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The art room smells like glue and dry-erase markers. It’s after lunch on a Friday, which means the twins are unsupervised enough to be dangerous but bored enough to make it art.
Lark Oak-Garcia leans over his half of the table, tongue between his teeth, drawing something that looks like a wolf if a wolf had swords for teeth and smoke for a body. Sparrow’s half is less contained- bigger eyes, too many of them, tentacles reaching instead of jaws snapping.
“It’s supposed to look powerful,” Lark says, stabbing a crayon into the paper so hard the tip snaps. “You want the other team to know.”
“They’ll know,” Sparrow says, eyes narrowing at his own work. “But power isn’t just violence, brother.”
“Yes it is. Because that’s how you win.” Lark grins, gap-toothed, wild.
“No, it’s-” Sparrow frowns, searching. “It’s when everyone looks at you and wants to follow you. Because you’re the best.”
Lark snorts. “That’s just bragging.”
“That’s being a fearless leader.”
“A Lord of Chaos?”
“Power.”
“Power.”
They both grin. “POWER!” they yell together, the word bouncing off tile and glass.
From her desk, Ms. Harper doesn’t even look up. “Inside voices, boys.”
“She cannot contain us,” Lark mutters. “We are chaos.”
Sparrow grins. “Together, we are unstoppable.”
Lark looks back, eyes bright with that half-challenge, half-dare that always means please play with me.
He slides his paper across the table. “Dual mode?”
“Together we shall create the ultimate being of power.”
They overlap the pages and start tracing, each taking turns holding and drawing. The linework wobbles where they both push too hard. Their movements sync without speaking- fast, sure, like they’re following a rhythm only they can hear. The air around them hums faintly, a soft static charge that prickles the hairs on their arms.
Lark’s sharp teeth meet Sparrow’s smile halfway, and the result is something in between - a creature that looks like it’s laughing, or screaming, or both.
When they start colouring, Lark grabs red. Sparrow grabs purple. The colours bleed together at the edges, where their hands bump. A blotch spreads under Sparrow’s palm - bright, chaotic, alive.
Lark presses his hand flat to the page, fingertips smudging purple. “It feels-” he breaks off, breath catching. “It feels buzzy.”
Sparrow looks up, eyes wide. “Good buzzy,” he says. “Like when you dream. Like it’s trying to talk.”
For a moment, their voices fall quiet as they look down at their creation. Their skin tingles- not wrong, just busy- a thousand small sparks looking for somewhere to go. Without thinking, Sparrow reaches out, and Lark takes his hand. The hum settles, but doesn’t fade.
Lark nods slowly, eyes bright. “Yeah.” he whispers. “Good buzzy. Like it’s listening.”
Sparrow grins, the same grin mirrored back at him- Two halves of one current, humming between them and the thing they’ve made.
When Ms. Harper makes her end-of-class round, their table looks like a meteor impact. Paper shreds, markers without lids, shattered crayons, purple fingerprints everywhere.
“That’s certainly…” she pauses, smiling a little, “distinctive. What are we calling it?”
The creature has looping arms, too many eyes, a grin that can’t decide what emotion it’s having. Its body is made of motion- like the more you look at it, the less sure you are of where the lines end.
“Our doodle,” Lark says, with reverence.
“Yeah,” Sparrow says, gazing at it- all loops and smudges and energy. The kind of drawing that feels like it’s going to crawl off the page. “The Doodler.”
Ms. Harper opens her mouth like she might correct them, then decides against it. “Well, that’s certainly original.”
Sparrow nods. “Everyone will love it.”
Lark stabs the air with his marker. “It’s got power.”
“Of course,” Ms. Harper says under her breath, writing ‘Oak-Garcia twins’ on the back of the drawing.
Henry arrives just before the final bell, sleeves rolled up, smile trying to stay on top of the day. Lark and Sparrow careen into him after launching themselves from the top step of the entrance, marker still smudged on their fingers and faces. “How are my beautiful boys?” he says. “Did you make a mess again?”
Sparrow holds the page out, proudly. “We made the mascot.”
Henry crouches, knees cracking. “Wow. That’s… boys, that’s an incredible expression of combined imagination through mixed media.”
“It was born from my brain,” Sparrow says, excitedly. “It’s powerful!”
“We joined forces to make it even more unstoppable!” Lark says, delighted.
“Our powers combined made it stronger,” Sparrow nods eagerly.
Henry laughs, because that’s all he can do with twin energy this concentrated. “Then the school’s in good hands.” He ruffles Sparrow’s hair, then Lark’s. “You know, boys, real strength isn’t about power. It’s about the spark that keeps going, even when it’s small.”
A thousand sparks. Buzzing under their skin.
Sparrow’s eyes go bright. “Like magic?”
Henry smiles. “Well, I mean- yeah, sure, if you want to call determination magic, then-” He doesn’t get to finish before the twins erupt.
"Together, we're unstoppable."
Lark adds, “Full of magic and POWER!”
The twins begin their chant of 'power' as Sparrow holds the drawing to up to the sky.
Henry just smiles. “Okay, boys, well why don't we hang it on the fridge when we get home.”
They make their way to the car chattering, arguing over who would win in a fight against the Doodler.
The sky’s been red for nine years, and Sparrow still pretends not to notice. From the kitchen window, it just looks like evening, if you don’t look too long. The air hums faintly, like old static - the kind that never quite fades, no matter how quiet the world pretends to be.
Rebecca’s voice drifts from her office, mid-conference call about flavour expansions and vegan emulsifiers. Lark's car isn't in the driveway. Hero’s room is empty- again.
The house smells like rosemary and something that's starting to burn. Sparrow’s been trying to make dinner and failing quietly at it.
He doesn’t hear the front door until it slams.
“Dad!”
Sparrow startles, a spoon clattering against the stove. “Yeah, bud?”
Normal bursts into the kitchen, wind-chapped and electric, clutching a sheet of paper like it’s contraband. “They picked me!”
“For what?” Sparrow wipes his hands on a dish towel.
“For the mascot! For school!” He’s grinning, bright and open in that way Sparrow has never learned not to love. “My idea! They said it was the best one - I even get to help paint it on the gym wall!”
Normal’s practically vibrating. “He’s called Teeny the Teen! He won!”
Sparrow blinks, not sure he heard right. “You… won?”
“Yeah! Well- kind of.” Normal shrugs, grinning. “It was between Teeny and the San Dimas Demon, but even the vice principal said a demon was too negative, so—” he waves the paper triumphantly “—school spirit prevailed!”
Sparrow’s stomach tilts. But he holds his hand out to Normal “Let’s see.”
Normal hands over the drawing.
It’s a kid. Well, sort of.
Smiling too wide, huge round eyes and pupils dark and slightly off. The hair spiked in a red swoop that looks almost like flame. The shirt says GO TEENS! One arm punching the air, the other pointing straight out at whoever’s looking. At first glance, it’s just a mascot- all charm and spirit and bright colours. But there’s something about it that hooks wrong in Sparrows gut. The cheer in it is too loud. The teeth too white. The lines are all joy and motion, but the longer Sparrow stares, there's something desperate in its too-wide grin.
“It’s good, Norm,” he manages. “Really good.”
Normal beams, bouncing a little on his toes. “You’re not just saying that?”
“No. It’s…” he hesitates, pulse in his throat. “Powerful.”
“AND, when it's made, I am actually going to wear the suit,” Normal adds, already unzipping his hoodie. “For games and stuff! I get to be Teeny.”
Sparrow swallows. “You’re gonna be him?”
“Yeah! Cool, right?”
He’s waiting for approval.
Sparrow smiles, the expression automatic, muscle memory. “Yeah. Inspiring.”
Normal laughs and runs off toward his room, shouting something about group chats and wall paint and school spirit.
Sparrow stands there, the smell of rosemary going bitter on the stove, Teeny’s dead eyes staring up from the table.
He turns the paper over, face-down, and slides it beneath the stack of bills on the counter.
Later, after dinner, Rebecca will tell him about an investor meeting; Normal will ramble about the mascot pep rally; and Sparrow will nod at all the right places, careful not to look at the sky.
When the house finally goes quiet, he’ll sit on the edge of the bed, pulse thrumming with the ghost of the buzz- the kind that used to feel like everything.
He used to think power meant being unstoppable- a word chanted with his brother, loud and fearless, into the sky. Now it just means standing still while the world keeps moving, carrying the thing they made further than he ever meant it to go.
He’ll try to shift- just to see if he still can. The magic will stutter in his chest, then dissolve, leaving only the ache.