WHO: Amycus and Alecto Carrow
WHAT: Sibling fight!
WHEN: June '78
WHERE: Carrow household
NOTE: Amycus → Liv
Amycus Carrow was a stubborn boy, much like his father. It was his intention not to see his sister again until the day that he was to be married. In order to achieve this, Amycus knew that he had to arrange with his mother a time when he could collect his remaining belongings from the house, a time when there would be no chance of running into Alecto. In a letter a couple of days ago, Amycus' mother had assured him the house was be empty for two days because she was going to stay with her sister.
This worked perfectly for Amycus. He had finished school. He had a home, a job, a fiancée, and, well, everything was perfect. At least, everything was perfect outwardly, and that was all that mattered at the current time. Apparating to the front door of his mother's house, he almost raised his hand to knock but stopped himself just in time with a rather soft, wheezing laugh. He coughed, slotted his key into the door and walked in.
"Home, sweet home," He uttered sarcastically to the empty room, making his way up the stairs onto the top landing. He moved towards his bedroom.
Yes, Lyris Carrow not being home was absolutely perfect, Alecto thought. It gave her an empty house to go to, away from the noisy nastiness of the city, where she could be completely and utterly alone. She needed that alone time now, more than ever, and not just because of the incident with her brother. Work was stressful, there were too many bills to pay, too many stupid people to deal with... it was her brother, on top of all those normal stresses that made it unbearable.
She had spent a long time just sitting quietly in the living room before deciding to walk around the house. She had gone into every room, a hand dragging lazily along each wall, just... walking, thinking... until she had come upon Amycus' bedroom. Alecto had stopped in the door and looked in for a while, dazedly, as if at first she didn't understand what it was--and then, suddenly there was a surge of anger and she had had to clench tightly down on the doorframe to stop herself from going through and demolishing every single thing in there she could get her hands on.
She hated him. She hated him so bloody much right now. But destroying his room would do her no good and probably just leave her more tired of things than she was. So Alecto took a deep breath and walked inside, carefully, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Slowly, she leaned to the side, rolled onto her back, and laid there... just laid there. Just staring up at the stark white ceiling. Trying to feel absolutely nothing. It was... nice.
Pressing his hand over his mouth when he couldn't supress a wide yawn, Amycus reached for the door-handle into his room and pushed the door open, stepping in and stretching his arms casually above his head.
He froze.
Alecto was lying on his bed. He didn't bat an eyelid. "Get the fuck out of my room," He snarled, not even showing his complete shock and surprise at her being in the house. But his mother had said - ah, Alecto must have had the same idea as him, coming in when there was no-one around to quietly go about her own business. Damn it, damn it all.
At first, Alecto jumped straight up, taken aback by his sudden appearance... but as she regained her nerves, she was determined to do nothing closer to moving than snarl right back at him.
"Fuck you, it's not your room anymore," she retorted angrily. What the hell was he doing here--Circe, she had some shitty luck when it came to her brother and their mother's empty house. This was definitely not what she had been looking forward to for a quiet afternoon. "I can be wherever the hell I want."
Amycus marched across the room and almost wrenched his cupboard door open with the amount of force he used to open in. "It's my room until I bloody well say it's not, do you understand me?" He yelled at her as he crouched in his cupboard, dragging out a suitcase. He was going to get out of her as soon as possible. Pulling his wand out of his pocket, he began to move things (very un-tidily) into his suitcase at a lightly speed, hissing about something-or-rather under his breath.
"Why are you still here? I said - get out!" He yelled again, not even turning to look at her. He could just sense her presence. Smell her. Hear her soft little breathing, which had changed slightly, as it always did, when she was angry. Amycus hated that he recognised her scent, felt her presence, noticed the change in her breathing. He hated her.
Oh, now she was just plain hacked off. Out of nothing but sheer spite, Alecto leaned back against his headboard and crossed her arms over her chest and stared down his back. "I'm here because I fucking feel like it," she answered back in a vicious shout. "Stop acting like you own me, you fucking prick. You can't make me do shit."
Alecto had half a mind right then and there to pull out her wand and hex the shit out of him, or throw him out the window or just bloody slit his throat--she really wanted to do nothing but hurt, preferrably seriously maim Amycus Carrow right now. She should have destroyed his room, too, just because he'd be that much more frustrated and angry right now. Anything to piss him off because after all he'd done to piss her off he bloody well deserved any shit that he had coming to him.
Amycus whirled around, hands clenched tight into fists. He let fly the worst insult he could think of before he even thought it through properly,"Oh yeah?? Sure, Alecto - I can't make you do shit - except spread your fucking legs!"
Amycus was breathing heavily. He hadn't felt this much rage in a long long time and even though he knew that he might have overstepped the mark, he wasn't about to back down.
He had overstepped the mark, oh he had--so much that Alecto was completely silenced in the disbelief that he had actually said what he had said. She sat there for what felt like hours, just glaring at him in shock and hurt and anger.
And then, without warning, she bolted up off the bed, nearly tackling her brother into the wall, and smacked him. Hard. And not just once. She did it again. And three times, four, until her hands were in fists and she was just tearing away at his face with any punch that would land, her mind clouded over in a veil of white-hot anger.
"Fuck you--fuck you fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU!" she screamed at him, each curse punctuated by a hit by skin or nail.
He'd expected some sort of lashback, but not actaully lashing back physically. Amycus didn't even think to stop her before his back connected with the wall and she began to pummel him with her fists. "Ow, fucking - pyscho bitch!" Amycus spluttered, throwing an arm up to protect his face. She continued to hit him, swearing at him and belthing him and ow, she was actually really really hurting.
Amycus screamed something not quite distinguishable at her, before grabbing for her throat, and pushing himself off the wall, spinning them around so that he was pinning her against the wall this time, his fingers clenching hard around her neck. He was going to kill her. Bloody hell, he was going to kill her and he was going to fucking rejoice.
She was still flailing at him despite the fact that he had her throat and bloody hell he was clenching down hard and--Alecto made a choking, gagging sound and she couldn't breath, fuck. If she had been able to speak, she would have been yelling far worse obscenities at him, but she was still cursing him with her eyes--they were burning fiercely with loathing for him the extent of which she had never felt in her life for any living being.
Alecto realized that he was not about to let go of her and abandoned her futile attempts at hitting him, instead using her hands to dig long nails as deep into his arm as she could. She dragged them across his skin, scratching until he bled, until she could make gashes on him because she fucking wasn't going without a fight. At the same time, her knee spiked up sharply, nailing Amycus in the groin, and she used that to push him back but not let him go.
Out of her pocket she sharply drew her wand and pushed it into his throat, with force. "I hate you," she hissed, hoarsely.
A knee to the groin - that was a low blow. Amycus squawked and let go of her throat, toppling backwards and grabbing for his crotch to protect the family jewels. He hissed and tried to push himself back up, but her wand was quickly pressed into his throat and he didn't dare move, because he could tell she meant business.
"Fuck you," Amycus snarled at her, the look on his face unreadable. "I'll kill you, Alecto, I swear to Salazar I'll kill you, just like I did D-" Amycus bit down on his lip so hard that it bled - he couldn't believe he'd just said that - or, well, almost said that. This was fast getting out of his hands, he was going to have to grab the rest of his things and get out of here.
"Like you killed who?" she demanded in a threatening tone, flicking her wrist sharply and pushing the wand even further into his throat. "You'll kill me like you killed who?"
Alecto knew she had the upper hand now and so she wasn't afraid of using that as leverage--fuck, like she was afraid of him at all. She didn't feel moved an inch by the threats of her brother, not when she was the one who had his life in her hands. "And don't be silly--one word from me and you won't be breathing long enough to leave this house, much less kill me."
Amycus's throat felt like it was on fire: he was sure her wand, although with a blunt tip, was about to pierce through his throat, she was pushing so hard. He gasped a little to try and breathe a little more easily. Alecto did have the upper hand. But Amycus was not about to tell her that he'd killed their father. Alecto was small - smaller than he - and he knew she wasn't as strong as him. He thanked the Gods for the years of Quidditch training, bringing his trained beater's arm to smash into the side of her head, at the same time as painfully rolling out from underneath her, the tip of her wand scraping harhly along the length of his neck. That was going to be one impressive bruise.
He was damn lucky he had gotten her off of him as fast as he had, because Alecto had indeed been debating whether or not she should try running the wand straight through his windpipe. But he had regained himself--with a yelp of a frustrated yell, she was thrown off her brother and onto the floor, nearly smacking her head on his bed.
As quickly as she could (which was not very quickly at all, but considering he had just beaten the side of her head...), she rolled onto her hands and knees and pointed the wand up at him again. Her hand was shaky from the pain and her head ringing--she probably didn't have enough concentration to shoot off an effective spell if she tried.
Amycus had just had time to stagger to his feet and, ignoring the pain in his throat, pull out his wand as well and point it at her. He was breathing heavily, obviously trying to regain his composure so that he wouldn't do anything rash that would have some unfortunate consequences.
"Do not," Amycus panted, "ask questions that you won't like the answer to." He ended there, keeping his eyes trained on her but flicking his wand about frantically to try and cram and compress as many of his belongings as possible into his suitcase, which was magically expanding to fit all of his things. He needed to get out.
"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want the answer," Alecto responded quietly, partially because she couldn't breathe, partly because she could still feel where his hand had clutched her throat. There would be marks in the morning. "What the fuck did you do, Amycus Carrow?"
Slowly, she rose to her feet because she was still in between he and the door he was so feverently hoping to reach and that meant something. And he didn't have to know that the wand she was holding was next to useless at the moment.
Amycus drew in a sharp breath. For a odd, surreal moment, he almost felt as though everything that had just happened had all been a dream. That they were in his room, brother and sister, confiding in each other like they used to as younger children. What had happened to those days? And why did Amycus suddenly yearn to have them back?
"Don't ask, Alecto. Because I don't think I could lie to you, and I can't tell you. It's for your protection." It was the nicest thing he'd said to her all day, but there was a hint of warning in his voice that was not so nice.
Alecto held down a scoff, held back from saying that for someone who was looking for her protection, he sure had been dead set on seeing her dead... but something in his voice stopped her, and.. well, the urge to know wasn't gone, but she didn't feel as intent on asking any further.
The tension in the room was not gone, but it had lessened dramatically from the point where they had been attempting to maim one another. It was all she could do to remind herself to keep her wand up; sadly, she could not trust her brother not to attack her with her guard down. Not after she had seen the rage in his eyes. "Are we going to hate each other forever?" She'd said it so suddenly that she wasn't sure where it had come from.
Alecto sounded - Amycus didn't even know. Sad? Angry? Hopeful? Perhaps he didn't know his sister as well as he thought he did anymore. And that, in itself, was sad. They had been so close...and that had worked so well. Now, it was impossible. He had a wedding to prepare for, a new life to start. Everything was going to be perfect.
"Yes. No. I don't know, Alecto. Too much has happened," Amycus said, his tone surprisingly flat, and almost regretful. For a second, he tore his eyes away from her to examine his suitcase. It now housed the rest of his belongings, and the room was full of empty furniture. And empty people.
Glancing back at her again, and shrinking his suitcase so that it was the size of a bag someone would take on a plane as hand-luggage, Amycus shrugged. "Guess I won't be seeing you. Wedding's in August, I -" Amycus broke off, and shrugged again. His neck throbbed.
"I guess--I don't know, I... might not be there."
She didn't have a reason (or one she could tell people) for why she would not go to her brother's wedding. Her mother would demand that she be, but... she hadn't decided yet, honestly. Every time she found a reason to be there, she talked herself out of it. Did she really want to sit through that? Watch Amycus marry some girl that she knew he didn't want to marry? Sit there and feel inherently robbed of him? The answer was definitely no.
"I have... to work." That sounded so lame, not like he wouldn't know the real reason anyway.
Amycus wasn't about to push the point, because he knew that Alecto had every right and reason not to want to go. He wasn't going to expect her there, but he knew that he would secretly feel completely crushed if she didn't turn up. Amycus hated how much he knew he hated her, but loved and relied on her at the same time. Which was what made this wedding so important.
Amycus reached down, wand a little more relaxed now, to pick up his things. "I...should go," He announced his leaving rather weakly, and managed to resist the urge to apologise. He was emotionally and physcially drained. He just wanted to leave. He gave her a weird sort of nod, and then Disapparated.
