The Shadowhunter Twins

The Beach

Andrew waved his hand in front of my eyes. "Hello? Anyone home in there?" He said tapping my forehead. "Huh, what?" I asked, once again snapping out of my thoughts. "You are staring." Andrew told me. "I am what?" I asked. "Staring. At Christopher." I looked back in the direction I had looked before. Sure enough Christopher stood there. We were in our training room and I was currently taking a short break, sitting on the floor. I must have zoned off. "Oh yeah, I just...I was in thought. I didn't intend to stare at him." I said. "You stare at him a lot." Andrew said, a cheeky grin on his face. "Yes, but not what you think, idiot." I said and playfully slapped his head. "I just...I've been thinking a lot about when mom and dad died." Andrew looked at me questioningly. "Why?" He asked. "Because of him. It just made me think about it, I don't know." I answered and got up again. "Come on, let's continue."

Actually I don't really like training. I mean it's nice that you can beat people up and even nicer to learn how to survive but then again it's just so much work that goes into it. I am probably the laziest Shadowhunter that ever existed. Andrew on the other hand loved the training. He trained at least an hour more than me each day. That didn't make him that much better than me but I always admired his dedication. So when Andrew was finally done training, I was already in our room, sitting on the floor and reading a book. "Watcha reading?" He asked when he came into the door, taking off his sweaty shirt and throwing it on his bed. "Oh just a history book. Nothing too interesting, I didn't really know what to do so I just took the first best book I could find in the library." I explained. Andrew nodded and went into the bathroom, probably taking a shower like everyday after training.

I put my book aside and went over to the window, looking outside, blinded a bit by the afternoon sun. I watched the people on the streets go by, most of them in swimwear, since the beach was right around the corner. That's one of the few things I liked about living in Miami, the beach is always just a few steps away. How often I had sneaked out at night, just sitting at the empty beach, looking at the ocean and the stars. The night always calmed me. Everything is quiet at night and nobody expects anything from you. Wonderful. I contemplated sneaking out tonight, when Andrew came back out of the bathroom, his black hair still wet and even curlier than usual.

Sometimes when I look at Andrew I wonder how much alike we look to other people. We've got the same black curly hair from our father, mine goes up to my chest, and the same greenish-brown eyes from our mother. We've got the same nose, Andrew's the slightest bit wider than mine and we both have a full bottom lip, also the color of our eyebrows is the same dark brown/almost black. Andrew is 4 inches taller than me, but I've got longer legs and a shorter torso. We are both slim but still muscular and I've noticed that we even move in the same way. But I always wonder how we look like to other people. I mean, we're obviously not identical twins, we're not even the same sex, but we do look a lot alike. I often wondered how alike we would look if we weren't twins but just normal siblings.

There was a knock on our door. "Yeah?" We both said. Catarina entered. "Hey, you two." She said and smiled. "I thought maybe you both could hang out a bit with Christopher. He's just in his room all the time, maybe it would do him good to get a bit of distraction." I thought back to when our parents died. "Can you blame him for wanting to be alone?" Andrew asked. "No, of course not. I just thought you could offer him to hang out a bit, so that he at least knows that he doesn't need to be alone." She said. Catarina was always very careful when she talked about deaths around us. When our parents died she tried everything to comfort us, well, almost everything. Maybe because she lost her brother when she was younger and knows the pain. God I didn't even want to think how it must be to lose your brother, I would break apart if that happened.

"Yes, we'll let him know." I said. Catarina smiled gratefully. "Thank you, you are angels." She said. "Half-angels technically, but close enough." I corrected her. She rolled her eyes and vanished again. "Okay, let's go hang out with our newbie." I said.

We went over to Christophers room and I knocked on his door. Christopher opened. "Hey Chris." I said, testing out that name. "Oh hey it's you." He said with a weak smile. "We thought maybe you want to hang out a bit? Get your mind off things?" Andrew suggested. "We could go down to the beach. Andrew and I know some excellent spots where nobody ever goes to." I added. Christopher thought about our offer for a second. "Yeah sure, sounds good." He said, grabbed a jacket and closed the door behind him. "You know what, guys? Let's take some food with us so that we can eat dinner on the beach, I'm starving." I said. "You're starving? You're training less than me!" Andrew laughed. "Psh, shut up." I said and softly slapped his cheek.

We made some sandwiches and took some sprite cans with us, then we went down to the beach. We walked for a bit. The beach was getting emptier, most people went home for the day and the sun was slowly going down. It was late summer so it was still quite warm, though a chilly breeze went over the beach. After some time we arrived at some rocks over which we climbed. Normal people rarely climb those, because, well, they can't. It's a bit tricky for mundies but when you're a Shadowhunter it's no real problem. On the other side of the rock we put down a big blanket and sat down on it, taking out the food and drinks.