Having a sibling was a different experience for everyone with them. Some siblings are close as can be, others get on each other's nerves non-stop.
Some siblings come one at a time, others come all at once. And some come in pairs.
And this pair of twins had a lot of catching up to do, which included making up twenty years of playful competition with each other.
Remix stood in place with a flag in his mouth, ready to start a race.
"On your marks, get set, go!"
And that was when Carmine and Anakin raced across the hall, running as fast as they could until they made it to the end, where the kids stood.
"Photo finish!" Lamenta exclaimed.
"I win!" Anakin said.
"No way. I got here first!" said Carmine.
"In your dreams."
"Actually," said Gabby. "It was a tie. You both got here at the same time."
"How do you run so fast?" Anakin asked.
"I dance for a living, remember?" Carmine said, lifting his leg pretty high. "Gotta have strong legs."
"Big deal. I can do that." Anakin said, lifting his own leg up, but only getting it about three quarters of the height Carmine did his, and started to have to hop on his other foot to keep his balance until... "Whoa!"
He fell down onto his back.
"Are you okay, Uncle Ani?" Lamenta said, looking at her uncle upside down.
"I'm fine." said Anakin, sitting himself up. "I've had much worse falls than this."
That was when the twins' comms beeped, summoning both of them to the Jedi Council's chamber.
The twins looked at each other.
"Race you to the chambers!" they exclaimed at the same time before zipping off.
"I suggest getting comfortable," said Obi-Wan to Peppermint. "Knowing Anakin, he's always late."
"You never know. Maybe Carmine's punctuality will rub off on him." Peppermint said.
Speak of the devils, the twins arrived in the Chamber, only for Carmine to bump right into Anakin, knocking both of them down to the floor!
"Looks like I win." Anakin breathed. "Now get off me."
"Hey, you pushed me first!" Carmine said.
"You pushed me first!" Anakin argued.
"Gentlemen, if you're quite done acting like children," said Master Luminara.
Obi-Wan sighed as the twins started to get, only to start messing with each other again and rolling around on each other. Peppermint rolled her eyes and used her magic to separate them.
Ever since Anakin and Carmine started catching up, they started competing with each other.
Last week, when they were at the penthouse...
Gabby and Lamenta were playing Dance Prance Revolution and having a lot of fun doing it, when their dads walked into the room.
"Good times." said Carmine. "Back when Caroline and I were dating, one of the best dates we went on was when we did a little one-on-one in this game.
"How many did you get beat?" Anakin smirked.
"Hey, a game score doesn't determine my dance abilities." Carmine defended. "Three times... out of four."
Anakin laughed.
"Daddy tried to beat my high score last year. Even after seven times, he couldn't do it." Gabby giggled.
"Got beat by your own daughter?" Carmine said.
"How about putting your skills to the test?" Anakin said, picking up the girls with the Force. "Step aside, girls."
And soon, the guys were playing Dance Prance Revolution against each other. Carmine won the first game. And the second game.
"You just got lucky." Anakin said.
"Hey, you're just jealous 'cause I'm a professional." Carmine said, brushing a strand of his long hair back.
They played at least twelve games, and Anakin only won three.
"Anakin, Carmine. Dinner." Caroline called.
"I think they're too busy having a dance contest, Mommy." Lamenta said.
"Does that mean we can have their dessert?" Boba asked.
Remix already started licking up Carmine's bowl of soup.
"Remix!" Caroline scolded.
"Sorry." Remix said.
Yesterday...
Anakin and Carmine saw that there was only one blueberry muffin left in the kitchen, and neither of them seemed interested in sharing it.
"I'll arm wrestle you for it!" Anakin said.
"Didn't you have a robot arm before?" Carmine pointed out.
"I used to." said Anakin. "Now I don't thanks to my daughter's magic."
"That wouldn't be fair then."
"Hey, I'm still getting to using a real right arm. This'll be good exercise for it."
"Hmm. Alright. But if I find you cheated."
"I'm known for being reckless, not a cheater."
So, on three, the twins began arm wrestling, and Anakin won by a wrist.
Today...
Later on, as the briefing with the Council ended, the twins walked to the Temple's new playground, where the kids were playing. Boba was playing on the monkey bars, Gabby was on the swing, and Lamenta was cartwheeling on the grass.
Carmine chuckled.
"There goes my little lamb being a little gymnast." He said.
"She's good alright." Anakin said. "Must get it from my side of the family."
Carmine looked at Anakin like he was crazy. "What?"
Anakin ran a short distance and did a cartwheel. "What do you think of that?"
"Uh, I think I can do that pretty well too." Carmine said, doing three cartwheels in a row. "I was captain of my high school's cheer squad."
"Well, you should've seen the high places I've survived jumping and falling from in this war."
"You think cheer isn't hard? It takes coordination, confidence, and most importantly balance."
Carmine flipped over into a handstand.
"Especially when you're gonna be standing on your head like I'm doing now." Carmine said.
Anakin scoffed and said, "Big deal. I can do that."
Anakin tried to do a handstand, but he fell on the ground onto his stomach.
"That didn't count! My hand slipped."
Anakin tried again, and this time he fell onto his butt. He tried again, fell on his rear again.
"Ow!"
"Maybe stop before you hurt yourself?" said Carmine, still upside down.
"Are you staying like that just to mock me?"
"Maybe?"
Carmine started walking everywhere on his hands for a while just to play around with Anakin.
"Daddy!" Lamenta laughed.
"I could do this all day!"
And Carmine did continue for a while, which caught a few other Jedi's attention, and made some of the kids laugh.
"I can do that too." Gabby smiled, walking on her hands beside her uncle.
"Looks like Gabby inherited more from me than either of us knew." Carmine smirked.
"Carmine, why are you walking around on your hands?" Obi-Wan asked, seeing his new Padawan being silly.
"Did you hurt your legs in ballet practice again?" Peppermint asked.
"Nope." Carmine flipped back onto his feet. "Legs are working fine. I'm healthy as a horse."
"Daddy and Uncle Carmine are competing with each other again." Gabby said, still standing on her hands. "And Daddy has trouble with his handstands."
"I do not!" Anakin pouted. "The ground was just slippery."
"Maybe try not doing so much physical competition with one other." Obi-Wan suggested. "It's all good fun until someone gets hurt."
But, the twins only continued to compete with each other. Although, taking Obi-Wan's suggestion, they switched to mental competitions, starting with a game of dejarik.
Anakin had played this game before with his wife, and even started teaching Gabby how to play. He felt sure he could beat Carmine in it. And he did win the first game. But Carmine started to beat him after the third game.
"I thought you said you hardly played this game!" Anakin said.
"I have." said Carmine. "But like you say, experience outranks everything, and in this case, we use strategy."
"That I know, but how...?"
"When you're a dancer, choreography is more than just a bunch of steps. It's strategizing every movement. The speed, the timing, the rhythm. Everything."
The next game was checkers. Six games, each won three. They tried playing a bunch of different games.
Jenga,
The tower toppled as Anakin picked out another block.
"Dang it!" Anakin cursed.
"Looks like I win." Carmine sang.
Connect 4,
Carmine had three in a row and was certain he would beat Anakin this time... until Anakin blocked him and had four in a row.
"Connected!" Anakin smirked.
"That's the third time in a row!" Carmine groaned, smacking the table, accidentally spilling the red and yellow chips all over the place.
"Oops."
Rock, Paper, Scissors,
"Once again, my rock beat your scissors." Carmine said.
Anakin growled.
"Best twenty-three out of forty-five!" He declared.
Sorry,
"Sorry, Carmine." Anakin smirked. "I win again."
Scrabble,
"And I got 'crescendo' for five hundred points."
"Stop using musical words!" Anakin whined.
Twister,
"Right arm... red." Anakin grunted.
Carmine reached a red circle easily. Then it was his turn to spin and call out a color.
"Left leg green." Carmine said, standing in a bridge position.
Being more flexible, it was no surprise that this game came off as child's play for Carmine. But, Anakin didn't think that was fair.
Anakin grunted trying to get his foot on the nearest green circle, which wasn't easy because he was practically twisted into a pretzel already. Well, about as twisted as his body would let him handle.
"Whoa!" And Anakin faceplanted onto the mat.
"Looks like I win this round." Carmine laughed, still upside down.
"Not all of us are contortionists, you know."
"I'm flexible, but not that flexible, Anakin."
"You're practically boneless. Next game, something that doesn't just give an advantage to really flexible people."
So then came a game of Charades, which they had the kids join in for.
"Hey, wait! You have more kids than me." Carmine said. "Three against two isn't fair!"
"Okay then. Boba, you can be the referee." Anakin told his son. "There, now we each have one little girl on our teams. Is that fair?"
"Alright then." Carmine shrugged.
"Okay." said Boba. "We don't know who's the older twin, so you'll have to Rock, Paper, Scissors for it."
So, the twins did so. Anakin had rock, Carmine had scissors.
"Ha! I win!" Anakin said.
"You got lucky."
Anakin picked out a paper and thought of how he was going to act out what was on it.
He acted out that it was a title of a book and a movie with two words. And then he started acting like he was shooting an arrow.
"Robin Hood!" Gabby guessed.
"You're right!" Anakin praised.
"Point, Team Skywalker." Boba said, blowing a whistle he found to get more in the spirit of a referee.
"You know this is charades, not a football game, right?" Lamenta said.
"Yeah. But the whistle makes me feel powerful."
Carmine got up and began his turn.
"Book, movie..." Lamenta listed as her father started acting it out. "Four words."
"Sound of Music?" Lamenta guessed.
Carmine shook his head and started acting it out like he was singing.
"Uh...opera?"
Carmine nodded.
"Uh... Carmen?"
Carmine shook his head.
Lamenta started guessing the names of operas now. The Magic Flute, Marriage of Figaro, even Barber of Seville.
"How do you know the names of so many operas?" Gabby asked her cousin.
"My parents took me to a lot of different shows besides ballets on tour." Lamenta said.
And time was soon up for Carmine's act and Lamenta couldn't guess it.
"It was 'Phantom of the Opera'!" Carmine groaned.
"Oh." Lamenta looked embarrassed that she didn't think of that.
Carmine sighed. "It's okay, Lamb. Most four-year-olds don't tend to read that one. At least to my knowledge."
"Looks like I'm winning." Anakin said.
"Not for long, Bro." Carmine said. "Just you wait, I'll wipe the floor with you soon enough."
So, the twins made their daughters keep playing Charades, and it went on for what must have been two hours.
"Dad, I'm hungry." Boba said. "Can we stop please?"
"In a moment, Boba." Anakin said. "We're currently tied at fifty-four points."
The kids groaned.
It was Gabby's turn to act something out. She knew exactly what she was going to do.
She started acting out yawning, then rubbing her stomach and pointing to her mouth.
"Is this supposed to be a book or a movie?" Anakin asked.
Gabby face palmed. Then she acted out collapsing. Anakin still didn't seem to get it. Lamenta went next. She did all the same things Gabby did, and Carmine didn't get it either. Then, the twins started arguing about who was winning
"Daddy!" Gabby and Lamenta said at the same time.
"What?" their fathers said.
"We're tired." Lamenta said. "We're hungry."
"We don't wanna play anymore!" Gabby said. "It's not fun anymore. You've been at this all day today and all week!"
"The girls are right, you know." said Boba. "You just keep looking for excuses to compete with each other, and now I've been babysitting more than normal, which isn't as easy as you think. Even if I were allowed to use the stove and oven, I don't know how to use most of the appliances here."
The twins looked at each other and started to realize the kids were right. They'd spent so much time competing with each other, they forgot to do a lot of things and didn't even notice certain things like a bandage on Lamenta's elbow from when she fell and scraped it, or the fact that Gabby's bow wasn't put on correctly this morning until Boba fixed it for her (part of being a good brother for this girl was knowing how to tie her ribbon). They left Boba to take care of the girls. And last time they checked, Boba wasn't either of their dads; he was still too young to even have a baby of his own. Knowing their girls, and judging by how messy Boba looked earlier, it was a lot of work having to be a twelve-year-old dad.
And, Gabby started to look like she was getting hangry. The last time that happened, she like Godzilla in a little girl's body.
"I'm sorry, kids." said Anakin, giving his daughter a ration stick he had in his pocket.
Gabby normally didn't like that the rations were practically flavorless, but she was too hungry to care.
"I'm sorry too." Carmine said.
"I guess we got so caught up in making up for lost time in our own childhoods we didn't realize we were making yours harder."
Lamenta's stomach growled at that moment, motivating Carmine to look at the time.
"Wow, we really lost track of time." He said. "The kids should've gotten dinner half an hour ago!"
"Yeah, and I'm not sure how long one ration stick is going to keep Gabby from getting to maximum hangry." Anakin chuckled.
So, the twins finally agreed to just call it a draw and get something to eat because the kids were not the only ones who were starving.
"Last one to the mess has to clear the table!" Anakin exclaimed, running down the hall.
"I thought we called a draw!" Carmine said.
"Last contest! I promise!"
The kids laughed and started to join in on the race.
"Wait for us!" Lamenta called, running down the hall with her cousins.