You And Me - A Collection of Les Twins One Shots

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"Larry?"

She opened the door to their room, expecting his trademark smile but she was greeted by darkness and stale air instead.

The room was a mess. In between the piles of unwashed, dirty clothes and empty liquor bottles, she barely even saw him at first.

But there he was, just like any other time she'd seen him in the past month, curled up on Laurent's bed, his mouth an uncharacteristically grim line amid his growing beard. There were dark circled under his blood-shot eyes. His cheeks were sunken in enough for her to notice despite the facial hair. His eyes were as still as a billboard poster, staring dully and unblinkingly at a point in the distance.

She had thought that the worst part was over now that they'd been at the funeral but if anything, Larry had only gotten worse.

She picked up the pink sweater that rested on the ground next to the nightstand.

It used to be Laurent's.

One of his favorites.

She balled it up and crouched down next to him gently brushing her fingers through his afro.

"Larry."

He blinked but otherwise didn't react in any way or form.

She gently balled up the sweater and put it down on the bed next to Larry's head.

"You lost this," she whispered and watched through her tears as he wrapped his arms around it. He gripped the sweater tightly and hugged it to his chest, his face immediately seeking out the familiar feel of the fabric and his breathing picked up then, growing more erratic as his eyes filled with tears.

"Hey," she said, her heart kicking up with concern. "What is it?"

Larry tossed the piece of clothing away so suddenly that it startled her. He hurled it across the room, his face suddenly scrunching up with the same insurmountable pain he'd been in for every waking second of the past month now. And just like that he was shattered again, breaking apart at the seams. "Hey, it's okay."

But it wasn't okay. It would never be okay again. And she felt so stupid for even suggesting that there would be an end to what he was going through. That this would ever become any easier.

"C'mere."

She wrapped her arms around him despite his weak attempts to fight her off. Even if he wanted to, he wasn't strong enough to fight her at this point. She picked him up just like she used to when they were still kids. He was stiff in her arms at first but then he went limp in her hold, sagging against her chest as though even just the brief outburst of emotion had sapped his last energy reserves. She hugged him tighter, gently stroking his back as her eyes filled with tears.

He began to cry then, his tears soaking her shirt.

He didn't make a sound while his shoulders shook.

She hadn't heard his voice in so long, she could barely remember what it sounded like.

In the beginning all he had done was scream. She would never forget the blood-curdling scream of utter devastation that had split the air when Larry had realized that Laurent was... Larry hadn't even been human then. A switch had been flicked in his brain and he'd been turned inside out, ever rational thought or sense of social construct forgotten. The sound of her brother's pain, of his grief would haunt her forever. He hadn't spoken a word ever since.

He even cried quietly now, the tears just leaking from his eyes without his doing.

"Do you want me to take it away?" she asked in a whisper as she stared at the last piece of clothing Larry had kept from his brother. Their mom had decided it was better for Larry to not see his twin's stuff everywhere, but Larry had clung to this sweater like a lifeline.