You And Me - A Collection of Les Twins One Shots

Mama Knows Best

Five things Mama B. worries about and one thing she doesn't.

1) Larry's temper

Mama B. knows that whenever her boys get themselves into trouble there's a 90% chance it has to do with Larry's temper. Her youngest has the natural gift to get under someone's skin with a single well-aimed look. There's always this unspoken challenge in his gaze as if to say 'come at me. see what happens,' and every now and then Larry's attitude will rub someone the wrong way. She's wiped blood from Larry's face and made ice packs for his bruises and she's told him over and over again to be careful with his words because one of these days it won't just be bruises. But he won't listen. So she worries...

2) Laurent's lack of self-care

When Laurent was delivered, he was a whopping 400 grams lighter in weight than Larry. Mama B. held both of her boys in her arms, one in each, and regarded them with a worried furrow in her brow because already she could tell that Laurent was going to be a difficult one. He once kept a fever hidden from her for three days, just so he could keep going to the studio with Larry until he damn near fainted in one of Abibou's classes. She will never forget the fear that consumed her at the realization of how close he came to dying that day. It never quite leaves her, even now. She notices that he eats too little, that he doesn't sleep enough, that he pushes himself to the brink of exhaustion and beyond. And she worries...

3) People's jealousy

For as long as she's lived, she's never hated people more than when they reared their ugly jealous heads and bestowed their gazes upon her sons. She's seen it in many forms throughout the years. The kids in the park that tried to get the boys to play in different teams, the teachers that wanted to split them up out of "concern" for their development, the girls that tried to rile them up against each other in their teenage years and well beyond. Mama B. knows jealousy when she sees it and she knows that for as long as her boys live, they will be faced with it. She tells them that it's the price they pay for being born together, it's because so many people spend their entire lives miserable that when they get faced with the kind of love her boys share, they feel even more lonely than before. She tells them these things and yet she worries...

4) The fighting

She's never seen or heard anyone fight the way they do. She's not sure why things tend to escalate so badly between them, but if she had to guess, she'd say that it's because they love each other so fiercely that each word said in anger cuts twice as hard and every wound inflicted takes that much longer to heal. Everything's a competition between them. Every insignificant detail can lead to a full-fledged argument, from her pouring slightly more water into Larry's glass to her giving two kisses to Laurent's head while Larry gets only one. Sometimes she worries when they fight because they do it with just as much passion as they do everything else in life. It's scary to see to which lengths they'll go to hurt each other and frankly, it worries her.

5) Their closeness

They say it's not healthy for them to be this close. She bought them a bunk bed to get them to sleep separately, but every night when she wakes up she finds them both fast asleep on the same mattress, one's face nuzzled into the other's neck as if to seek out a pulse. She doesn't have the heart to put them in separate beds again. Instead, she pulls the blanket up higher around their shoulders, kissing them both on top of their frizzy little manes. Sometimes she worries that they're so wrapped up in each other that there's no room for anyone else. She worries that they'll never have a functioning relationship with anyone outside of their little bubble. She worries that it will hurt them somehow, keep them from developing a healthy sense of who they are individually, outside of being a unit.

0) Loss

There's a second pair of twins in their neighborhood. They are younger than her boys by ten years and frankly speaking, she isn't sure if Larry and Laurent ever even exchanged more than five words with them. But identical twins are still a rarity around Sarcelles and she would be surprised if they hadn't at least met before.

One day in April she comes home to a tragedy. Her boys are in Paris during the lockdown and they've been driving her up the walls with their nervous energy and stir-craziness but now there are flashlights and sirens and Mama B.'s heart does flips of panic in her chest as she takes in the wailing mother and the boy who lies motionless in the middle of the road. It takes her a minute to make out the sound the other one makes and to recognize it as human. She sees him fighting the EMT's and screaming, howling his brother's name and it's breaking her heart like no other thing she's ever witnessed.

The boy dies on his way to the hospital. She hears it through the grapevine, that they were were on their way to a family event when some drunk bastard hit one of them with his car. He never even stood a chance. 

She decides not to tell her boys.

They don't find out until Laurent finds his death announcement in one of her cluttered drawers in search of a functioning pair of scissors about a week or so after it happened.

"Mom, what are you—"  Larry sees Laurent at the table and stops himself, his eyes instantly latching onto his brother and sensing that something's off. "Lau?"

He shuffles closer, sees the paper and freezes. Laurent stands completely still, eyes unblinking as he stares down at the picture of two little boys with matching grins staring back at him from the death announcement.

Larry presses his quivering lips together and touches Laurent's back and it's all he can do before Laurent latches onto him with enough force to almost knock them both over. 

They stay like that for a while, clinging to each other, rocking back, clutching at one another's backs, their hair, everywhere they can reach. They don't make a sound but she can hear their hearts breaking.

"Do you ever wonder what would happen if..." Eloane asks her later, noticing the red eyes and the way they never stray from the other's side, not even to get a glass of water.

"No," Mama B. shuts her daughter down instantly. "I don't."

Mama B. worries about a lot of things...

She worries about that mouth on Larry getting him into trouble. 

But she knows that Laurent is there to have his back.

She worries about Laurent not taking proper care of himself. 

But she knows Larry will take care of him instead.

She worries about those girls in skimpy dresses, making pretty eyes at her boys.

But then she remembers everyone that has tried and failed to come between them in the past.

She worries about them not talking for days. 

But then she walks in on them cuddled up on the couch with one's head resting on top of the other's and it's like nothing ever happened.

She worries about them being too wrapped up in each other to notice much else. 

But then she reminds herself that they don't need anything else, as long as they have each other.

This, though. This is the one thing she refuses to worry about. 

Because it's the only thing she knows without a doubt they will never survive.