Fic: By Nines (Mary-Kate Olsen/Ashley Olsen, R)
Title: By Nines
Author: celeria
Pairing: Mary-Kate Olsen/Ashley Olsen
Rating: R
Warning: Erm, the twincest thing. But not too explicit in the sex department, for once.
Author's Notes: The last I heard, the cocaine thing was just a rumour. But who knows.
By Nines
1.
When you were nine months old, you and Mary-Kate started acting on Full House (if you can call sitting in a booster seat for 21 minutes "acting") and - well, everyone knows that. "Mary-Kate and Ashley, who turned 18 on June 13, have been acting together since they were 9 months old", all the articles say. After a while the articles and the websites and the message boards start to sound the same, and you can't even remember that time in your life and career, so you tend to ignore it.
When you were almost nine years old, Full House ended and suddenly you had to think about the rest of your life. Movies, albums, maybe another TV show or two? You had so many options, and you were excited to get on with it. Mary-Kate hung back while you talked business and agents and recording labels with Candace and Jodie. At the party that Ellen Guylas and John Bowab threw to celebrate the final episode, Bob Saget gave you each a present, in two identical white boxes with identical pink paper and identical purple bows. And the presents, they turned out, were two almost-identical bracelets of glass beads. But Mary-Kate's beads were all different shades of blue, and yours were a bright, warm pink and amber.
You smiled and hugged Bob and modeled your bracelet for the camera, because you knew that was what you were supposed to do, even at the age of almost-nine.
Mary-Kate, who never quite caught on to those little things that you were supposed to do, put hers on and then turned to Bob. "But it's too big for me."
"I know," Bob said, kneeling down in front of her, taking her hands in his. The camera snapped a picture of that, too. "That's so you can grow into it. So that when you're nineteen, and you and Ashley have a fantastic career, you guys have something to remember us by."
2.
You're not quite nineteen years old yet, but you still have your bracelet. You took it out and looked at it yesterday, the day that Dad buckled Mary-Kate into the passenger seat of her Range Rover, like she was still nine. Mary-Kate waved, but you pretended not to see her through the tinted glass.
You tried on your bracelet, undoing the little gold clasp and holding your wrist against your flat stomach so that you could fasten it. Bob was right; it does fit you now that you're almost nineteen and you have a fantastic career.
At least you thought you did.
Tomorrow you'll put on that new Donna Karan t-shirt and maybe the skirt with the zig-zag pink-and-white design and go out and give some interviews for the cameras, because that's what you're supposed to do. Once the reporters get wind that Mary-Kate's in treatment for something - although granted, Mom and Dad and Mackenzie haven't released anything official yet, so the tabloids are sure to make up everything from cocaine addictions to pregnancy scares - they're going to want some kind of quote, and who better to give a quote than you, the devoted sister. You lay out your outfit and try to imagine how you'll look in the pictures; maybe you should wear your pink shirt instead. You have to think about these things.
You wonder what Mary-Kate's thinking about.
3.
In a way you feel guilty, like it's your fault, even though Mom and Trent and Lizzie have told you it's not, and your agent has told you it's not, and that shrink, the one who requested a meeting with you after she met with Mary-Kate, has told you it's not.
"This can happen to anyone."
"It has nothing to do with working hard or being successful. "
"This is an issue that a girl down the street can have."
"This is an issue a lot of people have to deal with."
That's what everyone keeps telling you, and you've written those things down so you remember them in front of the cameras. But you don't really believe it.
After all, you're the one who pushed for New York Minute, for the movie and the Australia tour and the godknowswhatelse, because you believed, and you said, "We can do it, Mary-Kate. We can make it. Don't you want to make it?"
And now you don't really remember what your twin sister said, whether she said yes or no or just mumbled something in response. You've told yourself over and over again that she said yes, but you don't know for certain. You think that there are an awful lot of things you don't know for certain.
4.
You first felt it three years ago, the first time she kissed you.
It was summer, and you were fifteen, and this was before David, before Matt. You remember it as an idyllic time, although that's ridiculous, because of course nothing in your life has been idyllic since you were nine months old. But you were lying by the pool on identical towels with dolphins on them, discarded Calvin Klein sunglasses and bottles of Sun-Lite next to the dolphins' tails. Only your bikinis were different, cotton-candy pink with a million ties and bows for you, a deafening forest green with simple lines and velvet-soft ribbing for her.
You thought about touching it when she leaned over and brushed her lips against yours, tasting like strawberry-kiwi SPF lip balm and coconut-scented sunblock. She was sticky from the heat and the lotion, and when she put her palm on your cheek your breath hitched, partly because you couldn't believe it and partly because you didn't want white stuff on your nice new bathing suit. The inside of her bottom lip tasted like caffeine-free Diet Coke with a wedge of lime dropped onto the ice cubes, and your lip curled a little at the sharp citrus.
And then you were pushing her away, your hands on her shoulders, because there didn't seem to be a safe place to touch her. Her stomach and her thighs were all bare skin and it didn't seem like a good idea to put your hands anywhere near her bathing suit and so you ended up shaking your head like a dog, blonde hair flying. You tried to make light of it, diving into the pool and throwing a beach ball in her direction, so it bounced off one tan arm, and after a minute she joined you.
You never talked about it, and you're still not sure what she meant, what she wanted.
But you started dating Matt shortly after that, and she dyed her hair red one day. You and Mom both looked at her, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, until she grinned and admitted that it washed right out in one day. Mom breathed a sigh of relief and you smiled, a little stiffly, as you picked up your cell phone to call Matt.
It's always been that way. You broke out by dating boys, and she broke out by mutilating various parts of her body in turn.
You're certain of that.
5.
Okay, the Eating Disorder. You know you're going to have to talk about that at some point, whether you're ready or not. And even if you're not ready, a silent subject does not make for good copy, so you'd better come up with some things to say, something that looks good in cold black-and-white print and in a colorful pop-out-quote box.
This can happen to anyone. Rich or poor, famous or not, any girl or boy can have this problem. This has started to develop in the last year, but there's no reason to say that the pressure of New York Minute has anything to do with it. You're behind your sister one hundred percent. You support her just like any member of your family, and you'll do whatever you can to help. Yes, you're pretty sure you'll be canceling the Australia tour. No, this shouldn't interfere with your joint plans to attend New York University in the fall.
You practice it in your head, putting a little extra emphasis on member of your family.
It's all a lie.
6.
You know when this started to develop, and it wasn't in the last year. You still remember the night two years ago, right after Mary-Kate broke up with Max, when you sat with your ear pressed to the bathroom door, leaning all your weight on your left hand. The fluffy pile carpet made marks on your palm because you were leaning so hard. Lizzie was playing some horrible Backstreet Boys song down the hall in her room, and Mary-Kate had the water running full blast in the sink, but none of that masked the gagging sounds. You wonder if she was really trying to hide it.
You banged open the door without bothering to knock. If she wasn't trying to hide what she was doing, then you weren't about to hide the fact that you were listening. Mary-Kate spun from the toilet when you stormed in, spit glistening on her lips and her cheeks florid with the effort of coughing up what little she ate of the dinner Mom made. She was wearing an eggshell-white satin bathrobe loosely belted over her chest and stomach, and it showed her thighs and pajama shorts. Bits of her hair were falling out of her ponytail and she pushed them out of her eyes.
"What are you doing here?" she asked roughly, flushing the toilet before you could get a good look. Not that you really wanted to look anyway, but she is your sister.
"It's my bathroom too."
"'At's nah wha' I men'." She was brushing her teeth by then, shoving glittery purple Mary-Kate and Ashley toothbrush down her throat like she was trying to make herself throw up some more.
You don't remember why you thought it would be a good idea, but you waited until she'd spit and rinsed out, and then you were the one to kiss her. You put one hand on her ribs, feeling the ridges of bone underneath her paper-thin skin and the flimsy robe, and then other on her leg. You could feel the criss-crosses, the fine hatching of well-healed scars on the inside of her thigh, on her ribs and tummy when you shoved your hand down into her shorts.
And that time she was the one to push you away and go back to her room, slamming the door, leaving you with a chilly, minty mouth and damp fingers.
7.
You were angry at her that night, and you're still angry at her, and you don't understand why. After all, by that time you were already dating Matt, and the tabloids and the Internet postings and the articles in People proved that you were 100% happy with your boyfriend. How could you be angry at Mary-Kate for stopping you, stopping you from cheating on your boyfriend with your sister?
But one thing you've learned is that it's much easier to be angry with someone about the things that make sense once you're already angry about the things that don't make sense.
You remember your boundless enthusiasm, nine years ago, when Full House was just ending and you and Mary-Kate could command the world with one smile or one phone call, when you had a million options and a billion decisions and not quite a million-billion dollars at your disposal. You remember making the decision to do It Takes Two, remember deciding that you'd record Our First Album, remember taking the lead and giving Mackenzie a big hug when Dad told you guys that he was marrying her less than a month after he and Mom divorced. You were always the outspoken one, the photogenic one, the cute one, and you wonder when you stopped being just half of Mary-Kate-and-Ashley and when you started dragging Mary-Kate along in your wake.
Doesn't she care? Doesn't she want what you want? All your lives you've wanted the same thing, haven't you? Maybe she's wanted it in blue and you've wanted it in pink, but it doesn't matter, because you've always been the same. Always halves of one, instead of one and one making two.
If she really doesn't care, if she'd rather grow up and cook tofu (ugh) than act … well, you're okay with that. In a way it might be easier, you might be taken more seriously, if you're Ashley Olsen, if you're one, instead of half of Mary-Kate-and-Ashley. You don't mind that so much, not really. You'd even be okay with that.
Only why can't she just tell you, instead of sticking laxatives down her throat and Exacto knives against her skin? She doesn't need to have an eating disorder and scars on her thighs to get away from you. She could just say it. But you know your twin sister - that's the best part of behind half of one, that you know the other half like that - and you know she won't say it out loud.
And that's why you're so mad at her.
8.
You imagine her sitting on a hand-me-down twin mattress with squeaky springs and a scratchy brown wool blanket (an image that probably comes from the movies, not your movies but other children's movies featuring orphans, but that's what you imagine), and you wonder if she's mad at you. After all, you're the normal one, the one who's escaped the whispered Eating Disorder (or the cocaine addiction, or the throes of lesbianism, or whatever the tabloids are reporting now). She's become the weak one, the one that little girls and their parents don't want to be reminded of.
Is she mad at you?
Mary-Kate has never been good at telling you flat-out how she feels, though, and you suspect that you'll never really know how she feels about this.
9.
Mom comes in and asks if you want to talk about it, but you don't really know what to say, and so you shake your head no and she kisses you goodnight. You lay out your clothes, choosing a bright pink, soft-as-silk tank top and a pair of baggy white linen pants that flare out wide at the bottoms. The colours will look good in the explosions of a hundred flashbulbs, when you say the words that will become news all over the country.
You put on your pajamas and get ready for bed, glancing around your room before you turn off the white gooseneck beside lamp that's draped with a lavender bow. All around your room are photos of family, friends, your agents, producers, people you've met, kids with diseases, elderly women and men who will never see as much money as you and your twin sister command in a week. There's a photograph that was taken on the set of Michelle Rides Again, Part Two, the very last episode of Full House - you and Mary-Kate and Candace and Andrea and Jodie and Bob and John and Dave and Lori and the other twins, Blake and Dylan, all smiling for the camera, the way you're supposed to when you're a semi-famous actor. You study the picture for a minute, your identical faces, identical hair-dos, even the identical teeth that they made you wear so you'd look exactly the same. Things were so much easier back then.
As you reach for the switch on your lamp, you notice the bracelet that Bob gave you all those years ago. The lobster clasp sparkles in the harsh glare from the lightbulb, and you pick it up between manicured fingers, so that the amber beads turn darker and the pink beads look brighter.
You remember Bob promising that you and Mary-Kate would have a fantastic career, and both your fists tighten on the bracelet until glass beads go flying and rattling in all directions.
fin.
Author: celeria
Pairing: Mary-Kate Olsen/Ashley Olsen
Rating: R
Warning: Erm, the twincest thing. But not too explicit in the sex department, for once.
Author's Notes: The last I heard, the cocaine thing was just a rumour. But who knows.
By Nines
1.
When you were nine months old, you and Mary-Kate started acting on Full House (if you can call sitting in a booster seat for 21 minutes "acting") and - well, everyone knows that. "Mary-Kate and Ashley, who turned 18 on June 13, have been acting together since they were 9 months old", all the articles say. After a while the articles and the websites and the message boards start to sound the same, and you can't even remember that time in your life and career, so you tend to ignore it.
When you were almost nine years old, Full House ended and suddenly you had to think about the rest of your life. Movies, albums, maybe another TV show or two? You had so many options, and you were excited to get on with it. Mary-Kate hung back while you talked business and agents and recording labels with Candace and Jodie. At the party that Ellen Guylas and John Bowab threw to celebrate the final episode, Bob Saget gave you each a present, in two identical white boxes with identical pink paper and identical purple bows. And the presents, they turned out, were two almost-identical bracelets of glass beads. But Mary-Kate's beads were all different shades of blue, and yours were a bright, warm pink and amber.
You smiled and hugged Bob and modeled your bracelet for the camera, because you knew that was what you were supposed to do, even at the age of almost-nine.
Mary-Kate, who never quite caught on to those little things that you were supposed to do, put hers on and then turned to Bob. "But it's too big for me."
"I know," Bob said, kneeling down in front of her, taking her hands in his. The camera snapped a picture of that, too. "That's so you can grow into it. So that when you're nineteen, and you and Ashley have a fantastic career, you guys have something to remember us by."
2.
You're not quite nineteen years old yet, but you still have your bracelet. You took it out and looked at it yesterday, the day that Dad buckled Mary-Kate into the passenger seat of her Range Rover, like she was still nine. Mary-Kate waved, but you pretended not to see her through the tinted glass.
You tried on your bracelet, undoing the little gold clasp and holding your wrist against your flat stomach so that you could fasten it. Bob was right; it does fit you now that you're almost nineteen and you have a fantastic career.
At least you thought you did.
Tomorrow you'll put on that new Donna Karan t-shirt and maybe the skirt with the zig-zag pink-and-white design and go out and give some interviews for the cameras, because that's what you're supposed to do. Once the reporters get wind that Mary-Kate's in treatment for something - although granted, Mom and Dad and Mackenzie haven't released anything official yet, so the tabloids are sure to make up everything from cocaine addictions to pregnancy scares - they're going to want some kind of quote, and who better to give a quote than you, the devoted sister. You lay out your outfit and try to imagine how you'll look in the pictures; maybe you should wear your pink shirt instead. You have to think about these things.
You wonder what Mary-Kate's thinking about.
3.
In a way you feel guilty, like it's your fault, even though Mom and Trent and Lizzie have told you it's not, and your agent has told you it's not, and that shrink, the one who requested a meeting with you after she met with Mary-Kate, has told you it's not.
"This can happen to anyone."
"It has nothing to do with working hard or being successful. "
"This is an issue that a girl down the street can have."
"This is an issue a lot of people have to deal with."
That's what everyone keeps telling you, and you've written those things down so you remember them in front of the cameras. But you don't really believe it.
After all, you're the one who pushed for New York Minute, for the movie and the Australia tour and the godknowswhatelse, because you believed, and you said, "We can do it, Mary-Kate. We can make it. Don't you want to make it?"
And now you don't really remember what your twin sister said, whether she said yes or no or just mumbled something in response. You've told yourself over and over again that she said yes, but you don't know for certain. You think that there are an awful lot of things you don't know for certain.
4.
You first felt it three years ago, the first time she kissed you.
It was summer, and you were fifteen, and this was before David, before Matt. You remember it as an idyllic time, although that's ridiculous, because of course nothing in your life has been idyllic since you were nine months old. But you were lying by the pool on identical towels with dolphins on them, discarded Calvin Klein sunglasses and bottles of Sun-Lite next to the dolphins' tails. Only your bikinis were different, cotton-candy pink with a million ties and bows for you, a deafening forest green with simple lines and velvet-soft ribbing for her.
You thought about touching it when she leaned over and brushed her lips against yours, tasting like strawberry-kiwi SPF lip balm and coconut-scented sunblock. She was sticky from the heat and the lotion, and when she put her palm on your cheek your breath hitched, partly because you couldn't believe it and partly because you didn't want white stuff on your nice new bathing suit. The inside of her bottom lip tasted like caffeine-free Diet Coke with a wedge of lime dropped onto the ice cubes, and your lip curled a little at the sharp citrus.
And then you were pushing her away, your hands on her shoulders, because there didn't seem to be a safe place to touch her. Her stomach and her thighs were all bare skin and it didn't seem like a good idea to put your hands anywhere near her bathing suit and so you ended up shaking your head like a dog, blonde hair flying. You tried to make light of it, diving into the pool and throwing a beach ball in her direction, so it bounced off one tan arm, and after a minute she joined you.
You never talked about it, and you're still not sure what she meant, what she wanted.
But you started dating Matt shortly after that, and she dyed her hair red one day. You and Mom both looked at her, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, until she grinned and admitted that it washed right out in one day. Mom breathed a sigh of relief and you smiled, a little stiffly, as you picked up your cell phone to call Matt.
It's always been that way. You broke out by dating boys, and she broke out by mutilating various parts of her body in turn.
You're certain of that.
5.
Okay, the Eating Disorder. You know you're going to have to talk about that at some point, whether you're ready or not. And even if you're not ready, a silent subject does not make for good copy, so you'd better come up with some things to say, something that looks good in cold black-and-white print and in a colorful pop-out-quote box.
This can happen to anyone. Rich or poor, famous or not, any girl or boy can have this problem. This has started to develop in the last year, but there's no reason to say that the pressure of New York Minute has anything to do with it. You're behind your sister one hundred percent. You support her just like any member of your family, and you'll do whatever you can to help. Yes, you're pretty sure you'll be canceling the Australia tour. No, this shouldn't interfere with your joint plans to attend New York University in the fall.
You practice it in your head, putting a little extra emphasis on member of your family.
It's all a lie.
6.
You know when this started to develop, and it wasn't in the last year. You still remember the night two years ago, right after Mary-Kate broke up with Max, when you sat with your ear pressed to the bathroom door, leaning all your weight on your left hand. The fluffy pile carpet made marks on your palm because you were leaning so hard. Lizzie was playing some horrible Backstreet Boys song down the hall in her room, and Mary-Kate had the water running full blast in the sink, but none of that masked the gagging sounds. You wonder if she was really trying to hide it.
You banged open the door without bothering to knock. If she wasn't trying to hide what she was doing, then you weren't about to hide the fact that you were listening. Mary-Kate spun from the toilet when you stormed in, spit glistening on her lips and her cheeks florid with the effort of coughing up what little she ate of the dinner Mom made. She was wearing an eggshell-white satin bathrobe loosely belted over her chest and stomach, and it showed her thighs and pajama shorts. Bits of her hair were falling out of her ponytail and she pushed them out of her eyes.
"What are you doing here?" she asked roughly, flushing the toilet before you could get a good look. Not that you really wanted to look anyway, but she is your sister.
"It's my bathroom too."
"'At's nah wha' I men'." She was brushing her teeth by then, shoving glittery purple Mary-Kate and Ashley toothbrush down her throat like she was trying to make herself throw up some more.
You don't remember why you thought it would be a good idea, but you waited until she'd spit and rinsed out, and then you were the one to kiss her. You put one hand on her ribs, feeling the ridges of bone underneath her paper-thin skin and the flimsy robe, and then other on her leg. You could feel the criss-crosses, the fine hatching of well-healed scars on the inside of her thigh, on her ribs and tummy when you shoved your hand down into her shorts.
And that time she was the one to push you away and go back to her room, slamming the door, leaving you with a chilly, minty mouth and damp fingers.
7.
You were angry at her that night, and you're still angry at her, and you don't understand why. After all, by that time you were already dating Matt, and the tabloids and the Internet postings and the articles in People proved that you were 100% happy with your boyfriend. How could you be angry at Mary-Kate for stopping you, stopping you from cheating on your boyfriend with your sister?
But one thing you've learned is that it's much easier to be angry with someone about the things that make sense once you're already angry about the things that don't make sense.
You remember your boundless enthusiasm, nine years ago, when Full House was just ending and you and Mary-Kate could command the world with one smile or one phone call, when you had a million options and a billion decisions and not quite a million-billion dollars at your disposal. You remember making the decision to do It Takes Two, remember deciding that you'd record Our First Album, remember taking the lead and giving Mackenzie a big hug when Dad told you guys that he was marrying her less than a month after he and Mom divorced. You were always the outspoken one, the photogenic one, the cute one, and you wonder when you stopped being just half of Mary-Kate-and-Ashley and when you started dragging Mary-Kate along in your wake.
Doesn't she care? Doesn't she want what you want? All your lives you've wanted the same thing, haven't you? Maybe she's wanted it in blue and you've wanted it in pink, but it doesn't matter, because you've always been the same. Always halves of one, instead of one and one making two.
If she really doesn't care, if she'd rather grow up and cook tofu (ugh) than act … well, you're okay with that. In a way it might be easier, you might be taken more seriously, if you're Ashley Olsen, if you're one, instead of half of Mary-Kate-and-Ashley. You don't mind that so much, not really. You'd even be okay with that.
Only why can't she just tell you, instead of sticking laxatives down her throat and Exacto knives against her skin? She doesn't need to have an eating disorder and scars on her thighs to get away from you. She could just say it. But you know your twin sister - that's the best part of behind half of one, that you know the other half like that - and you know she won't say it out loud.
And that's why you're so mad at her.
8.
You imagine her sitting on a hand-me-down twin mattress with squeaky springs and a scratchy brown wool blanket (an image that probably comes from the movies, not your movies but other children's movies featuring orphans, but that's what you imagine), and you wonder if she's mad at you. After all, you're the normal one, the one who's escaped the whispered Eating Disorder (or the cocaine addiction, or the throes of lesbianism, or whatever the tabloids are reporting now). She's become the weak one, the one that little girls and their parents don't want to be reminded of.
Is she mad at you?
Mary-Kate has never been good at telling you flat-out how she feels, though, and you suspect that you'll never really know how she feels about this.
9.
Mom comes in and asks if you want to talk about it, but you don't really know what to say, and so you shake your head no and she kisses you goodnight. You lay out your clothes, choosing a bright pink, soft-as-silk tank top and a pair of baggy white linen pants that flare out wide at the bottoms. The colours will look good in the explosions of a hundred flashbulbs, when you say the words that will become news all over the country.
You put on your pajamas and get ready for bed, glancing around your room before you turn off the white gooseneck beside lamp that's draped with a lavender bow. All around your room are photos of family, friends, your agents, producers, people you've met, kids with diseases, elderly women and men who will never see as much money as you and your twin sister command in a week. There's a photograph that was taken on the set of Michelle Rides Again, Part Two, the very last episode of Full House - you and Mary-Kate and Candace and Andrea and Jodie and Bob and John and Dave and Lori and the other twins, Blake and Dylan, all smiling for the camera, the way you're supposed to when you're a semi-famous actor. You study the picture for a minute, your identical faces, identical hair-dos, even the identical teeth that they made you wear so you'd look exactly the same. Things were so much easier back then.
As you reach for the switch on your lamp, you notice the bracelet that Bob gave you all those years ago. The lobster clasp sparkles in the harsh glare from the lightbulb, and you pick it up between manicured fingers, so that the amber beads turn darker and the pink beads look brighter.
You remember Bob promising that you and Mary-Kate would have a fantastic career, and both your fists tighten on the bracelet until glass beads go flying and rattling in all directions.
fin.