Archive of Our Own ^beta

He’s making his way from the bathroom, steamy air escaping the doorway with his exit and soggy footprints marking his path down the hall towards his bedroom, when a quiet laugh causes him to pause.

He glances over at the girl who’s been trailing him for the last few days, a few years younger than he is, and who might be able to still pass as one of the living save for the sunken eyes and dark bruising around her pale neck. She never talks much, but he doesn’t mind - if anything, she’s the best otherworldly company he’s had in months, and luckily the only one as of late.

But Nikki - that was her name, one of the handful of words she’d spoken to him, her voice quiet and raspy and after that he had never asked questions that couldn’t be answered with a nod or a shake of her head - had fallen in behind him when he left the bathroom and she looks as curious as he is, so he knows it wasn’t her that had laughed.

The door to Number Three’s room is open. He gives in to temptation and peeks inside when he hears Seven’s soft giggle again. “What’re you guys doing?”

Both of his sisters look up from where they’re sitting cross-legged on the bed, Seven’s hand resting in Three’s, who in turn is also holding a small brush. Three puts the brush down for a moment, back inside its bottle and then she holds her hand out, fingers splayed wide as she wiggles them a bit. “What do you think, Four? I just got this colour today.”

He takes the few short steps to her bed and inspects her outstretched hand carefully. The colour is a dark burgundy, one that would match the trim of their uniform jackets perfectly.

“It’s very nice,” he says, and he sounds genuine, which is a fact that seems to surprise them both a little. No hidden joke or airy dismissal, just simple fact.

“Thanks!” Three replies after a moment, and then seems unsure of what else to say and so instead just returns her attention to her sister’s nails.

He watches for a moment longer before voicing his question with only the slightest moment of hesitation. “Would you paint mine next?”

They both look up at him again. Three seems a little surprised at first, but Seven does not and she just gives him a small smile. But then Three just shrugs and grins as well, gesturing towards her dresser against the wall. “Sure. Go choose a colour!”

With Nikki following him across the room silently, he wanders over to Three’s small collection of bottles to study his choices carefully. There are a dozen or so, different shades of pinks and blues and one that seems to be made up of nothing but glitter. He holds up two choices towards Nikki to ask her opinion - her name is beautiful, not at all like his own, and so he thinks her opinions must be very nice as well - but she shakes her head at both of them. Eventually he picks up a bottle holding a lovely shade of lavender, turns back towards his sisters with his mind made up, but then hesitates and sets it down again almost as quickly.

Seven frowns as he does so. “What was wrong with that one?” She asks as he all but skips back over to the bed and settles beside her to wait.

“Nothing, it was great. But I think it might be nice if we were all matching, don’t you think?” He points to the bottle still in Three’s hand as she paints a final stroke onto Seven’s pinky fingernail.

“Team colours,” Three agrees easily enough as Seven scoots over so he can take her spot in front of their sister. Seven noticeably brightens at that comment, looking over her painted nails carefully and with renewed interest, and neither of her siblings choose to comment any further.

Nikki is standing beside Three’s bed, and she gestures towards the nail polish on the dresser, and then holds her hand out expectantly. It goes straight through Seven’s shoulder, who doesn’t react at all.

“I’m sorry, she can’t,” and he is sorry, truly, when her arm falls back to her side even as her head drops and she stares at the floor dejectedly. But he also decides he won’t talk to her any longer when the other living occupants in the room shift uncomfortably as he speaks to empty air.

Three is already doing him a favour, he doesn’t need to freak her out.

Any more than he already does.

So instead he focuses on his own hand resting on her palm, as she uses her other hand to carefully begin painting the dark polish onto his nails. It’s slow going, she’s concentrating on her work and it’s paying off - there’s barely any paint on his skin and he thinks she’s doing a wonderful job.

“You’re very quiet, Four,” Seven says after a few minutes. Not so much a compliment nor an accusation, just an observation. She was always good at that.

He shrugs one shoulder, raises an eyebrow and looks pointedly down at his hand that Three is still holding as she paints. “Can’t distract the artist.”

Three laughs slightly but doesn’t reply, and companionable silence returns to the room. For his sisters, anyway. So long as he doesn’t look towards the corner of the room where Nikki is still watching them, a wistful expression clear on her pallid features, he can almost pretend it’s an easy quiet too.

She finishes a few minutes later, tells him to wait awhile before touching them as he waves his hands around a little. He copies her movement from earlier and holds a hand out in front of him so he can inspect her work.

“They’re beautiful,” he declares, wondering why it’s taken him so long to give this a try. He leans forward to give Three a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

She seems a little bemused, like she can’t quite decide why he’s so delighted over some simple nail polish, but she’s pleased that he is all the same. “Anytime.”

~

The next morning, when they’re all standing around the dining room table and waiting for their father to give the order to sit, Reginald announces that they’ll be foregoing lessons the following morning in favour of having family portraits taken.

“Everyone will be looking their best. That means during training this afternoon you will only be aiming lower than the neck, and no lasting damage towards your opponents,” the latter comment seems intended for One and Two, only one of which can be bothered to look a little sheepish.

They’re told to sit, and they do, and breakfast carries on much like it does every other morning. Nikki isn’t present, she doesn’t seem to care much for Reginald (and Four understands the sentiment), so she would often disappear whenever he’s with his father, drift off to wait in his room or go somewhere else entirely to a place that he doesn’t know much about.

There are no other ghosts around, it’s just him and his family and his carefully painted nails, and it’s a very good morning.

Six notices his nails first, when he hands over the pitcher of orange juice. He doesn’t say a thing, but Six grins at the other boy and nods his appreciation. Four holds his hand up to his chest dramatically, projecting an air of “oh, this?” in every way except speech.

Seven lets out a short laugh at his display, quickly covering it with her glass of juice as she takes a drink, but she smiles at him over the rim. He grins back, gives her a quick wink before turning back to the waffles on his plate.

He doesn’t get much of a reaction from his other brothers across the table, and that’s a little disappointing. He catches Five pursing his lips to hide a grin when he notices, but other than that his brother remains completely indifferent. One and Two don't seem to notice at all, but he supposes he can’t be too surprised. They’re always too busy trying to outdo each other to notice anything else, in everything from pushups during training to eating the most pancakes during breakfast.

At 8:30 sharp their father stands up, moves first to the record player to stop the playback, then to stand near the doorway that exited towards the study which often doubled as a classroom most mornings.

A little strange, he thinks briefly, as mom usually stopped the recordings, but he doesn’t think much more of it as he gets to his feet along with his siblings.

Doesn’t think much more of it for a moment, at least, until he feels a heavy hand come down on his shoulder as he’s passing Reginald. He tries to hide his flinch, knows he probably didn’t succeed, knows his father will consider that some sort of failure in itself.

“Wait a moment, Number Four.”

Seven turns to give him a worried look, even as Six barely avoids walking into him from behind. He smiles brightly at them both, trying to reassure them as much as his own wildly beating heart, even as Reginald gives them a steely gaze that has them staring resolutely at the ground as they quickly walk off around the corner.

Once they hear the door to the study click shut, Reginald starts walking him in the opposite direction, hand still stiff and squeezing just a little too tightly, and Four already knows they’re going to his office. The waffles in his stomach lurch uncomfortably, but he remembers the time when Six managed to catch a flu, when he got sick all over one of the couches and the punishment his father had deemed appropriate for such a thing. He fights down the nausea.

They’re already in the office, portrait of his father staring down at him while the real thing lets go of his shoulder in favour of closing the door, but he’d rather make eye contact with a painting while he still can.

But it’s short-lived, he can’t bare to look at the painting either - how does that stare still manage to make him recoil when it’s not even real? - and so he drops his gaze to the floor instead when he hears the door click shut. It sounds damning, somehow, even though nothing’s happened yet.

He shifts a little, to face his father who is still standing at the door, even if he can’t force himself to look up.

“What, exactly, were you trying to achieve with this stunt, Number Four?”

He does look up then, his sudden confusion demanding some sort of explanation, even if that means meeting his father’s hard gaze. “With...with what, sir?”

“Don’t play smart with me, boy,” Reginald crosses the room and grabs his arm, holding it out so his hand is in plain view between them.

His hand, yes, but also his nails. His oh-so-carefully painted nails, that he had somehow managed to forget about entirely in the last few minutes, even though it had been all he’d been thinking about since he woke up that morning.

But he doesn’t understand, not really. They’re nice, they’re neat, the colour matches the burgundy in his uniform perfectly, just as he thought it would.

Maybe it is the colour, though. Maybe he chose wrong.

“I thought it was pretty, but I could choose another colour next time.”

The grip around his arm tightens slightly, and he bites back a whimper. “You’ll do no such thing. You’ll never do this again, do you understand?”

No. “Y-yes, sir.”

“Good.”

And just like that, they’re leaving the office again, but not towards the study. His father takes him to one of the bathrooms on the first floor, one of the few which had locks on the outside of the door.

“Fix yourself up,” Reginald closes the door behind him and he hears the lock slide into place. He looks down at his hands, wants one last look at his pretty nails before he figures out how to get the polish off, but his vision is already blurry as a tear lands on the back of his hand.

~

It’s nearly an hour later before he knocks softly on the bathroom door with the palm of his hand. His fingers are aching, raw and red and bleeding in a few spots around his nails where he had to scrub extra hard with a brush he’d found in the medicine cabinet to remove the paint. He knows there are easier ways to get it off - he’s seen the bottle in Three’s room - but it wasn’t offered to him and he didn’t dare ask.

He waits a short while, knocks again, and several more minutes drag by before his father finally opens the door. “Well?”

Number Four holds his hands out for inspection, stares at them miserably as he can’t help but think the nail polish would have looked far nicer in a portrait than his bloody, mangled fingertips.

Reginald takes his hand and holds it up, gazing intently through his monocle before dropping it and doing the same with the other.

“Can I...can I go join the others now?” He tries to stifle a hiccup, doesn’t want to give his father any other indication that he’d been crying, although surely his red eyes and blotchy cheeks are already enough giveaway of that.

“You won’t be attending your studies today.” The hand is around his wrist now, leading him towards the house’s back entrance.

And again, he knows where they’re going well before they arrive. “Sir, I don’t need to go there, I won’t do it again. I promise. I won’t - please dad, don’t make me go again -”

But no amount of pleading or tears lessens Reginald’s grip, not until they’re standing at the mausoleum’s entrance and he nearly throws Four inside. He stumbles, scrapes his hands and knees as he lands hard on the concrete floor, but he barely notices as he’s already scrambling back to his feet and towards the door.

But not quickly enough.

His father closes the heavy door just as he reaches it, small fists pounding on the door, his already injured hands entirely ignored in his panic.

“Please let me out! Dad! Don’t leave me here again!”

His answer is the sound of a heavy lock sliding against metal.

“I will return later. Think about your choices, Number Four,” his father speaks through the door, words muffled but still loud enough to hear.

Loud enough, but barely, because the screams were already starting in his ears, drowning out any other sounds that only the rest of the living had to hear.

His own would join them soon enough. They always did.

~

It’s dark outside when the door slowly swings open again, when his father waits motionless in the doorway and watches him to struggle to his feet and make his way out of the crypt on shaky legs. Reginald doesn’t say a word, so neither does he, and the short walk home is silent. For one of them, at least, but the dead from the mausoleum rarely followed him out - he wasn’t sure why, but he was always grateful - and by the time they reach the house their pleas and screams and curses are only echoes in his mind.

He’ll still hear them when he tries to sleep later, but hopefully only as memories. Hopefully none of them will be waiting when he goes to close his eyes.

They stand in the entranceway, and he stares down at the intricate tiles as though he’s never seen them before. He doesn’t look up when his father speaks, he just closes his eyes and keeps his head bowed.

“Be sure to clean yourself up before morning,” Reginald sounds bored, almost, and Four thinks he might want to cry again but he has no more tears left to shed.

He looks down at his hand as he listens to his father walk off, at his grimy uniform sleeve and scabby fingers and broken nails. He’d made them even worse in his desperate attempts clawing at the crypt’s door, and now he can’t bare to look at them.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, ignores the pain that causes as he begins a slow walk towards the second floor.

Nikki is sitting near his bedroom door, and she looks up excitedly as he rounds the corner. He barely gives her a glance as he goes to the bathroom, but he does see her smile falter as he closes the door.

She’s nowhere to be seen when he reemerges sometimes later. His heart sinks just a little more, but he doesn't call her name. Maybe she's finally moved on. He doesn't blame her in the least.

~

He’s just crawled into bed when he hears a soft knock on the door. It’s strange, because it’s very late, and anyone who would bother to knock first should have already been asleep. He thinks he may have imagined it, or - unfortunately, but more likely - that it was something only he would hear for another reason entirely, but then it happens again.

“Hello?”

The door opens slowly, and he grips his hands together under the covers to stop their shaking. He knows he’s being silly - it wouldn’t be Reginald again already, and he wouldn’t have knocked, but what if -

“It’s only us,” he hears a whisper as the door opens a little further, and his shoulders sag in relief as Seven’s small form follows her words, Three close behind her and clicking the door shut behind them.

They stand there for a minute, seemingly unsure what to do or say, so he squashes down any of the remaining fear lingering from the first knock and does what he does best. He speaks to fill their silence.

“I’m always happy to see you, but isn’t it a little late? Do you need something?”

“We were worried, Four! Where were you today?” Seven crosses the room to stand beside his bed, reaching out to touch his shoulder gently. He doesn’t flinch.

“I was just...training.”

“That’s what One said was probably happening,” Three had moved to stand with her sister, apparently referencing an earlier conversation between siblings that day. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.”

Seven’s relief is written so plainly on her features when she leans in to give him a hug, and he manages a small but genuine smile when he returns it.

And it drops off his face just as quickly when he hears Three’s quiet gasp.

“I’m sorry!”

He lets go of Seven, drops his hands back to his lap and out of sight even though the damage has already been done.

Three crawls up onto his bed beside him, gently reaches for his bruised wrist. He sighs, doesn’t resist and lets her carefully lift his hand up and out of the blankets. Her nails are still perfect, the nicest shade of burgundy that doesn’t go so nicely with the brighter reds of his wounds.

“Dad didn’t like it. I’m sorry, Three.”

She scoffs, but her touch is still soft as she holds his aching hand. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Seven’s eyes are full of tears when she wraps an arm around his shoulder, and he scoots over a little so there’s room for her on the bed as well.

“I thought they were really pretty,” he says after awhile, for some reason feeling it important to let Three know.

“We’ll do it again, someday.”

She sounds very sure of herself, but he thinks of his father’s hand around his wrist and the locked bathroom door and the damp, cold crypt, and he knows he won’t.

“He’d see them.”

She lets go of his hand and he instinctively hides it in his lap again, but she’s already climbing off the bed. “Wait here.”

He considers some sort of halfhearted retort - where else would he be going right now? - but Seven is still sniffling quietly, head resting on his shoulder and so he remains quiet.

Three leaves his room near silently, peeking her head out the doorway and looking both ways before heading towards her own room. She’s back within a minute, closing the door behind her again. Once she’s sitting on the bed, she produces a small bottle from behind her back.

His heart drops at the sight of the lavender polish he’d been eyeing the night before, and he wonders how his sister can be so cruel. “Why would you -”

“We can paint our toenails, Four! He’ll never see, he’ll never need to know. It’s just for us.”

...oh.

Seven perks up a little at their sister’s words as well, and she lifts her head to give him a serious stare. “Only if you want to.”

Think about your choices, Number Four.

The disappointed tone of his father’s words echo in his head, as do his own screams that would mix with the cries of the dead he’d meet yet again if Reginald ever found out. He shivers.

But Seven squeezes his shoulders lightly, and Three gives him a cautious, but earnest, smile. They’re not an if, or a maybe, they’re here right now and they’re trying their best to make him feel better.

Think about your choices.

He heaves a dramatic sigh, kicking the blankets back to expose his bare feet. “Well, it is a very nice colour.”

His sisters both beam at him, and he considers the possibility that any repercussions might be worth it anyway.

~

Their father has them all line up for an inspection before heading to the larger library where the photographer is setting up equipment. He gives Four a quick glance over, eyes lingering on his hands only for a moment. And then he’s told to straighten his tie, and Reginald is already moving on to Five to berate him for a missing cufflink. He lets out a breath, hadn’t even noticed he’d been holding it.

On his other side, Three smiles softly and glances down towards their feet, and after smoothing out his tie he does the same. Towards the lavender coloured secret that only three of them would share, hidden safely beneath a layer of woollen socks and polished shoes.

And when the photographer begins taking the pictures some time later, Number Four even feels like smiling in a few of them.

There are no ghosts around, it’s just him and his family and his carefully painted nails, and it’s a very good morning.