"Give it a little," Marcus told Aria quietly. "They just all need a minute." Marcus felt like this was bound to go off the rails at some point today. Marcus saw Ruby and Aria both go outside to drink. He sighed and pitched in to help Angus. "I'll give you a hand."
"I suppose I can get it," Angus said.
"I'm not doing anything in particular so I might as well help," Marcus said.
"I rather expected that from the boys," Angus said.
"Did you?"
"I did," Angus said. "They have a different relationship with Ruby than they do with me. After all, they've lived with her pretty much their whole lives until she move out. When you grow up with your siblings, you lose any kind of fear of confronting them when you feel like they've mucked something up. Me, they'd have given me what for too, but they'd have gone about it a bit differently. We tend not to hold back from our siblings, though."
"You might have a point," Marcus said. "You've also been very firm with them from day one. they know where your boundaries stop and start. And did you expect that from the girls too?"
"To a given degree, yes. Neither of them would think the dueling competition was more important that our wedding, but they also have come to believe that we do things in this house out in the open, no secrets, no dirty tricks except in a small way as a practical joke. I think they're happy that we're married, just not how it was done."
"And Ruby feels punished," Marcus said, as they put leftovers into storage containers for the fridge and stacked the dishes to start a washing up spell.
"She has a right to her feelings, whatever they are, so I'm not going to deal with that tonight," Angus said. "I haven't figured out how I feel about that yet myself, but regardless, I'm supposed to defend her. So reserving judgment tonight feels like a rather defensive approach."
"Understood," Marcus said, getting out a couple whiskey glasses and pouring them each a stiff firewhiskey.
"Thank you," Angus said, casting the washing up spell.