Hello! I’ve been a huge fan of your writing for forever especially the villain and sibling stories- it’s always such an interesting dynamic between the two (also fictional family drama is always fun to read). If you have the time to write another sibling-villain dynamic story I would love to read it! Have a great day!
"Oh, shit..."
The protagonist stared, with creeping dread, at the TV.
Doomsday unmasked!
Their twin's face stared back at them, eyes a familiar black hole set aflame. Seconds later, the lasers sliced through the cameraman’s skull.
It wasn't so much the shock of their twin being the most notorious supervillain on the planet, because honestly that wasn't all that shocking, as the full name and the fact that within 30 minutes someone had thrown a brick through the protagonist's window.
Within 45 minutes, the fury and disgust and outrage outside turned to terror. The protagonist closed their eyes as the screams began. They willed their legs to move. To go to the window, to scream too.
Stop. You don't have to kill them. Stop!
But their legs would not move. The TV continued to peel through news footage, snapping live to their familiar house, to the carnage of mob and paparazzi and security all slaughtered, before the reporter swore and began to run and then the video cut out.
The TV returned to the news room. The reporters; wide-eyed, pale.
The street was silent as their sibling landed, lightly, in their living room. Their dark cape shivered with the breeze. There wasn't so much a single speck of blood upon them.
The protagonist eyed them, arms wrapped protectively around themselves.
"Come," the villain said. "Pack anything you want in the next ten minutes."
The protagonist didn't move.
The villain's fingers flexed. In an instant, an invisible force had yanked the protagonist shakily up on their feet.
"Or we can just go now," the villain said.
It was pretty impossible to hide from the world's most notorious supervillain. The protagonist had sincerely considered witness protection, or something, except for the fact that they would then have to explain who they were hiding from and why. No, it had been far better to pretend that they didn't know who their sibling was - to smile through the occasional expensive family dinner, to live in different cities far away.
"No," the protagonist said. "No, I don't want to."
"Well, they'll kill you, so I don't care."
The protagonist's jaw tightened. A familiar, impotent fury. Just like the dead mob scattered across the pavement.
"Maybe you should have thought about that before being...you."
Their twin's lip curled.
The protagonist had practiced in the mirror, once, to see if they could make their face look like the villain's did. Desperately hoping they couldn't. Knowing, too well, all the ways that they were moulded from the same clay.
They'd never quite nailed the mocking contempt of the nightmarishly powerful.
It said:
We both know you're coming, do you want to decide how or leave it to me?
And
I'm not the one riddled by self-loathing, so that's cute.
And
Don't try me. You don't like it when you try me.
Sirens wailed, because everyone in the protagonist's quiet, unimportant city hadn't yet realised they couldn't win.
"Got a hero on my tail," the supervillain simply said, softly. "You're down to seven minutes."
The protagonist packed. They'd never allowed themselves to have a to-go-bag ready, though the possibility of the present had haunted them for the last five years. As if preparation might jinx their freedom and bring their twin crashing down on their head like the world's worst gothic double.
Their sibling, for what it was worth, didn't twist the knife which was as kind as they were capable of being. No praise. No commentary on the protagonist's home - though the protagonist could practically feel the villain's gaze snagging on the details.
"You know," the protagonist said, "you could just let them kill me. Then they wouldn't be able to use me against you."
They zipped up a suitcase with trembling fingers. Better than than waking up in the padlocked suitcase themselves, like that one time.
"If I were capable of leaving you to die for me," the villain said, "you wouldn't be much use as leverage."
"Being stuck wherever you're taking me sort of feelings like dying."
"God, you're always so dramatic."
"I had a good life going for me here," the protagonist snapped. "Don't talk to me about drama."
The villain was quiet. The villain watched, just like they always watched, unblinking.
One time, when they'd been at uni, their twin had visited. They hadn't told anyone they had a sibling, and they'd ended up arguing, and the protagonist had ended up transfixed with horror as the villain opened the door, smiled with the protagonist's smile, talked with the protagonist's voice, with their housemates.
Everything is okay.
The protagonist had prayed they wouldn't all die.
"Where are you taking me?" the protagonist asked. They looked around their flat. Dishes to do. Leftovers in the fridge. Thank god they'd never let themselves get a cat. Anywhere except back at their sibling.
"Home."
"Your home."
"Semantics," the villain said. "You'll be safe there."
"Will you ever let me leave home again?"
The villain considered that, thoughtfully, for much longer than the protagonist would have liked.
"With me," they said. Then they simply smiled and held out an arm for the protagonist to take. "Now, come. It's good to see you by the way."
Blue lights flashed beyond the window, the cavalry arrived. The villain's attention flicked that way, considering.
Beneath the smile was a tightness. A hunger. The claws that always itched to slash and rend.
The protagonist took their sibling's hand.
"Stop," they said. "Don't kill them. You don't need to kill them. Let's just go."
The villain hummed.
"Please," the protagonist said.
The villain's gaze moved off the window. They drew the protagonist close, carefully, like they were precious.
"Close your eyes," they said, almost gentle. "You know you get motion sick when we fly."
The protagonist closed their eyes, like a child who thought maybe if they did so long enough, that the monsters would never find them.
When they opened them again, they were home.



















