Emmet loved most aspects of being and having a twin; those he didn’t were usually imposed upon them from outside forces and, therefore, unimportant.

He hadn’t always thought so, but with age came wisdom. Which was exactly the problem.

There were times he wondered whether things might have been different if they’d been mixed up as babies, and nobody knew for certain which of them was which. This wasn’t because he wanted to be the eldest– far from it– but then neither he or Ingo would have had to bear the full responsibility of it.

They were twins. An extra five minutes of lived experience meant nothing, but people acted like it made all the difference in the world.

One of his earliest memories was of Ingo clinging to him, terrified and unable to make a sound, while the adults around them chuckled and cooed. He couldn’t remember what had his brother so scared, just that nobody else seemed to realize, taking the involuntary downturn of the mouth as something else entirely. He hadn’t hesitated to throw his arms around Ingo in return, and the sea of voices over their heads broke out into amused chatter.

Emmet was certain that wasn’t the start of it all– of ‘protect,’ ‘take care,’ ‘big brother’– but it was the first he could recall.

And oh, he’d noticed. Both of them had. They were children, but children were more perceptive than people seemed to remember being. Ingo had realized there was some kind of expectation to be filled, and done his utmost to live up to it, even as a tiny child. Everything was perfectly fine when it was just the two of them– things were always fine when it was just them– but there was an underlying anticipation whenever they shared space with their parents.

Truly, it wasn’t… really anyone’s fault. As an adult now, himself, Emmet could see that any expectations put on them at that age were minimal. It had just been [idk] from when the two of them had been too young to have any distinct personalities, and it stuck in that cutesy way childhood habits and nicknames did. That didn’t mean it was lacking an effect.

Maybe Emmet was just looking for someone to blame.

[…]

When they were eight, their father had seen them off for the day with the usual script– ‘be good,’ ‘have fun,’ ‘keep an eye on Emmet’– and headed out, himself. The details had since slipped from Emmet’s mind, but it hadn’t been unprecedented; he and Ingo had been informed that their father might be late in getting back, so it was something out of the ordinary, if only just so, but nothing interesting enough to stick in his memory.

What he did remember was that he’d finally gotten the better of Roman in wall ball, and, when he’d turned to show off for his brother, Ingo was already clapping with a sweet little frown on his face.

It had been a perfectly nice day and, while odd that their father wasn’t home by dinnertime, they’d been told not to worry if he was late and got all the way through to bedtime without incident. Remembering who had ended up in whose bed during the night was an impossible task, as it was a habit they traded off intermittently– to the point where, in hindsight, Emmet wasn’t sure which bed was supposed to belong to which of them. It had likely changed at some point.

Then morning had broken, and they were still by themselves.

Puzzling, but not necessarily cause for alarm. Ingo had ushered them on through a clumsy version of their morning routine, and Emmet had periodically reminded him of the time until they ended up hurtling down the sidewalk and into the classroom just before they could be marked tardy. The teacher had seemed mildly amused, but made nothing of it. They’d allotted snacks properly at lunch, having lacked the time to sort the components out in their hurry, and Emmet had spent the better half of the morning trying to untangle a particularly fierce knot at the back of Ingo’s head.

When they’d unlocked the door to an empty house, neither of them had the courage to let go of the other’s hand.

It had gone on for only a few more days, until they decided that they had to tell someone. Initially, Emmet had volunteered to approach their teacher after school, but his throat had closed up when he’d tried, and Ingo had taken over. It was likely for the best. Emmet wasn’t sure what he would have said, but his words tended not to convey everything he meant for them.

The response had been an immediate flurry of phone calls as their teacher tried to keep them busy. In a tense silence, they’d filled out the same coloring sheet, wordlessly trading off markers as needed.

They were taken to their uncle’s house that day, and never returned home.

And yes, looking back on it, Drayden had been thrown into an upheaval of anxiety and grief, searching for a brother who’d vanished into the ether. He’d meant well, but Emmet simply couldn’t comprehend how he’d thought it a good idea to take an eight year old aside– an eight year old who’d spent nearly a week holding life together for both of the twins– and have him promise to protect his younger brother, to learn from Drayden’s mistake.

Ingo hadn’t necessarily changed in the face of that promise, but it set the tone for growing up under their uncle’s roof.

[…]

The thing was, they both could have made it.

The tunnels had shifted beneath their feet, falling away like the quicksand in Relic Castle, but they’d reacted promptly and appropriately. They’d been keenly aware of the blackness encroaching as they’d fled, and more [aware] of where one another was, so as not to leave one’s twin behind. There had been time, as they dashed out onto the loading platform, for both of them to reach the staircase into the station proper. Emmet was absolutely certain of that.

But Ingo had slowed, just for a fraction of a second, to ensure that Emmet found his footing first.

That was all it had taken.

Emmet hadn’t realized anything was wrong until he’d taken two steps without an echo beside him. He’d spun on his heel and reached out– had found Ingo, impossibly, half-submerged in what used to be the floor, and of course he’d tried to get to him, but it had already been too late. One arm had been tied down by a creeping [idk], and the other struggled to find purchase against the nonexistent floor, swiftly losing ground. His terrified eyes lifted from the [idk] swallowing him up and landed on the stairs, then to Emmet, safely atop them.

For the first time, Emmet felt a shred of sympathy for those unable to read his brother’s contrary expressions. As the maw snapped shut, Ingo smiled– broad, relieved– and then he was gone.