Marlin and Martin are identical twins, so they look exactly the same. It doesn't help that they dress the same way and don't call each other by name so that other people can't tell who is who.
Liam thought they took it a step further when he realized that the twins have identical scents and pheromones. He can't tell who is who even when the twin alphas were sweating and releasing scents and pheromones. Peppermint and musk marked their territory around the twins as they sat crossed legged on the rock.
Mar was still standing, and Liam was no longer on his knees. Instead, he opted to sit down and used his best friend's legs as arm cushion. The black haired alpha didn't mind as he continued to enjoy the view.
"You two can keep a secret, right?" One of the twins words made the two alphas snap their heads towards them.
"What?" Liam frowned, his blue eyes scanning the twins.
Two pairs of deep blue eyes refused to look at them, and it felt like the twins were in their own little world as one of them spoke. "You can keep a secret, right?"
"Mar, Liam." The other twin who hasn't said anything looked at them first.
Purple eyes looked at Liam before Mar sat himself down on the rock next to his companion. The platinum blond alpha scooted over a little so that his best friend isn't too close to the edge. Their shoulders were touching, mostly because Liam has a bad posture when he's comfortable, and Mar likes slamming his bicep into his companion's.
"What do you wanna tell us?" Mar let out a small sigh as he eyed his brothers. "You're planning to leave like Rex did? Rex was more unplanned, actually. It happened in the heat of the moment kinda thing."
In the pilot's own words, he's moving in with Blue without talking to her about it even once. Liam wondered how the pair is doing; it's been less than 24 hours, but the platinum blond alpha couldn't help but feel a little worried.
The twin on the right chuckled, his head bumping into his twin brother, who kept a more refined neutral face through the conversation.
"Well, actually..." The twin on the left finally said something when his brother stopped laughing and composed himself. "Yeah, we're planning to leave."
"Since forever." The other twin added to his brother's sentence. "We got everything mapped out and all, but not here though. This year will be our last year here."
"Oh...?" Purple eyes seemed to be surprised.
Liam looked at the twins, then he looked at the black haired alpha next to him. Mar's face was a combination of shock and... Betrayal? However, the alpha just shook his head. His hair momentarily blocked his face before he chuckled. Painfully.
"Wish you luck with that, though." Mar gave his older siblings a smile which can range from him being nostalgic to calling the twin idiots.
"Quick question..." Liam raised up one hand, just enough to catch the other three alphas' attention. "What are you gonna do about the soccer scholarship? Throw it away just like that?"
"We won't need it." The right side twin gave them a thumbs up. "You'll know when the time comes. We'll be dead on screen, but don't hesitate to call the Carrot Hotline."
The Carrot Hotline was a joke. It's a part of a prank. A few years ago, the twins bought Mar a walkie-talkie, calling their connection the "Carrot Hotline". At that time, it was used exclusively to talk shit about Madison and plan some shits to ruin the first Aster child's day. The twins are cunning and resourceful; they can pull anything on anyone, Madison wasn't the exception. But guess who was?
Rex. That fucker was the only person the twins refused to mess with.
Under the heat of the mid-day sun, Mar let out a laugh. It was dryer than anything, not only because they didn't bring water, it's also because it's the black haired alpha's signature laugh when he found out some people are up to something that he didn't like.
"Good prank." Purple eyes met with two pairs of deep blue. "You got us there. Was the Carrot Hotline the punchline?"
The twin on the left immediately frowned. "We're not joking, Mar."
Fuck, Liam wished it was a prank, too.
"There's gonna be more problems than solutions if you're running away like this." The platinum blond alpha spoke his mind, and the twins moved their glaze towards him. "One question is where do you even go? Do you have a place to stay? A place to hide?"
"We do." The right twin gave the taller alpha another thumbs up. "We do, Junior."
Liam sighed at the fact that the twins used the word "Junior" with the intention of frustrating him. Anyways, he pushed the offence to the back of his mind before he continued his questions.
"Why do you wanna leave in the first place?" The taller alpha's blue eyes didn't leave the twins. "Freedom? You already got everything. A scholarship from a sport you love to somewhere far so that your father can't micromanage you, the skills to be successful, the financial ability to do about anything. Or you're like Rex? You two have some omega you're pursuing—"
"Would you rather live at the top with fear or live at the bottom with freedom?" The twin sitting on the left asked back. Those pairs of deep blue eyes held no malice as he continued to answer his own question. "You're right, William Junior. We have everything at the top, but at the cost of our freedom. We've been prisoners since the day we were born into this family."
The twins are about six months older than Mar, so not that old.
"Just because our mothers were prisoners doesn't mean that we are." The black haired alpha mumbled, his voice barely held any weight.
"What are you gonna do? Reason with our dear daddy?" The right twin sneered at his younger brother. "Dear daddy only cares about himself, and we're his puppets. The sooner we break away, the better. Rex was really on to something last night, and he even got a girl with him."
"You know the truth about our mothers, don't you?" The left twin didn't give his youngest brother a chance to say anything back. "They were his prisoners, and so are we. Did you suddenly forget what happened to Marbella? We can only pretend that everything is alright for so long."
"Did Rex give you things, too?" Mar gritted his teeth, and vetiver began condensing the air. Liam began releasing his pheromones to hopefully calm down his companion. Alphas don't do that, but Liam does it anyways.
The right twin cocked his head to the side, his curly ginger hair touched his brother's identical ones. "Rex gives you things?"
"Rex showed him things." The left twin echoed. "Rex showed us things, too. But we already wanted to leave since our mother passed away."
If Liam remembered correctly, the twins' mother wasn't living in the mansion, and she passed away the same summer Rex took off for his military career, so it's about six years ago.
"What did Rex show you?" Mar's eyes were unblinking as they stared at the twins.