Songs from the DARK Jukebox

Behind Blue Eyes
By
Kiix

July 3, 2009
Word Count: 2700

His knuckles crunched under the head of the hammer much like cracking walnuts. He screamed and jerked instinctively backwards, trying to shield his mangled hand with his body. I used my shoulder to keep him back. I raised the hammer and brought it down on the knuckle next to it. He screeched and fell to his knees. I lifted the hammer again but Ian shook his head. I released the man and he fell backwards curling almost into a ball on the floor of his office.

“Mr. Paulo. Assurances were given that you were prepared to sign over your shares to the Cooperative today. What was this?” The legal documents for a court injunction scattered as Ian tossed them at Mr. Paulo.

“You came to us in your time of desperation. We laid out the terms in plain language and here…” Ian reached into the breast pocket of his suit and pulled out a notarized copy of the contract out. “is your signature.”

“Yet, everything we have done in good faith you now try to sully with court papers? For shame, Mr. Paulo. Jan.” I laid the hammer on the desk. No worries about finger prints because I had on my black leather gloves. When Ian had told me to get them out I knew that today’s visitation was more than just a courtesy call.

Mr. Paulo looked up in fear as I came around the desk to stand behind Ian. I could see his pathetic attempt to explain his double vision. Ian was in his signature pale grey suit. I was in enforcer black. Aside from those differences, on the surface we were identical. We worked hard to get the gestures, mannerisms any minor things that could be exploited to accent our twinship. It doesn’t come naturally, you have to work at. Then there are times when we are just ourselves. Right now, Ian was the alpha in this situation. I would follow his lead wherever he needed it to go. My sunglasses were on right now. If I had to take them off…well it wouldn’t bode well for Mr. Paulo.

“This is our last request on behalf of the Cooperative, Mr. Paulo. After this, things will become quiet unpleasant.” Ian paused for dramatic effect. Three….two…one. “For you and your family.”

“My…family? They have nothing to do with…”

“Of course they do, Mr. Paulo. You used your wife as a co-signer. If Jan must continue with his negotiations, we will have to go to your wife when you can’t hold a pen any longer. I’m sure that Helen would be far more….”

“Fucking bastards!”

“There is no need for profanity, Mr. Paulo. This is just business. I and my associate here came here to do business. You are the one who has decided to make it personal. Now, are you ready to sign or does Jan meet you for negotiations again?”

“Give me the pen.”

I stepped back and let my brother do this thing.

His hair was longer than mine, a little longish but his little girl had told him he had to have long hair just like the prince in her story book. He was pussy whipped but then again when Marissa wrapped her tiny little hand around my pinky I was just as whipped. She was my brother’s spawn after all. Ian’s style would be considered classic. He had women falling all over him in school from kindergarten to college. Well, over both of us but he had more success. I didn’t care for breasts. I said we looked identical; I didn’t say we were.

I was the first born in the family. Ian came along a minute later, Mother always loved to tell the story of how the doctors had to pry my arms away from my little brother to get me out of the womb. Father figured out early that I was not the one to follow in his foot steps. I was lacking. I knew it. The term was called disassociation. Aside from my twin, I really didn’t have an emotional connection with the rest of the world. From day one, Father could figure out what was going on behind my blue eyes and I believe I scared him.

Ian was the charmer. Maybe he got my share of personality. He could charm the birds out of the trees. I just shot them.

“Thank you, Mr. Paulo. That concludes our business dealings.” Ian folded the papers back into his briefcase and handed it back to me.

“I just signed over my company to you. I could have just let the bank take it and I still would have been left with nothing.” There was nothing left to do but exit but Mr. Paulo wasn’t done grousing.

“I beg to differ, Mr. Paulo. The Cooperative provided the working capital needed to keep your operations running while your team completed the due diligence necessary to enter into partnership with Standard International. This is a now a multinational corporation. You saved hundreds of employees from unemployment.”

“What the hell does it matter now…I’m left with nothing.”

“Until you pulled this shit, the Cooperative was going to keep you on as a figurehead with your current salary. You name is on the company after all. However, that offer is off the table.”

“You can say anything you want now. You own it.”
“I’m just a salaryman, Mr. Paulo.”

“Then what the hell is he?”

“Jan is my brother. Officially he’s my executive assistant.”

“Unofficially?”

“He’s a very effective troubleshooter. Shall we call an ambulance or can you drive yourself to the hospital?”

“Get out, you got what you came for.”

I spoke up. “Technically, this office belongs to the Cooperative now.”

Mr. Paulo’s pupil’s eyes narrowed to pinpricks as he stared at me. My voice sounded exactly like my brothers. Everyone usually looked so shocked when I did decide to speak.

“I, I want my personal things.” He stammered

“Of course, Mr. Paulo. You don’t have to vacate the premises right away. We can give you three days before we take possession.”

“I walk out of here, I’m not coming back.” His voice was raw and he cradled his hand to his chest. He grabbed a couple of photos off the credenza behind him, setting them on his desk then jerked his desk drawer open savagely.

Everything registered too late. I saw the muzzle flash before I had time to move. After that everything just went into hyper drive. Mr. Paulo’s face was a mask of surprise. I don’t know if because he actually fired a gun or if it was because the claw end of the hammer was now sticking out of his forehead. The gun fired three more times as his body death spasmed. I ran up and kicked it out of his hand to make sure there would be no more attempts. Mr. Paulo was dead.

“I’m sorry, Ian. This is my fault.” I moved to pull the hammer out of it’s new fleshy holder. “I didn’t check the desk.”

“Jan…”

My brother stood in the doorway. I watched as he looked down at his chest then he just toppled over.

“IAN!”

Blood splattered his grey suit. “Jan…”

I slid over to his side my black glove wrenching his clothes aside. There was a sucking wet sound. Red bubbles poured out of his chest. I slapped my palm flat over it. “Jan…”
I lifted his hand and pressed it over the gunshot. I tore through the office looking for plastic film and some tape. I ended up overturning the garbage and pulling out an sandwich bag. Infection was the lest of my problems.

“Jan….”

“Let me..Ian…help me…”

“It’s too late…I think he nicked an artery…I’m getting cold and lightheaded.”

“This is my fault.”

“No…Mr. Paulo had done a turn of duty. I had forgotten that. I would never have turned my back on him…” I caught my dearest brother around the shoulders and pulled him to me. “Jan….”

“I’ll take care of Marissa and Jane.”

“…no…you…”

“Ian!”

Blue eyes stared up at me, so familiar and yet right now on a journey we couldn’t share. “I promised Dad…”

“You promised Dad what?”

“…I wouldn’t leave you alone…gun…get gun.”

“Ian?”

“now…gun.”

Gently I laid Ian down then scrambled over to the former Mr. Paulo. I had kicked the gun under the desk. I ended up crawling on my hands and knees around to the backside of it to get the gun. His lips were beginning to turn ashen and his skin felt clammy. “Ian?”

“I love you, big brother…I won’t leave you alone.” His hand was bloody and it shook with the effort of raising it up, so I leaned forward and pressed my face against his touch. “I know what goes on behind those cold blue eyes. Without…with..out me there, we both know you would be a monster.”

“Not to Marissa.”

“No…not to her, but she’s a baby. It’s not fair to burden her. She can’t take care of you. Everyone is scared of you. So scared that they hate you, brother.” I held my twin in my arms and just couldn’t believe that he seemed to be getting lighter with each sucking breath. “You know..they call you tinman.”

“Yah, because I’m emotionless.”

Ian’s whole body shuddered but a bubble of blood burst on his lips and then a weak laugh followed it. “No…it’s because..you’re so fucking rusty and twisted…you always could make me laugh.”

“Ian…”

“Gun…put it in my hand, brother.”

“Let me call an ambulance, Ian.”

“Never get here…call for clean up.”

“Ian…”

“I’m dying, Jan…we never lied to each other before…now is not the right time to start. Put the gun in my hand before its too late.”

It was too heavy for him to lift after I wrapped his hand around the butt. I could see the tremor in his fingers as he slipped the finger through the guard to rest on the trigger. I stilled. “You want to kill me, Ian?”

“I love you brother. I love you too much to leave you here in this world.”

“You promised Dad that you would kill me?” I could hear my tone just to nothing. I had never used it with Ian. He knew me. We were, pardon the pun, but like two peas in a pod. He got hurt, I bore the pain. I got lost, he waded in my darkness and found me. We were separate entities but yet we were not.

“Remember…back when we were eight. I knocked the hallway table over and broke that big ugly vase. You remember how angry Dad got.”

“Just him yelling at us, made you cry.”

“So you told him, you did it. I remember him taking his belt to you. You never cried. He just kept hitting you until you collapsed…and you never cried.”

“You cried for me.”

“I made a promise to you.”

“Ian…shhhh.”

“Jan…tell me it.”

“You would never leave me alone. You would never leave me to face punishment alone ever again. You didn’t Ian. Even if you got your ass kicked because I started a fight with someone, you always came to me. That’s why I told you, I’d be whatever you needed me to be.” I could see the light beginning to fade in his blue eyes. His eyes lids were beginning to lower. I gathered my brother in my arms and pulled him up to my chest. His head leaned forward and rested on my shoulder. His ear was near my mouth. “What you needed me to be, little brother, not what you wanted me to be.”

“Yes, they call me tinman, but they don’t have the nerve to say it to my face. I know as brothers, we are like that Chinese symbol, ying and yang. There can’t be light without darkness and darkness needs a little light for contrast. You have always been my light, little brother; just as I’ve always been the darkness. My dreams have come true because you found happiness away from me.

When you found Jane, I wanted to fucking kill her. She was taking you away from me but the first time I saw you together, away from the family and the business, I knew she gave you something I couldn’t. She allowed you to be an individual and she gave you freedom. I can cry, little brother. I cried that day when I realized that I wasn’t enough for you.”

“Stalked us?” His voice was barely a whisper on my neck.

“I love you Ian. Their might be a cutesy term for it, but in my heart, our twincest was real. I let you pop my cherry, little brother. When I heard you were dating, I wasn’t going to lose you to anyone until I saw you together. I vowed to you that I would be what you needed me to be and you needed me to back away, so I did. It hurt a lot at first but seeing Marissa made the suffering worthwhile. She looks like you.”

“Ian? My Ian...” I held the body that had once been the other half of my soul in my arms and began to rock back and forth. He never liked thunderstorms and even as teenagers we would end up in the same bed, clinging to each other like this. I breathed in his scent only this time it was tainted with the strong stench of iron. Blood has it’s own aroma and I’d been around it even to know it’s essence. My little brother was dead.

I could cry. I cried when I walked away from my brother to let him find happiness outside my arms. I cried the day of his wedding. I cried the day of my niece’s birth. Ian was the only one who had known that my heart wasn’t as empty as my conscience, and yes…without his gentling hand, I would be a freakin’ monster. Marissa had his gentling hold over me but it wasn’t fair, as her father had said, to saddle a child with someone like me.

We might look identical…but looks can be deceiving. Dad thought he knew what was going on behind blue eyes but he was just touching the tip of the ice burg.

I could feel the weight of the gun pressed between us. I reached down taking Ian’s hand and settling the muzzle of the gun up against my chest, just under the rib cage and tilted it up. It might have been my imagination but I thought his hand was growing colder by the second. His finger was still through the guard resting on the trigger. I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and set my index finger along his. It would just be a simple squeeze. I had promised to be what he needed…and he needed me with him. A sad smile quirked my lips. In the end…in the end…this just was the end…

I whispered into his ear. “We came into this world with you in my arms…we leave together…”

No one knows what’s like to be the bad man. Ian did because he wouldn’t leave me here alone in this place. To be the sad man. There cannot be darkness without light. Without Ian…well there was just no living without Ian. He was the only one who knew what was truly going on behind my blue eyes.

A shot rang out.

-30-


Behind Blue Eyes –the Who

Holy frick, can you say angsty? Where the hell is this coming from? Gack! I’m blaming it on the fact that I haven’t seen sun in about a week!!!

Okay….other news. http://kiix.deviantart.com – go there now! Fawnheart has given me some fan-tastic art of our favorite hotties -- Sex and I do believe the cover cart for Cake. I offer this up because there is a glitch, my beta’s computer died and took the edited file with it. *tears-up* Go and take a look at the Fawnheart's artwork. She’s a little shy so give her all the good yaoi spanking she can handle….erm, I meant yaoi luving.

Later.

Kiix