Chapter 1
When they were 5, Remus and Romulus, the Lupin twins, were bitten by the werewolf, Fenrir Greyback. When they were 7, they accepted it. Instead of fighting the heightened senses, the more than perfect eyesight, being able to smell different things from half a mile away, and hearing things in detail from that same distance, they used it to their advantage.
When someone would get on their nerves or pick on one or both of the twins, they usually found themselves with a surprise beating in the middle of the night, all of their valuables stolen, or had woken to a nasty rumor spread about them. The punishment depended on the crime.
No one would be able to sneak up on them, because they would always hear them coming. The Lupin twins were inseparable.
They were carless boys who thrived of the streets. Key word: were.
______________________________________
Remus awoke to a shout from down the hall.
"YOU TWO GET DRESSED AND COME DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!!" Remus winced at his father's yells.
"You up Rom?" Remus asked his brother from across the room.
"Obviously," Romulus replied, voice annoyed and grouchy.
"No need to be such a grouch, you dolt," Remus replied, then quickly dodged the pillow flung at his face. "Why the fuck did you do that?!" Remus laughed
"One day," Romulus said, "You morning people are going to be overruled by my kind and will suffer the same torture you put us through by forcing you to stay in your beds till 3 in the afternoon. Now we should get dressed before we get slapped again."
Remus winced at the memory.
___
Last night his father drunk to much again, and hit his mother, Hope. Remus and Romulus had been in the room at the time. Romulus kept his head down, but Remus wouldn't stand for it. He got up instantly.
"What has she done?! There's no reason for you to hit her! She has done nothing!" Remus had yelled
"SHUT UP YOU PATHETIC WAST OF OXYGON!" His father had yelled and swung for Remus. Remus, relying on wolf instinct at this point, had dodged when he detected the signs for an attack. He didn't get off free though.
SLAP!
Remus's head snapped to the side as his father backhanded him.
That was when Rom intervened.
"STOP IT!!" he yelled. Lyall slapped him, too.
Both boys leaned against the wall, stunned. Their dad stumbled off to his room.
"Mam, are you okay?" Remus asked.
"Of course, Remus. I think you two should go to bed, before there's any more trouble," Hope said. All three of them had learned how to ignore the pain, just faintly aware of it in the back of their minds.
"Yeah, I was thinking the same," Romulus replied.
___
Remus unconsciously touched the purple bruise on the left side of his face. He got up, yawned and stretched, and walked to the closet. His room he shared with Romulus was small, but extremely tidy. It wasn't that they were tidy people, he and his brother, it was just that they didn't have many possessions to dirty the room with. He and Romulus dressed in silence.
"WHERE IN THE BUGGERING FUCK ARE YOU TWO?!" Lyall yelled.
"COMING!" Remus and Romulus yelled back, in perfect sink.
They raced each other down the hall, shoving each other and laughing. when they reached the living room, there stood his father, his mother, and someone else he didn't recognize.