Alexander Carrow

Phoebe leaned on the door, unable to come into the room yet. “What if it’s just a friend?” It had been almost a week but she still couldn’t get the image of his body lying on the floor out of her mind. He was moving, she told herself. He’s moving, it’s ok.

Hearing her voice, his eyes flew open but he didn’t dare look in her direction. It was like he could feel his heart in his stomach. The whole reason he’d broke up with her was to protect her from this kind of situation. He tried to find the words but there were none to express what he felt. Instead he just looked at the ground for a few moments before it came out involuntarily. “Désolé.”

Alma had been checking on her brothers place, tempted to try and destroy the guard spells herself but left them up. If he needed time then she would give it to him. The day that he finally opened up his home again, she was there. It was obvious he’d been expecting her and she wasn’t surprised in the slightest when the door was open. “You could have at least answered the phone once or sent me a text.” She said, sitting down beside him. 

‘I was high’ didn’t seem like an appropriate response and to be honest he had no clue how much his sister knew about his habits, if she knew anything at all. He just shrugged. “You knew I was alive.” He leaned back, resting his head on the back of the sofa, even being up was tiring for him these days. “Is this the part where you tell me what happened? It’s something with Dad, right? I haven’t heard from him.”

Sofia gave him a bored expression. “Yes. Of course. By all means, sit down. But no. I actually had no idea,” she replied, tonelessly, reaching for her cup. “Please don’t be an idiot, Carrow. I can’t deal with it. She’s my sister. I know. And trust me, Everything I’ve ever learned about that situation has been against my will.” She gave him a pleasant smile, leaning back in her seat. As he continued to talk, she rolled her eyes. “Tell her yourself. Because I fail to see when I became your messenger. Or when I acted like I cared. She’s a big girl. She can do what she wants. She’s perfectly capable of hurting you six ways into next year if she wants to and if she can’t or wont, I will. Problem solved.”

"I've tried, that's the point. When I broke up with her last year, that was me... Trying to do the only good thing for her I could." He trailed off, the words muddled in his brain, that was now hazy more often than not. "I'm a loser. I know you know this, and my dad was pushing me to propose, and I wanted to, believe me but I don't want to drag her down into the gutter that I'm headed into so..." He ran a hand through his hair. "I need it to come from someone whose opinion actually matters. Just tell her the truth she's out of my league and better off without me." Xander leaned back in his chair, looking over in her general direction but not directly at her as he played with his sleeves. "I mean you already dislike me, right? So just dial it up to full on hatred and express it to her."

Alma moved quickly, getting up and grabbing his arms. Her grip was firm but not to tight. Caring. “You can change. But not with him around. Don’t you see, you’re not the problem He is.” She told him. Pleaded with him. Alma loved her brother and hated how he had become. This shell of a person. She had decided a long time ago that she was going to help Alexander and now she was finally going to do it. 

He looked in his sister’s eyes and tried to believe but the drugs had too strong of a hold on him. He just felt empty. “Maybe.” He replied, without any feeling. It was true his father was a problem but even without him, Xander wasn’t sure he could change. He was too far gone. “But even with him gone I wouldn’t be good enough.” That was his truth, a junkie too far gone, with no future. “And he has his reasons, whether we understand or not.”

Sofia looked up at the sound of his voice, brow raised. She gently pushed her work laptop away with the hand that wasn’t holding her coffee and nodded towards it. “A little late for the asking me on a coffee break part.” She let out a breath. “You’re very much giving off that you want to talk to me about something I most likely don’t care about, so just get on with it.”

“Ah, Sofia, always so understanding and easy to approach.” Xander joked. making himself at home on the chair next to her. “It’s about Phoebe.” He added. “So I think you care, at least a little.” He paused. “You know we dated all through high school, right?” He paused. It was something that really mattered to him, he loved Phoebe with his whole heart which is why he knew she deserved better. “I think you should tell her not to put up with me anymore.”

She nodded, looking down at the ground for a while. She could feel his eyes on her but she continued to look down. “I wonder if this is how Aunt Alecto felt at times.” The words spilled out before she could stop them. Their brothers twin always a forbidden topic. Their father had thrown her under the bus to save himself. She knew that their father wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to his children. Quickly Alma looked up. “Aren’t you sick of all this? I know you are. I could change things for us Xander.” The last sentence in French. More meaningful. 

Xander felt a spike of anxiety at even just the name of his aunt. It was such a rare combination of sounds that it sounded strange to him. He flicked his eyes to her, a calm look but hinged with sadness. "It wont get any better. It never will." He replied, also in French. The truth was he'd given up on the concept of change for the better a while ago. About the same time he'd broken up with Phoebe. That had been when he had accepted his life was always going to be this way. "Anyway, I'm not sure I'm capable of change anymore than he is."

Nikolai laughed, “Wait–am I becoming a bad influence? I swear I never used to be like this before,” he said with a playful grin. Nik dragged Xander to where he saw they were serving alcohol. “Is something going on? Or do you want Halloween to be extra fun this year?”

“I was already going to be bad without your influence.” Xander joked. He followed Nik’s lead and when they arrived, he glanced around considering what to drink. He ought not to drink at all considering what he’d already taken but that would be no fun. He shrugged, “Just blowing off steam I guess.”

Nikolai rubbed the back of his neck, “Er…” he trailed off. “I think it was family friendly,” he said. A grin spread across his lips, “Guess that means we’re going to have to find something to spike it with.”

He grinned. "See, this is why we're friends. You speak my language." Xander threw an arm around his friend's shoulders. "I don't have anything alcoholic on me but I'm sure we can find something around here somewhere. Whatever we find I need it to be strong."

Nikolai clasped his hands together excitedly, “I saw a drink with a skeleton as a straw, we need to find that booth.”

“A skeleton straw? Yeah, I guess that sounds cool. But it’s like a strong drink right, not just like soda?” Xander said dubiously. “Because I cannot be sober on Halloween.”

Alma let out a sigh, sitting back while crossing her legs. “Dad has been getting on my nerves recently.” She said, obvious annoyance in her voice. “Ever since the incident in July he’s been bothering me. He says he trusts us but didn’t even tell us anything. He still doesn’t tell me anything, just uses me. I’m suppose he always has- I’m just finally sick of it.” 

Xander listened, keeping his eyes on the flames, partly to hide his expression though he knew his twin would know anyway. “You know he doesn’t really trust us. Never has and never will.” He dropped his eyes to the ground for a second before looking up. “He knows that we’ll do what we’re told at the time though, so I guess he feels like he doesn’t need to tell us.”

The warmth that she felt, that was then taken away all too soon, was shocking. Phoebe curled her hands into her jacket pocket when he let go of her, unwilling to lose the warmth he’d left, and continued walking inside. She tried to shake it off, but the laugh felt forced. “It’s totally fine. How could I ever be upset with you.” Phoebe took the opportunity that he couldn’t see her face to pull herself together. When they got to the bar, she was happy again. She hoped. “Uhm, maybe firewhiskey tonight? What do you think?”

Xander kept his eyes to the ground as he headed towards the bar. He resolved to be more mindful for the rest of the night, but it probably wouldn’t last. When they arrived, he sat on a stool next to the bar and leaned his arms against the bar, turning slightly facing her. “Sure, you know I’ll drunk anything. Especially with you.” He waved at the bartender, and while they were coming over. “Straight? Should I just tell him to leave the bottle? Or are we doing light drinking tonight?” He asked, with a laugh. 

“As long as you didn’t steal my potion supplies or my clothes.” Wynn joked, handing him what she owed and getting up to wander to the kitchen. She shrugged as she rummaged around and began fixing a very rough, very random cheese plate. “That’s cool. I’m the exact opposite. You won’t believe how much I’ve had to workout in order to keep up with my increased food intake recently. Less of you eating means more for me to burn off later.” She popped back into the beanbag chair and blew out a breath. “So, other than being your family disappointment -a term I’m saying with the utmost respect as my owns- what’s the latest. It’s been a minute, given I’ve been ordering less.” 

“I don’t know, do you have any cozy hoodies worth stealing?” Xander joked, taking the money and shoving it in his pocket. He leaned his head back against the wall as he listened. “You’re a step up on me. I haven’t had the energy to think about working out in forever. I probably have the muscle mass of a marshmallow right now.” He said with a laugh, at her question, he shrugged trying to send his slightly foggy brain back through his memories to find the last time he did something that wasn’t drugs or dealing. It should probably have been alarming that he couldn’t think of anything, but he was too tired to be alarmed. “I haven’t been up to much. I mean works the same. Family dinners, dumb shit. How about you? Anything new?”