does a Mushu impersonation "She's aliiiiiiiiive!" rises up out of the smoke clouds Yes, I am still alive everyone. I apologize deeply for not updating this fic in so long! I've been very busy lately and haven't had the chance to get back to it. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about it! In fact, I have missed working on my fics.:( Hopefully now things will be different. Not only have I been busy, but I've also had writer's block on this fic (sad to say!). But thanks to some ideas one of my close friends gave me, I have thrown together yet a couple more chapters to this beloved story! Hope you all enjoy, and I hope I didn't lose any of my awesome readers! As always, comments are welcome! Look for more chapters coming very soon!
Persephone slowly brought the Twins into the Merovingian's study and closed the door behind her. The place was quiet; in fact it was a little too quiet for comfort. The Merovingian sat at his desk and quietly wrote on a piece of paper. Both twins held on tight to Perse's dress and shuffled their feet nervously.
"Here are the Twins, dear. You said you wanted to see them." Perse struggled to say.
The Merovingian looked up from his desk and laid his pen down.
"Don't spank them too hard." Said Perse, as her husband stood up and started toward her and the Twins. One and Two tried to hide behind Perse.
"Who said I was going to spank them?"
The Twins peered up at the Mero.
"You aren't?" Perse replied.
"No." The Mero looked down at the Twins and sighed. "Even though I know I should, I'm not. Instead I'm going to give them back their phasing."
Both Twins ran to the Mero and wrapped their small arms around his legs.
"I realize that everything that's happened is my fault and everyone has blamed me for it. So to end all this madness I'm going to give the Twins back their powers so we can all go back to the way we were." The Mero bent down and picked up One and looked at him carefully. "That is, if both of them will promise to behave themselves from now on."
One smiled sheepishly at the Mero.
"We promise to be good." He said.
"You'd better be." The Mero warned. "Because if you don't, I'll…" The words caught in the Mero's throat as he looked into One's innocent eyes. He sighed and put the child down next to his sibling. "Get out of here, both of you." He calmly said before walking over to his desk again.
Perse opened the door to let the Twins out then shut it again. She looked over at her husband and smiled.
"You like them, don't you?"
The Mero glanced up then back at his papers.
"Like who?" he grumbled.
"The Twins, of course. Who else is there?" Perse giggled.
"Is it obvious?" He replied.
"A little."
"Ok, ok I'll admit it. They are fun to have around. I guess I do think of them as sons sometimes."
"They're adorable once you get used to them." Perse smiled.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever."
"If you just give them a chance, I know you will love them."
"Perse, dear, I'm trying to work here." The Mero tapped his chin with the tip of his ink pen while he spoke.
"Anything you say." Perse turned to open the door.
When Persephone had let herself out and closed the door behind her, the Merovingian sighed to himself while trying to concentrate on what he had been doing. Finding it useless, he threw his pen down and got up and started for the door. Opening it, he found himself face to face with the Twins, who stood innocently and holding a board game in their hands.
"Daddy, will you play Monopoly with us?" both Twins said together, looking as pitiful as possible at the Mero. The Merovingian stood a few minutes, looking the two over. It was bad enough having them call him 'Daddy', of which he had not yet gotten over, but to play games with them…!
The Merovingian sighed and closed his eyes.
"Yes." He breathed. "Let's go into the living room."
"Yayyyy!" the two children screamed in glee as they raced off in front of the Mero.
The Merovingian sighed again and softly shook his head. He must have been out of his mind to agree to play a game with the Twins. What did they know about playing a game like Monopoly anyway? They were three years old and a game like Monopoly wasn't meant for children that young. Maybe if he played his cards right he could coax them out of playing it. Three year olds had short attention spans anyway, which meant that the game couldn't possibly last more than a few minutes before the Twins found something else to occupy their time.
When the Merovingian finally walked into the living room, the Twins already had the game board set up on the coffee table and were seated in their places. The Mero walked over and sat down on the edge of the couch next to Two and picked up a game piece and set it at the starting place.
"How do you kids know you can even play this game? It's about counting money and selling property. You kids are too young to do that."
"Why do we have to use money?"
"Because that's the way you play the game. You buy property, sell property, handle money, pay fees, and you kids have no clue how that even works."
Both Twins stared at each other a few minutes then slowly reached out and took a game piece each, Two choosing the dog and One choosing the car. The Merovingian took the dice and rolled. He moved his piece three places then handed the dice to Two, who eyed them as if he had no idea of what they were used for.
"What do I do with them?"
"You roll them around in your hand then you throw them down on the game board. Whatever number comes up on them, you move your game piece that many spaces."
Two did as the Mero said, afterwards slamming them down on the board so hard all the pieces moved a few inches with the impact.
"Not so hard!" The Mero grabbed his piece to keep it still.
"Sorry!" Two sheepishly smiled. "Hey! There aren't any numbers on these. Just little black dots. How am I supposed to move my piece if there aren't any numbers?"
The Merovingian wanted so much to hit his head against the wall, but he tried to keep his temper under control.
"The little black dots represent numbers, Two." The Mero fingered his eyebrows. "You have to count the dots to get your number."
"Oh!" Two looked down at the dice.
"You got six, Two." The Mero sighed. "Move your dog six spaces."
Two did as he was told, carefully counting each space.
"My turn!" One snatched the dice up and rolled his turn. One die came out six, the other came out three.
"You got a nine." The Mero mumbled. "Move your car nine spaces."
"No fair! He got higher than me!" Two looked at the Mero.
"We're playing a game, Two, we aren't racing."
One moved, or rather 'drove', his car piece nine spaces, racing over and hitting Two's dog and knocking it to the side.
"Hey! You did that on purpose!" Two pushed One in the arm.
"I hit his dog!" One started giggling. "Is that in the rules? Can you hit a person's dog?"
"That's NOT funny!" Two sniveled.
"Do I have to pay the animal hospital bill?" One grinned at the Mero.
All the Mero could do was stare into space as the Twins argued over One's move. Before he realized it, both had knocked the board off the table and the Monopoly money was flying through the air like snow.
"Hey, hey! That's enough!" The Mero jumped up and grabbed both Twins by the coats and held them away from each other. "We're supposed to be playing a game, not tearing up the room. Now go over there and sit down."
"We don't like this game." Two mumbled.
"It's too hard." One finished.
"Well do you have something else you'd like to play instead?"
"What about this game?"
The Twins jumped up and ran across the room where another board game set on a table. Both of them grabbed onto it and carried it over to the coffee table and started taking it out of the box.
"Clue?" The Merovingian read off the game's title while the Twins busied themselves with setting it up. Once the Twins found their places again, the Merovingian slowly and cautiously picked up a purple game piece and placed it at the starting point in front of him. He raised his eyebrows and turned to face the Twins.
"What do you kids know about playing this game? Don't you think you're a little too young to be playing games like this? You can't even read and understand the rules, much less understand what's going on."
"No one said we have to go by the rules." Two smiled.
The Mero stared at Two for a minute then reached for the die and began juggling it around in his hand.
"This better not turn out like the Monopoly game."
"It won't." One smiled. "Erm, do you have to count money in this one?"
"No, but you have to find out which suspect murdered who in what room and with what weapon."
"Who murdered who!" The Twins said together with a shudder.
"You mean with a weapon like this?" Two whipped out his razor, opened it and stuck it in the middle of the game board. The Mero jumped back in alarm at seeing the pearl handled weapon. Sometimes he almost forgot that the Twins even had them.
"Uh, yes, with a weapon like that. This is just a game, though, and the weapons are already provided in the game as little metal tokens. So we don't need this." The Merovingian nervously smiled as he slowly took the razor and placed it off to the side. "Now, what colors are you?"
"I'm blue!" Two smiled.
"And I'm white!" One placed the white piece next to the Mero's.
"Don't get so close to me." The Mero said, slowly moving his game piece a little ways from One's.
One looked at the Mero with puzzled eyes. "Why?"
"I don't want your game piece breathing on mine."
Both Twins looked at each other questioningly and shrugged their shoulders. The Mero smiled to himself at seeing the Twins.
"Besides, you aren't supposed to place your piece at this starting point. Yours goes over there next to you. Two, your piece is supposed to start there, right in front of you." The Mero pointed to each place that the game pieces were supposed to go. "And the ones that aren't in use go where they're supposed to start."
The Twins set up the pieces like they were to go, and then turned to look at the Mero for what came next.
"Now you each have to take a notepad and pencil and we've got to shuffle these cards and secretly place three, one of each kind, into this little folder."
"Why?" both Twins said together.
"Because it's the rules of the game." The Mero sighed.
"I already know who did it." One grinned.
"How on earth do you know that? We haven't even started."
"I just do."
"Oh, yeah? Who did it then?"
One pointed at Two, "He did it in the closet with the dental floss!"
Two's eyes widened.
"I did not!"
"You did too!"
"You said you wouldn't tell anyone about Daddy's shoes!" Two gasped before turning a frightened look toward the Mero.
"Tell me what! What shoes?" The Merovingian's gaze narrowed.
Before he could ask anymore questions, the Twins jumped up and took off running for the door and disappeared out into the hall.
"That's great!" The Mero mumbled to himself while grabbing up the game pieces and throwing them into the box they had come out of.
