✏️ Under One Roof

30. One Question

This bonus chapter is dedicated to ImmortalSoul; with thanks for your support.

"You should ask Ness."

It was pretty much the answer that Tegan had expected; but she'd felt that she needed to ask anyway. Her father was so supportive of her, and wanted to help her integrate herself with their new family. But the family wasn't so new anymore, and the house was starting to feel like home. So maybe she needed to start doing things by herself.

The latest real disaster had been offering her brother vocal coaching. It wasn't even something she thought she was that good at, although she was sure her understanding of the theory was impeccable. But she didn't want to spend so much time with someone who was constantly looking for an opportunity to humiliate her. It had been a week since the karaoke night, when she'd been disturbed by how many of her friends were eager to fall for the show of charisma. And she knew that she would either have to try teaching him, or find a real reason to get out of it. She'd thought about going back to the trick with the bowl of water, now that he wasn't expecting it. His guard would be down by now, surely? But apparently Ness had the same thought, because she'd set an alarm on her watch to wake her in the early hours of the morning; and it had woken her to deal with wet sheets again. Why did her brother always have to do these things? Even when she thought that she had earned his respect, he would try to bring her down. There was no other option; she would have to find some humiliation that he couldn't deny.

And a large part of that was learning more. She needed to understand him better. She needed to find out more about his removal from school than just "emotional issues", and to work out the techniques that the psychiatrists had taught him to cope with his problems. If she knew what he was doing to keep his cool, she thought, she might find some way to sabotage those techniques. She'd hesitated for a long time, because it seemed like that might be going too far. But last night had convinced her that there was no other way to win.

"Please?" she said. "I need to know what he's been through. So I know what I have to avoid saying to him. I don't want to upset him again."

"You should ask him," her dad repeated. "I know it's hard, but we all have to do things we don't like at times. And Logan hasn't told me everything, you know? Especially not the treatment. As to what exactly the doctors recommended to him, that's between Ness and the doctors. Even Logan doesn't know the details."

"You must know something!" she said, still desperately hoping there was some way of finding out more without admitting to Ness that she was checking up on him.

"Emotional grounding?" he suggested. "I think I heard those words, but I'm not sure what they mean. Dissociation control. Hypnosis. Cognitive therapy. There's so many things, and I'm not sure what any of them are, or the differences between them. But Logan sent Ness to a whole bunch of specialists."

"I'll have to ask Ness, then," Tegan said. She'd really known that all along, but hadn't been able to give up hope of finding another way. She didn't even know how to bring up something like that; but she was sure she remembered someone really smart saying that the way to win a war was to know both the enemy and yourself. And she was already starting to worry that her rival in this case was someone she could never really understand. Every time she spoke to him, it was like she was uncovering hidden depths that she had never expected. Still, she needed to know what was going on, and if talking to Ness was the solution then that was what she would have to do.

She didn't ask him right away. But later in the evening, when she heard the piano-sounds from his keyboard stop, she walked nervously across the landing and knocked on Ness's bedroom door. She found herself taking deep breaths, wondering when he was going to prank her again. Was she provoking him by asking questions? She didn't know. She had already learned that his machinations were more complex than any of her biological brothers, and she didn't have the first clue what his end goal actually was. When it came to predicting anything he tried to do, she was completely flying blind. There was no option but to go for it; and maybe acquire something to protect her sheets in case of retaliation tonight.

The door slowly creaked open and he was standing there, looking as nervous as ever. Just from his expression, it was hard to believe all the things he had already done to her. It was hard to see this shy guy as a bully at all; but she'd known before she even met him that he had mental health issues, and actions always spoke louder than words.

"Does Dad want me?" he asked. It was a reasonable assumption; Tegan had done her best to avoid speaking to her brother over the last few months.

"No," she said. "I just... Remember I offered to teach you some of the voice stuff I learned? I mean... I'm not really that good, but I think that's just the strength of my vocal folds. I know the theory well enough. And if you really want to give it a try, I think you've got the talent that I'm lacking. With training you could be really good. But there's some things I think it would be good to talk about first. If you don't mind."

"Okay," he said, giving a little smile. "Maybe I like the sound of that. I'm kind of curious, but it's not really something there's a lot of books on. And I'll admit that it feels like something is missing, just practising on the piano. I might not be able to sing most of the music I listen to, but I'd like to do better. And... If I can do well, maybe you'd let me play with your friends? Just once or twice, I want to make music with a full band, you know? I won't ask to join, because the roar of the crowd has no appeal for me. But I'd like, just once, to play with others."

"We can do that," she said, though she wasn't sure why. She couldn't risk letting him talk about her to her fellow musicians; after just a few weeks of practice, the band had become an important part of her life, and she couldn't stand the thought of being pushed out of that. But she realised that the promise of being able to join might be the little wedge that would encourage him to open up more, and to tell her the truth. But she had to set guardrails, to let him know that he wouldn't actually be a part of the band. "I mean, we've got a whole bunch of people wanting to be in the band. Still waiting to hear back from this Singer guy, too. But you can tag along to a practice. Maybe play once or twice, just for fun. Like an understudy, if that's okay with you."

"Yeah," he said slowly. "I can do that. Franklin's understudy, like the opposite of a muse. But all I want is a chance to play with other people. I'm not interested in making friends, or getting up on stage. Just to play."

"Yeah," she said. It felt like he was giving her the perfect opening, and she had to suspect some kind of trap. But the opportunity was there, leading into the questions that would really tell her the details she needed to know before she could break him down. "Kind of curious about that, really. I mean, I know you had issues in school, but your dad couldn't tell me any more. And learning to really sing isn't just using your voice, it's projecting emotion as well. So I don't want to be treading on the doctors' toes. I feel like I have to ask first. About your issues, and about the ways you've found to get over them. I've put off asking, because it seems kind of invasive. But I think I have to ask."

She had to fight to keep from grinning then. She had sounded so genuine; and maybe that was because there was still a voice in the back of her mind that kept on saying some of those feelings were real. But she knew that her natural empathy would only ever be a weakness; so many times it had let her down and her brothers had used it to hurt her. She kept it under wraps now, and even if that inner voice wanted to help, she knew that she couldn't afford to let it make the decisions for her. She just needed to use it.

"You'd better come in," Ness said, after a pause that felt like forever. "There's so much I'd have to say, and I really don't know where to start."

He led her into his room and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking more nervous than she had ever seen him. Unless there was some hidden trap here, he was making it so easy. So she had to believe the trap was there. But as he started talking about his feelings, there was no way that Tegan could stem the tide of sympathy. No matter what he said, she knew that he was the guy who had tried so hard to humiliate her and to destroy her confidence. But she couldn't stop herself feeling bad for him now, and it would be real triumph if she could manage to use everything that she was learning.