Chapter Text
The twins are born on a cold and stormy day, only mere minutes apart. The pregnancy was a difficult one, not planned and only discovered after it was too late to do anything about it. The birth itself happens without any problems, the cesarean section being performed by an experienced doctor who handles the newborn babies with a care and gentleness they will seldomly experience from their parents.
After they are cleaned off, weighted and measured, they are swaddled in soft clothes and placed in the same bed. They sleep head to head, their tiny hands barely brushing the twin at their side, listening to soft noises made by a different pair of lungs. Unconsciously their brains already start to make adjustments, ingraining the presence of another body beside them deeply into their minds and their understanding of the world.
It is a good start to a new life.
One life, not two.
Because how can a bond this strong, this deep and intertwined be seen as anything different than the sum of two parts?
~~~~~~~~~~~
To say that something is odd about the twins would be a lie.
But the twins (especially the younger one) do not like lies.
And since this is their story, there will only be truth.
There are several things different about the children.
Things that separate them from others their age, that make adults point their fingers and talk in hushed whispers.
The twins do not like being separated. When forced to go to different destinations, the older one will become even more quite than usual and start to cry. The younger ones' already short sentences will become even shorter, more punctuated. The “r” sound will become elongated. Words that are meant to be demands to stay together will sound more like threats. Both tears and threats are very effective. Neither other children nor adults have the patience or the time to wait either of the twins out when they get emotional, so soon any attempts to separate them stop.
Even though only Emmet - the younger twin - is a boy, both of the children insist on being called brothers. Any attempt to get the older one to wear dresses or skirts is met by fierce refusal, Emmet making sure to sneak his older brother, Ingo (as he starts calling him), a second set of his own clothes to change into.
For all that the twins clearly try to be as similar to each other as possible, there are two easy ways to tell them apart. One of them is their faces. While Ingos mouth is always pulled down, expression set in a stern frown even when his eyes are sparkling, Emmets face is highly animated, expression showing his every thought and intent, a smile always on his lips. It is the other way around with their voices. All the expression Ingo lacks on his face seems to pour into his voice - words rapidly changing between coming out too loud or too quiet, too fast or too slow. That is, if he speaks at all. Emmet on the other hand has barely any emotion in his voice, when he doesn’t concentrate on speaking. His words tend to sound factual and dry, easy to understand.
Something that is not easy to understand is what they say and how they move. Both of the twins tend to reuse their sentences as often as they can when they have to communicate with other people. They do not seem dependent on it, but even from an outsider's perspective it is clear that they enjoy being able to use the same carefully studied sentences again and again. Hearing them speak can be almost as befuddling as watching them move. Their body languages mirroring each other, movements sharp and precise far more commonly seen in soldiers rather than kids.
They do not play with other children. It is not a mere disinterest in the activity, but rather that they do not like the games the other kids are playing. For Ingo, any game that requires bodily contact is impossible, shying from unwanted touches as though stung and hiding in a corner until Emmet coaxes him out, his usual sharp way of speaking gentling only when in conversation with his older brother. Emmet has no problem with touching other people, getting as close to them as he needs to. This feeling is not mutual, several people complaining about him standing too close, not minding their so called “personal space”, touching in the wrong places. Neither of the twins enjoy games they do not see any sense in, games that might sound fun to play but ultimately have nothing to offer in terms of growth.
Their rather harshly as “unusual” judged behavior doesn’t mean they do not have fun.
In fact, in spite of a loveless homelife both boys seem always very content.
As usual for boys their age they are quite fixated on pokemon and have their eyes set on acquiring all gym badges once they go on their journey. Emmet especially is very fascinated with battle strategy, spending hours thinking about the perfect movesets while Ingo quietly nods along to his brother's ramblings. A bit less usual is how everything seems to revolve around trains with them. When left to their own devices, they can talk for hours about the topic without getting tired, little mouths moving so fast it is a wonder they still have enough time to breathe. Their topics range from the materials used to build trains, the history of trains and the new train station being built in Nimbasa.
So yes, there are quite a few unusual things about the twin brothers called Ingo and Emmet.
But they are also children and children are allowed to be odd.
Need it in fact, to have room to grow and to develop into their own persons.
One could almost consider the twins lucky, to have been blessed with parents that do not care for the chattering of people who are not themselves, who do not listen to the rumors spread about how there has to be something wrong with their children.
It would be an easy argument to make that had even one of the parents been more concerned with their children than the next bottle of alcohol, the twins' story would have gone down quite a different track. In the aftermath, it is always easy to point out where people went wrong and how something could have been prevented.
But would it be the truth?
After all, there is no way to tell which direction their train would have taken had anyone interfered.
No way for mortals to know what is preventable and what is destiny.
So when Emmet gives Ingo a mating bite, long before their bodies are developed enough for it to actually be a real mating bite and not just a heavily bleeding wound in the form of one, long before either if the twins actually understands what is really means, the tracks to their future have already been laid.