Ara hated his sisters. Both of them. He didn't like to think that, and he refused to say it out loud, but it was true.
He'd almost confessed it to Arvin one night. He'd been drunk, crumpled on the living room floor and babbling nonsense like, "Why do they deserve him? What makes them deserve him?"
Arvin had always been his voice of reason, truthfully. Ara was impulsive and a bit dangerous to himself and others, which was normal growing up in the Society. It was increasingly not normal once he moved in to Nick's house.
Ara hated getting letters from his father. The handwriting was always shaky and hard to read, because he'd damaged a nerve in his arm when Ara was 10. It reminded him of the letters he'd see pass through Nick's house.
"Is that my father's?" Ara would ask, his eyes attempting to follow the paper as it passed through Nick and Caius's hands.
"No, dear," they would respond simply, to keep him from being upset with them. To keep him from crying. To keep him from hoping, because if his father was a traitor then maybe Ara had imagined Bond not doing anything when Corvus and Sinistra started to Crucio him.
Maybe he'd imagined Corvus Crucio'ing him.
Maybe his mother wasn't evil in the first place. Maybe her death was a tragedy and he should've mourned her more than he did.
Francesca was born when Ara was nine. James was born when Ara was twelve. Sometimes, late at night, he wondered what was so different about the girls. He wondered what they had that he and Corvus didn't.
Why did they get a quiet father? Why did Ara live in fear each day he tip-toed through his house? Why did the girls get something good? Why did the girls get a dad, when he barely got a father?
He'd be restless through the night with it, and Arvin always tried to remedy him.
An arm around Ara's midsection, a sleep-riddled "What's got you up?", and a soft "I'll tell you a story to help you sleep."
Ara hated the dinners that Bond begged him to go to, that Corvus babbled about, that Arvin convinced him to go to.
"It's nice." Corvus mumbled, Maeve sitting next to him at the table. "You can come." Corvus' words were stunted now, always unsteady as if he wasn't sure what would come out of his mouth. Ara knew Corvus hated it, so he never said anything about it.
"I don't want to go." Ara sighed, cradling his head in his hands. "I hate him." That was something he could admit out loud. Bond had wronged him. The girls had not. His hate for them was jealousy, it made him feel petty and ashamed. He couldn't speak that aloud.
"Dad miss..es you." Corvus stuttered on his s's sometimes, if they were close together. Ara tried not to think too hard about the night he got hurt.
"I know." Ara grumbled, turning to look for Arvin, who was standing in the kitchen. He gave his best pleading look. Attempted to telepathically say Save me.
Arvin straightened out to say, "You should go." Traitor.
Attending the dinners was a testament to his sobriety in their own right. After he'd gotten sober, nothing made him want to drink more than seeing his father.
"Ara," Bond always sounded anxious when Ara was around. Maybe that's how he always sounded. Ara didn't know. He didn't come around much. Bond did not try to hug him, but his hands fidgeted as though he'd thought about it. "I'm glad you came."
Ara only nodded, glancing from Bond to Sviat.
"He's been excited about it ever since you said you'd be here," Sviat tried, only succeeding in making Ara angrier.
His entire life he'd had to suffer through his mother saying terrible things to him over the possibility that he might like boys, and Bond had never stepped in. Had never told her off for it.
Yet here he was. Saddled up with a man. A traitor, no less.
"This was a bad idea," Ara whispered to Arvin as they sat at the table, his hands shaking. "I need a drink."
"No you don't," Arvin told him simply, giving him a glance. "This is fine, nothing's gone wrong."
"I can't do this," Ara hissed, tense from his shoulders to his toes. "I can't."
Corvus was a nice reprieve, it was hard to be mad at him when Ara wasn't entirely sure he remembered everything he'd done. Sometimes he seemed childlike, and it made Ara miss simpler times. When he didn't know his family was infected by some evil curse, and that he would inherit it.
Corvus hugged the girls, talked to Francesca, called them by their nicknames, laughed with Bond, took security in Sviat's presence. Ara did none of those things, but he looked less out of place once Corvus showed up.
Sometimes Ara said things he shouldn't. It brought a tense air to the room and Sviat always cracked a joke to dispel it. Bond didn't bounce back, normally, but Ara took a sadistic pleasure in that. Something he hesitated to tell Arvin about, because it seemed like something his mother would say.
Ara never meant to get angry at these things, but it always happened. The girls would tell an anecdote about Bond's doting nature, how level headed he was, and somehow it always led to Ara laughing bitterly and coughing out something similar to, "Oh yeah, he was pretty level headed when I was a kid too." It never sounded genuine. It never was.
Corvus would tense up, and he'd get all restless. Maeve would give Ara a look, as if his brother needed to be coddled. Bond would duck his head and his hands would shake. Sviat tried to crack jokes, to take the focus off of Ara's angry tone. Arvin would rub his back and attempt to telepathically say "Do not talk about your horrific childhood abuse at the dinner table."
Ara hated the girls. He hated his father. Sometimes, he hated his brother.
More than anything, though, he hated his inability to act normal. To have a relationship with his father. To accept his apologies for his wrongdoings. To accept that the girls had a better life than he did.
To accept that it wasn't something he'd done to deserve it, but a matter of circumstance.
