June Someteenth
[The Players: serenityw, joey_wheeler
The Scene: Just an evening together. Backdated to Wednesday, June 17th, 2009]
"Here."
Joey passed a steaming mug of coffee over his sister's shoulder and into her hands, balancing his own as he settled onto the floor next to her. A thick white area rug, some sort of cross between cotton loop and shag fur which made up for its questionable style by being both fluffy-soft and cheap, covered most of the cool hardwood floor, and cushioned both twins as they sat informally in the center of Joey's small living room. His "formal" seating arrangements - large beanbag chairs - were pushed to the wall opposite the windows, behind the twins as they both basked in late afternoon sunlight. The steam rose in heavy white curls from the deep brown surface of their coffee, the twin black mugs (simple narrow affairs, also on sale) hot against their palms. The silence, which was termed such only by city standards, which allowed for regularly perforations by the bleat of horns and alarm clocks, the clatter of fire escapes and bicycles, was familiar, and should have been - but wasn't - comforting.
"How's work?"
"Mmm." His sister sat with her eyes half-closed, crosslegged with her elbows on her knees as she breathed in the scent from her mug. "Mai's been having problems with a couple of underaged kids. Y'know, trying to buy beer without being carded?" She took a long swallow and sighed, eyes lidded almost shut. "They'll get a clue sooner're later. Here--" Serenity reached for the bag she'd brought over as her contribution: a half-dozen heavy pretzels bought from one of the ever-present sidewalk carts less than a block away. Fishing one out, she passed the rest over. "There's mustard packets in the bottom."
"You're tryin' to fatten me up," Joey muttered, digging for the mustard even as he spoke. Holding one pretzel in his mouth, he wrangled the little packet open with both hands, muttering something garbled about Gretel and infidelity. "Every time you come over," he continued, swallowing the bite that'd stayed in his mouth when he removed the rest of the thing, "It's food, or candy, or beer, or somethin'." His tone took on an affronted squeak. "You got any idea how many calories are in one beer?"
Licking salt from her fingers, his sister gave Joey a distinct Not-Buying-It look. "I don't see you pouring it out the window," she pointed out, and snagged herself a mustard packet as well. "And you're too skinny anyway."
They looked more like the twins they were, really, as thin as Joey had gotten. Serenity had never been able to keep more than the minimum weight on her body-- it had been her despair as an adolescent and the subject of some envy from a few friends-- and at the moment the resemblance between them was more vivid than usual, hair-color or not.
"How's the adoption thing going? You heard anything new yet?"
Joey frowned - weren't girls supposed to be happy when you lost weight? And anyway, he'd lost it through healthy means - running more, working a physical job instead of desk jockeying. Sure, he hadn't eaten much the first couple weeks, but that black mood was several months past, and Joey now considered himself healthier than he had been in a long time.
A long drag on his coffee gave him time to think about the answer to his twin's next question. "I'm in the first bits of the home study section now," he said, mentally running over the extensive checklists of concerns he was trying to keep track of in regards to the topic. "So basically, just getting started. They ok'd my initial application, but that's about all I can say so far. They're gonna check into my background, etcetera - they do that with every member of the household. Fingerprints and everything." He paused, covering it with more coffee. "Not gonna have too much trouble there, I think. Miw's a blue blood, she's above all that."
Serenity snorted, burying the sound in her mug. The uneasy pause hadn't gone unnoticed-- No more than me being a Mother Hen did, she admitted to herself. It made her feel better, the little things: pretzels for coffee, beer on a rare shared night off, that sort of stuff. There were a lot of things she couldn't say to her brother, so... she let the actions say them.
And sometimes misdirection said as much as anything. "Miw's a disgrace to her cat-hood, taking up with common guinea pigs and all. She's gonna have to turn in her fancy paperwork, get kicked out've the Pedigree Kitty League." Misdirection, sidling around the awkward bits that didn't bear talking over; that was okay. "Pass me another? No mustard, I got enough."
Joey fished a fat specimen of pretzelhood out of the bag, glossy with butter on its perfectly crisped surface, crusted with temptingly large salt crystals. He considered it deliberately, looked sidelong at his sister, and smirked.
"Don't think I will," he commented lazily, savoring an exaggerated bite into his new pretzel - and, for the moment, completely ignoring the half-finished one in his other hand. "I don't feel like giving this pretzel to an anti-pig representative, yanno? I don't think that elitist attitude is the kinda attitude I wanna support."
Serenity regarded him darkly. It occurred to her that she had an open mustard packet in her hand; the impulse to threaten her brother with imminent mustardization was almost overpowering, but she suspected that the results would be less than desirable (if she fought dirty, Joey fought dirtier.) "Up with the bourgeoise Cavey resistánce?" she ventured. "Caveys are okay? Pig Pride? GIVE me that pretzel!"
Joey shoved another bit of it into his mouth and grinned his best shit-eating grin. "Mhnk mny."
Oh hell. Mustard washed out of most stuff anyway. And he was just asking for it. Serenity squeezed: squorkp!!
Joey blinked. Wiped a glob of bright yellow mustard off his cheek, then licked it off his fingers with a disapproving frown as he studied his sister deliberately. If she had any self-preservation sense left in her, she'd be moving her coffee mug out of the way right about now, just as Joey was doing with his, movements slow and calculated.
She did. And she was, and now her eyes were bugging out slightly in a body-language version of Oh Shit. Because while Serenity was good at starting things, it was as inevitable as sundown that her brother'd be the one to get the avalanche really moving.
Joey's gaze flicked to his sister's coffee mug, confirming its distance - this was a *new* white rug, thanks very much - then back to her face. His sharp-edged grin spread all the wider to see the trepidation growing on his sister's face, and he coiled himself close, preparing for the battle that was about to be joined. He watched Serenity intently, still and ready, until an unknown signal or maybe just a random moment - he didn't even know himself. He just went from crouched to moving, launched forward to catch his twin's shoulders and slam them back, driving Serenity flat to the rug. With a grin, he lifted one hand - a fair amount of weight dedicated to the other, to keep her left shoulder pinned - and sought to gather her thin wrists in his bigger hand, intending to pin them above her head.
She squawked, sounding very much like a chicken. "STOPPIIIITTT!!" Or a twelve-year-old. Some things didn't change much at all.
...like, for instance, the kick to the side of her twin's knee, delivered with some force. Or the matching grin that kept getting tangled up with the sputters of protest. Serenity kicked again, more of a shove, and did her best to squirm sideways. Sometimes being the smaller one did give at least a little advantage, and she flipped one hand free enough to grab wildly for the first thing in reach-- the bag of uneaten pretzels.
It was a good thing that they could be swept up and shaken out of rug, clothes, hair and so forth, all things considered. WHACK! They made a very satisfactory noise smacking against Joey's head.
Though the force of the hit wasn't serious, it was still an unexpected head shot, and Joey dropped head and shoulders to his sister's chest, putting his head too close to her own body for her to strike at it again. Right hand moving quickly up her left arm to pin it at the elbow, Joey reached out blindly for the bag of pretzels and caught its corner on his second pass. A quick glance to the side showed him the situation; a hard, rough yank downwards left Serenity clutching a scrap of paper bag, while the bulk of her salty weapon flew with the force of Joey's yank toward their feet, out of range.
Growling, Joey sought to pin Serenity's troublesome right leg - with her whole right side free, Serenity was too much free to move as she pleased - and finally succeeded in getting enough purchase with his toes against the rug that he could lever his knee down on her own and press it out, forcing an uncomfortable angle. He couldn't quite get it pinned yet, though, and as Serenity thrashed in an effort to free her left arm and leg (which was currently laying under Joey's spread knees, a position that any man with less trust in his opponent would be genuinely concerned about), his attention had to be concentrated on holding what territory he had, rather than gaining any more. "Squirmy brat," he growled at her, his grin rather bloodthirsty.
The flailing arm almost made it out; "Jackass," sniped his sister as she twisted sideways again like a landed fish, doing her best to make up for what she didn't have in size and weight with agility. "I--am--NOT--a--" The arm came briefly free, and instead of pushing at her brother she used it to shove herself upwards from the floor, throwing his balance off. "--BRAT!" He thudded back down again almost immediately, heavy and solid, but this time she'd gotten a leg free and did her best to wriggle out before he could get purchase, yelping as he landed on her hair. "AAGH! OW OW OW! Joey dammit get OFF've my--"
"Hold still first," her twin shot back at her, not missing a beat as he took advantage of the way her anchored head kept her shoulders in place. He let her right hand flail freely, immediately regretting that decision as Serenity grabbed a big fingerful of skin on his bicep and twisted hard. Gritting his teeth against that, Joey reached down and grabbed her thigh, using his hand and knee together to hold his sister's leg still for just long enough that he could lock their ankles.
"Hah!" he celebrated, lifting his left hand to again go after her arm. But his balance was off, hampered by the unstable grounding that he'd created for himself by tangling their legs. Concerned with keeping his bulk off of his sister's delicate-looking ankle, Joey pitched over as soon as Serenity wrenched her body hard enough to the side. His left shoulder and hip hit the floor hard enough to bounce, and he kept his head from cracking against the floor by a very narrow margin. That was enough distraction that he lost hold of the one wrist he'd captured in the process, and in the next two seconds Serenity had tackled him, sitting on his hip with a very smug expression on her face.
The pause that followed was one of those things you get for no reason-- it just happened, a second that stretched from one to two to three when nobody moved. But there were scattered pieces of mangled pretzel fallen around them both like salty shrapnel, and Serenity broke the frozen moment by reaching over and picking a large one up, biting into it matter-of-factly. "Hy fwinn," she said happily through crumbs.
Joey twisted at the waist, turning his shoulders more or less flat to the floor while his hips were held perpendicular to it, pinned between his sister's legs. He pushed stray hairs out of his face, fished a long red hair out of his mouth, and fixed his twin with a completely bewildered look. "You win? Like hell!"
It was good that she had that mouthful of pretzel - it'd keep her teeth from clacking together painfully when her shoulders hit the carpet again, propelled over backwards by her brother as he lunged up and over her. One of his palms hit the rug hard on either side of her head, again pinning her hair; this time, Joey lifted his hands one by one, swept her hair gently out of the way, and then replaced them, closer to her ears to box her head in, as he angled his legs at the knees to lay over her shins and apply gentle encouragement to stay the hell still. A challenging smirk, one eyebrow raised toward his hairline in challenge, was her prompt: Your move.
Staring straight up at her twin, Serenity swallowed her entire mouthful in one gulp and grinned unashamedly at him. "Got my pretzel. So I DID win. Deal." And she gave the only response her position allowed her to give-- a very undignified raspberry, right in her brother's face. Her breath smelled of pretzel and mustard, and the raspberry sputtered directly into a very bad fit of the giggles.
Joey wiped the remnants of Red's raspberry from his face, being more dramatic about it than he had to, and grinned back, not laughing with her (he wasn't the giggling type) but reaching down to ruffle her hair into her face anyway. "Well you're doing the vaccummin'. Cause you won and all."
Flat on her back on the carpet and still grinning, she managed a shrug. "Fair. Lemmee up, you weigh a damn ton."
"Only half," Joey agreed amiably, rolling off of his twin to lay on his side on the carpet beside her. "Oh, and get me more coffee too."
Her answer was not the sort of thing considered acceptable in polite company (she had her hands free, after all, and her middle fingers were working just fine), but she got him the coffee anyway.
* * * * *
"So..." Sprawled in one of his beanbag chairs, coffee mug sitting drained and cool at his hip, Joey let his head drop back, peering upside down over the back of the bag at his sister, similarly relaxed in the other beanbag, which was a bit smaller and white. The rug was still folded up and set to the side; the small spots of mustard had been spot-treated, and the salt and crumbs from their aborted lunch sat sullenly at the bottom of the vacuum's filter bag. It was getting very close to the time at which both twins would need to get moving, change into their uniforms, and head off to their night shifts, but for now lethargy still held a secure grip over them both. "How's work?"
Serenity made a horrible face at him before allowing herself to slide down, boneless in the beabag's comforting slump. "Worklike. I'm robbing the till blind, I mug drunks in the alley behind the Phoenix during breaks and I've got this thing going with three've the Friday Night regulars. What d'you think it's like?" At her brother's Look she softened, running a hand through her hair; it was all over the place and would have to undergo some severe work before it was fit for anything but getting in her eyes. "It's okay; Dusty showed me a trick with the new fridge." Serenity had spent a dismaying evening the week before with a shiny new under-bar mini-fridge that tended to stick closed; her coworker had at last taken pity on her and showed her the right spot to kick it at before tugging on the handle. "Hey-- you ever had a Mojito?"
Joey rolled one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. "Yeah. They're alright, not really my thing. How come?" He glanced at the clock. Technically, he should be eating dinner right now. He had to be at his station for the train in thirty...okay, forty minutes. And he still needed a shower. He frowned. ...Ten more minutes, ma.
"Learned to make 'em the other night." Serenity mimed squeezing a lime into a glass. "Don't care much 'bout how they taste but they smell good. And you're supposed to use this wooden thing called a muddler..." She trailed off, raking fingers through her hair again, following her brother's gaze. "'Bout that time, I guess." Her eyes flickered towards her brother again, a faint trace of trouble creasing the lids before they smoothed out again. Talking about work was easier now; some of the sharp corners had been worn smooth-- time did that, among other things.
Scooching her own empty mug over with one bare ankle (her shoes were across the room), Serenity hooked it up with one finger and climbed reluctantly to her feet, stooping for a second to retrieve her brother's as well. "We need to do something else," she muttered; "something that's not work. When's your next day off?"
"Hang on, gotta think about that one a minute. Today's....uh...Tuesday?" he tried. Her frown told him to guess again. "Ok, Wednesday. Mmm, next day off's...Sunday, and then Thursday after that, if I remember right." Joey kicked the beanbags over toward the wall, spread the area rug out on the floor again, and headed for his bedroom, taking his ponytail down on the way. Rustling and clattering came from behind his mostly-closed door, before he reappeared wearing only his boxers, hair down and jewelry removed. "When's your next free day?" he asked over his shoulder, ducking in to the bathroom and cranking the water on.
Once it was flowing steadily - hot cranked 3/4ths on, cold 5/16ths, the combination that he had learned from experience netted him a tolerable temperature on most days (except blue moons and Thursdays or something) - he padded back out to the kitchen and watched his sister gathering up her things, fussing with the kitchen in the meantime. "Leave the dishes," he coaxed her, guiding her by one arm away from the kitchen. "I'll get 'em tomorrow morning."
"Yeah, yeah, I know..." She leaned against the wall, stretching both arms out flat against the plaster and popping her back as she yawned; the tiny sound of vertebrae and muscles aligning was just barely audible. "Stiff," Serenity muttered. "Next day off-- I got Thursday too. You want to go somewhere?" Her workshirt was tucked into her backpack; she'd change when she got to the Phoenix and then wear it home unless some idiot spilled beer on her (hence having an extra shirt along; Serenity'd learned that her first week.)
The redhead bent down to slip her shoes back on, yawning a second time and still thinking out loud. "Could go to the beach, Coney Island... some place out've town. Any ideas?"
"Let's just get in the car and drive," Joey suggested, folding his arms behind his head. The hair pinned to his neck was gathered thick and cool against the back of his shoulders and neck, soothing. Leaving his hair down felt natural, not vulnerable, around his twin. "I wanna end up somewhere that we don't know the name to. And have lunch, and wander home again."
That sounded... really good. It fit the sense of restlessness (not a bad thing, but something close to the stir-crazies) that had been bugging his sister for some time. She tilted her head sideways a little, watching her twin, and then fished around in one pocket. "Heads we go north, tails we go south?" she suggested, flicking the coin up onto the nail of her thumb. "Edge we go west, 'cause east'd put us in the ocean?"
Joey snickered. "Edge and I buy you a drink and then hand you the pliers to get it outta whatever it jammed into so's it can fall down like a normal quarter."
Goaded, Serenity flicked the quarter into the air. It spun just fine, arced up and over and-- "Gaahh!" She swiped at it, trying to catch the coin; it refused to oblige, but bounced across the floor past her brother to settle in the nearest corner. "Shit; never could catch. What's it say?"
"Tails," Joey read, reaching to pick it up and carry it back to his twin. "South. Now I gotta get going, or we'll both be late. So shoo." Counter to his words, though, he gathered Serenity into his arms for a hug.
Joey-hugs were good things; Serenity leaned gratefully into this one, familiar and comforting and easy, and she hugged him back. "South," she agreed, making it an answer for the entire conversation before she pulled away towards the door. "Dibs on picking out the rental."
"You're driving anyway," Joey shrugged, backing toward the bathroom door even as Serenity opened his apartment door and patted down her pockets to make sure she had her phone and keys. "Call me after work?" he asked.
"Deal," she answered absently, extracting her Metro card from where she'd stashed it earlier, bent and a little creased. "See you later, Joey. Have a good night, okay?"
Serenity tucked the card back more securely and slipped out the door, pausing for a second. Her mouth quirked cornerwise into a smile. "South, huh?"
The Scene: Just an evening together. Backdated to Wednesday, June 17th, 2009]
"Here."
Joey passed a steaming mug of coffee over his sister's shoulder and into her hands, balancing his own as he settled onto the floor next to her. A thick white area rug, some sort of cross between cotton loop and shag fur which made up for its questionable style by being both fluffy-soft and cheap, covered most of the cool hardwood floor, and cushioned both twins as they sat informally in the center of Joey's small living room. His "formal" seating arrangements - large beanbag chairs - were pushed to the wall opposite the windows, behind the twins as they both basked in late afternoon sunlight. The steam rose in heavy white curls from the deep brown surface of their coffee, the twin black mugs (simple narrow affairs, also on sale) hot against their palms. The silence, which was termed such only by city standards, which allowed for regularly perforations by the bleat of horns and alarm clocks, the clatter of fire escapes and bicycles, was familiar, and should have been - but wasn't - comforting.
"How's work?"
"Mmm." His sister sat with her eyes half-closed, crosslegged with her elbows on her knees as she breathed in the scent from her mug. "Mai's been having problems with a couple of underaged kids. Y'know, trying to buy beer without being carded?" She took a long swallow and sighed, eyes lidded almost shut. "They'll get a clue sooner're later. Here--" Serenity reached for the bag she'd brought over as her contribution: a half-dozen heavy pretzels bought from one of the ever-present sidewalk carts less than a block away. Fishing one out, she passed the rest over. "There's mustard packets in the bottom."
"You're tryin' to fatten me up," Joey muttered, digging for the mustard even as he spoke. Holding one pretzel in his mouth, he wrangled the little packet open with both hands, muttering something garbled about Gretel and infidelity. "Every time you come over," he continued, swallowing the bite that'd stayed in his mouth when he removed the rest of the thing, "It's food, or candy, or beer, or somethin'." His tone took on an affronted squeak. "You got any idea how many calories are in one beer?"
Licking salt from her fingers, his sister gave Joey a distinct Not-Buying-It look. "I don't see you pouring it out the window," she pointed out, and snagged herself a mustard packet as well. "And you're too skinny anyway."
They looked more like the twins they were, really, as thin as Joey had gotten. Serenity had never been able to keep more than the minimum weight on her body-- it had been her despair as an adolescent and the subject of some envy from a few friends-- and at the moment the resemblance between them was more vivid than usual, hair-color or not.
"How's the adoption thing going? You heard anything new yet?"
Joey frowned - weren't girls supposed to be happy when you lost weight? And anyway, he'd lost it through healthy means - running more, working a physical job instead of desk jockeying. Sure, he hadn't eaten much the first couple weeks, but that black mood was several months past, and Joey now considered himself healthier than he had been in a long time.
A long drag on his coffee gave him time to think about the answer to his twin's next question. "I'm in the first bits of the home study section now," he said, mentally running over the extensive checklists of concerns he was trying to keep track of in regards to the topic. "So basically, just getting started. They ok'd my initial application, but that's about all I can say so far. They're gonna check into my background, etcetera - they do that with every member of the household. Fingerprints and everything." He paused, covering it with more coffee. "Not gonna have too much trouble there, I think. Miw's a blue blood, she's above all that."
Serenity snorted, burying the sound in her mug. The uneasy pause hadn't gone unnoticed-- No more than me being a Mother Hen did, she admitted to herself. It made her feel better, the little things: pretzels for coffee, beer on a rare shared night off, that sort of stuff. There were a lot of things she couldn't say to her brother, so... she let the actions say them.
And sometimes misdirection said as much as anything. "Miw's a disgrace to her cat-hood, taking up with common guinea pigs and all. She's gonna have to turn in her fancy paperwork, get kicked out've the Pedigree Kitty League." Misdirection, sidling around the awkward bits that didn't bear talking over; that was okay. "Pass me another? No mustard, I got enough."
Joey fished a fat specimen of pretzelhood out of the bag, glossy with butter on its perfectly crisped surface, crusted with temptingly large salt crystals. He considered it deliberately, looked sidelong at his sister, and smirked.
"Don't think I will," he commented lazily, savoring an exaggerated bite into his new pretzel - and, for the moment, completely ignoring the half-finished one in his other hand. "I don't feel like giving this pretzel to an anti-pig representative, yanno? I don't think that elitist attitude is the kinda attitude I wanna support."
Serenity regarded him darkly. It occurred to her that she had an open mustard packet in her hand; the impulse to threaten her brother with imminent mustardization was almost overpowering, but she suspected that the results would be less than desirable (if she fought dirty, Joey fought dirtier.) "Up with the bourgeoise Cavey resistánce?" she ventured. "Caveys are okay? Pig Pride? GIVE me that pretzel!"
Joey shoved another bit of it into his mouth and grinned his best shit-eating grin. "Mhnk mny."
Oh hell. Mustard washed out of most stuff anyway. And he was just asking for it. Serenity squeezed: squorkp!!
Joey blinked. Wiped a glob of bright yellow mustard off his cheek, then licked it off his fingers with a disapproving frown as he studied his sister deliberately. If she had any self-preservation sense left in her, she'd be moving her coffee mug out of the way right about now, just as Joey was doing with his, movements slow and calculated.
She did. And she was, and now her eyes were bugging out slightly in a body-language version of Oh Shit. Because while Serenity was good at starting things, it was as inevitable as sundown that her brother'd be the one to get the avalanche really moving.
Joey's gaze flicked to his sister's coffee mug, confirming its distance - this was a *new* white rug, thanks very much - then back to her face. His sharp-edged grin spread all the wider to see the trepidation growing on his sister's face, and he coiled himself close, preparing for the battle that was about to be joined. He watched Serenity intently, still and ready, until an unknown signal or maybe just a random moment - he didn't even know himself. He just went from crouched to moving, launched forward to catch his twin's shoulders and slam them back, driving Serenity flat to the rug. With a grin, he lifted one hand - a fair amount of weight dedicated to the other, to keep her left shoulder pinned - and sought to gather her thin wrists in his bigger hand, intending to pin them above her head.
She squawked, sounding very much like a chicken. "STOPPIIIITTT!!" Or a twelve-year-old. Some things didn't change much at all.
...like, for instance, the kick to the side of her twin's knee, delivered with some force. Or the matching grin that kept getting tangled up with the sputters of protest. Serenity kicked again, more of a shove, and did her best to squirm sideways. Sometimes being the smaller one did give at least a little advantage, and she flipped one hand free enough to grab wildly for the first thing in reach-- the bag of uneaten pretzels.
It was a good thing that they could be swept up and shaken out of rug, clothes, hair and so forth, all things considered. WHACK! They made a very satisfactory noise smacking against Joey's head.
Though the force of the hit wasn't serious, it was still an unexpected head shot, and Joey dropped head and shoulders to his sister's chest, putting his head too close to her own body for her to strike at it again. Right hand moving quickly up her left arm to pin it at the elbow, Joey reached out blindly for the bag of pretzels and caught its corner on his second pass. A quick glance to the side showed him the situation; a hard, rough yank downwards left Serenity clutching a scrap of paper bag, while the bulk of her salty weapon flew with the force of Joey's yank toward their feet, out of range.
Growling, Joey sought to pin Serenity's troublesome right leg - with her whole right side free, Serenity was too much free to move as she pleased - and finally succeeded in getting enough purchase with his toes against the rug that he could lever his knee down on her own and press it out, forcing an uncomfortable angle. He couldn't quite get it pinned yet, though, and as Serenity thrashed in an effort to free her left arm and leg (which was currently laying under Joey's spread knees, a position that any man with less trust in his opponent would be genuinely concerned about), his attention had to be concentrated on holding what territory he had, rather than gaining any more. "Squirmy brat," he growled at her, his grin rather bloodthirsty.
The flailing arm almost made it out; "Jackass," sniped his sister as she twisted sideways again like a landed fish, doing her best to make up for what she didn't have in size and weight with agility. "I--am--NOT--a--" The arm came briefly free, and instead of pushing at her brother she used it to shove herself upwards from the floor, throwing his balance off. "--BRAT!" He thudded back down again almost immediately, heavy and solid, but this time she'd gotten a leg free and did her best to wriggle out before he could get purchase, yelping as he landed on her hair. "AAGH! OW OW OW! Joey dammit get OFF've my--"
"Hold still first," her twin shot back at her, not missing a beat as he took advantage of the way her anchored head kept her shoulders in place. He let her right hand flail freely, immediately regretting that decision as Serenity grabbed a big fingerful of skin on his bicep and twisted hard. Gritting his teeth against that, Joey reached down and grabbed her thigh, using his hand and knee together to hold his sister's leg still for just long enough that he could lock their ankles.
"Hah!" he celebrated, lifting his left hand to again go after her arm. But his balance was off, hampered by the unstable grounding that he'd created for himself by tangling their legs. Concerned with keeping his bulk off of his sister's delicate-looking ankle, Joey pitched over as soon as Serenity wrenched her body hard enough to the side. His left shoulder and hip hit the floor hard enough to bounce, and he kept his head from cracking against the floor by a very narrow margin. That was enough distraction that he lost hold of the one wrist he'd captured in the process, and in the next two seconds Serenity had tackled him, sitting on his hip with a very smug expression on her face.
The pause that followed was one of those things you get for no reason-- it just happened, a second that stretched from one to two to three when nobody moved. But there were scattered pieces of mangled pretzel fallen around them both like salty shrapnel, and Serenity broke the frozen moment by reaching over and picking a large one up, biting into it matter-of-factly. "Hy fwinn," she said happily through crumbs.
Joey twisted at the waist, turning his shoulders more or less flat to the floor while his hips were held perpendicular to it, pinned between his sister's legs. He pushed stray hairs out of his face, fished a long red hair out of his mouth, and fixed his twin with a completely bewildered look. "You win? Like hell!"
It was good that she had that mouthful of pretzel - it'd keep her teeth from clacking together painfully when her shoulders hit the carpet again, propelled over backwards by her brother as he lunged up and over her. One of his palms hit the rug hard on either side of her head, again pinning her hair; this time, Joey lifted his hands one by one, swept her hair gently out of the way, and then replaced them, closer to her ears to box her head in, as he angled his legs at the knees to lay over her shins and apply gentle encouragement to stay the hell still. A challenging smirk, one eyebrow raised toward his hairline in challenge, was her prompt: Your move.
Staring straight up at her twin, Serenity swallowed her entire mouthful in one gulp and grinned unashamedly at him. "Got my pretzel. So I DID win. Deal." And she gave the only response her position allowed her to give-- a very undignified raspberry, right in her brother's face. Her breath smelled of pretzel and mustard, and the raspberry sputtered directly into a very bad fit of the giggles.
Joey wiped the remnants of Red's raspberry from his face, being more dramatic about it than he had to, and grinned back, not laughing with her (he wasn't the giggling type) but reaching down to ruffle her hair into her face anyway. "Well you're doing the vaccummin'. Cause you won and all."
Flat on her back on the carpet and still grinning, she managed a shrug. "Fair. Lemmee up, you weigh a damn ton."
"Only half," Joey agreed amiably, rolling off of his twin to lay on his side on the carpet beside her. "Oh, and get me more coffee too."
Her answer was not the sort of thing considered acceptable in polite company (she had her hands free, after all, and her middle fingers were working just fine), but she got him the coffee anyway.
* * * * *
"So..." Sprawled in one of his beanbag chairs, coffee mug sitting drained and cool at his hip, Joey let his head drop back, peering upside down over the back of the bag at his sister, similarly relaxed in the other beanbag, which was a bit smaller and white. The rug was still folded up and set to the side; the small spots of mustard had been spot-treated, and the salt and crumbs from their aborted lunch sat sullenly at the bottom of the vacuum's filter bag. It was getting very close to the time at which both twins would need to get moving, change into their uniforms, and head off to their night shifts, but for now lethargy still held a secure grip over them both. "How's work?"
Serenity made a horrible face at him before allowing herself to slide down, boneless in the beabag's comforting slump. "Worklike. I'm robbing the till blind, I mug drunks in the alley behind the Phoenix during breaks and I've got this thing going with three've the Friday Night regulars. What d'you think it's like?" At her brother's Look she softened, running a hand through her hair; it was all over the place and would have to undergo some severe work before it was fit for anything but getting in her eyes. "It's okay; Dusty showed me a trick with the new fridge." Serenity had spent a dismaying evening the week before with a shiny new under-bar mini-fridge that tended to stick closed; her coworker had at last taken pity on her and showed her the right spot to kick it at before tugging on the handle. "Hey-- you ever had a Mojito?"
Joey rolled one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. "Yeah. They're alright, not really my thing. How come?" He glanced at the clock. Technically, he should be eating dinner right now. He had to be at his station for the train in thirty...okay, forty minutes. And he still needed a shower. He frowned. ...Ten more minutes, ma.
"Learned to make 'em the other night." Serenity mimed squeezing a lime into a glass. "Don't care much 'bout how they taste but they smell good. And you're supposed to use this wooden thing called a muddler..." She trailed off, raking fingers through her hair again, following her brother's gaze. "'Bout that time, I guess." Her eyes flickered towards her brother again, a faint trace of trouble creasing the lids before they smoothed out again. Talking about work was easier now; some of the sharp corners had been worn smooth-- time did that, among other things.
Scooching her own empty mug over with one bare ankle (her shoes were across the room), Serenity hooked it up with one finger and climbed reluctantly to her feet, stooping for a second to retrieve her brother's as well. "We need to do something else," she muttered; "something that's not work. When's your next day off?"
"Hang on, gotta think about that one a minute. Today's....uh...Tuesday?" he tried. Her frown told him to guess again. "Ok, Wednesday. Mmm, next day off's...Sunday, and then Thursday after that, if I remember right." Joey kicked the beanbags over toward the wall, spread the area rug out on the floor again, and headed for his bedroom, taking his ponytail down on the way. Rustling and clattering came from behind his mostly-closed door, before he reappeared wearing only his boxers, hair down and jewelry removed. "When's your next free day?" he asked over his shoulder, ducking in to the bathroom and cranking the water on.
Once it was flowing steadily - hot cranked 3/4ths on, cold 5/16ths, the combination that he had learned from experience netted him a tolerable temperature on most days (except blue moons and Thursdays or something) - he padded back out to the kitchen and watched his sister gathering up her things, fussing with the kitchen in the meantime. "Leave the dishes," he coaxed her, guiding her by one arm away from the kitchen. "I'll get 'em tomorrow morning."
"Yeah, yeah, I know..." She leaned against the wall, stretching both arms out flat against the plaster and popping her back as she yawned; the tiny sound of vertebrae and muscles aligning was just barely audible. "Stiff," Serenity muttered. "Next day off-- I got Thursday too. You want to go somewhere?" Her workshirt was tucked into her backpack; she'd change when she got to the Phoenix and then wear it home unless some idiot spilled beer on her (hence having an extra shirt along; Serenity'd learned that her first week.)
The redhead bent down to slip her shoes back on, yawning a second time and still thinking out loud. "Could go to the beach, Coney Island... some place out've town. Any ideas?"
"Let's just get in the car and drive," Joey suggested, folding his arms behind his head. The hair pinned to his neck was gathered thick and cool against the back of his shoulders and neck, soothing. Leaving his hair down felt natural, not vulnerable, around his twin. "I wanna end up somewhere that we don't know the name to. And have lunch, and wander home again."
That sounded... really good. It fit the sense of restlessness (not a bad thing, but something close to the stir-crazies) that had been bugging his sister for some time. She tilted her head sideways a little, watching her twin, and then fished around in one pocket. "Heads we go north, tails we go south?" she suggested, flicking the coin up onto the nail of her thumb. "Edge we go west, 'cause east'd put us in the ocean?"
Joey snickered. "Edge and I buy you a drink and then hand you the pliers to get it outta whatever it jammed into so's it can fall down like a normal quarter."
Goaded, Serenity flicked the quarter into the air. It spun just fine, arced up and over and-- "Gaahh!" She swiped at it, trying to catch the coin; it refused to oblige, but bounced across the floor past her brother to settle in the nearest corner. "Shit; never could catch. What's it say?"
"Tails," Joey read, reaching to pick it up and carry it back to his twin. "South. Now I gotta get going, or we'll both be late. So shoo." Counter to his words, though, he gathered Serenity into his arms for a hug.
Joey-hugs were good things; Serenity leaned gratefully into this one, familiar and comforting and easy, and she hugged him back. "South," she agreed, making it an answer for the entire conversation before she pulled away towards the door. "Dibs on picking out the rental."
"You're driving anyway," Joey shrugged, backing toward the bathroom door even as Serenity opened his apartment door and patted down her pockets to make sure she had her phone and keys. "Call me after work?" he asked.
"Deal," she answered absently, extracting her Metro card from where she'd stashed it earlier, bent and a little creased. "See you later, Joey. Have a good night, okay?"
Serenity tucked the card back more securely and slipped out the door, pausing for a second. Her mouth quirked cornerwise into a smile. "South, huh?"