Their particular branch of the Darrow family had never been particularly devout growing up, but there were certain times of year that anyone who even pretended to be a Christian had to drag themselves off to church, and Easter was one of them. Since his extended holiday abroad, Alfred was no longer sure he was even pretending to be a Christian, but it had always been a family tradition to spend Easter Sunday together, and Evander was the only immediate family that Alfred had left. When he'd gotten the invitation he'd agreed immediately, and then he'd enchanted a calendar to remind him three times so that he wouldn't forget and go about his usual Sunday routine instead — namely, sleeping in and doing very little of anything that could be considered productive.

In the wake of Monday evening's events he had forgotten about it, until the calendar reminded him with a loud and obnoxiously chipper alarm. He'd contemplated trying to excuse himself, but what could he possibly say? Nothing less than a dramatic injury would really be a good excuse for missing Easter, and if he pretended to have a dramatic injury, Evander would probably offer to come visit him instead, which wouldn't solve the problem. He'd still have to spend the day with his brother, but he'd also have to clean the flat in anticipation of his visit. Not to mention remembering to keep up his fake injury the entire day, and then staging a gradual recovery over the course of the following days or weeks. Not worth the effort, he decided; going to Evander's was definitely the lesser of two evils.

So he'd gone. He'd tried to be pleasant. He just wasn't doing a very good job of it. He'd spent most of the week wallowing in self-pity and ruminating on his mistakes, which wasn't a habit easily set aside for a day to be resumed when he returned home. He kept finding himself drifting off and thinking about other things when Evander was talking, or fidgeting nervously with the buttons on his shirt cuffs. He'd brushed his hair back into something moderately respectable before coming, but had forgotten about looking presentable and mussed it back to its usual unruly mess before long. He was noncommitally sculpting a bit of mashed potatoes into a plateau with his fork when he realized that Evander was staring at him in that way that people do when they've asked a question and are waiting for an answer. Alfred had missed the question.

"Sorry," he said, pushing some mashed potatoes onto his fork self-consciously, to keep up the appearance of eating and enjoying the food even though he wasn't feeling hungry. "What was that?"