Lunatic - Necessary Evils #6 - Ch. 13 (Patreon)

Chapter 13 (Still only loosely edited but everything should be good going forward) 

Archer

Archer had faced down pedophiles, serial killers and numerous other monsters since he’d become a Mulvaney, but he couldn’t recall a single time he’d been more leary of a confrontation than the one he was about to have with Noah. Someone Archer had once counted not just as a brother, but as a friend. Maybe his only friend.

It had taken Archer an hour to convince Adam to bring Noah to him at the desert house and another twenty minutes for Archer to convince him to let him talk to Noah alone. That was how the two of them had ended up sitting on the edge of the platform outside—the same one Mac and Archer had slept on the night before—staring out over the scrublands.

Archer stole a glance at Noah. Thomas had entrusted the boy with so much responsibility in such a short amount of time that sometimes Archer forgot how young Noah actually was. Not even twenty-five years old and already leading a group of psychopaths around by the nose. And he did a good job. In many ways, he was more a son to Thomas than any of them had ever been or ever would be. They just weren’t equipped.

Still, sitting there with his legs dangling over the platform, clinging to a giant corgi shaped Squishmallow pillow, Noah looked like a little kid, especially with the heat putting his freckles on full display. It was the pillow Archer had bought Noah on a trip home from Vegas. An impulse airport gift shop buy after a particularly gruesome kill. He didn’t know what had compelled him to buy it other than he’d bought them for his nieces’ and had instantly thought of how much Noah loved dogs and comfort items.

“Does the fact that you brought Nugget with you mean you’ve forgiven me?” Archer asked, hoping Calliope was wrong and Noah wasn’t angry anymore. Things would be so much easier if Noah wasn’t mad anymore.

Noah clung to the pillow tighter, turning to glower at Archer. “I only have it because I used it to sleep on the plane. Besides, it's not his fault you’re a lying liar who lies.”

Okay, so Noah definitely wasn’t over it. “I lied to everybody. Not just you.”

Noah’s mouth fell open. “Seriously? That’s it? You wanted to talk to me alone so you could tell me that I shouldn’t be mad because you lied to all of us?”

Archer’s insides twisted. “Noah…” he trailed off. He didn’t know how to fix this. He was definitely looking for more than just an apology. Noah wanted an explanation but Archer wasn’t sure he had one. Not one he could articulate with any elegance. Fuck.

“Can you at least tell me why it bothers you so much?” Noah’s eyes went wide, expression contorting with hurt and anger. Archer held up a hand. “I know it's not your job to explain to me why you’re mad, but I truly don’t understand it. I don’t get why it bothers you that I was faking being an alcoholic. What exactly is it that hurt you? I’m not being a jerk on purpose. I just don’t get it.”

That seemed to bring Noah up short. He frowned, burying his face in the pillow for a long moment. Archer didn’t push him. Noah was easily overwhelmed when it came to personal shit. Especially involving Thomas. And this involved him too, even if only inadvertently. But it wasn’t Archer’s place to apologize for Thomas. His father was on his own.

Finally, Noah looked at him. “How many times have I scraped you up off our bathroom floor? How many times did I tuck you in on our couch? Drag you home from a party? Defend you to Thomas—who fucking knew you were faking it.” He shook his head. “You guys must have had a huge laugh making fun of how gullible I am. Like, it must have cracked you up how stupid I was.”

Archer blinked at him. Making fun of him? “What? Nobody was making fun of you. I didn’t create this whole fake life and fake persona to trick my family, especially not you.” That wasn’t exactly the truth, but it really hadn’t been his intention when it first started.

Noah’s gaze floated away then back again. “Why? Why do you do it? Why hide behind this character? Like it isn’t even necessary. Just having a job as a professional poker player would have been enough of a cover for Thomas’s operation. Why did you have to lie to the whole family? Why did you have to lie to me? Why let me take care of you?”

Archer opened his mouth and shut it again. Why had he let Noah take care of him? The answer flashed into his head in the form of a memory. A memory that sent a lightning bolt of pain through him. A flashback to a time he’d spent years working to forget.

He licked his lower lip, then met Noah’s gaze. “We have something in common, you and I. Something other than my brother. Did Thomas ever tell you about my past? About who I was before I became Archer Mulvaney?”

Noah shook his head, squeezing the plushie tighter. “No.”

Archer suddenly wished he had something to hold onto as well. Not for comfort exactly. But maybe for courage. He hadn’t talked about this in so long. He hadn’t talked about it ever. “I spent the first six years of my life in the foster system. I was placed with a couple before I was even a week old. That’s how much thought the system put into my placement.”

Archer tried to ignore the images flooding his brain. The acrid smell of burning chemicals, the filth, the pain. But it was hard to keep it at bay. “They were both heroin addicts. I imagine they weren’t when they originally took me in, but in all the memories I have, they were high. And violent. My foster dad, he…liked to touch me in ways he shouldn’t.”

Noah turned towards him slightly, studying Archer’s face. “Like Holt did to me?”

Archer nodded slowly. “I don’t remember when it started, but when I was six, I started fighting back. Not that it did much good. But that’s when they started beating on me, locking me in the closet, withholding food as a punishment. When I made life too hard for them, they put me in a psychiatric facility and told them they wouldn’t be coming back for me.”

“Jesus,” Noah muttered.

Archer nodded. “While I was in the treatment center, I was almost assaulted by another patient, but I killed him. That’s when Thomas found me and I became who I am today.” Noah nodded, chewing on his bottom lip. Archer felt compelled to add, “I’ve never told another soul this. Not even Mac.”

Noah watched him, still guarded. “Why are you telling me this now?”

Archer shook his head, then sighed, still trying to put a name to his why. “Because Mac has made me realize that maybe, whether I know it or not, some of the things I’ve done have less to do with my psychopathy and more to do with my past. I’ve never wanted to be…close to people. I never liked being touched. Not as a child. Not as an adult. Not until I met Mac anyway.”

“Because of the abuse?”

Archer shrugged. “Maybe. I guess. Even after Thomas adopted me, I never really felt like I belonged there. At least at first. I went from being an only child who was isolated all the time, to being one of three, then one of five, to finally one of seven. Even in a house as big as dad’s, sometimes it felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

Noah nodded, but said nothing. Archer took a minute to gather his thoughts. He hated these emotional purges that seemed to keep bubbling out of him lately. “My job involves a lot of theater. A lot of misdirection. A lack of emotion. This drunken pirate act of mine, started as a tool to throw off my opponents. But I realized quickly that it also got me out of a lot of family obligations that made me uncomfortable. When dad said he needed my help with Project Watchtower and that the help revolved around continuing my act for the cameras, I was more than happy to do it.”

“But why?” Noah asked, bewildered. “I get having to keep up appearances for the cameras, but why with us? Why with me?”

“Because I was…insulated. Being irresponsible kept me from having to do the hard work of faking my humanity. People look through you when you are in the throes of an addiction. It’s too hard for them. My brothers didn’t care if I was drunk all the time. They accepted me at face value as long as I didn’t become a liability. Dad knew the truth. It was easier for everybody if I just stayed the person I pretended to be.”

Archer watched the muscle in Noah’s jaw tic as he seemed to grind his teeth. After a minute, he asked, “Did you fake it with Mac? He didn’t seem surprised that you were faking being an alcoholic.”

Archer sighed again. Why was being honest this fucking hard? “The first night we met, he met the fake me. At least, I tried to be the fake me. But he just…saw through it somehow. He was going to be just another one night stand. We didn’t know who we really were to each other then. We didn’t even know each other’s names until we met face to face in the Watchtower conference room the next day.”

“And that’s when you started dating?”

“That’s when we started hooking up. Reluctantly. Well, on my part anyway. It was too real with him. I didn’t have my mask on with him and it was too intense. But I just couldn’t say no to him. No matter what. Like, he was just too persistent. Besides, in order to gain clearance, Thomas had to make sure everybody involved in the project understood that my drinking was just a cover for what I did both as an occupation and as a secret killer. It was essential for the project to know the truth.”

“But not me. Because Thomas didn’t trust me enough to know about the project,” Noah said, looking away.

Archer tilted his head, reaching out to turn Noah back towards him. “It’s not my place to tell you why Thomas didn’t tell you about Watchtower, but if I had to guess it's twofold. One: It’s a top secret government project and you haven’t been given clearance yet. Two: You’ve already got enough on your plate just handling the seven of us. I think it's less about trust and more about time and bureaucracy. Dad would have told you eventually. When he knew you could handle the added obligations that come with knowing about this project. It’s a huge undertaking. Mac and I are leads on the project but there’s hundreds of people involved including dad and Molly.”

Noah shook his head. “None of this explains why you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. Even if you didn’t tell me about the project. You just kept letting me baby you and take care of you. What the fuck, dude? I felt bad for you. I worried about you. I helped you shower and cleaned up your puke. I dragged you out of the bushes and even kept you from getting mugged one time.”

Noah wasn’t wrong. He’d done all those things and more for Archer over the last three or so years. “I know. And I let you.”

“Why?” he asked, bewildered.

“Because I liked you taking care of me,” Archer blurted, before flushing to the tips of his ears.

Noah recoiled like Archer had hit him. “What?”

Archer closed his eyes, scrubbing his hands over his face. “It was…nice. It was nice having someone care enough about me to not let me sleep on the balcony or in the bathtub. It was nice knowing someone didn’t want me to sleep in my own vomit.”

He realized he was telling the truth. He might as well tell Noah all of it. “And for the record, the night you cleaned up my puke and helped me shower, I wasn’t drunk, but I did have food poisoning. I wasn’t faking that. I went to your house that night because I felt like shit and I knew you’d take care of me.”

Archer couldn’t look at Noah while saying it. It felt too real, too intimate. Not intimate like with Mac but a different intimacy altogether. A family thing. Something he’d never truly experienced with his brothers or even Thomas—though that was entirely on Archer. Noah had somehow broken through the walls he’d put up when it came to family. Noah was so good at taking care of people that Archer had sought him out to take care of him.

“Why didn’t you go to dad?” Noah asked, tone hopeful, almost like he already knew the answer.

“Because I didn’t want him to take care of me. I wanted you to do it,” Archer mumbled.

“Because you consider me family?” Noah pushed, a small smile starting to form.

Closer than family, really. But Archer couldn’t say that. “Yes. You’re my family.”

Noah launched himself into Archer’s arms, squishing the pillow between the two of them. “You’re my family, too.”

Archer hung onto Noah while he clung to him, relief flooding through him. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly cared so much about so many people but he wasn’t sure he liked it. No, he definitely didn’t like it. But there was nothing much that could be done about it now. He supposed he should just be grateful that Adam wasn’t going to keep threatening his life every time they were in the same room together. Maybe he’d finally stop calling him Hannah Montana.

When they separated, Archer asked, “Are we good now?”

Noah seemed to think about it. “Yeah, we’re good. But if you lie to me again, I’m going to kill you.”

Archer wasn’t sure if Noah was kidding or not. He’d never struck Archer as particularly violent, but nobody had ever really thought to cross Noah before so he was just enough of a wild card to give Archer pause. “Noted.”

“Good.”

“We should go inside. We need to figure out what we’re going to do about Mac’s problem,” Archer finally said.

“Okay,” Noah said, getting to his feet and marching off without so much as another word.

Archer sat there for a moment, watching Noah walk away, suddenly unable to shake the feeling they’d been playing poker and Noah had just called his bluff. Had Noah just played him? Was that all an act to make Archer feel bad? Or did Noah just forgive that easily? Maybe Noah was a psychopath.

Huh.