Family Affairs (solo)

[Amatus]

Summer 12, 510AV

"Would you like one Amatus?" blonde curls bounced around the rosy apples of the girl's cheeks.

Amatus, with chin propped upon a palm, had missed the entire display. He had yet to be bothered to turn and face her. His nails chipped across splintered wood, luring shavings onto his lap. "Like what?"

"This." she urged a bowl over the counter’s stained face until it jabbed against his arm. He scrutinized its contents of glossy chestnut rounds without a tilt of his head.

"Chocolate?"

"And almonds." she clarified.

"You know I don't like that kind of thing." he was quick to slide it back from where it had skated toward him. “You’re awfully destitute for my tastes Cl-“

"Amatus!" Melaquin's shriek nearly knocked the boy from his stool. He straighten out in the seat and craned to the doorway. "Stop acting like such a petch. You need to be pleasant to the poor girl. I'm sick of her crying over you, she only wants you to be nice to her."

"Why should I? You've made it crystalline clear we are not family." his answer was a lazy reply to her arguments. Melaquin was a pain, she always was, and he was sure nothing he did would amend that. She abhorred the sound of him breathing. She harped like a magpie and the way she treated him like indentured help instead of Marcus' son was as unpleasant as being in the same household and her and her daft niece, Clara, who was still tucked to the side of the room, a tongue-tied gap between the two.

Melaquin blustered, her cheeks puffing and lids creasing with crow’s feet in her scowl. Her tongue wagged behind her teeth and Amatus stared back confused by her delayed retort. "Then treat her like a customer. I don't care as long as you behave and I don't have to hear about you!" she stormed away, a frustrated yell and her clicking heels following her up the stairs.

Amatus swiveled towards the ghost of a girl. No amount of powder could have concealed the lucid shade of red her skin had tinted. A laugh spat from trembling lips as he looked her over and tried to politely ignore it. "Are you feeling alight, Clara? You're redder than that schmear on your lips"

"Shut up!" she yelled at him, flinging her arm back to strike across his face.

He hooked her wrist and he stood, yanking her so she stumbled toward him. "Now, now, your aunt asked me to treat you as one of my customers. Let's not muddy our relationship with violence."

"She's YOUR mother! Stop acting as if she has nothing to do with you!" she blubbered, tears glassing her sights over.

"My mother?" he scorned twisting her arm so she fell into his chest with a cry. "Melaquin wants nothing to do with me, and I want nothing to do with that old bitch."

"Stop! Your hurting me!" salty drops spilled about the buttons of the boy's shirt. "Why are you always so mean?!"

He loosened his grip, scrapping up to twine his fingers into the spaces left in her stiffened joints. "I'm sorry." he leaned over her pressing his mouth into her yellowed hair. If his dear 'mother' wanted him to address her niece in a friendlier manner, then he would indulge her. He doubted the scenario had not weighed on her mind, the way Clara trailed his coattails. If she was so careless with what she claimed to hold dear then he would gladly snatch it from her and let her choke on the aftermath.

[Amatus]

"Is this what you do then?" Clara's whisper wafted across unadorned skin and white linens sprouting chills against his slender arm.

"Hmmm?" Amatus hummed, drifting against the finely fashioned headboard, well above the salaries his father could afford.

"This is how you treat your customers. No wonder you’re so popular with them; you return their tips." despite her realization, her lips pressed to his latent limb and she arched into his warmth.

Occasionally.

"Never." His eyes slipped open and he kissed her forehead. "Do you think so badly of me sweet cousin?"

She sat up in the shared cot, dragging the sheets up over her bare breasts. "Don't call me cousin now!" she flustered, her head tossing so her shadow swayed along the brick from the sun’s setting cast.

Amatus chuckled "I can't help but poke fun at you, Clara, when you hand me such emotional reactions." he patted the bed where her warmth still resided, signaling her return. "Come, lay back down. It was but a jest."

"No, I should go before Auntie finds us." she hung from the bed's edge, toes tapping over cold floor. He was aware she was hoping he would insist she stay. She really was a sweet and innocent girl. What a shame they shared relatives instead of only beds, and then maybe he could be authentic with her, compassionate even.

"Isn't that half the fun, to see Melaquin puff like a croaking toad?"

"You’re wicked Amatus! Is that why you slept with me, to wound your mother? I was just a pawn in some tasteless game?" Clara slunk off the bed, the sheet falling away as she bent for her discarded clothes scattered, across the room.

"Of course not, don't be absurd. What I told you was the truth." He huffed, much like Marcus would when his frustration boiled with his unruly son. Clara was irrational, she was an emotive disarray, it seemed even when he was not trying he would make her weep.

She froze, staring at him from the end of the bed with a wrinkled navy article held at her middle. "So you really do love me?" Her head dipped, but he could hear her sniffling easily enough.

Amatus crawled from the bed and met her there, wrapping his arms around her so she nearly collapsed at his embrace. He almost felt evil, watching her crumble so easily under the smallest pretext of a lie from his mouth. She really knew nothing about him, or was so blinded by her tears to plainly see. “I really do love you." he repeated leaning over to kiss her shoulder.

She spun in his hold, gripping at his waist with her shuddering appendages. "I love you too, I really, really do. Please don't hate me because of the blood I share with Melaquin." her sob caught in her throat and fractured her lyrics. "I'm not like her. I love you. I always have."

That's a bit nauseating. he inwardly kidded, considering they had been raised nearly like siblings. Amatus had always thought of her as such. A vexing little girl, of whom he pulled hair and pushed in the dirt. If that was true then he supposed the only sick one was him. "Yeah. Me too."