Author's note: This story is a sequel to my story Wide Wild Deep, but it is not necessary to read that one to understand this one.

Between Silence

They talk; neither of them is remotely ready.

-o-

The first time Arthur goes to talk to his brother, he doesn't really want to. However, he needs to be the one to tell Orm that there will be a trial; king or not, Arthur is not a fan of dictatorial verdicts. At Arthur's insistence, Orm will have a chance to defend himself in front of what passes as the Atlantean court of justice.

As it turns out, Orm is not very impressed, nor is he at all grateful of Arthur's efforts. Something Arthur surely should have fucking anticipated, but which he finds oddly disappointing nonetheless.

"What exactly are the crimes I am being accused of?" Orm asks, managing to look haughty and disdainful despite the two weeks spent in an Atlantean prison cell. It grates on Arthur like nothing else. Little brothers, are they always such annoying fuckers or did I just really luck out?

"How about attacking the surface? Or attacking the Brine? Or killing the Fishermen king? Or trying to kill me and Mera? I could go on and on."

Orm twists his lips into a dark resemblance of a grin. "So, technically there is nothing."

"My ass there is nothing –"

"As a king, I had every right to defend Atlantis against the surface world – which I did not attack, I might add. All I did was send a warning," Orm states calmly, although the sharp tilt of his blond head, the rigidness of his shoulders, reveals his annoyance. "You and Mera acted against the crown, which is punishable by death. The Fishermen king charged me; I had a right to defend myself. Vulko was rightfully detained after he betrayed his king, to whom he had sworn an oath of allegiance. I also had the authority to declare war against the Brine, when they chose to act against the interests of Atlantis – should I go on?"

Arthur is starting to realize that perhaps giving his well-spoken, intelligent, despot of a brother his day in court is a mistake.

"Huh, acting against the crown is punishable by death? What goes around…" Arthur looks at Orm meaningfully. Comes around. Maybe technically Orm might be in the clear, but they both know the shit he did was wrong.

Orm sighs. "Indeed. You should have killed me. At least it would have spared the both of us from this farce." He turns away from Arthur, a clear signal that their conversation has ended.

That went well, Arthur thinks as he leaves the cell, his brother's ramrod straight back a silent wall between them.

-o-

The second time is on the day before the trial.

Their mother has already come and gone; her words have left Orm pensive and quiet. Arthur watches his brother's stony-faced profile, his hooded eyes. They don't speak for a long time. To both their surprise, it is Orm, who breaks the heavy silence.

"I wanted to kill you." It sounds like a confession.

"I know. There were moments when I wanted to kill you too," Arthur admits.

They don't say anything else, leaving the words into past tense.

-o-

"You need anything else in here?" Arthur examines the room carefully, taking note of the few simple things and basic items in the sparsely furnished room. It's not inhospitable, but it's not exactly luxurious either; hardly something his brother would have been used to as a prince or a king.

"No," Orm says curtly, looking at the opposite wall, eyes evading both Arthur's gaze and the prison cell, where he will spend an unforeseeable amount of time – as long as Arthur deigns fit. To Arthur's utter consternation, it turned out that despite the trial, the king of Atlantis is the law. No one is willing to take responsibility for Orm nor decide his fate; it is Arthur's alone to carry.

"Super," Arthur grouses, momentarily lost for words. Orm has been mostly silent since the trial, seemingly lacking any interest in his own future. He didn't even defend himself with all those bullshit arguments he presented to Arthur earlier; he just stood there before the court, tersely admitting all they accused him of. Like he has given up.

It makes Arthur's hackles rise. He wants to shake Orm, shout at him, bloody him – do anything to get that arrogant, superior strength of will back into his brother.

Instead he says, "So, mom can visit anytime she wants." Even if he wanted to punish Orm by forbidding any visitors, Arthur would never prevent his mother from seeing her other son. Nor would Atlanna ever agree to it without a fight.

"I know." Orm's stubborn stare doesn't move from its fixed point on the bare wall, but he does continue speaking, like the words are being dragged from him painfully, despite his will, "Thank you."

"Yeah," Arthur says inanely. "I – yeah."

He spends the next month alternating between Atlantis and the surface, trying to balance the frequently frustrating kingship with the joys of his new-found relationship with his mom and the thrill of getting closer to Mera. Arthur tells himself he doesn't have any time to visit Orm. It might even be true.

-o-

Arthur can't really say no to his mom, so before long, he finds himself back in his brother's cell. He is resigned to an obstinate silence or one-word sentences, but to his surprise Orm greets him with a question.

"How goes ruling, brother?"

Arthur pauses, not sure if he wants to answer truthfully; at best Orm will just sneer at his difficulties, in worst case his little brother will get ample material for more scheming. Orm might have ulterior motives for asking, but then again, he might just be bored. Either way, his brother is probably one of the few people – if not the only one – who understands the challenges Arthur is facing.

What the hell, Arthur decides and proceeds to tell how the rigid Atlantean ways are seriously driving him up the wall, how his advisers will barely leave him alone to piss in peace, and how impossible it is to satisfy anyone with anything.

Orm listens patiently, his lips slanting into a slight smile. When Arthur has finally vented enough, Orm says, deadpan: "Being a king is hard? Who would have guessed? You should abdicate."

Arthur frowns at the sarcasm, wanting to tug at Orm's hair sharply in retaliation. But he hasn't touched his brother at all since their duel, and oh yeah, they aren't actually bickering children. "That's your advice? You are really going with that?"

"You don't need my advice," Orm says plainly, eyes roaming over Arthur's Atlantean attire. The suit is another concession Arthur has grudgingly made, acknowledging that jeans and a t-shirt are hardly a kingly look. Besides, wet jeans chafe hell of a lot.

"Maybe," Arthur concedes. "But I want to hear it."

Orm glides closer to Arthur; if he wants, Arthur can now reach out and touch him. "You can't please everyone – there is always someone, who finds fault in you or who takes exception to what you do. You might try to appease them, coax or coerce them – that's your decision."

Voice serious, the look of his sombre eyes magnetic, Orm holds all of Arthur's attention. Arthur can see how his brother commanded entire armies seemingly so effortlessly. "But when you have made the decision, own it. Don't falter."

"Arthur – be the King."

-o-

Next time they talk about ruling, Orm is not so generous with his words. Arthur has made concrete albeit small steps towards Atlantis' cooperation with the surface world; he knows it's going to be a hard road forward, but you have to start from somewhere, right?

Orm vehemently disagrees. "It's a mistake! They'll only seek to exploit us; find new ways to use our world and technology to their own advantage."

"Well yeah," Arthur says, giving a nonchalant shrug that he knows will irritate his brother. He isn't actually stupid. "But I'm counting on that their self-interest is also Atlantis' interest. So, everyone wins."

Orm darts to Arthur, baring his perfect princely teeth. "You would gamble with Atlanteans' future? With the very existence of our world? Imbecile."

Arthur grins brightly. "Always with the dramatics, little brother." He is acutely aware how Orm vibrates with barely suppressed anger; the expectant violence between them is like a lurking snake, readying for a strike, coiling around them and squeezing ever harder.

"I'll defend Atlantis – as I'll defend the surface," Arthur growls, flippant tone turned serious under Orm's heated glare. "The first step is to actually stop pitting the two against each other."

Orm sneers scornfully, "There can be no equality – not between the exploiters and the exploited, the underdeveloped and the advanced. Tell me then Arthur, how are you going to safeguard Atlantis? How are you going to protect the sea?"

"Locking you up here is a pretty good start," Arthur snipes, instantly regretting his words. He waits for a physical attack, but it doesn't come. The silence he gets instead feels more painful than any blow.

-o-

Arthur doesn't go to see his brother, not even when Atlanna starts to give him meaningful glances and hints every time she comes back from visiting Orm. He focuses with a single-minded determination on the budding collaboration between the land and the sea, conscious of all that could go wrong. There is so much at stake – too much. For the first time, the responsibility feels enormous, threatening to crush Arthur under its heavy weight.

It makes him forget he has other concerns, more immediate and personal. The bright red gash on Orm's throat is a glaring and abrupt reminder that there are hidden enemies much closer to home than he thought.

As the guards drag unceremoniously the assailant's body away, Arthur wishes the man were alive just so he could kill him. How he got into Orm's cell without anyone noticing, is still a mystery, something Arthur fully intends to solve. And then there will be reckoning.

"The doctor is coming," Arthur says, eyes drawn to the red line of raw flesh on his brother's otherwise pale skin. He wants to cover it with his fingers, smooth the mark of his failure away.

Orm touches the wound and grimaces. "Don't bother. It's shallow. Shoddy work." His gaze meets Arthur's, steady and calm. "If he had a surer grip and a quicker hand, he would have no doubt solved many of your problems."

"I did not arrange this!" Arthur roars, suddenly spitting mad, his heart thundering louder than his voice.

"Of course not. This was sloppy and rather witlessly planned. I expect you to do it better."

Arthur shakes his head, anger draining out of him, leaving him only tired and worried. Someone, somewhere, wants his brother dead. They could oppose just Orm or both of Atlanna's sons – to Arthur it doesn't really matter. "I could have killed you, when you begged for it."

"I know," Orm acknowledges seriously, and then suddenly grins. "But that would have made your reunion with mother rather awkward, would it not?"

Arthur's bark of laughter startles them both.

-o-

Perversely, after the assassination attempt on Orm, their tense relationship seems to ease up. Arthur's conversations with his brother are less confrontational, centred more on mundane things rather than on the myriad of difficult subjects that still remain between them. Something has loosened in Orm; his resentment is less evident, his anger slowly but surely abating. Perhaps his brother's would-be-assassin, instead of killing Orm, managed to awaken his will to live.

Arthur at least hopes so. Then something good will have come from the plot that still stays a mystery. The one, who ordered the attack, remains unknown; it makes Arthur paranoid and anxious. There are truly only a few people he can trust with his little brother's life.

"You what?" Orm sounds incredulous, like he just found out Arthur is even more moronic than he originally thought.

Arthur is abruptly yanked back from his dark thoughts into their current conversation. Which for some reason is about booze – namely, all the horrendous drinks Arthur has ever tried.

"Yes: bourbon, Tabasco sauce and a raw egg. I drank it – twice." He revels in his brother's horrified expression. It's doubtful whether Orm even knows those ingredients, except for the raw egg, but that just makes it more fun: his brother is willing to play along.

Orm scrunches up his nose, as if he can smell the awful concoction. "Why would you ever drink that?"

Arthur decides that drinking the Prairie Oyster all those years ago, egged on and totally hammered, was worth it just to see the glimpse of lightness in his brother's blue eyes. "Hey, don't knock it before you have tried it."

Orm's gaze turns wistful. "Well, it doesn't seem likely I will get to try it anytime soon."

You could, Arthur wants to say. I could take you out.

Instead, he launches into a description of another terrible drinking experience. But he keeps thinking about it the whole evening and the next day. I could take him out – if I wanted to.

-o-

Mera wants to talk to Orm in private, something Arthur is firmly against. The two have not met since Orm's imprisonment, and they have steadfastly avoided any mention of each other in Arthur's presence. Arthur knows it to be a bad idea, but he can hardly deny her request; between Orm and Mera is history, a shared childhood and a broken engagement. Mera has known Arthur's brother a lot longer than he has, and for the first time the number of those years' stings.

He doesn't want them in the same room, doesn't want them to talk to each other, without him. Arthur knows it's selfish; Mera – and probably Orm too – needs closure. And so Mera goes into Orm's cell, leaving Arthur to tread water restlessly outside. It doesn't take long for Mera to rush out, furious. To his utter shame, something in Arthur feels satisfied and vindicated. He is proven right.

The rigidness is back in Orm's body, every line of him drawn with sharpness. He welcomes Arthur with a dark grin. "I guess there went my invitation to the wedding."

"What did you say?" Arthur asks accusingly. It's a fair bet that Orm is the culprit for whatever went wrong with their encounter.

"I'm sure she will tell you all about it – with great relish." Now that Arthur knows what his brother's real smile looks like, the mirthless one stretching across Orm's face looks like a grotesque imitation.

"You should be more careful of what you say," Arthur growls, his feet and arms settling into a familiar battle stance by reflex. Orm eyes him, watchful and ready. The snake rears its ugly head again.

"Because she will be queen? Funny, how all that happened worked out for her benefit in the end," Orm muses mockingly. "Is the date for the big day all set?"

It's not, but Arthur isn't about to tell Orm that. Arthur hasn't even asked her yet. It's simply too soon to be thinking of marriage. However, Orm doesn't need Arthur's words; somehow, he infers the truth from Arthur's expression alone.

Orm smirks. "Ouch, she will be so disappointed. All that hard work at servicing the king and still no payment fit for her unique talents."

Arthur roars in rage as he slams his brother against the wall. His arm is pressed with bruising force against Orm's sternum, keeping him in place. He wraps his other hand around his brother's throat. They glare at each other; Orm doesn't show any other signs of resistance, his muscles slack under Arthur's brutal hold.

A pulse beats beneath Arthur's skin, rapid and loud. He wants – he wants –

Arthur forces himself to let go of his brother, slowly loosening his hold until his arms are back at his side, empty. He doesn't take a step back though, and there remains only an inch between them. The pulse beats beats beats –

Orm tilts his head. "Oh, don't stop now, brother. I know you want blood."

"You are fucking impossible!" Arthur snarls, turning quickly around, getting more space between them. From the corner of his eye, he gets a glimpse of his brother's genuine smile.

"It takes one to know one."

-o-

Orm never apologizes, but then again, Arthur doesn't expect him to. It seems that in this too they resemble each other; the I'm sorry sticks in Arthur's throat much more often than it ever gets out.

Perhaps honesty is their apology.

"It was me," Orm confesses calmly, but the raw emotion in his gaze is left unconcealed. "I was the reason our mother was sacrificed to the Trench."

"How?" Arthur doesn't understand – Orm had been just a boy.

Orm looks away from Arthur, as if for the first time he is afraid to meet his brother's eyes. "After our first meeting…I was careless. I was stupid. My father found out."

Arthur recognises the guilt in Orm's voice; it's the same guilt he himself has carried for far too long. Quietly, he offers his own confession. "For a long time, I thought that it was my fault. That is was because of me that she was killed."

Slowly, Orm turns towards Arthur with a beseeching look. Something tugs at Arthur's heart; something enormous and destructive, spreading upheaval and ache throughout him. His brother wants – needs – absolution, at least for this one thing. Arthur cannot not try to give it to him.

"We were just children; nothing that happened was in our power to alter or stop."

Orm takes Arthur's words in, nods. "Unlike now."

Arthur swallows. "Yes. Unlike now."

-o-

Sometimes they don't say much of anything at all.

The door will always open to Arthur, and Orm will stop reading or lounging or whatever else he happens to be doing. They activate the holographic chessboard and play in silence.

Alright, so sometimes they resort to undignified name-calling and childish taunts. But they are brothers after all.

"Mongrel."

"Princeling."

It doesn't much matter who wins, Arthur finds himself grinning widely either way.