shuffleing of papers as Andromeda sorted through her blue plastic folder to find the requested document. As she handed it to her twin, he asked another question. "Why do /we/ always get stuck cleaning up after them? Isn't there someone else who can do this?"
"It's Actor work, Marzy." she answered.
"We aren't the only Actors." he shot back.
Andromeda sighed in long-suffering manner. "We're the only ones familiar enough with the case." she explained, patiently. "Besides, no one else could take it, at this point. Twitty's too wrapped up in his own case- besides, his partner can't even be described as being wet behind the ears yet. And Venus and Nothing have issues with Sydney, remember?"
"What about Sam and Helios?"
"They have their cases from Apollonia. Besides, can you see Helios helping someone as -well- angelic as Angel get back together with somone as flat-out hot as Muse?"
"If Sam were naked the whole time."
Andromeda dropped her head, and didn't answer, simply reaching for her wine glass in frustration. Marz grinned at her.
~
The next day, Twitty banged loudly on the door of their room. Without waiting for a response, he threw the door open, and, slamming it behind him, threw himself onto the blue suede chaise in the corner nearest the bed.
Neither of the twins had moved all the much in the past twenty-four hours, remaining on their bed, though Marz had crawled up to Andromeda, and lay his head on her shoulder, leaning ageinst her. She had wound one arm around him, and let him fall asleep on her. Now he was awake, but hadn't moved, simply because he was comfortable.
"Good morning, sunshine." Andromeda said.
"You look happy." Marz added.
"Things with Louis-"
"-not going well?"
"How do you do that?" Twitty asked, not bothering to specify if he meant finishing each-others sentaces without missing a beat, or reading his mind, simply because he meant both.
"It's a twin thing." Marz said, shrugging. "As for the Louis situation-"
"It's more then a little obvious." Andromeda finished, laying her papers next to the wine glass.
"Well?" her twin added.
"He's driving me nuts." Twitty said. "I told you about how he hugs me every time I see him, and it's driving me crazy. I mean, do you have any idea how frustrating this is? To be able to touch him, but it not mean anything?"
"Imagine not even being able to touch him- comfort him." Andromeda said. "Imagine him tensing every time you get within arms reach. Imagine knowing he loves you, and wants you to touch him, but he can't let you."
Twitty stared at her. What was so amazing about her words wasn't their content- though it got through to him- but that Marz hadn't taken up her words once. In fact, he realized, Marz had rolled over on his side, and curled up as close to his twin as he could, half-burying his face in the side of her breast. Twitty could still see one magenta eye glittering with what looked alarmingly like tears.
The atmosphere in the room had changed completely, and it seemed /wrong/. The twins always seemed half-drunk, but now Andromeda looked at him with an age-old pain in her eyes, and Marz stared at nothing through liquid crystal-coated eyes.
Then, the moment broke, as Marz regained control of himself, and said, "Did you say something to him?" Though his voice lacked its usual happiness, he didn't sound sad- he sounded gaurded.
"I told him I wished he would stop."
"I wish you would stop doing this to me?" Andromeda asked. "That may well do something for you. It's worked before."
Inadvertantly, the twins grips on eachother tightened, and Twitty decided he didn't want to know.
"Don't you have a meeting with Annie and Reno?" Andromeda asked. She'd begun stroking her brothers hair gently, seeming focused on him.
"Yeah. I better go." Twitty understood her unsaid words.
~We need some privacy, if you don't mind.~
As he stepped out, Marz called after him. "Good luck. I hope he's more responsice then me."
Twitty looked back at him, confused. Marz burrowed deeper into his twins embrace, and began sobbing softly. Andromeda looked at Twitty for a just a moment. Just long enough to smile through her tears.
Twitty watched as Andromeda slid down, and they wrapped themselves around eachother, until he couldn't tell where one began, and the other ended. He turned, and left, listening to their sobs melding into one voice even after he was a mile away.
~
As Twitty approached the tree in the park where he had to meet Reno and Annie, he was releived to see only the former had yet arrived. She had been around longer then either him, or her lover, so he figured she'd know what had gone on with the twins.
Reno was only an inch shorter then him, and had long, shimmering grey-green hair, and eyes only a few shades darker, flecked with navy. Like all of them, she was pale, though her coloring showed up more then ever, today, next to her black cordoroy skort, long-sleeved black shirt, and black leather boots.
She smiled crookedly at him, and rose to meet him. They hugged breifly, and exchanged greetings. Once they were seated at the base of the tree, Reno, showing typical World Dreamer form, said, "I suppose there's a reason you're lost in the Black Land* of your free will."
"I was talking to Marz and Andro` before I came." he began. Before he could go on, she interrupted him.
"I know what you're going to say." she said. "And it's none of your damned business, but I'll tell you what half the grotto already knows.
"Back in the late during Beatlemania, the twins were right in the middle of it, clinging to eachother- in more then one since- trying to figure out why the world was going crazy over their friends from Liverpool. Yes, the twins knew the Beatles before they became famous.
"But, anyway, they went to a concert, and were walking home after-words, when Marz ducked into an alley to throw up. He'd eaten something bad, and had been puking his guts out all day, even though he hadn't eaten a single thing. He came out a few minutes later, and told Andromeda he'd be a while, and to head on to their flat, at the time, and he'd meet her later. Ordinarly, she wouldn't have left, but she was tired, and didn't feel so well herself, so she did as he said.
"When she was about half-way there- it was a pretty long way, and they didn't have much money, so it was something like a half hour- she suddenly got a bad feeling. Not the kind of bad feeling that comes from paranoia. The kind of bad feeling that comes when the other half of your soul is in danger.
"She froze, and just stood there for a minute, before she got a really bad pain in her ass. That's an understatement, of course. She dropped where she stood, and couldn't move. It was over an hours before it subsided enough for her to start going back to where she'd left Marz.
"When she got there, he was laying on the ground, not unconcious, but nearly. She went to him, of course, and she knew what had happened- she could feel it herself- so she sent a Code Aqua out. I was the first one there, along with Annie, of course, so me and Andromeda took him back, while Annie waited for anyone else to show up."
She stopped there, and looked at him appraisingly. "I don't suppose I have to tell you what had happened?"
"I can guess." Twitty murmered.
"After that," Reno continued. "He wouldn't let anyone touch him- not even Meda`- for at least three years. You showed up a couple years after he started opening back up, and he was almost back to his old self. That's how the twins became asexual. Neither of them were keen to get involved with anyone, after that."
"I can imagine." he said, softly. "Wow. I never knew."
"They don't like talking about it." Reno replied. "I mean, it's not something you say when you're introducing yourself to someone- 'I'm Andromeda, and this is my twin brother Marz, who was raped more then forty years ago.'- and you don't really bring it up in conversation, either. They've buried it, and moved on, and they want to leave it that way." She looked around, then added, "Where the hell is Annie?"
~
Annie slipped into the infirmary, knowing quite well she had to meet Twitty and Reno, and not giving a damn. Roxie had given her instructions to show Louis around, and that's what she was going to do, and if they couldn't handle that, fuck them.
Annie went to Louis' bed, and squatted next to it like a frog. She stared up at him, completely ignoring the strang look he was giving her, then said, "I bid you a good morning."
"Annie, what're you doing?" he asked. "It's three in the afternoon. It's not morning."
"Who cares?" she asked. "Get up. Roxie told me to show you around, and explain some things to you."
~
What happened next was a whirlwind of information, color, and the noise of laughter, song, speech, and the far-off sounds of sex.
Louis learned far more then he'd ever wanted to know about the Rings history, as well as more of what he'd already been told.
He learned that the Dionysian Ring used to be about half the size it was presently, but the Apollonian Ring had been attacked, and disbanded about ten years before. Sam and Helios were originally from the Apollonian Ring, as were Ringo and Sinead.
Seers, he learned, weren't so much a rank of their own, as assistants to the Actors and Dreamers, though they were technically higher up, status-wise. Most of the Seers, however, had gone to help suring the Apollonian attack, and been killed, so the only ones left were Gaia and Nothing, a heterosexual couple. More of them were being begged off of the Aphroditian Ring, which had more Seers then Actors.
Dreamers, meanwhile, were a bit like Actors, but they worked with people inside the dreams, and fantasys of others. There were alot of them, though they were mostly freelance, and very few worked in the Rings. There were two different groups of them- some, like Annie and Reno, were Universal Dreamers, meaning they went to small altrenate realities (Reno works the feild (World Dreamer) Annie acts as a link between the two universes (Home Dreamer)) to work, while others are Muse Dreamers, meaning they hang around in peoples heads, inspiring them. Annie works as a Muse as well, when Reno's on an extended mission, and doesn't need to go back and forth much.
Helpers, as he already knew, wandered the earth, looking for natural borns, and bringing them into their Rings. He was a bit surprised to find out that Helpers, unlike all the other ranks, didn't all work in pairs. Some did, a few in trios, but mostly they worked solo.
~
Louis also received the grand tour. Annie led him into the dining hall, where they were quickly approached by a girl in a Japanese school uniform with green eyes, unnaturally thick blue-black hair cut severly across her shoulders. One of her eyes had a film over it, and there was a raw pink scar that cut in a curve coming out of her hair in the middle of her forehead, and moving in a ragged line around her eye, acrodd her cheek, and back under her hair above her temple.
"You're Louis, right?" she said. "I'm Gaia." She looked at Annie. "I heard you'd be bringing him through today. I wish you'd waited until tomarrow."
"Why?" Annie asked.
"Cause` Nothing works today, and tomarrows my shift. He wanted to meet him."
"What for?"
"Bastard wants to do a reading. Says he had a feeling."
"He has 'feelings' about everyone."
"Well, still, he won't shut up until he meets him. Do you have /any/ idea what effect that has on our sex life?"
"I can't even imagine."
Gaia was about to speak agein, when a boy in an outfit (if you can call it that) made entirely of black fishnet and small squares of black leather with short, neon purple hair, and eyes to match- though a bit lighter- ran up.
"Ga--ia!" he crooned, grabbing one of her hands in both of his. "We're wai--ting for yo--u."
She grinned at him. "Coming."
With a quick wave to Louis and Annie, she let herself be dragged off.
"Who the shit was that?" he asked, baffled.
"That was Ryo." Annie said, eyes going dull. "He's without any useful talents, so he's a Raiser. That means he makes money for the Ring. He's a stripper, though he manages to stay completely loyal to his partner, Jonothin."
"Oh."
She led him out, after pointing out the large crack she'd made crashing into one of the walls at about seventy miles an hours ('long story, I'll tell you later'), and telling him not to eat anything there, if he could avoid it.
They went to the library next, and were quickly shooed out by a girl with one brown eye and one green, ankel-length red-black hair in thousands of little braids. She had been a black spaggetti-strap dress that reached just above her knees with a flowers wrapping around one side, and black cotton slippers with silver buckles and silver Chinese-looking symbols on them, and looked seriously pissed off about something.
"What's up her ass?" Louis asked, glancing back at where the librarian was still glaring at them.
"That was Meko." Annie answered, smirking. "Her girlfriend, Seazi, was probobly in there, and we interrupted them."
She was about to continue, when two identical girls with dark, bloody red hair, and eyes the color of holly leaves came running at them, skidding to a stop before them. It was, of course, clear they were twins. They were even dressed alike, in black pants, black suede high-tops, and grey t-shirts with rainbow-colored letters he couldn't quite make out, for the loose cotton jackets they were wearing. The jackets seemed to be the only real difference. One wore purple, and the other red.
"Hey, Annie!" they said, as one.
"Have you seen Meko and Seazi?" the one in purple asked.
"They're in the library, right?" inquired the other.
"That /is/ the logical location, isn't it?"
"I thought so."
"Thanks." squealed as one.
They bolted to the library, nearly breaking the door down in their hurry.
"What the fuck was that?" Louis blinked owlishly at Annie.
"Who, you mean." she answered. "That was Rainbow Gemini." At the look on his face, she rolled her eyes. "Yes, we refer to them as one person. Come on."
They continued walking, and Louis kept glaring at Annie, sencing a story.
Finnaly, she threw up her hands in defeat, and gave a huge, exagerated sigh. "Oh, fine!" she said. "If you /must/ have their indevidual names, they were Viper- in purple- and Vespera- in red. There are four sets of twins around here, and they're all known as the Geminis. No matter what their technical jobs are, they're also the Geminis, and have dutys as such, which I don't know about, because I'm not among them, and I really didn't feel like finding out.
"Viper and Vespera are the Rainbow Geminis because they're from a village some-where in Ireland in which children are divided into groups of seven, and given colors of the rainbow, which they wear. We never found out the reasons behind it, because no one would say. Viper and Vespera kept wearing their colors.
"Andromeda and Marz- you've met them, right?- are the Indemnis Gemini, because they're both completely asexual, and, by our standards, virgins. Indemnis is a very rough translation of 'innocent' in Latin, though we used an on-line dictionary we weren't sure how to operate, so I'm not so sure.
"Anyway, the Opuesto Gemini is Oro and Plata. Opuesto means 'opposite' in Spanish. We used Spanish both because we were wary of Latin, and because their names mean 'gold' and 'silver' in Spanish. We aren't saying their opposites, we're just saying they're of opposite genders.
"The last set are the Ulovlige Gemini. I can't tell you what that means, because I don't know. Roxie made it up, and all we know is that it's Danish for something, and we're forbidden to look it up. Their names are Jack and Sam. That's not the same Sam that's in love with Helios. Yu've probobly seen them before. They're completely identical. Ruby-red hair- and I mean /pure/ red- and eyes like emeralds on fire. They wear leather quite a bit, and look like sluts, and they aren't drag queens, even though they dress like it sometimes."
Louis had, in fact, seen these twins before. They had struck him as beautifal, but like a forest fire is beautifal. They'd seemed dangerous, and something to be admired from a distance, lest you be burned.
Annie, literally reading his thoughts as only a Home Dreamer can, "You must have seen them on one of their duty days. They're Watchers. All most Watchers do is, as the name implys, watch. Despite that, they do much more then watch. Much more. They're like the guardians of the Ring, or something. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they're assassins. And they're good at it. They aren't usually like that. Usually- eh- you'll see. Supposedly, there's one more Gemini, who leads them, but no one know who they are, because each of them have a third Shell**.
"Anyway, come on. We've got alot of ground to cover."
Next, they came to a large, metal doorway with two green panels in the middle.
Annie lay her hands on the panels, and the door opened.
As they stepped in side, Louis looked around in awe. It was, quite possibly, the coolest place he'd seen yet. They were in a large, cirular cave, with a round waterfall in the middle, pouring into deep, narrow (probobly as wide as his hand was long) streams that criss-crossed randomly around, then joined a stream- about twice as wide- that went around and the edge, as well as down the middles of three tunnels, leading off onto other parts of the cave.
There were small tents, and stands scattered everywhere one or two on each little island formed by the streams, and small caves that had evidently been carved out of the wall on the other side of the stream. All the little caves, and tent doorways glowed with yellow lamplight. There were alot of people milling around, going in and out of tents and caves, and hopping over streams.
"Last stop of the day. This is the grotto." Annie said. "Or rather, this is the stone center of the grotto. The underground is here. This is where the ancient folk, and their descendants live. It's also a center of trade, and center of all the other aspects of Olympian life."
"Why are the Rings named after Olympian gods?" Louis asked, voicing the question that had been knawing gently at his brain for some time.
"They originated with thirteen Greek high priests, and preistesses of the Gods who were natural-born. They created the rings." Annie explained.
"Thirteen?"
"According to myth, the Goddess of home and hearth, Hestia, gave up her seat in Olympus to Dionysis, god of wine, to prevent a dispute. Thirteen gods would have been back luck, of course."
She looked around slowly, and Louis followed her gaze, and spotted the twins at the same time as her. They were dressed in loose black cargo pants, dark spaghetti strap green tank tops, brown leather sandles and black leather jackets. They were standing by a flower vender, and looked up when Annie called to them.
"Jack! Sam!" she yelled. "Get over here, and assure the newbie you aren't /always/ homicidal maniacs!"
One of them held up a hand with three fingers, then pointed to the other, smiling faintly.
Annie grinned in response, and saluted, then rolled her eyes at Louis.
The one talking to the vender handed what Louis supposed was money to him, and took a small bouquet of yellow tulips from him. He sank into a kind of half-kneel, and presented it to his twin with unnessicary flourish. The other smiled, and accepted him, then grabbed him, and thanked him with a sloppy, exaggerated kiss. Then, he linked arms with his brother, and led him over to Annie and Louis.
They hopped nimbly over the stream (which, Louis realized for the first time, was running in front of the small indention that seemed to be the entrance to the grotto), and embraced Annie between them.
"You promised you'd visit us." The one who'd purchased the flowers scolded, when they'd stepped back. "We were looking forward to "
The other was looking at Louis, and said, "Finnaly! One with some sence of /syle/! I /love/ the curls!"
Louis stared at them, as it took all his self-control not to scream in terror when they suddenly embraced him, as well.
Then, as the twins stepped back. The one holding the flowers glanced at his watch, and gasped.
"I'm sorry, Annie, dear." he said. "We /must/ dash."
"It's time for our meeting with Roxie." added the other.
Then, they were gone.
"Are they alwasy like that?" inquired Louis.
"Nah. They were just messing with your head. Usually, they're just evil, sarcastic, and too bloody cute for you to be mad at. Though they do stuff like the thing with the flowers alot."
~
"So what's the meeting about?" Sam asked, as they approached the confessional.
"I dunno." Jack answered. "Something about the Cambio, I guess."
"Damn. So soon after the newbie comes?" Sam sucked his lower lip into his mouth, and focused emerald eyes on the ceiling.
"We'll have to ask Roxie." Jack answered. He removed his arm from his brothers, and slipped behind him.
They were pressed very tight together as they entered the booth, though they were rather smaller then most of the others. They often thought the booth contracted and stretched depending on who the people using it were.
Despite being so cramped together, they used as much grace entering the room beyond as they ever did.
"I bid you a good morning, Ulovlige." Roxie said, smiling at them. "I assume you've guess we're here to discuss the Cambio. It takes place in three weeks, and I'm putting you in charge of the liquidation."
To Be Continued...
*'lost in the Black Land' is a term used which implys you're thinking hard about something negative.
**A Shell is a physical body. Most vampires only have two- their natural form, the form they take in the outside world. 'He/She has a Third Shell' is also used as expression meaning someone has something to hide because spys, and Geminis no one knows about have more then two Shells.
Disclaimer: I don't own the cast of Even Stevens, or a few people who belong to themselves.
A/N: This took longer then I would have liked, simply because it's so bloody long. I kind of forgot about Annie giving Louis the tour, because I got caught up in the thing with Marz and Andromeda. Sorry there was no actual slash here. I had to get the subplots going. We'll be seeing more of Jack and Sam, of course. (By the way, Jack was the one buying flowers.) I'm thinking Twitty is finnaly going to tell Louis how he feels in the next chapter, and maybe some other stuff.