#ouchyyyy

With mom and dad out of the picture, just two children themselves unable to protect the lives they had created, Archie Sinclair was placed in front of his first camera at 12 months old, Aussie right at his side as they became the picture perfect children of Ralph Lauren. If Jasper and Lucielle were going to have to do damage control for Persephone then her children would be able to pick up the slack, the extra funds the twins would pull in more than enough to help cover the family secrets. He was still to young to really know that arms that comforted him through exhaustion from the long days on set belong to the very people tugging on his puppet strings. Still too young to realize he should have had his mothers love, not just passing visits with a woman that felt like home every time she was around.

At four years old, Archie heard the first threat fall from his grandmother lips as Austen demanded that she didn't want to go to another audition. There won't be any more gymnastics for you if not. The warning fell so easily from the lips of the woman he had learnt to trust would protect them from anything, Archie locked in this memory of the first time he felt scared. Worried too, Austen was his best friend, she was his person and he didn't want her to be punished. She was just tired. "I can work." The sentence fell from such innocent lips so easily, so unaware of what it was he was signing himself up to. Not that it mattered to him if Austen got to still have fun - Archie was on his first set two months later in his first big role in Little Stewart.

At six years old, Archie had clued onto the fact that things were bad. His mothers visits hurt now, watching as they played a role for the cameras much like when he was on set, his fathers visits just as infrequent but he couldn't let anyone know that he didn't like it - not when dad had told him to keep his chin up little soldier. By this point he was too busy being the balance to Austen anyway, there was no time to fall apart over missing his parents. His twin was already a wrecking ball, feeding on the lies that they were fed every time their parents came and went and Archie knew that she would be punished if she kept it up. He tried to be the calm to her storm, to be more reasonable and pliable so that they might take it easy on her, but when that stopped worked he decided to be a bigger wrecking ball than his sister was in the house. If she yelled, he screamed, if she broke something he broke two more. When the darkness came he would crawl into her bed and try and talk her down, to try and convince her the game he had already figured out, but she never did when they woke again the next morning and so the cycle continued.

Each year he grew older there was a new level of emotional intelligence that fell on shoulders that were too small to carry the weight that he had piled on but it was too late to take it off now. At school, when he got to attend, Archie denied that his parents were the people that he posed in photos with. He ignored the leering that happened every time he walked through the school halls, kids already so cruel at seven, throwing insults shared by parents that had no idea how deep each hit went when their children repeated them to the young Sinclair.

With three large movies under his belt, Archie was proving to be quite the little actor and each time he was successful he felt the pride, or that's what he was sure it was, roll from his grandparents so he picked up more work, took on a TV role that his grandma describes as a once in a life time opportunity. He'd be on the couch of every talk show that the Sinclair's can get him on. He'd part of the Super bowl half time show. He was offered for taping a Christmas special, his young voice angelic as he's forced to tape hours of Christmas carols.

At home, the affection lasted for five minutes till his grand parents were onto the next thing, talking about what he could be better next time. He thought about asking them why he couldn't just play like his friends but Archibald knew better than that - sometimes you just have to have a stiff upper lip, dad had told him the last time they had seen each other. He knows his parents don't love each other, despite the lies the twins had been filled with and there is already a level of mistrust for the man in front of him, so he takes the advice with a pinch of salt. Mistrust for his dad that always seemed so fine and a sense of concern with each new clip he caught of his mom on the TV - then the first magazine was left in his locked, his mom wasted on the front page.

Archie braved taking the article home and he asked his grandma if mom was ok. It was a bad idea, poison was spilt from her lips once more and Archie and Austen never got that visit they had been looking forward to the following week. From then on, the magazines we're kept but secretly so, the boy making sure to keep any photo of his mom that he can find where she is smiling and when the photos were not so nice, he made his best friend Monroe take care of those ones. He didn't want to read those articles anyway. The twins hadn't long since turned nine when Archie had his first breakdown on his mom. They were supposed to be having a family beach day but she was more spaced out than Archie had ever seen her. He knew that she wasn't 'wasted' as the papers said, he'd heard his grandparents making sure but that only served to upset him more. He was doing his part, he was laughing and joking even though he had been scolded the night before for the tantrum he had thrown to take the heat from Austen so why couldn't she just act like his mom for one damn day. A wasted talent, that's what his grandmother had told him and as he looked back at her with a fixed icy gaze, Archie felt the need to inform her that his grandparents were right. The twins were better off without her if this was how she was going to act in the rare times that they got to actually see each other.

The next pictures that Archie found of his mother in the magazines were pictures of her crying as he had run away from her on the sand.

His grandmother was the first to let him know just how disappointed she was with his behavior on the beach and he spent the next two months in back to back auditions and out of school limiting his time with his friends and anyone that he might have seen as a support system. He got the message loud and clear and he learnt to fix his face better than anyone else around them, Archie was a good actor on screen but he was putting on his biggest performance of his life at home and his tantrums slowly stopped. Instead he made himself a master at reading his sister, anticipating each of her moods and actions before even she could. Throwing paddies was going to get them no where, he saw that now, he would just have to make sure that he got to her first and keep her out of any trouble in the first place. Any emotions that should have been felt by a nine year old were locked down and he became a master at playing the people around him to believe in the mask that he wore.

When the visits from Persephone first stopped, he took it in his stride. He figured that someone was being punished for something and he wasn't sure what the hell he had done to warrant something like this again but it was easier to stay quiet and keep up with his new plan than it was to let anyone know that it bothered him. But a visit from Julian was enough for him to figure out that something was wrong and when his father could barely meet his eye as he muttered the apology he found the bravery to ask where his mom was. The news she wouldn't be around for a long while shook him but as he had been doing for months Archie simply nodded at his dad and slid from his chair, offering his dad a hug if he needed one. Hours later he slipped out of the house with a backpack of his things having left Austen a note that he was going to see their Aunt Jord's and he spent ten days hiding out at his god mothers house where he fell asleep crying in her arms each night until his grandmother appeared and told him it was time to get back to work and come home. Archie didn't return to his own bed though and instead moved into Austen's room for a while, their hands interlocked as they fell asleep instead.

The reappearance of Persephone in the twins life was the first thing that shook Archie in a long time, and he had to fight to stop himself from crying at the thought of her. It didn't matter that he was angry at her for the time that she had been away, even through all the pretenses he had been a true momma's boy and he wanted to fling himself into her arms the second his eyes landed on her but the same level of mistrust he had come to have for all adults in his life stopped him and the male simply welcomed her home - wondering what was so different about her.

Sitting in court, he got to hear just what was different, each time he and Austen were carted in to be asked questions, whether that was publicly or in a closed room with people who just wanted to make sure they were doing what was right. In front of anyone else, Archie and Austen were a united front, communicating most of the time with nothing more than looks and a squeeze of the hand but behind closed doors a might different story was being told and the twins were having their first ever real fall out. Archie wanted to go with mom. Austen wanted to stay. Eventually Archie managed to convince her that Persephone was going to be the lesser of the two evils, that they should give her a chance and promised her that if Persephone did prove to be crazy or worse than their grandma he would take them back home themselves.