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Since when did it begin? Maybe from when they were kids, before impurity was conceived. Joseph, cold and aloof, so unlike other children his age– Claude, soft and emotional, almost more than his peers. It's almost like the abnormalities that come with the reputation in twinship. The teary eyed younger brother can easily laugh and cry, while the nonchalant elder is hardly moved by anything at all.
Joseph somewhat envied his brother. To be able to express himself vividly– as the itch of human emotions tear him inside, all Joseph can do is frown, speak harsh words that mean nothing. Maybe he just isn't meant to feel it. His enigmatic smile that he began to wear as he watched the scuffle of high society became the perfect veil for his hollow personality. Perhaps hollow is far too cruel of a word. He just doesn't feel as deeply as others, much less as vibrantly as his younger brother.
His younger brother, who's too pale and bathed in light to be vibrantly coloured.
Claude shies away from his kiss at night. In the living room, when their parents are out for the evening for a social gathering between nobles. With nothing but his adoration for his brother, Joseph stares at the way he lays on the couch, his sweet downturned eyes focused on the novel under his kind gaze, the rigidity of nobility discarded perhaps unconsciously– it’s a sign of weakness, a sign that he is prey amidst the foxen kind of aristocracy. A true noble must dominate and control, even himself.
Claude, because he was raised in the confines of his sickbed, falling faint when he stood straight during practice for too long, doesn’t know that he should maintain the manners of his wealthy blood even when the only one who can see him is the twin brother he trusts with his life. Who can say for sure, who is who? Like how Claude naively looks up at Joseph with his bright eyes glittering when he takes a seat next to him, putting a hand on the back of his silk shirt.
He walks up the stairs with him, talking softly about something. Hoping that their parents don’t come back too early, because he wants to stay up a little late, finishing the novel. How they insist on a curfew for him despite his big age at seventeen, just because his health is a little shaky. How he’s feeling so much better nowadays. Joseph answers and nods and hums timely, smiling at the correct moments.
“Good night, brother.” He beams, pink lips sincere as always, delicate and beloved, hands soft and unbroken for the way he presses the keys of the piano, yet with the slightest trace of dirt because he watered his flowers, placed on the edge of the door cracked open. “If mother and father return early, make sure to tell me.”
Joseph nods politely. “Wait, Claude.”
“Yes?” His eyebrows raise slightly, his fair eyelashes fluttering upwards. Joseph takes his hand off the door handle cast in a gold pattern and squeezes it in his own. What drove him to make this decision? It’s something like the heat of the moment, curling in his ribcage, sending strange goosebumps down the sides of his limbs. Claude’s breathing remains even up until Joseph puts his left hand on his cheek, the tips of his nails grazing against his soft skin, at which point he shudders.
Humans are known to be born with intuition that allows them to sense danger, sense malevolence in the eyes of predators lurking just by– flinching when they feel sharp stares on their backs, wide alert, heart racing when they know a monster lurks just behind the curtain of normalcy, even if they can’t see it. Claude might not have that sort of instinct. He’s an animal, just like Joseph, but this sweet lamb has never seen the fangs of the predator so that he doesn’t know when it stares right at him.
“Claude…” he pauses, combing his hand into his hair, tucking a fair lock behind his ear. Half-lidded in concentration on the focal point of existence as the rest of the world blurs away, Joseph runs the pad of his fingers over his cheekbone again, the line of his jaw. Claude waits for him to speak, his anxiety visibly increasing in the way his eyes flit to the side and back at him. He still holds his hand tightly in his right one, the strength having gradually increased at a pace that unsharpened instincts would have never noticed. Water only boils gradually…
He can see every detail in his azure iris from this proximity. Foreheads touch, and then noses– Claude’s breathing ceases and Joseph’s heart lurches out of his chest. Closing his eyes very slowly, he pushes his lips into Claude’s.
“Joseph!”
Hands with milky skin wrapped taut around tender flesh and feeble bones push him away with all their strength, yet this moment of exceptionalism lasts for less than a second before the serpent finally pounces on the sweet hare unaware of his presence, wrapping his arms around his waist like iron bars and entrapping his lithe body against his chest. Joseph forces the kiss to happen anyway, as Claude tries to pry off his arms, then his face–
“Joseph, stop, what are you doing-!”
He slams the door shut behind them, easily coaxing Claude’s weaker body into his own bedroom where the strong floral scent hits both of them dizzyingly, plunging this night into a sweeter despair. Claude stumbles in his squirming, and Joseph catches him firmly, making sure not a hair is hurt. He will only hurt himself if he wants to wrestle against the grasp of an expert fencer and a hunter, even if they are both seventeen. Although he’s always wanted it to be gentle, to be romantic… it seems Joseph was merely delusional.
But the thought doesn’t deter him. Claude will always love him, will learn to love him. He keeps protesting, letting out noises of struggle and disdain, all while his words remain so pitifully tender and pleading in his beautiful voice, as pure and silvery as milk dripping down Joseph’s neck. It’s here that he first comforts his brother for the worst yet to come: “Sh, darling, don’t cry.”
“Joseph, please don’t, I’ll do anything,” he gasps when he reaches for his pants, freeing his hips from the obtrusive garment. “I promise I won’t tell anyone, stop–”
Joseph kisses his cheek, hoisting them up on Claude’s own bed and placing a hand over his mouth for just the time being, to serve as a warning and a small scolding from elder to younger twin. No matter how much Claude cries, no one will come take him from his older brother. Here, in Joseph’s lap, Claude has simply returned to where he’s always belonged.
Although he’s always wanted it to be gentle, to be romantic, slipping off each garment with the tenderness of a lover, he is forced to roughly take off his coat and pants, doing his best not to bruise the soft skin on his thighs. All he can offer in recompense is to continue to utter words of consolement, kisses on his hair and his pretty face. They say that Joseph is the more handsome, more beautiful twin– but to Joseph, to their parents, it was always obvious that the gentle youngest was the stunning beauty between two brothers, no matter how princely Joseph Desaulniers was.
An arm wrapped around his throat, without squeezing in, only stably placed so that he doesn’t try to struggle. Claude squirms, his hand weakly gripping his sleeve, almost as if he’s clutching at him like a lifeline. Joseph presses a kiss to the side of his forehead quickly before focusing on his other hand. Even if his hands are barely restrained, Claude can’t pull away Joseph’s from inside his underwear, pants long discarded on the edge of the bed, tugged off firmly very early.
“It’s alright, dear, don’t cry.” He whispers by his ear, golden locks of hair sticking to his watering mouth. “Your big brother will make you feel good, alright?”
“No…” He moans in protest and in pain, and in pleasure as his finger curls between his legs, finding the spot he likes best. Careful with his nails, Joseph resolutely rubs the pad of his finger down his untouched slit and up again to his pink clit, drawing out the slick his body produces out of instinct to lubricate the petit piece of his flesh that betrays his mind. “Jos, no–”
The elder sighs as he feels his clit harden under his insistent stimulation, yet it’s still too dry that he might hurt his sweet little brother. He doesn’t want to do this to punish him– Joseph just wants to make him feel good , like a good sibling ought to. Although it’s easy to get lost in the warmth of Claude’s back pressed into his chest, the softness of his milky skin under his palm, he has to be careful, pay attention to each and every little change of expression.
“It’s okay.” He reassures, applying a little more pressure to his rhythm, and it absolutely makes Claude jerk up in his caging embrace. He lets out such a cute yelp, shocked by the feeling, shocked that he might like it. Encouraged, he holds him tighter and slips another finger from his fist into the blossoming petals of this delicate rose. Claude bites his lip, holding back the sobs that come to him so easily.
His sweet Claude, who’s so easy to cry. Did his little brother take all of his tears in the womb with his love for all the world? So kindly crying for insects and dead birds and poisoned hares in the garden. Once, a decade ago, he even climbed into Joseph’s bed, whispering about a tiny little sin he committed against a flower of sorts. Joseph recalls that even through the sleepy mind of a child not even eight, he welcomed Claude into his arms.
In his loving arms just like that time, Claude struggles weakly. Maybe he’s doing his very best, but his thin limbs can’t do anything that affects Joseph. As he leans down to kiss the tip of his ear lightly, Joseph wonders if he thinks this is because of his physical practices that Claude sits to watch every so often, praising him for his strength and skill. Such weakness slowly becomes slower, less inflamed. His squirming can be attributed to nothing but the freshness of sexual pleasure upon his body like he’s never experienced before.
Joseph raises his hand to his face to wet them before resuming the foreplay like appetizer. His fingers slide much better down Claude’s delicate sex, making his slender legs convulse in surprise, disgust and pleasure– Claude attempts time and time again to close them, but the involuntary twitching keeps a perfect opening for Joseph.
“Stop, Joseph…” his voice is almost dying out like the flickering candle atop an altar, tears streaming down his face near silently, but even silence does not give Claude some relief. Joseph maneuvers two fingers quickly up and down, pressing down on that area that makes him squirm and cry out in unprecedented feelings in a place that should not have existed within him. “Please, I don’t want to.”
“I love you,” Joseph kisses his nape from behind where he holds him firmly, “your brother won’t do anything that will hurt you.”
Claude chokes on spit and a fresh wave of tears when those intruding digits bury themselves between wet folds, to touch, to penetrate. The feeling is so pervasive and yet shockingly pleasurable that his back arches off Joseph’s chest, a moan freeing itself from his reddened lips that kept it down for so long. And once the first slips out, more fall from the treasured mouth that Joseph’s violence first began upon. “It hurts, Joseph…”
“This is what you need, my dear.” Joseph runs his hand down his shoulder to his chest, up to his jaw, tilting his face to the side to capture his drooling lips in a chastely passionate kiss full of adoration. “Don’t you feel how much your body craves it? My beloved Claude, your brother will make you feel so good .”
While Joseph curls and furthers his fingers into his hole that feels so full, each graze of his nails agonizing but each pump of his skin ecstatic, Claude can’t sit still anymore as he was just beginning to accept the meaning of his punishment. This must be punishment and nothing else– perhaps they say that adolescents of his age begin their exploration of their own bodies, of the bodies of others. Is this because his eyes lingered too long on Joseph as he donned his fencing uniform, brandished his sword to show off, making Claude laugh?
(Is it because he doesn’t believe in God’s mercy that He abandoned Claude? Made his most beloved person betray him for doubting His might.)
Joseph lets go of his throat when he gags for the second time, but the relentless moving of his hand doesn’t cease. His hands that are an inch longer grip his wrists like the reins of a saddle when Claude convulses, spit muffling any form of coherent speech, wet moans and pleas both coming out with the impediment of a child’s babbling through the salivation from his involuntary desire. The words stop, don’t, please , become a background hum to this punishment. When Claude rushes forward and jerks upwards when Joseph curls his fingers and nails to a particular spot, he hangs forward panting as his brother holds his arms like a leash.
He isn’t allowed the dignity of collapse when clear liquid drips almost freely from the place where Joseph’s knuckles meet his flesh, whereas his older brother carefully eases him to lay down slowly on his stomach. Claude feels the dampened sheets beneath his bared legs, ushering in the crying once more– but it’s stopped quickly by Joseph’s efforts. Supporting himself on his elbow and knees, Joseph, over Claude, leans down to kiss him on his lips. Prior to tonight, mere minutes ago that seem hours of agony ago, he had never kissed anyone before but the hands of noble girls and their cheeks.
And his parents’ faces when he was a happier child, not yet destroyed by the cage around his being, not yet realized the psychological aftermath of a terminal illness, and Joseph, from the moment he remembers being conscious. Kissing his cheeks, as Joseph kissing his forehead coolly and pressing his hand to his lips for a long time, just like a charming knight he wished to be. Siblings are not normally so affectionate, not twins either, but it was chalked up to their eternal happiness in the garden of privilege and Claude’s gentle nature which complied like a head resting on the strong shoulder of Joseph’s unbothered nonchalance.
Siblings are not normally so affectionate, nor intimate. Perhaps being each other’s best friends since cognition is somewhat out of the ordinary, this… is not. Yet what can Claude say? That he hates him? That he will never forgive him?
“Joseph, please…” Claude whispers when he pulls away with the same strand of saliva, “Joseph, is mama back…?”
His older brother shakes his blond head and the hollow cage in his heart shatters painfully, remnants falling from his eyes like crystals. There’s no point in resisting more, there was never a reason to try and reach the logical part of Joseph’s mind that seems normally to dominate his actions. If Joseph deems something rational, if Joseph does something of his own will, it means that he’ll stick to the end of it, because he became obsessed with it.
Joseph brushes his blond hair out of his face where it stuck to his sweat and tears, so much tears, the crybaby second son’s endless heart behind his ear. The light casts that the shadow minimally obscures the vision of Claude’s face of childish misery in beautiful anguish as he looks hopelessly up at Joseph. He only reaches for his hand, where the trembling and precious claw with five milky fingers, joints blossoming like roses from pain. He chokes out a dry sob from his chest in more agony than his soaked cunt dripping like his eyes.
“Don’t do it.” He mumbles for the last time, the sheets muffling his speech as he turns his head to rest his aching neck. “Big brother, I’m begging you, don’t do it.”
He says he begs, and what divine plea is that? The voice of the adolescent, his four minutes younger twin as he trembles in the aftershock of his first orgasm is breaking softly as his voice that sings so beautifully for their music tutor. His hands gripping the blankets in bitterness so unlike how he carefully tends to his flower garden, to where he disappears like a caged bird, a hare into its burrow surrounded by the fields of vegetation in the pure wilderness.
“No,” Joseph holds his hips and places a kiss on his lower lips too, as lovingly as he does everything else, “it’s for the best, Claude.”
A drop of blood, maybe two, smears over Joseph’s penetrating member, and it goes unnoticed as Joseph holds Claude steady in his arms while thrusting into him again and again, Claude rhythmically letting out placid gasps and moans with his knees digging into the bed that creaks with each movement. The scent of lavender is forgotten yet permeates the air even beneath the musk of their shared crime.
Claude bites his index, whimpering like a child, muttering pleas for pleasure and pain and hollow cessation under his breath that is no longer lonely. Joseph kisses his hair, his cheeks, his hands and his ear, his lips– and Claude kisses him back because he has nothing else to do but cry. In the throes of passion, the same pure white fluid drips from their conjoined bodies as Claude asks for his mother one more time.
…
He cries and cries. He didn't cry so much as a child– so openly, anyway. Not openly. Claude cries in his room, covering his face, as quietly as possible, stifled hiccups and moans of pain, beautiful blue eyes filling up again and again with tears, pretty face turning pink and red. And Joseph watches through the crack in his door, listens through their shared bedroom wall.
He's on the verge of tears during breakfast, and he hears him choke in the piano room. It's almost a little annoying, if it weren't Claude– he doesn't mind, because it's Claude.
…
The ferry rocks with the turmoil of the ocean that carries their ferry across the river of death like a fatal omen of romance, yet the fleeing nobles have gotten used to the nausea from the relentless turbulence of the life of conflict. Joseph holds his brother’s hand in both of his own, the thin, gaunt yet pure little claw of an uncorrupt wild animal shaped exactly like a young teenager’s, pressing it to his lips as tears endlessly stream down his face, the hollow cage in his ribcage breaking and rebuilding and breaking and rebuilding–
“Claude, don’t leave me.” He pleads, an empty plea for pleasure, for pain, for sacrifice. “I can’t live without you.”
The visceral whisper of his older brother falls on Claude’s ears like the shimmering of the ocean on that single day of clear skies on the ferry to England. Downturned, sunken eyes turn towards the young man sitting at his thin bedside, his luxurious clothes turning worn and damp like the walls and ceilings of the ship.
“I don’t want to.” He laughs despite himself, because there seems to be nothing else to do but smile, for he wishes not to show his beloved older brother, the only one he truly loves, more tears, more crying. Isn’t it strange? For once in their lives, at the end of their lives, the crybaby second son shows a resilience unbecoming of his frail and sensitive nature while his perfect older brother’s icy demeanor thaws like the comfort of winter into the everchanging, unpredictable, painful spring.
Only before it starts to wilt does a flower bloom most beautifully. Lavender seems to drift through the wet woodboards, transcending time and space and the veil of the beautiful past and into the dizzying ambience of the sea, through the slivers of gaps in the walls and the windows. Claude’s scent is sweet, sickeningly so– fragrant as his flower garden, floral as the lavender that witnessed that night whilst embracing Claude in the only comfort God gave him the very evening in its violet colors and familiar scent.
“Joseph, tell mama and papa that I love them.” He closes his eyes– yet, the scent of family is even more familiar. Tinged with the blood of sacrifice and “first” pains, the turbulence unknown to the rest of the world. Are all parents and sons this way? Are all brothers and sisters the way he and Joseph are? On the ferry, his vision was blurry with fever and sickness that he never got to see the others that existed in the same world as him. “Joseph, please…”
Without a need for words to understand each other like the fantastical stories about twins, Joseph kisses him without a second thought, his passion unmatched in the tenderness of the violet feathers of lavender flowers falling and drifting as softly as the memory of their home manifests in this moment– his hand is so gentle on Claude’s cheek that the dying boy begins to cry again into his older brother’s lips.
“I don’t want to…”
Tears fall upon tears until it cannot be told that whose is whose, sheets dampening in the cruelty of the world, the unfairness of God. It can be nothing but divine punishment. Eternal happiness does not exist. The kingdom of childhood lasts only until the last star in their loving night dies out. At nineteen, Joseph feels that star turn cold in his very arms, holding him gently.
“Joseph, do you love me?” His voice becomes slightly muffled in the sheets, in the way his blond locks fall into his face. Joseph brushes them all out of his eyes with a franticness, as if they must leave soon but nothing is ready, something important is missing yet the door keeps banging with knocks because they must go, and the air of rain is nothing but cruel, cold, wet and disgusting –
He takes a deep breath to the very pit of his ribcage and sighs. “I love you.” Claude’s eyes widen before they narrow with tears, breaking out into sobs like the bursting of flower petals. “Your big brother is here. Claude…”
…
His tears haunt him even now like the visage of his lithe body, forever seventeen. Joseph Desaulniers remembers his warmth as vividly as his beautiful face, his beautiful face… that seems to slip from his mind like he teases him even now, just out of his grasp. Fleeting, ephemeral, beautiful, just like all young things. His small and milky hand ghosts over his skin, marvels at his height, traces over his neck and combs over the strands of gray hair accumulated even before the age of forty.
On his comfortable bed, he can feel the same silk sheets from the era of Versailles’ glory underneath him. The mercury vapor almost smells like lavender. Claude kisses him back, for the lack of anything else to do, his sweet mouth so warm, so wet, yet so phantasmal that it vanishes away, fluttering away into a time and space centuries away leaving behind the world of the living, the world where the starry sky must end.
“Claude…” he murmurs, and his voice is almost twenty years younger in his own ears. A distorted shadow whispers into his ear with a beaming smile, pink lips stretching lightly like diamond petals. “Joseph.” It answers, merely a thin layer of existence away– as thin as the wings of a swallowtail butterfly, morpho menelaus with a lazurite coat serving as his flight. Hands unbroken and yet used to the piano, gripping the sheets of Joseph’s new bed. “Claude…!”
…
Elliot stares at the master’s gray head, strands of blond speckled throughout like gold hiding just beneath the veil of normalcy.
“Did you have a good relationship with your brother?”
The man’s obsession is abnormal. His brother named Claude, written on the back of yellow parchments, passed away from illness forty years ago, and yet drawings of the deceased’s childhood still find the centerplace of the old nobleman’s heart.
Why does Elliot attempt to reason with such a man? Because he is a man of God, the one who administers the recovery from divine punishments that the commonfolk cannot fathom as fate.
“We never fought,” he says, his voice like the wind rustling against the pages of old books and photographs, “not once, did we hurt each other.”
His eyes are wide, fading blue irises in awe of Elliot’s question as he faces the painting hanging from the wall– the pink on the bare skin flushing like petals of the young man as his downturned azure eyes glitter like that of a lamb’s, masterfully painted with the passion of more than art.