Work Text:
“Who in their right mind would send their twin teenagers to different schools?” Titus puffed out with frustration. For a brief second, he felt the urge to shove his fist through something hard. At the moment there was nothing worth his energy to destroy, which forced him into further aggravation. The news of their unexpected separation had come only a few days after the end of their respective sophomore years.
To say it was a shock to the pair would be an understatement.
This was not the summer welcome they were recently welcoming with open arms. Their expected rest in the Amalfi Coast in just a few days suddenly became a chore of appearances instead of a celebration of semester accomplishments. As the taller sibling rambled to himself in disbelief, Ursula began to gnaw at her uneven fingernails until it ached in sharp intervals. Even the possibility of further chipping her precious polish done only the day prior was not enough to deter her action.
She was trying to somehow rationalize the shocking decision yet was finding it impossible to think of why this had been bestowed upon them. This was unlike their father to do. That man had never once made a decision without proper deliberation. It was only a matter of time before their routines would be changed beyond recognition. Her only course of action was to deflect and defend.
“It’s a boarding school, Titus. There has to be a perfectly rational reason for all of this,” she tried to explain with oozing persuasion to no avail. It was a fool’s game to try and convince her brother of something she herself did not even believe in.
“Unless someone found out,” the grumbling teen offered back in rebuttal. This caused them to meet each other's full gaze for the first time since the start of the interaction. It forced a wave of anxiety to crash into the slightly fidgeting girl. She could not help but physically recoil at the implication of his words. There was no way the patriarch had snuffed out something so intimate. But then again, there were certain luxuries offered to one of the most powerful men on the planet.
“No, Titus, that’s impossible,” she spat out in annoyance at the sudden words of wisdom from her usually aloof sibling.
“All I’m saying is that things were perfectly fine befo-,” he began with a serious glare before getting cut off.
“No, no one could possibly know. Not unless you said something…,” the blonde trailed off in suspense while narrowing her eyes at the suspect. He felt the urge to laugh in her face at the absurdity of her accusation but restrained himself.
“I would never,” seethed the taller boy. Her eyes drilled intensely into his stony expression before giving up and settling back on her exposed nail bed. Pockets of red began to grow around her now extremely irritated cuticles.
“Whatever. It doesn’t change the fact that in less than two months we’re going to be stuck with twenty other sixteen-year-old brats for half a year,” she said with a small sigh behind an inner sense of horror.
“You’ll do just fine,” he said with an unnaturally high-pitched voice.
They both knew his statement to be true. No atmosphere was too much for the young woman to thrive in. Her attention turned towards her brother's continued stoic expression. Everyone knew Ursula had been blessed with a better understanding of social cues and gendered expectations than her twin.
“I’m worried about you,” she said with pursed lips.
“Don’t be,” Titus commanded. He had always despised the glances of sympathy that seemed to be following him into adulthood. “I can’t help it. You’re great at finding trouble,” she continued with an unintentional pout.
“Trouble follows me,” corrected the taller sibling with a slightly raised eyebrow. He was enjoying watching his sister squirm over her inability to let him down gently. As if he had ever needed to be coddled in his life. Yet here she was laying everything out on a digestible platter. She sighed.
“The boys you’ll be around are not your average socialite. They’re going to be even worse than what you’re used to. It would be wise to watch out for the troublemakers,” Ursula warned with worrying eyes.
“I may be temperamental, but I’m not dumb,” he corrected.
“I’m well aware,” replied the girl as she started growing more and more irritated by this conversation. Her brother, however, could continue this conversation until the end of summer.
“So, what, you-you’re going to just sit back and let him do this? There was nowhere else to safely dump his frustration out except at the only person in the world that knew what he was experiencing.
“What exactly can I do? There’s no changing his mind after it’s been made, as I’m sure I don’t have to remind you about the Switzerland incident. He’s impossible to reason with,” she sighed in further disbelief. If there was some magic button to disappear all of their worries, she would push it.
“I remember that,” he remarked in a defeated manner. Ursula felt a ping of innocence from the situation at hand. There was still a chance they could learn from their faults and work towards a solution less devastating as complete separation.
“Maybe the time will pass by quicker if we promise to call as frequently as we can,” she suggested with a hopeful smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Titus was not as convinced by the sudden shift in regiment.
“Are you that positive they’ll even have cell coverage? I’m sure father made sure we’ll be stuck inside a cold and antiquated bubble for as long as possible,” snarled the teen. There began an urge for Ursula to pick at the slight irregularities of her brother’s thoughts. She was certain any private school, even if it were in the depths of the wild west, would at least have a single phone for emergencies. It was almost the twentieth century after all.
“Then we’ll send letters,” she offered with a small smile. Her brother continued to rationalize.
“Do you think they’ll have a proper desktop?"
“Fat chance of it having the ability to even open up a chatroom,” laughed his sister with great irony.
“It’s starting to feel real,” she whined. The initial shock had begun to wear off from the small-framed teen. Panic spread quickly throughout her body at the cruel reality awaiting them in the fall.
“It’ll never compete with the impenetrable willpower of the Danforth family,” Titus chuckled out sympathetically while grabbing hold of one of her shoulders. Ursula was grateful for the attempt to calm her nerves even if humor was his only offering. She instinctively leaned into his touch. At this point in their youth her brother towered above her. An unnoticed observer of their body language would mistake them for tortured lovers. The knowledge of what lay beneath their well-mannered comments would be enough to sentence them to a life of sanctioned therapy.
At the very least they knew the contact was dangerous and wrong. It was most importantly prohibited by modern standards.
“We’ve never been separated for this long,” he remarked sadly while reminiscing on fond memories. Most, if not all of their life had consisted of them as a single entity. His fingers instinctively dug further into her skin at the thought of long nights spent in silence and darkness. They were both thinking of the same thing. Something that they had not been able to shake from their respective thoughts. Titus broke the first wave of continued silence. He always had a way of reading exactly what was on the mind of his twin.
“Are we going to talk about it?"
Ursula held her breath for a moment. It being that of something far more damning than their separation. She could still feel the pressure of his hand on her shoulder that had most likely begun to bruise. It made no difference to her. In fact, it made a small part of her tremble with lust. Blurred sets of images flooded her mind from that fateful evening.
“We don’t need to talk. There’s nothing more to say,” she replied in a voice only a little above a whisper. The two stood still for a moment amidst the growing tension. It was completely silent besides the soft hum of the cool air flowing into the room. He had begun to lose feeling in the fingers that still continued to hold onto his sister's body. He did not want to let go.
“He’s sending us away to save any remaining remnants of shame. Are you going to pretend like it didn’t happen? A smug huff of air escaped his lips in amazement at her ability to suppress all visible emotions.
“Pretend that we didn’t enjoy it? He whispered softly into her ear that left a chill in her spine.
“You can fool everyone else, but I know you, Ursula, and this has been driving you mad,” She breathed in slowly to lower the quickening drum of her heart. With a slight twist of her hips, her body now faced the individual somehow responsible for being the worst and best presence in her life. In a soft yet smooth motion, she brought a single hand towards his jaw to rest as comfortably as one could in such a predicament.
“Just kiss me so I don’t have to hear your rambling,” she finally answered.
Titus let out a slight growl in response before bringing his arms around her smaller frame. The two leaned in closer and closer until their respective noses collided into a slight bump of collision. As if to further revel in the mutually comforting presence of each other, both pairs of eyes shuttered closed. In a continued moment of synchronization, Ursula brought her arms under his locked joints and nestled tightly at his lower back. Titus turned his jaw slightly inwards to finally attach to the glistening lips patiently awaiting his arrival.
He could instantly taste a hint of strawberry that made his mouth tingle with sweetness. Only a few seconds went by before they squished their bodies even tighter in an attempt to merge into one. The intensity of their embrace continued to climb until the temptation of an even greater mixture of fluids became too much to bear. Tongues crashed together with a rapid ferocity not experienced before. Ursula wanted to scream out at the absurdity of not being able to get even closer. She felt an overwhelming urge to crawl into his skin even at the cost of her decency. At the growing thoughts of further exploration, she uncoupled her lips from his with a mixture of pleasure and frustration.
“Should we take this back to my room?”
“Someone’s eager,” teased Titus. Ursula raised a mocking eyebrow before turning her gaze slowly towards their tightly compressed bodies.
A noticeable bulge against her twin’s tight trousers was in full view, unbeknownst to the excited teen until Ursula laid a hand firmly on top. He instantly moaned just as his sister exhaled a long sigh. She began to think of how to gloat while in such a compromising position.
Oh, Father would be throwing a fit if he saw us, thought Ursula.
“You know I can feel how hard you are, right?” The now suddenly coy teen ignored her ringing voice. Although their lips were no longer locked, their hands continued to roam with little regard to boundaries. Ursula moved her palm from his shorts and instead grabbed hold of a portion of his blazer to hang from. Titus flashed his teeth like a canine. He could almost not wait until the bedroom to finish what he had in mind for the next round. “After you,” he said with an even wider smile.