identical ; tozier twins

01. the toothpaste war of '84

Saturday, May 12th, 1984

Growing tired of lazily staring at his bedroom ceiling, Mike decides to get up and do something, although he's still unsure of what. Even just walking around the house will probably help. He hasn't moved all day, and some could argue that he's just morphed down into his bed, creating a meld of flesh and fleece. He stands up and stretches, his shirt lifting up ever so slightly at the bottom with his arms as they reach above his head. Groaning and cracking his back, he brushes his fingers through his messy hair.

He looks nowhere near presentable, at least in his opinion. He's wearing nothing under a baggy sweatshirt that hasn't been washed in weeks along with his gym shorts from school and socks that reach up to his calves. He prays that Richie isn't wandering around with the camera again as he saunters down to the kitchen to get a sugary snack. That should definitely wake him up, his stomach growls at the thought.

Entering he kitchen and placing an Oreo cookie in his mouth, his tastebuds begin to tingle with a strange sensation. He furrows his eyebrows as his chewing slows down, realizing that something's horribly wrong. Making a sour face and running to spit the food into the sink, he whirls around to see Richie laughing behind him. He's gripping his stomach and wheezing with the force of his laughter, wiping a few fake tears from his eyes. "Looks like you won't have to brush your teeth tonight. Minty fresh!" He snickers again at his unlucky twin, pulling a tube of empty toothpaste from behind his back.

Mike turns on the faucet and opens his mouth, tilting his head to the side to let the water flush the unpalatable taste out. Toothpaste and chocolate are definitely not things that should mix, especially at the same time. "If you mess around with my food like this again, I'll shove dad's electric toothbrush up your anal cavity," Mike growls, anger rising. His statement sounds a lot like something Richie would say, how fantastic. His idiotic behavior is beginning to rub off on me, Mike thinks. He must've had to use the whole tube to fill every Oreo in the box with toothpaste. Mike looks through to find one normal cookie, but to no avail. The lengths this boy will go to ruin someone's day are far.

Richie moans dramatically at Mike's previous statement. "Oh, please do!" he says, biting his lip and pretending to thrust into the air.

Mike lets out an angry scream, charging himself at the other boy. He tries to run, but Mike catches him before he can get away. They fall down to the floor together with a loud thud as Mike pins Richie's head down to the ground by wrapping his hands around his neck. He doesn't wrap hard enough to choke him, but hard enough for him to know that he's not putting up with his shit today.

"Mom, the boys are trying to rip each other's faces off again!" Nancy yells from the other room. Richie reaches his hands back up at Mike, wrapping his own hands around the others neck. To any regular onlooker, they just look like two brothers having a brawl. But, to them, this is war.

"Boys, what has gotten into you?" Karen Wheeler comes rushing in to break them up, her face flustered. She's always worried about then acting like this in front of company, something about saving her reputation and keeping her place in the PTA.

"Richie put toothpaste in the Oreos!" Mike argues, swiftly standing up while pointing his finger over at him.

"He tried to choke me!" he retorts, pointing his finger back at Mike while still sprawled across the floor.

"I don't care who did what, you boys need to stop this constant fighting!" she yells at them before delivering the punishments. Mike is grounded from Dungeons and Dragons, which he thinks is totally unfair, and Richie is grounded from watching TV. He tried to protest, which ended up in an extra week of grounding. He punched Mike for laughing and got another two days.