The Men of Ramshire Read online

  “I can’t believe you’re telling me this,” Yuri said with a hesitant, but amused smirk.

  “Me either, but you’re being a big baby and seem to think I don’t want you around anymore. And I obviously do if I’m willing to embarrass myself this badly just to get you to realize that I love you. But just so we’re clear, you owe me for this confession,” Pasha said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

  Yuri sighed. “Why are you so annoyingly stubborn?”

  “Because that’s my personality, it’s natural to me. Now come on, big baby, come hang out with your brothers. We need you to take care of us since Ezra isn’t here.”

  Yuri’s face immediately fell. “Apparently I’m no good at taking care of anyone.”

  “Oh gods,” Pasha said with a loud groan, realizing his mistake too late. He shouldn’t have brought up taking care of them. He knew that Yuri’s inability to take care of his brothers was one of the weapons Ezra had used against him. “You know what I meant.”

  “No, I don’t,” Yuri said and stepped into his room. “I’m sorry, Pasha. Goodnight,” he added then shut the door.

  “Fucking hells,” Pasha cursed then stormed back into his room. “I fucked up, Alice.”

  “I heard,” Alice said with a sympathetic smile. “He’ll come around, Pasha, we just need to keep trying. I’m sure just you chasing after him made him happy.”

  “I hope so. Fuck, I want my brother back,” Pasha said and felt the threat of tears stinging at his eyes.

  “So do I,” Alice said and opened up his arms to Pasha.

  Pasha sighed shakily then crawled up onto his bed and cuddled up against his brother’s side. Despite Alice being the most soft-spoken and daintily styled of the four Scarlett brothers, he was actually quite built due to his profession as a masseuse and Pasha felt safe in his warm, strong embrace.

  “I wish we could all cuddle on the couch like we used to,” Pasha said, thinking of how the brotherly cuddling had slowly stopped over the years. Pasha only really cuddled with Alice when they were alone now, and they weren’t alone all that often.

  “You should tell Ezra that,” Alice said as he stroked Pasha’s hair.

  “I guess. I mean, Ezra will still cuddle you, and Yuri sometimes, but everyone cuddles you.”

  “I think that’s because all of you know I like it so much. Ezra probably doesn’t know that you like it too,” Alice said.

  “It feels weird to say it,” Pasha admitted, relaxing against Alice.

  “I think it might be good for everyone if we were a bit more open right now.”

  “You’re probably right,” Pasha said and sighed. There was something else he needed to tell his brothers about soon, but that too was going to be a weird conversation. He’d spent the last year hating Soren and Rafe – and passionately describing every ounce of that hate to his brothers – so it was going to be a little odd to suddenly announce that he’d become tentative friends with them. Well, Rafe more so, he still wasn’t sure what to make of Soren. It was more of an alliance for Rafe’s sake than actual friendship.

  He wondered how Rafe was doing. Had he talked to his family yet? Had he made any decisions? Was Pasha not going to get the opportunity to be his friend after all? Fuck, he wished he had his number or email or something. He’d have to ask on Monday, assuming Rafe would be at school. He hoped he would be. Asking Soren for Rafe’s number would be a fucking headache and he wanted to be able to talk to Rafe directly, not just through Soren.

  In all honesty Pasha still wasn’t entirely sure if he even liked the two younger men, but he definitely respected them, at least when it came to their computer skills. He had managed to find out that Rafe was acing every single one of his programming courses and it made Pasha wonder sometimes why Rafe was in school at all. Was he not bored by the material that was so obviously beneath him?

  As for Soren, well, Pasha had seen the results of nearly all his digital arts projects. Pasha would never say it aloud, but Soren was incredibly talented. Everything he did was just so polished and beautiful from his graphic design logos to his video editing projects. His only flaw was that he had a very distinctive style that he seemed to have trouble breaking away from. The funny thing was, that was Pasha’s one flaw too.

  “You should keep working on your video,” Alice encouraged, tearing Pasha away from his thoughts. “It’s looking really good and I think Yuri will enjoy it too, especially when he sees what it’s about.”

  Pasha nodded. When he wasn’t working on schoolwork he was busy gaming or making fan videos for his favourite shows and games. Currently he was obsessed with Forbidden Forest. It was an amazing show full of drama, romance, and action. There seemed to be a little bit of everything and that’s what Pasha liked about it.

  His newest video was inspired by his brothers’ fight. A handful of episodes back there had been a fight on the show between the captain of the forest guard, Luther, and his best friend and lead archer, Zane, and it reminded Pasha a lot of what happened between Ezra and Yuri. It had been extremely dramatic and heart wrenching seeing the two best friends fight, but they did end up coming back together closer than ever, and that’s what Pasha wanted for Ezra and Yuri as well.

  “I hope it turns out alright, I don’t usually do shit like this, this is more ShadowDarling’s territory,” Pasha said as he pulled himself out of Alice’s embrace and went back to his computer.

  ShadowDarling was a fellow vidder that Pasha admired like crazy. While Pasha, also known as Draconia, usually did action packed and humorous videos, ShadowDarling did more character studies and romantic videos. This would be one of Pasha’s very few videos where he really highlighted a specific relationship. Besides using it to help him deal with his brother’s fight it was also a way of challenging himself to break away from his usual style.

  “Why don’t you just ask ShadowDarling for his help then?” Alice said with a small, teasing smile. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Pasha had a bit of a crush on the mysterious vidder.

  “Because I’m too shy!” Pasha exclaimed, his face quickly heating up. He had no idea what ShadowDarling looked like, how old he was, where he lived, nothing. He only knew that he was insanely talented and Pasha was terrified if he tried to speak to him he’d get ignored despite the two of them both publically liking each other’s videos. He was aware that both of their followers were continually trying to get them to collaborate too, but ShadowDarling hadn’t said anything about it so Pasha wasn’t about to either. He didn’t want to look like a fool if he got shot down.

  “Maybe he’s shy too,” Alice said, less teasing this time. “I think you should try to talk to him sometime. You’re usually so brave.”

  “I know,” Pasha said with a heavy sigh. It wasn’t like him to be shy, but he cared about what ShadowDarling thought of him, and the thought of this mysterious vidder not liking him just crushed him. “But I just can’t do it yet. I’m not ready.”

  “Alright,” Alice said gently. “I suppose my opinion will have to do if you need any help.”

  “It’ll be plenty. Thank you, Alice.”

  “Anything for you,” Alice said with a smile.

  Pasha smiled back at his brother, comforted that at least he was nearby. He hoped he would have the company of all his brothers soon though. Life felt painfully off when Pasha’s beloved pack wasn’t all together.

  ~~~~~

  Evgeni Desjardins sighed as he touched the front door of the Desjardins manor. He should have come home sooner.

  Ten years. For ten long years he’d lived primarily away from home in an entirely different country. He called fairly often and visited during breaks between plays, but he knew he was largely an outsider now.

  He didn’t regret the decision though, it was the right one to make. He wouldn’t have been able to do anything under the shadow of his older brother. Like Yves, Evgeni had been drawn to acting, and watching his older brother probably had a huge influence on that decision. Yves was just so beautiful o
n stage and Evgeni wanted to be just like him. But there wasn’t going to be any room for Evgeni at the Gardenia Theatre while Yves was in his prime and Evgeni was just starting out. There was a ten year difference between them in age, which in turn meant Yves had ten more years of experience. Evgeni never resented his brother for it, at least not entirely. It wasn’t Yves’ fault that they were so far apart in age and that he had such a big head start. Evgeni just accepted the reality of the situation and applied for jobs far away from home where nobody would care about his last name as soon as he had graduated from University. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to grow if he was going to be constantly compared to Yves.

  Luckily, his plan had worked. He got a job in a respectable theatre far from home and worked his way up until he was one of the alternate lead actors. However, once he did get to the top, he realized he wasn’t as good as Yves, and never would be. He never once got the reaction from the audience that Yves did or received the sort of devotion and adoration that made his older brother famous. He knew he was good, very good actually, but Evgeni didn’t want to be “very good” at something, he wanted to be amazing.

  The realization had been extremely painful and he was glad he was far away from home when it happened. He handled it rather poorly, so poorly in fact that his director had told him he wasn’t allowed to be in the next play at all, and if he wanted to stay working at the theatre he had to deal with being the resident gopher until that play was over.

  Except being severely punished ended up being the best thing that ever happened to Evgeni. For starters, it humbled him, and looking back Evgeni realized he had desperately needed that. Secondly, it helped him discover a talent he never even considered before. One of their younger actors had been freshly promoted to supporting actor and had nervously asked Evgeni to help him prepare.

  The only reason Evgeni agreed to his request was so that the man would owe him in the future, but it didn’t take long at all for Evgeni to realize that he was, in fact, a good coach. Trying to figure out how to bring out the best in the young actor filled him with an intense satisfaction that caught him off guard. He had always thought he wanted to be in the spotlight, but apparently behind the scenes was where he was meant to shine.

  After that he specifically asked his director if he could help direct the extras and supporting cast, and his director, seeing the progress he made with the young actor he had been working with, agreed.

  So for the past four years Evgeni had been working his ass off to learn everything he could about directing and coaching so that when he did finally come home he could take over directing from Yves and get his brother back up on that stage where he belonged. Yves was never going to shine his brightest behind the scenes just like Evgeni was never going to shine his brightest on stage.

  What Evgeni didn’t expect in all his planning and conniving was having to come home in a rush because of a gods damned family emergency. It was going to be difficult enough to navigate the theatre problems, he didn’t need the extra complication of family drama on top of that.

  “Here we go,” Evgeni muttered under his breath and opened the door, not bothering to ring the doorbell. It was his own damned home after all even if it didn’t really feel like that anymore. “I’m home!”

  “Geni?” Yves called back a few moments later and suddenly the older man came running down the pristine marble floors and all but jumped onto Evgeni, wrapping his long arms around Evgeni’s neck. “What are you doing here?”

  Usually that question would have seemed totally appropriate, especially considering Evgeni didn’t warn his family that he was coming home, but this time it was horribly offensive given the circumstances.

  “Excuse me?” Evgeni said and pushed his older brother off of him, not bothering to hide his anger. He could be his manipulative self later. Right now he just needed to let out some of his frustration. “What am I doing here? Are you fucking kidding me? When were you going to tell me that you were disowning Rafe, hm? Why did I have to hear this from my sources and not from you or father?”

  “We were going to call you tonight and tell you,” Yves said with a sigh.

  “Call me and tell me? You didn’t think I should be included in this discussion?” Evgeni challenged.

  “Geni, you haven’t spent more than two weeks here at a time in ten years.”

  “Well you’d better get used to seeing me a lot more because I’m officially moving back home,” Evgeni announced. “Though I probably should have done so years ago considering the state of our theatre and our family now.”

  “Excuse me?” Yves echoed back at him, his violet eyes sparking dangerously.

  “Evgeni,” Julius greeted as he walked towards them. “You didn’t tell us you were coming home.”

  “Yes, well, it seems we don’t tell each other things in this family anymore,” Evgeni shot back, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “We were going to tell you about Rafe tomorrow,” Julius said, just like Yves had.

  Evgeni rolled his eyes, not appreciating hearing the same answer a second time. “You should have discussed it with me.”

  Julius smirked a little and his dark blue eyes twinkled in that special way Evgeni had learned over the years meant his father was up to something. It was not the reaction Evgeni was expecting at all, and he made sure to file it away in his mind to ponder over later.

  “Are the papers already drawn up?” Evgeni asked. He hoped not. The thought of Rafe not being his brother or a Desjardins for even a second made Evgeni feel sick.

  “No, not yet, but they will be on Monday,” Julius replied.

  “Well then I propose we actually have a proper family meeting about this before anyone makes any more rash decisions.”

  “Alright,” Julius agreed.

  “What?” Yves asked, sounding both scandalized and annoyed. “We’ve already made up our minds on this! I’m not letting Rafe remain a Desjardins while he’s associating with that beast!”

  “We’re not getting into it tonight, Yves. You can either visit with your brother for a bit and give him a proper welcome home or stay out of the way,” Julius said firmly.

  “I’ll just have to stay out of the way then, I don’t think I can avoid getting into it,” Yves said, sending Evgeni a fiery glare. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” Evgeni agreed with a nod and watched his older brother stomp off towards the stairs to presumably go back to his room.

  Once they were alone Julius stepped forward and spread his arms. “Give your father a hug, Geni.”

  Evgeni let out an annoyed sigh, but reached down and gave his father a tight hug all the same. Despite how displeased he was he still adored his father and missed him very much.

  “You’ve got quite the mess on your hands, father,” Evgeni whispered to him.

  “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Geni,” Julius said and pulled away. “Come on, I’ll help you take your bags up. How long are you staying?”

  “Permanently,” Evgeni replied, making sure to take the heavier of his bags. His father wasn’t weak, but he was still seventy years old.

  Julius looked like he was about to drop the bag he just picked up. “Humour me. Say that again.”

  “I want to come home permanently, father, if that’s alright,” Evgeni said, staring straight down into his father’s eyes, wanting him to see just how serious he was about this.

  Julius’ expression slowly turned from serious to rather amused, before letting out a chuckle. “You’re gonna cause a bunch of shit, aren’t you?” He asked.

  Evgeni winked. “I’m your son, after all.”

  “Gods help me,” Julius said, sounding pleased despite his exasperated prayer, then started towards the stairs with Evgeni’s bags.

  Evgeni followed behind, wondering just how much his father caught onto his little hint. Many years ago it had been Julius who had all but stole the failing Gardenia Theatre from his older brothers and turned the place into a success once more. How
ever, Evgeni hoped that unlike Julius’ older brothers, Yves wouldn’t leave the family once he realized Evgeni could run the theatre better than he did.

  It wasn’t that Yves was doing anything particularly wrong, in fact he was still quite a good director, but the dip was coming. Evgeni had ears and eyes everywhere and the word on the street was that the plays were always very well done, very professional, but ultimately safe. Even the lead actors – Jasper and Killian – were safe. They were both incredibly handsome, the pair of them near the middle of the spectrum between soft and strong, and they had beautiful chemistry, but they didn’t have anything that made them overly unique.

  Evgeni had a feeling that everything probably would have been okay for a little longer if Yves wasn’t about to attempt a play that was notoriously difficult and prayed on one of the Gardenia Theatre’s biggest weaknesses: There was no chemistry between the two leads and everyone else. Evgeni didn’t believe that even Ezra Scarlett, who was known for being a very giving actor, was going to be able to make any headway with either Killian, or more importantly, Jasper, in the small time frame they had. It didn’t help that Evgeni also heard a rumour that Ezra was strangely struggling with his new villainous role. He was going to have to look into that immediately.

  “Kai’s kept your room clean,” Julius said as they stepped into Evgeni’s room. Much like the rest of the house it was decorated in whites, golds, and silvers, though Evgeni had a touch of black and grey throughout as well to balance it out.

  “I’ll have to thank him tomorrow,” Evgeni replied. He missed Kai probably just as much as he missed his family. The man had half raised him since Yves and Julius were always so busy with the theatre.

  “Did you want to come down for a drink? Or would you rather just rest for tonight?” Julius asked.

  “Perhaps just rest,” Evgeni replied. “I doubt I’ll be able to keep my mouth shut about things if we talk tonight and you seem adamant that you want to wait until tomorrow.”

  “I am,” Julius said and set Evgeni’s bags down by his dresser.