He had never had such a physically aversive reaction to the word "love" before in his life. And he had only been seven years old at the time.

Looking back, his family wasn't the picture of perfection. Their father had to stay and work late hours, their mother was a bit over controlling, raising hell when someone so much as tracked a little dirt into the house, and their extended family was estranged at best on their father's side.

That didn't mean that their life wasn't good though. He had his sister and she had him. They were never without a playmate, never without someone who didn't understand them and never without someone who would share their pain. They were far from the same, however. He was standoffish and cautious but mellow. She was social and energetic but thoughtful. Their family wasn't perfect and he'd never thought they'd needed to be.

But their father always put forth the effort to make up for lost time, doing special projects with them like making their beloved tree house or taking off whole days from work just to take them to the zoo or the movies (something that he knew was difficult due to an overheard phone call his father had gotten from his boss). And their mother, despite keeping the house like a military base, would make even daily occurrences just a little more special than she needed to. Sometimes it would come in the form of a cupcake in their lunches and other times, in a rare act of spontaneity, she might bring them to Hoo-Ha Owl's Pizzamatronic Jamboree even though she loathed the greasy food and annoying animatronics.

That was why it was nothing too out of the ordinary when their mother had done just that, taking them there for dinner after a day at the amusement park and the local science museum. She'd spared no expense either. When she'd usually limit what they could buy to twenty dollars each, on that day she'd given them whatever they had asked for, no matter how many artificial sweeteners or messy amounts of glitter came with what they wanted.

They'd both been a little perplexed. But of course, his sister brushed it off more easily than he did. To her credit, it made sense. Wouldn't anyone cherish their children twice as much only a month after their husband had died abruptly?

So they'd played along. They'd pretended that they didn't notice the occasional forced smiles or the far away, glassy expression their mother had when she thought they weren't looking. Their mother had needed them the most at that time even though they themselves had hardly even begun to properly grieve the loss.

It was that love, trust and care that they'd given to her which made the day so much more devastating when it ended.

When he'd opened his eyes, the sun had long since set and the menagerie of colors in the sky that looked like a scene from his sister's coloring book had darkened to pure black. Only the passing lights of other cars illuminated the interior of their own in short intervals. He shivered a bit, noting the car windows were open. Despite the recent weather, it had been very warm that day. He bet his dad would've brought them out for a drive in the convertible. His mother didn't like it very much when her hair whipped everywhere though.

A glance around the car revealed what a mess they'd made as dirt, wrappers and toys were strewn everywhere. The powdery sugar dust was the easiest to see and had been the first item to defile the usually immaculate car floor that day. His sister had panicked upon spilling it and tried her best to clean it up before his mother had noticed and waved away the whole situation.

"I'm getting the car cleaned soon anyway. Don't worry about it, honey," she had said earlier that day.

Feeling a weight on his shoulder, he glanced over blearily to see that his sister was fast asleep, likely in a pizza and sugar coma with how much of the stuff she had eaten. His loud yawn was met with a soft but audible inhale from the front of the car where his mother was driving and he strained his eyes to see the time on bright blue clock.

He blinked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. They'd been sleeping and his mother had been driving for more than an hour since they'd left. It was even past the twins' usual bedtime.

"Mom? Where are we going?" Was she really intending on bringing them on another trip to somewhere so late? He and his sister would follow through and were all for having fun as a family, but they were exhausted. Hopefully after this, his mother would know when to quit.

"… We're going home, sweetie." Her soft voice responded after a pause.

"Did you get lost again?" He asked with a slight whine. On past road trips their mother just never wanted to ask for help, insisting she could read the map just fine.

"Ha ha. I guess I did." Her laugh was half-hearted before silence settled over the car again. "Go back to sleep. We'll be there soon," she told him after a moment.

"Okay." He paused. "I had a lot of fun today, mom. We both did." One would have to be blind not to see that his sister had been having the time of her life.

"I'm so glad to hear that."

"Did you have fun?" He broached the subject that they'd avoided all day. He had hoped she felt better, recalling the sound of her crying last night when he'd gotten up for a glass of water. He had gone back to bed thirsty.

She had once explained to them that making them happy was her way of showing she loved them and that it made her happy to show her love. He supposed this was his roundabout way of telling her that she'd succeeded in showing her love and that he wanted her to be happy now.

"I did have fun." There was no pause this time. He could hear the smile in her voice. "Maybe tomorrow we'll have pancakes for breakfast. How does that sound?"

Though he couldn't even begin to think about food again and his stomach whined quietly, he nodded with a smile. "Yeah!" he affirmed louder than he'd meant to.

"Sh! You'll wake your sister," she told him despite quietly giggling to herself.

He then covered his mouth and whispered to his sleeping sibling. "Sorry." He then laid back tiredly, shutting his eyes to fall back asleep as he'd been told.

"And ***." His mother said his name after a few minutes. His eyes fluttered open and her voice was so soft that he almost couldn't hear her. He opened his mouth to speak, but she didn't even wait for his reply.

"I love you and your sister. So very much."

Not even the icy water had chilled him as much as those last words.

…

The quiet after the water had rushed into the car was surreal. He'd barely had time to take a breath before the air was gone despite his panicky inhalations. His oblivious sleeping sister was not so lucky.

There was nothing wrong with his seat belt, but in the panic of the moment it took much more trial and error than he liked to unstrap himself from the seat. He needed air. He needed warmth. The water, though completely thawed of ice, was frigid and it felt like icy spikes were shooting into his skin.

But his instinct to flee was halted the moment he saw two blurs of brown floating in his sight. One to the left and one to the right. His mother and sister were drowning. One struggled fiercely, fighting for freedom in confusion while the other merely twitched and spasmed from the discomfort of water filling her lungs.

He spotted bubbles escaping from the both of them and ignored his own burning lungs to reach over and free his twin whose flailing was growing weaker by the second. By the time he had gotten her out of the seat belt and they floated to the top of the car, she was limp. Time slowed in his mind as he began to push them both through the open window, wincing as something sharp sliced across his forearm.

Once his sister was out and he was close behind, he glanced back at the mass of wavy brunette hair covering his mother's face. He hesitated for only a second before pushing himself all the way out of the window and rose through the water, keeping his injured arm on his sister at all times as his good one swam.

When they broke to the surface, they both coughed and hacked, gulping the life-saving air. Despite his tries, some water had still made it into his mouth. The cold dampness covering his body practically paralyzed him, but somehow he managed to drag them to the shore.

He was hardly conscious by then. He saw flashing lights and felt someone pull him and his sister up (as he didn't release his shivering grip on her even then) before it all faded away and one last thought lingered in his semi-conscious mind.

"I love you and your sister. So very much."

Liar.

Author's Note: My second GF story. Before I've even updated my first. Yay for short attention spans!

I'm actually pretty new to the Reverse AU and I wasn't really interested until I saw some awesome fanart. But I also love trying to figure out how psychotic characters spiral down into what they become so I thought I'd give it a shot. Expect this to be more of a string of snapshots than a completely flowing story, though it's still all related and such, meant to explain how the Pines twins became so different from what we see on the show.

Reviews are all encouraged and loved equally, so please let me know what you think!