wild and silly and drinking too much

sorrows, even

It felt a little dishonest to call what had happened a 'screaming match'. There had been screaming, certainly, but it had come in such a relentless outburst that the young man had barely had the chance to get a word in. Not that it was all that new, but it had seemed to ramp up its frequency in recent times. Ever since a man claiming to be a police inspector shook the foundations of the world the family had built around them.

Even as she heard the slam of a door further in the house slam, an uneasy silence following suit, Sheila still felt her heart ache for her younger brother. She could still see in him the little boy that had clung to her skirts as a child, wanting to join her in whatever games she had been at play. The same little boy with teary eyes as their father chastised him too harshly for the crime of chasing butterflies. Things had changed, of course, the innocence of their childhood lost and half-forgotten, but not so much so that she did not see the occasional glimpse of what could have, should have been. 

She swallowed, creeping like a ghost through her own house, skirting around the door to their father's office, hardly wanting to get caught by the tail end of his temper. Her path was true, though it was one that she had to chastise herself - in private - for the fact she had rather neglected it in the past. She would do better. Had to do better. She had learned so much, it would have been a waste to let it go to, well, go to waste. What one can practice in the privacy of their own house, as the saying went, reflects what they put into play beyond what is familiar. 

Perhaps Sheila ought to have knocked first, but really pleasantries were far from her mind at that moment. She was, in that moment, far more caught up in making sure that Eric was alright to think about accommodating his privacy.

And Eric was... not alright. In fact, it would have been rather difficult for him to be any further from alright. 

His hair, dark as their mother's, was a mess - for a fraction of a moment some corner of her mind thought to liken him to the Irish playwright, poet and aestheticist Oscar Wilde, but she didn't let that thought linger for any longer than it ought to have - as it fell about his temples and eyes. He had been pacing up until the moment his sister swung the door open, carving a path of erratic frustration across the heavy carpet of his room. Having forgone the decency of a glass, he had a bottle of whisky - how could Edna not have known he had been hiding bottles in his room? Had she not known? How could she not? - raised to his lips, but upon realising he had been caught he had froze like a deer to the barrel of a gun. If it was any consolation for her, and perhaps it might have been if she wasn't feeling so worried about him in that moment, his shoulders relaxed just a little when he realised it was just his sister. It was not much, but considering he was well and truly in one of his moods, anything meant at least something.  

"Oh Eric..." Sheila began shakily, a clumsiness to this.

"What?" snapped he, though it was without any real venom, "Have you come to tell me how much of a disappointing failure I am too?" 

"No, of course not!" came her reply, heavy with the air of a promise, "It's just that, well, I heard-"

"That I'm a disappointment? That I'm a disgrace to the family? That it would probably be better if I don't show my face again if I want to stop ruining everything?" he interrupted shrilly. His agitated pacing quickly picked up again, the hand that was not busy holding the bottle finding itself a home in his hair. It could have been soothing had he not been running his fingers through his hair with such a frustrated violence that it would have surely hurt, leaving red marks on his scalp if not outright drawing blood. 

 "That's not true," returned she, cringing a little at the unexpected weakness that crept into her tone for just a moment, "I'm sure that father-"

Once again, the woman was not given the opportunity to complete her statement as her younger brother let out a laugh. It was far from a pleasant sound, unsteady and thick with the mania that he had never managed to completely manage. It would not have been too much of a stretch for her to imagine the laughter ending in a wretched, terrible sob.