your mind's a mine field in a minor way / WILL

[Lara Archer]

Alone. Lara Archer rolled the word around on her tongue like a sweet, pushing it against the roof of her mouth like she could squash all the meaning out of it. Alone, alone, alone. The silence of the house around her was suffocating. She could feel it wrapping around her throat like a very quiet promise. It was killing her, in truth. Under normal circumstances it would feel right, to be in the silence, like a fish felt right to be in the water. But then she'd run into her brother on the streets of London, and everything was suddenly displaced. The quiet didn't fit her right anymore. Nothing about her, this skin, these limbs, felt right without Will near them to bring them into focus. Lara felt like her edges were blurring away, and it was terrifying her. Why had he had to be there? She'd been doing so well pretending she didn't need him at all.

But Will was coming. He'd promised her. Promised like he meant it this time - promised like he'd promised to never leave her, all that time ago. Lara rolled over in bed with a small, frustrated huff. Who was there she could trust to keep promises anymore? She couldn't even trust herself with it now - she'd sworn not to forgive him, after all, not ever. And yet here she was itching for his company, scraping herself raw worrying that he wouldn't come.

She rolled over again, her breath stilling. Had she just heard the door? She'd left the one in the kitchen open for him, like he'd said to. Snuck down after Mum and Samuel went to bed. That had been hours ago, though, and the night was reaching its darkest, most silent part. Well, thought Lara, flopping now onto her back, restless and disquieted, the deepest part of the night is always best for candidness. And she and Will would need it, if they were to find their way back to each other.

Suddenly the noise of a footstep on the landing outside - that single floorboard that creaked, the only one in this whole tacky modernised house. Lara sat bolt upright in bed, reaching for the bedclothes to gather them beneath her chin. There was only one person it could be; Samuel blundered around like an elephant, and Ruth was even quieter than Lara herself. Indeed her door swung inwards seconds later, revealing the silhouette of her brother in the door. Lara stiffened herself, her eyes very wide in the moonlight coming through the big window. She swallowed hard. Here came the plunge.

[William Archer]

Will had never blossomed much in apparation, but he'd managed to pass his test by the very skin of his teeth, and so it had been with some trepidation that he had apparated to just outside the Hawes Manor. He had nearly backed out of it entirely for a completely different reason - had spent the past few hours pacing his room in his flat, unable to sit still, unable to control his thoughts as they whirred and spun out of control. He'd been reaching for a cigarette every twenty minutes or so, disappearing behind a fug of smoke as he tried to make sense of what he was about to do. He wasn't particularly worried about sneaking in; he was so skilled at sneaking in from the years when he still lived at home that he knew he'd make it without any trouble whatsoever. It was more so the fact that he would have to stand there in front of his little sister, his tiny, delicate sister whom he'd abandoned, his sister who reminded him so fiercely of his mum, and he'd have to talk to her, and try not to get her to hate him. He was sure she did. She must.

But he had forced himself to apparate, and apparate he did, although he found his skin crawl at the sight of the Manor, his body tensing up on the spot. He knew he could go back to Neil's; he could forget this plan had ever gripped him, he could arrange for Lara to meet him somewhere else instead. But he hadn't allowed himself to do that - who the fuck was he? He was William Archer, and he had done far more daring and reckless than this. He tried desperately not to think of his mother as he stole around the back of the house, creeping towards the kitchen door and carefully turning the handle. His mother was a restless sleeper - often times she looked as if she never slept at all. People said his mum was beautiful, and he knew she was - a regular ice queen - but she often looked completely broken, weary, the shadows under her eyes like bruises.

He hadn't seen her in a while, though. She could be sleeping better since he had left. God knew he was the cause of most of their trouble, anyways. Fuck her, he thought, with a surge of rebellion, as he crept through the house, far more cautious than he had ever been when he was younger and coming back after a night out. If he ran into Samuel, he was fucked. If he ran into his mum - no. He wasn't even going to let himself imagine the sheer horror of that.

He was terribly thankful he hadn't had anything to drink, as he'd contemplated beforehand, to take the edge off, because he had some trouble remembering which door was Lara's. Barely daring to breathe, he stood in the middle of the hallway underneath a slant of moonlight, eyes flickering from one side to the other. Once he had come to his decision, he felt his breath catch, but he shrugged off any misgivings and took three deliberate, yet quiet, steps towards the door. He shouldn't be nervous. This was his sister. And he owed her.

And so he prodded the door open with great care, rising to his full height as his eyes adjusted to the light in the room. And there she was - surprisingly tiny as ever, wide-eyed, looking as though she'd shatter if he even breathed too heavily. That was the problem; Will always felt too big, too bold, too brash in the presence of his sister. But, he reminded himself sternly, he also loved her very much. He did. And so he entered the room, drawing the door shut behind him and whispering, "How's it going, kid?" as he did so. [/i]

[Lara Archer]

Lara watched motionless from the bed as Will closed the door behind him and moved towards her. His voice, for all its softness, felt loud after the heavy silence of the rest of the night. But, she told herself angrily, she mustn't move away from it. She mustn't do anything that looked liked she was unsure about this. She was sure, she was so sure. She couldn't go on alone anymore. She just had to figure out how to get back to him, no matter how hard that was, how much against her learned nature it went. God, it wasn't even like they'd been absurdly close? Not like some siblings. She'd been kept away from him when small, and then he'd been at Hogwarts and she'd been home all alone with their parents; and then came this big house with its jovial, silly owner and all Will's anger and self-loathing had been brewing too constantly to permit much time for them to open themselves up to each other. Not that Lara would have known how to do that. Not that she knew how to do that now. How do you discuss your feelings with somebody when you can't even admit them to yourself?

Head whirling, Lara kept her face motionless, eyes still wide and wary like a cornered cat. Her knuckles were white around the duvet she was clutching, the only outward sign of her turmoil. Keeping them there seemed the best thing. She felt like if she released them she'd just reach for Will, though to hug him or hit him she wasn't sure. And that would be no good at all - she couldn't let him know all the ways he pulled her into pieces. She had to be still and strong and sure like her mother.

Her mouth opened now, a litany of possible greetings dying on her tongue as she did so. What was there in a situation like this? She'd never been one for much talking, not even with her mother who understood her so completely. Tonight was going to need elegiacs and Lara couldn't even compose simple couplets. So she took a deep breath, and simply said, "Will."

It came out lighter than she intended it to. She meant for a steady sound, a single syllable that gave nothing away. Instead she found herself sounding breathless, sounding - to her horror - like there were tears caught behind her eyes. She disentangled one hand from her sheets and put it up to her face to see if her voice was warning her right. Her cheeks were dry, thank heavens, but now she was paying attention she could feel saltwater pricking her eyes, skin heating up with the dark threat of tears. She applied every inch of her iron will into forcing them down, and put her hand back into her lap.

"I wasn't sure you'd come," she offered at last, her tone stronger and steadier, the whisper unshaken in the darkness. The hand in her lap curled up into a fist, and she used the sharp bite of her nails into her palm to anchor herself. She could do this. She would do this.

[William Archer]

It was rather disconcerting, Lara's composure - it always had been. His mother had always been the same; the two kept their emotions deep underneath the surface, with something akin to anger or sadness simmering underneath their skin every now and then. Will wasn't quite sure how they managed it, because he had never been able to control his own emotions - if someone piqued his anger he'd be whipped into a frenzy, effing and blinding and raging, and if he was happy, the entire world would be aware of it. Sadness, too - even though he wasn't such a fan of crying, an embarrassing amount of people probably had witnessed him crying, although the tears would generally be rather angry. Bitter, reluctant tears. And standing in front of her, he felt as foolish as he often had standing in front of his mother. It was utterly surreal, especially as the only light they had was from the moon.

It didn't feel quite the same as it did when he was faced with his mother, however. He felt uneasy and unsure around Lara, yes, but with his mother he'd feel rage and shame and a medley of other emotions stirring inside of him. Perhaps it was because Lara was more obviously vulnerable than his mother - one look at his mum, and you knew that she'd been through it all and seen it all, but Lara - well, he knew that Lara was just a young girl, copying what she'd always known. She was as much like Ruth as he was like Bobby. He winced.

She said his name, and he ruffled a hand through his hair, taking a couple of easy steps towards her. His footsteps sounded heavy and blundering, however, and so, with a furtive glance at Lara, he stopped in his tracks and eased his shoes off. As he did so, he spared another quick look at her, and muttered, with a shaky grin, "Sorry if my feet smell." That nearly caused him to laugh aloud, but he stopped himself before doing so, because it would seem ridiculous. But it was just that it occurred to him how ridiculous he felt. He felt like a kid again, standing in his sister's room in his socks, voice kept down to a whisper.

Any urge to laugh disappeared at her next words. Of course she couldn't have been sure of him coming - he was wild and reckless and rebellious and selfish and stupid, and he was just like his tosser of a dad. Couldn't be trusted. Couldn't be bothered. "Yeah?" He managed, tentatively walking towards her bed. "Well, I aim to impress..." he took another few steps, and nearly sat at the end of her bed, but seemed to think better of it. He stopped mid-movement, eyed her speculatively, and then sat himself down on the floor, drawing his knees up under his chin.

He didn't want to ask about his mother, but found he couldn't stop the words pouring from his mouth: "How is she?"

He realised, with a pang, that he wanted Lara to reveal that his mother had been miserable without him. That she felt as tied to him as he was to her. That she could barely go on without him, that she just wanted her son back. And that would be another opportunity to hate her, for her letting him go if she loved him so terribly. He didn't want to deal with her indifference, or with her satisfaction at his absence. And that, obviously, made him a dick. He scowled at his knees. He was such a bastard. 

[Lara Archer]

Lara watched in silent consideration as Will toed his shoes off, and her face gave no sign she'd even heard what he'd said. Although she had, of course she had. Every sound in this silence seemed louder than a bomb going off to her hypersensitive ears. She felt like every nerve in her body was wired, everything about her was straining apart trying to keep a handle on herself as this situation played itself out. She'd never been so nervous about a single conversation. This was something she'd be required to actively participate in - the kind of conversation she couldn't simply sit through, with small nods or shakes of the head enough to keep things going.

Her eyes tracked his progress across the room, and dipped down with him as he settled himself down on the floor. This puzzled her. She'd assumed he'd sit himself down on the bed - there was plenty of space between her body tucked up tiny under the covers and the edge of it. This left her with a problem. She didn't want to move, partly for fear she would shake or betray her feelings some other way, but also because she wasn't quite sure she was willing to make any special allowance for him yet, even if it was something as small as getting off her bed and sitting on the floor with him. Next to him, so close she'd almost be able to feel his presence the way she remembered it - hot and unpredictable, as different from her mother's cool nearness as a pool is different from a wildfire.

His face played his emotions out like a film; Lara could pick them out like she was reading a book. She had never been able to understand how he could be so free with how he was feeling - how willing he was for the world to know what was in his heart at all times. She wouldn't be able to bear that, she didn't think. How would she keep herself together if she wore every little thought on her face? But his thoughts were dark and despairing, she could tell, from his tone and his expression and the heaviness of his brow as he frowned down at his knees. His hurt registered in her chest like a bullet wound, and she silently gave up her battle to stay so removed.

Carefully, delicately, she peeled herself out of her sheets and slid off the bed on her side, then padded around it towards where Will was sat on the floor. She didn't touch him - wasn't exactly sure where and how would be best - but she folded herself down cross-legged just across from him, close enough that her left knee was within a hair's breadth of his right.

"She misses you," she whispered, and found to her surprise that this didn't feel like betraying Ruth like she'd thought it might. It felt... it felt right. Lara felt her mind moving towards the realisation that maybe she was the only one with the power to help her mother and brother find solid ground for each other again, and it terrified and exhilarated her in equal measure. That amount of power, of potential to get it wrong - she wasn't ready, not slightly. But Will was here, Will was here and he was angry and sad and confused, and Lara could maybe do something about that. So she took a very deep breath, and forged on, "She doesn't... say it. But she does. Do you - do you miss her?"

The question she was dying to add, the question she would never dare add, felt almost as sad caught in her throat as he'd looked asking about their mother. Do you miss me?

[William Archer]

Will hadn't expected Lara to slip out of her bed and join him on the floor, and try as he might he couldn't help but react accordingly, shoulders seizing up, head jerking backwards, eyebrows shooting upwards. He'd expected her to stay put, safe underneath the bedclothes, for the distance between them to act as something akin to a buffer. The distance had given it something of a dreamlike quality, but once she had gotten to her feet that was shattered almost instantly. When she sat in front of him, ridiculously close, everything came to focus with a shocking clarity. What the fuck was he doing? Once again, he felt like a child, a kid sitting on the floor, whispering secrets. Except he wasn't whispering any secrets. Not in the slightest. He felt terribly on edge, too; he knew that there was absolutely no chance of his mother bursting in, because Ruth simply wasn't like that, but he knew she was close to him, and that practically made his skin crawl. Half of him wanted to creep into her room and shake her awake and talk to her, and the other half wanted to smash a couple of the ornaments in the house and leave before anyone could shriek at him.

"Fuck," he breathed, when Lara announced that his mother missed him. He wasn't quite sure where to look - if he kept his gaze trained on her face, he thought it might embarrass the hell out of the both of them, but he didn't want to avoid her eyes, either. So his own gaze jumped around, clicking with hers every now and again. "Nah, she wouldn't say it, would she? Not Mum..." he trailed off, hearing the bitterness dripping off of his words and hating himself for it. Christ, he couldn't keep his temper for at least two minutes. Pulling himself together and forcing himself to remain calm, his mouth twisted into a smile, and he looked up, this time boldly meeting her eyes. "Yeah, I guess. Most of the time I just think she's a raging bitch. But sometimes, like - " he paused; the subject of his mother had always been rather a delicate matter for him. " - I dunno. Sometimes it could be kind of cool when she was a raging bitch. I remember when, like, other mothers barged over to her and got all in her face 'cause they thought I was some fucking delinquent - back in primary school - I remember she used to give them this look..." he trailed off, and then snorted. "They'd run away with their tail between their legs, then."

He wasn't quite sure why he'd dredged up those memories, but they were some of the only ones that could really make him feel affection towards his mother. Those, or when he'd come home scraped and bruised, and she wouldn't say much, she'd just sigh, but she'd mop him up and stick him in the bath (no matter how much he complained) and drop a kiss on the top of his head. He quite liked those moments with his mum. He'd never been Josh, never been her golden boy, but in those moments he'd quite felt like he had. The thought of Josh nearly sent his head spinning.

"And what about the Prodigal Son?" He demanded, forgetting to whisper, face growing stony, eyes slightly narrowed, tone mocking. "Mummy's darling all over again, I guess? Jesus fucking Christ, I can't even remember what he properly looks like..." Josh was there too, of course. He'd almost forgotten, but Josh was in one of those rooms, his older brother, the boy he had trailed after, awe-inspired, for such a very long time.

[Lara Archer]

Lara caught Will's surprise as she sat down beside him, and felt her breath catch in her throat. It looked like - well, almost like he'd rather she hadn't. His posture backed off, his shoulders stiff and his head up, and Lara registered the hurt somewhere deep down inside herself. But it was too late to back off now. She always imagined in this sort of situation that her actual skin was hardening up to keep the hurt out and her other emotions in, and she applied her imagination feverishly now. She was steel, she was granite, she was diamond. Nothing he did or felt could get into her. She was ice.

Her eyes fixed hard on his face, her lips pressed together, her expression inscrutable as he spoke. She tracked his flickering gaze, the shock of it meeting hers flaming anew each time. Was he so disinterested in her that he couldn't even look at her? Did it surprise her at all?

She registered his heating anger with something almost akin to relief. This was what she knew. She could feel her body reacting to it instinctively, limbs and shoulders and feet tucking themselves inwards and then stilling utterly, her eyes intent upon him to see where the next move would come from. They were wild animals, the Archer kids, but Will was the kind who attacked the hunter on sight, snarling and as angry as an earthquake; Lara froze up like a deer and waited the tension out with a terrifying, bone-shaking calm. The feeling of it was almost comforting, she was so used to it. She knew Will would never hurt her like that, of course she knew it, but nine years with a drunkard father and she'd grown familiar with the kind of accidents tempers like that could cause. Better to do nothing, nothing at all, to provoke that anger even a fraction stronger.

His calm, when it came, threw her more utterly than anything he'd said or done since she'd bumped into him on the street. This was not the Will she expected. She was waiting for hurricanes and being presented with what amounted to sunshine, for them. When he met her gaze now her eyes were wide and wary, and full of surprise. She felt herself suddenly unguarded, like his unexpected gentleness had ripped her hardness right away. It was probably why she let out a tiny huff of laughter herself when he snorted, the noise bubbling up and out before she could stop it. She clamped her mouth shut instantly, but it was out there in the world. In truth, she had loved it when her mother did that. It was so - so much like being powerful. Lara knew she and her mum didn't have much power of their own - what they had now they had through Samuel and his big position in the Ministry, through his money and his status. But those brief moments when Ruth had drawn herself up and looked down on those other women like a queen looked down on serfs - Lara had felt like the world was spinning just for them.

Without her conscious consent, she stiffened up again at the mention of Josh. The first abandonment; it stung almost as much as Will's - in a different way, that was all. God, the power her brothers held to hurt her. It was incomprehensible. She saw the same hardness in Will's face that she felt around her own heart at the thought of Josh, and suddenly felt closer to him than she'd have thought possible.

"They - they spend a lot time together," she informed Will, managing somehow to get the sentence out non-committal and careful despite the raging bile trying to heat them up. She wanted Will's anger now. She wanted it huge and terrible, to reassure her that the fury she felt towards their brother was justified, was fair. She hadn't even spoken to Josh beyond tiny necessary phrases, like the location of the bathroom or the nearest supermarket, and had refused point blank to spend more than five minutes in his company. That very afternoon she'd been sitting in the garden and he'd come and sat down next to her, tried to talk to her. Lara had got up and walked back inside without a single word. She knew she would forgive Will before long, because there was nobody else in the world that understood her and what she'd been through. But Josh - Josh was the first and worst betrayal, and her hatred for him was hot and fresh.
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ugh sorry for the length. archers man

[William Archer]

Lara was beautiful, of course - you couldn't expect anyone who resembled Ruth to not share that beauty, but there was something deeply unsettling about it, the intensity of her, the glacier-like quality she possessed. She was fourteen (or was she fifteen?) - she shouldn't be like that, he thought fervently, although a flurry of images popped up in his head, memories of his own fourteenth and fifteenth years, and he realised that it probably wasn't what he should have been, either. A rueful smile fought its way onto his face before he could even attempt to stop it - he'd been a cheeky git at fourteen, a real trouble-maker. Caused havoc wherever he went. Lara could hardly be more different from how he had been at the time, and yet - he just couldn't believe that her poise, her iciness, her silence, her obedience...he couldn't believe that that was altogether natural. Forced. It had to be forced. In her nature, to a certain degree, of course. But -

He was so caught up in analyzing his sister in his head that he got trapped in his own thoughts, wandering aimlessly as though stuck in a maze, and he had to shake himself out of it. It was no good trying to analyze her, no good whatsoever. Every time he seemed to find a somewhat possible solution, it'd slip through his fingers. He wasn't particularly skilled with words, and they failed him when he tried to grasp what exactly Lara was, what type of person she was, what kind of things she enjoyed, and admired, and wanted.

He desperately wanted a fag, but he wasn't going to shatter this moment. Even if it was painful, and dreamlike, and ludicrously abstract. He wasn't going to descend into reality for the price of nicotine. The action of rolling, and licking the paper, and lighting the cigarette - those would all drag him back to earth, make him question what he was even doing there, creeping into his mother's house to meet in secret with his little sister at the dead of night. He'd have to go outside, too, and a traipse down the house and out of the backdoor and then all the way back up again - that could be fatal. Maybe Ruth did sleep better these days, maybe she slept longer and deeper and maybe the shadows under her eyes were fading and colour was returning down her cheeks, but he wasn't going to risk it.

She seemed deeply surprised by his reaction, and he supposed, as she'd witnessed him in the past couple of years raging and storming and loathing his mother, ignoring her and rolling his eyes at her and storming out at her, driving her mad with worry, forcing her to stay up every night in the sitting room with only her cigarettes for company until he stumbled into the house, wasted. Some nights he didn't even stumble in, then. He wondered if his mother ever did return to bed, those nights he didn't come home, or if she simply went directly into the very next day, faint with the need to sleep. For so long he'd thought his mum selfish, he'd thought she'd wished he'd never been born - but he'd realized, after he'd had that unfortunate encounter with his dad, that he'd been wrong. Bobby was the one who'd never even wanted him, who'd stuck around when he was bored and pissed off when he craved a bit of glamour. Will knew, of course - he was so sure - that his mum didn't particularly like him, nor want him. Josh was her shining boy, her baby, her son, and Lara was the daughter she'd always wanted, but he was almost entirely left out of the equation. But he supposed, now, that she must have loved him, the slightest bit. Enough to stay up at night, anyways. He still burned with fury at the thought of her sometimes, knew that if he ran into her he'd lose it, but he had come to terms with that, at the very least.

He felt a rush of pride when Lara let loose a little laugh, even though it seemed as though she tried desperately to shut down on it. But he'd heard it, and seen it, and he'd made his little sister laugh - so, encouraged by this, he gave her a wider, more natural smile, saying: "I remember once another boy in my class, right, he called Mum a slag, so I beat the - I tried to beat the shit out of him - there was blood everywhere and everyone was crying and all that, and I thought I was going to be in for it when Mum came and got me, but I told her what he'd said and when his mum was having a go at her, saying that, like, she should bring me up better, she told her that she should bring her kids up better and wash out their mouths, just like that." He remembered that day vividly. The teacher had had to dash out of the classroom and call for help because about twenty ten-year-olds had gone mental, some of them eagerly joining in the fight, most of them scrabbling at Will because he hadn't been popular, most of them shrieking their heads off, Will in the middle, throwing punches at anyone who came near him. "Don't know if you remember that. Don't know if we told you...anyways, Mum told me I'd best keep my fists to myself and she was pissed that I got suspended and all, but she let me watch telly all the day I was suspended."

With Lara, you had to notice the smaller details. Everything Will felt was scrawled plainly across his face, but with Lara, you had to sharpen your gaze and pay heed. Luckily, Will was, for he noticed her tense up at the mention of Josh. What age had she been when Josh had left? He screwed up his face slightly, trying to count back. She must have been ten. Perhaps younger. Perhaps she'd been eight. She probably couldn't remember their stupid bastard of a brother, and he was probably lording it over all of them at the Manor.

"Wanker," Will said contemptuously, having to use quite a lot of his self-control. He wanted to jump to his feet and storm out of Lara's room and into Josh's and beat him to a pulp. Well. Will was a lot bigger and stronger than he was when he was ten, and he was a lot better at fighting, too - plus, his anger gave him extra fuel, extra power. But Josh, unless he had seriously let himself go, or unless his memories of his brother had been warped in his brother's favour, was a big guy. A calm guy. His anger would work against him in that fight - and, in some ways, he wasn't sure he'd be able to go through with it. He'd hesitate at the wrong moment, doubt himself, and then he'd realise that that was his brother, and it'd completely overwhelm him. His memories were so foggy - he'd loved Josh very much, trailed after him, looked up to him. Josh had been impossibly cool, calm, handsome. A born leader. Strong. The sort of boy people respected. Unlike Will in almost every single bloody way. Will wasn't a complete idiot - he knew he'd been fairly popular in Hogwarts, knew that he wasn't exactly considered unattractive. But he wasn't like Josh. Not in the slightest.

But perhaps - perhaps that was good. Josh had left, hadn't he? For years. No contact. No real explanation. Josh had just up and left, leaving behind him a shattered family. And, yes, Will had left too. But he'd been thrown out. And he'd come back - he'd come back before it was too late. Hopefully.

"What's he like?" He asked, finally.
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the pain is real

[Lara Archer]

Will's smile travelled all the way down Lara's spine. It was so open, so unguarded, so keen for her to share in his mirth. She could feel the pull of it, the temptation to surrender to that quick, fleeting joy. His voice was stronger now he was speaking about something that made him happy, and Lara found herself watching his face more than listening to his words, although of course she was registering and filing them away neatly. His eyes had a touch of something very rare in them as he described his memories of their mother, and Lara silently studied the rising flush in his cheeks, the excited way he leaned out of his own space. Everything Will felt, he felt so much. She knew the comparison would irritate him, probably, but she'd always privately felt that he reminded her very much of the fairies in Peter Pan, one of her favourite children's books. The idea of a being who could only feel one thing at a time, it filled them up so completely, resonated with her intensely.

Oh, she knew Will was far more complex than that, knew he was capable of mastering himself when he needed to, but the idea had always stuck. She was reminded of it now, watching the happiness of the memory take over him - and then watching it get clouded over just as quickly as his thoughts turned to their brother. He was like a light switch, like a flash flood, like a complicated piece of symphony music with all its twists and turns. Would she ever run out of ways to try to define Will? She doubted it. Everybody else in her life, everybody extraneous, she could neatly package away in certain slots and not have them bother her buzzing around with unexpected or unexplained behaviour. But any box she put Will in mentally he burst his way out of, and left Lara reeling in his wake. It was one of the reasons she loved him so much; she couldn't help it. Her mother and Josh were the same. With her mother it felt like heaven - there was nobody in the world capable of soothing Lara the way Ruth was. She wouldn't even know herself that her mind was playing up until Ruth was laying a cool hand across her forehead and stilling it, steadying Lara with her quiet solid presence and boosting her back up onto her feet without a word.

Lara's eyes travelled sharply to Will, all of a sudden. She tried to imagine how it would feel to be in this head of hers without her mother there to help her keep it steady, and felt the imagined blackness like a wave. Maybe this was what Will had to deal with, thinking their mum didn't care about him. Maybe his head was just as buzzy as hers, and he didn't have any soft cool hands to keep it calm. The sorrow flooded into Lara like the sea - she wanted desperately to open her mouth and pour out litanies to reassure Will how much his mother loved him, how much it hurt her for him to have been sent away. How she was sadder and quieter than she ever had been before, even with Josh back. But the words wouldn't come. How would she start that explanation? How could she broach that topic? How could she ever put words to all the things she wanted so badly to say?

Fortunately, Will broke her train of thought, and she tore her eyes from his face with a slight hiss of embarrassment. She'd been so caught up in her thoughts she'd not noticed she'd been staring at him, and it was only through supreme force of will and years of practice that she didn't blush now. She could not let him know how intently she'd been considering him. To her relief, the question posed gave her something else to put her mind to, and she applied it with alacrity. She tilted her head slightly to the side and pondered. What was Josh like? Different from the memories she had of him when she was a child, for certain, but how precisely? She hadn't listened to him enough to box him up. She rather thought, although she was a little afraid to voice this even to herself, that maybe she'd struggle to box him as much as she struggled with Will and Ruth.

"He's...big," she answered finally, her tone slightly uncertain. For Lara, physicality was a fairly important consideration - as someone tiny, she usually assessed relative sizes in a group of people quickly just so she'd know who it was most important to stay out of the way of if violence should erupt, no matter how unlikely. She felt, however, that in this situation a simple physical descriptor wasn't going to suffice, so she huffed a strand of hair out of her face and tacked on, "And worried. A bit. Because - because Mum's sad. And you're gone. And I'm... me."

[William Archer]

Will let out a huff of air when she came to the conclusion that Josh was big, half rueful amusement, half disappointment. He couldn't deny he'd hoped that the hulking Josh he remembered had simply been that - a memory. That he had been too young to realise his brother was thoroughly average-sized, that he had built him up as a hero purely in his head. "Typical, that," he muttered under his breath. "When everyone you want to beat up is bigger than you..." Will had had to learn how to handle himself from a very young age, and while he certainly wasn't scrawny, his build was wiry, his height average. He was rather strong, but what really propelled him forwards in a fight was his temper - without that, he would be reduced to the strength of any other fellow his age. And Will was used to fighting his battles against those bigger and tougher, because ever since he was a little scrap of a thing he'd been waving his fists around, throwing punches, not giving a stuff about the fact that his opponent could crush him with their little finger.

"Mum's always sad," Will informed her, before noting that this perhaps sounded terribly callous and hastily added: "No, hang on, I didn't mean like - didn't mean that it didn't matter - just, like - " he gripped his hair firmly with one hand, the skin around his knuckles straining white as he scrambled for the right words to say. Words had never quite been his forte, much to his chagrin. Almost every sentence he spoke was addled in curse words, and slang, and he never quite knew how to phrase something delicately. "'S just, like, that's not new, and Josh - " he jaw tightened as he spoke his brother's name, " - if Josh is so worried about Mum being sad, he should've been here. He should've stayed. She's been sad all this time. Even fucking Hawes couldn't change that, no matter how many fancy balls he throws." Will cast a thoroughly disgusted look around Lara's bedroom; it didn't occur to him this could be viewed as insulting to his sister, but it was more so the house itself that he considered revolting. All of the fancy things, and Samuel's jovial, patronizing nature, and the fact that Ruth didn't love him, and they all knew it, and yet they were all play-acting, every single one of them. "I hate it here. Fucking hate it," Will told her flatly.

The way she spoke about herself didn't quite sit right with Will. It was only a sentence - a few words - and yet they weighed an awful lot, settled down in his mind and stirred uneasiness in his stomach. He wasn't blind to the fact that his sister was not particularly normal - in fact, he wasn't even entirely sure she had any friends, any companions, anyone except for their mother. Lara unnerved people, just as he did. He had never quite thought of it like that before, but he realised then, hunched up on the carpet of his sister's room, that they were alike - Josh was the golden boy, charismatic and popular and clever, drawing people towards him with ease, and he and Lara seemed to twist people the wrong way. As this revelation came to him, an overwhelming wave of guilt washed over his body, causing him to tense up again, looking visibly pained. He should've taken care of her. Should've made sure she was being looked after, happy, should've made sure she had someone to speak to on her loneliest nights, someone to nestle up with in her worst hours. A mum wasn't enough - you needed mates, and Will had forgotten how lucky he was to have Neil. People needed their mates, Will was certain about that - and it was true that he rubbed people in the wrong way, but he'd managed to secure quite a couple, and even though he unnerved people, too, he wasn't quite such an extreme case as Lara. He wondered if the others in her year whispered about her, threw filthy names at her, mocked her, and it caused him such an amount of pain and frustration that he was very, very thankful he was sitting down.

"Are they looking after you right?" He managed, his voice somewhat strained. And then, before she could respond, he broke into speech again, this time quickly, a strong pleading note laced in his words: "Look, Lara - I'm a dick, and I'm sorry - I should've been looking after you - I shouldn't have - I mean, I know Samuel kicked me out, and that, but...I should've - " he grasped wordlessly for half-a-second, stumbling and nearly losing confidence in himself, before feeling a surge of determination and willing himself onwards, "I should've kept in contact and looked after you and that. I'm just - a twat, basically," he said, with finality. It wasn't quite the speech he'd have liked to have given. He wished fervently he could've been tender and gentle and yet impressive and cool and wise. But it was the best he could conjure up.

[Lara Archer]

Lara felt another breath of laughter shoot up inside her throat, and this time she let it escape, sardonic and low. Everyone you want to beat up is bigger than you. Oh, did she know how that felt. She'd wondered, sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night when her raging mind was keeping her awake, if maybe she'd be better if she was bigger. If she was big and tough and strong like her brothers, she could stand up in a fight, she could allow the emotions she repressed so ruthlessly to drive her fists and legs. She could let go of everything the way Will did, scream and bite and kick, and come away the better for it. But she'd always been the smallest in the house, always the weakest, and still was amongst her peers at school. But then.... all of her earliest memories were smothered in her mother, whose calm was as relentless and irresistible as a crashing wave. She'd picked up that detachment like most kids pick up words, repeating and copying that stillness and coldness in every waking moment. It was probably a good thing, now. The amount of sadness she carried around in her stomach would get her into all sorts of trouble if she let it drive her movements. Much better, probably, for it to be all wound down tight inside.

Lara tracked Will's eyes as he threw them around the room, and the tiniest hint of a frown pulled her brow down. Her room was reflective of much of the rest of the house - more hotel than anything else, always the perfect showroom. There wasn't a scrap of her own personality anywhere in this place, apart from maybe the books neatly stacked on the bookshelf in the corner. She and Ruth had simply inserted themselves into this big pre-decorated house and declined to interfere at all, despite Samuel's insistence on them doing so if they wanted. Lara knew her mother had eventually taken a more active hand, had quietly and efficiently tweaked the kitchen to her liking, reupholstered the tacky sofas in the sitting room, delicately smoothing out the gaudy edges of the house to make it better. But Lara... Lara left no imprint at all, not even in her own bedroom. Walking into it you'd think it was a spare room rather than one inhabited by a teenage girl. No posters on the wall, never a single item of clothing on the floor, not a toy or souvenir in sight. This house felt soulless, and she felt an echo of Will's disgust in her own chest.

All the same... life was easier, now. Her mother wasn't quietly worrying over money, she wasn't working herself to the bone to keep food on the table and clothes on their backs. She had time of her own now, time she didn't need to feel guilty about taking. And Lara knew how much it meant to her to be able to take her out into London and go to the fanciest shops and restaurants without a single worry about what would pay for all the delicious things they nibbled on. And Samuel, for all his infuriating habits, was responsible for that. It was for that reason that Lara, who previously had contradicted her brother maybe twice in her entire life, quietly took a deep breath and replied, "But... it's a different sad, now. A not so... hopeless sad, I think. She's - not worrying about money, it's better. And Josh. Josh makes her better."

She knew how this might make him react - the same way that she did, knowing that their brother would always be the one there to steady their mum when the two of them could only send her spiralling. It was for this reason, this shared sense of being disappointing, that she reached over and boldly touched her fingers to the back of his hand.

"But... without you. Being without you. That's too much for Josh to fix." Feeling incredibly self-conscious now, aware that she had made an uncharacteristically bold statement, she withdrew her hand and twined it with her other in her lap. She felt frustration rising in her chest. How could she express to him what it was like here now? How Josh was soothing Ruth and being there for her, which was something Lara could never offer. Lara could listen, of course, but she and her mother were far too similar to confide in each other deeply. They would never find the way to express themselves openly. But Josh... Josh was perfect. Lara felt her teeth clench together. The perfect older brother, the one who could drop and leave them all and then saunter right back into their lives like it didn't matter at all that he'd left.

Snapped out of her rising anger by Will's words, she was briefly taken aback, but managed to control her expression before it betrayed her. This kind of guilt - she'd never expected it. She had known, even in her bitterest moments when she was trying to convince herself otherwise, that Will loved her and dearly wished to protect her. But for it to catch at him like this, for him to feel driven to apologise like this... she simply didn't know what to do. She wasn't ready to forgive him, she couldn't... and yet he was obviously so tied in knots by it. What could she say? She searched for the words for a while in silence, ignoring the fact that he was probably waiting for her to speak. That same small frown from earlier gathered in her forehead as she considered carefully.

Finally, she thought she had the right thing.

"I don't," she began, but all of a sudden changed her mind. The words began to run away from her frighteningly, and she couldn't make them stop, couldn't get her tongue to stop forming them, her throat to stop pushing them out. "It's not your fault," she told him a trifle breathlessly, and the tell-tale thickness of tears forming blurred her voice a little, shocking her too much to control them, "I mean, it is. You should have... you should have written, or come back. You should - I don't.... Samuel made you go, that's not your fault. But - but he's not bad, Will! He'd have let you come back if you'd said sorry, I know he would." There were tears in Lara's eyes now, visible she was sure. She could feel them. All of a sudden she'd lost control of what her body was doing, and the terror drove her adrenaline higher and higher until she was gabbling out more words than she'd ever put together in her entire life, "But you didn't, you just went -" a sob caught her breathless here and she gulped it back, forging on, her fists clenched so tight in her lap she thought her nails might draw blood, "You just went, and now Josh is back, and I don't - I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do." She finished this last in a whisper, helpless now. She'd never, ever let anger take hold of her like this, and she was so scared it was taking her a supreme force of will to battle it down. Every nerve in her body was live-wired as she fought for control, and the hand she raised to her mouth to pin the sobs in shook like a leaf.

"I'm sorry," she gasped from behind her palm, using her other hand to wipe the tears away, "I'm sorry, I didn't..." she trailed off. What was there to do, now? She sat there on the floor of her empty bedroom, shaking, feeling horribly exposed in a way she had no experience with at all. Well. There was no going back now.