AN: I don't own the twi-world, but I'm happy to play with the characters.

A big thank to the lovely Doccooper for editing all these recent chapters, I have no idea how you fit this into your busy schedule but I am very grateful tat you do!

ADMINISTRATION

"I hate Aro for this."

Felix stood in front of his bedroom mirror checking himself out in his new, or rather old ... very old ... guard uniform.

Aro kept his high guard in new uniforms ... they always had the blackest of black tunics and looked well turned out for it. The general guard were looked after too, of course. But as they saw more action than the high guard, and their uniforms were replaced with less frequency, their outfits were more grey than black.

The rags Felix had been left with were even worse than the worst of the guards - washed out grey and fraying at the seems. Why do I even still have these bloody things! he questioned, genuinely not recalling when he would have worn them last.

They aren't even the same style as the current Volturi uniform, he thought gloomily, knowing he was going to stick out like a sore thumb as soon as he left the safety of his bedroom. If he wasn't so bored he would have stayed in there in all day, but he was bored ... bored stupid!

Demetri had been made to sleep in their parents bed the night before and the solitary confinement was driving Felix crazy. The only 'visitor' had been Basileus yesterday evening. The last person I wanted to see! Felix thought.

Basileus had been ready to make good on his promise of taking the boy into his own chambers, removing him from Aro and Sulpicia's care after he'd 'attacked' his father again. Thankfully, the man read Felix's memories and agreed that Felix had little choice but to punch Aro to break his hold around his throat. Still smacked my ass though, the cunt. Felix really felt like the whole damn world was against him.

He went to his door and opened it just a crack, listening intently for any movement. He could make out Sulpicia and Carmen talking quietly from the living room, but he couldn't hear Aro - and that's who he was listening for.

The sun had only just come up and he hoped to catch the twins before they left their room. Creeping across the hall, he opened their door. The bastard thing creaked like a bitch, so he made quick work of getting inside and closing it softly behind him.

Jane was already awake, and burst out laughing at her big brother's 'new threads'.

"Shush!" Felix begged, flashing to her bed and holding a hand over her mouth. He could see from her eyes she was still laughing. "Shut up will you! I don't know if I am allowed in here - I don't want Aro to catch me!"

Jane closed her eyes, getting herself under control.

Felix released her slowly. "Shush," he reminded his sister of darkness.

"You look like a jester!" she said, stifling her giggles.

"Yeah, I know," Felix replied moodily.

"We heard what happened ... what Aro did," she said.

As Jane wasn't the most emotional being in the castle, Felix couldn't work out if she felt sorry for him or not.

"He's a prick. I hate him, I actually fucking hate him."

Jane's eyes widened. She had never heard Felix talk so disparagingly about their father before. "That's a bit much, isn't it?" she broached.

"NO!" Felix replied, then cursed his volume. It was loud enough to wake Alec. He flashed to the door to listen for any approaching grownups. Satisfied that he hadn't alerted anyone else in their home, he retook his seat beside Jane.

"What the hell are you wearing?" Alec asked cheekily. "And why do prisoners have to wake up so early?"

Felix raised his eyebrows to his brother's jibe.

"He isn't supposed to be out of his cell," Jane added, giggling again.

"Hey! You are supposed to be on my side!" he said to them both.

The twins scoffed in unison.

"Like hell we are!" Jane said.

"Yeah, you have hardly bothered with us since you became Carlisle's pet," Alec added.

Felix was about to react when he noticed the two of them winking to each other. "Very funny!" he jeered.

"So, what do you want, you big oaf?" Jane asked, knowing he'd want something.

"Nothing! I just thought I'd pop in for a chat with my baby brother and sister, that's all."

Alec scoffed. "Bollocks," he said. They weren't stupid.

"Oooooo, you had better hope Aro doesn't hear you speaking like that."

"I'd just tell him you taught it to me, Felix," Alec replied.

Yeah, you'd get away with it, too! Felix thought. "How pissed off is Aro?" he asked casually.

Jane looked at Alec and shook her head, laughing. "That's why he's in here at daybreak - he wants to know how much trouble he's in."

Felix's shoulders slunk and he offered big red puppy eyes to his siblings.

Jane broke before Alec. "Fine!" she said throwing her hands up. "He's raging ... but it's not all down to you."

That had Felix beaming already. "Carlisle?" he assumed the source for their father's ire.

Jane shook her head, blonde bed-hair gracing her shoulders.

"Demetri!" Alec announced happily.

The twins regaled their big brother with Demetri's dance with death from the day before. Just like any good siblings, they all enjoyed each other's triumphs, but their downfalls provided true entertainment.

"I should thank him, he must have taken some serious heat off me!" Felix commented, before falling about laughing.

"I think Carlisle has wormed his way back into Aro's good books now," Jane told her brother. "Aro sent Carlisle and Eleazar out yesterday to fetch the barrels of wine you'd stolen. They were still out when we came to bed. I think they intended to take the whole load from the merchant ships."

"WHAT!" Felix exclaimed, loudly, feeling his hackles raise and the clear injustice of the situation.

"And, just what are you doing in here?" Aro asked his eldest when he waltzed through the door.

Felix should have shown some respect, but he felt none, so he returned Aro's glare instead. "How come when I was a lookout for Carlisle, you were ready to tear me to shreds and next thing I hear, you are sending Carlisle and Eleazar out for more!"

Aro smiled smugly. "And, from where did you hear that?" he asked, eyebrows raised to his young double act.

"I didn't know it was a secret," Jane replied sweetly.

Felix looked askance as Aro merely laughed to Jane and ignored his question. Aro turned on his heel and left the twins' bedroom, clicking his fingers for Felix to follow.

"Hello?" Felix said as he trailed behind his father to their living room.

"Isn't it a bit early in the day to start pissing me off, son?" Aro replied easily, as though he didn't have a care in the world.

Aro handed Carmen a roll of parchment to add to the pile she was working through with Sulpicia. "I need to see my brothers, my queen. I won't be gone long," he said to his wife before leaving their quarters.

Felix remained standing in the middle of the room, his temper increasing due to Aro's complete disregard of his questioning.

"What do you look like Felix?" Sulpicia asked with a shake of her head, thinking of how much stress their boys were causing her household.

Felix stomped over to his mother's side. "Mom! Why is it okay for Carlisle and Eleazar to steal wine but it's not okay for me to take it?"

Sulpicia raised her eyes to the heavens. "Can you even hear yourself?" she asked in response.

Carmen tutted to her nephew. "Perhaps there is a difference between two adult vampires performing coven duties by collecting wine for the guards, and a 16-year-old breaking his word when he is restricted to the castle grounds and stealing alcohol, that he isn't even allowed to drink, for his own personal use."

Sulpicia nodded along to her sister-in-law's summation.

"I wasn't asking you," Felix spat.

Sulpicia shoved her son. "Who do you think you are talking to?" she asked dangerously.

Felix maintained his stance. "Sorry," he sneered petulantly.

Carmen scoffed. "Yes, you sound it."

"Just go back to your room, Felix," Sulpicia ordered. She wasn't taking his crap today.

Felix's eyes widened. "No, please! I am going insane in there on my own!"

He pulled the chair out next to Carmen and took her hands in his. "Carmen, I'm sorry," he told his aunt.

"That almost sounded sincere," she mocked the boy lightly, pulling her hands free to return to her paperwork.

"What are you doing anyway? Can I help?" he offered, looking over the scattered scrolls which looked to be Aro's writing.

"And now you are creeping!" Carmen told him, playfully giving him a nudge with her elbow.

"It's your fault actually, so you can help," Sulpicia decided. "Aro has decided to create a payroll."

Felix's mouth dropped open. "No way!" Brilliant, he thought.

"Oh yes, amongst other things," Carmen told him as she passed him a list.

"What's this?" Felix asked, scanning the names.

"New uniforms," she said, tugging on his faded grey apparel.

"Me too?" he asked quietly, as though Aro might hear from Eleazar's quarters.

"Well, your name isn't on the guard uniform list, so I'm not sure what your father is planning," Sulpicia said casually.

"You know, you always know!" Felix replied. "Mom ... " he whined, "you can't let me go about looking like this!"

Sulpicia nodded. "You are right about that, son. But as you aren't allowed outside this tower, I don't suppose it really matters what you are wearing."

Felix sat, sulking.

"He can't wear that when the covens convene at Easter, Sully," Carmen pointed out.

Felix felt a flash of hope but it was quickly dashed when he thought of his father. Aro will take great delight in humiliating me in front of an even bigger crowd, the cunt. I bet he keeps me in these bloody rags when they come. "Please talk to him, Sully, please," he begged.

"You could always try behaving yourself, Felix. You have three months before the covens come."

"But mom, I haven't even been that bad! Aro picks on me."

Carmen burst out laughing. "You are a bloody nightmare!"

Sulpicia had to agree, but seeing her boy so downcast broke her resolve. "You are on the list Felix, just not the list for guard uniform. Okay?"

Felix's eyes lit up. "So, there's another list?" he asked, hopefully.

"There are loads of lists!" Carmen complained.

She had offered to help Sulpicia with Aro's new plans, but administration wasn't something she relished and she knew this was going to become their 'royal duty' as Aro put it. Actually, she reminded herself, it wasn't Aro's idea at all, it was Atia's interfering and insisting the ladies of the tower were fully involved. Why can't she keep her nose out!? Atia was a worldly-wise woman and she viewed it as imperative that the young women under her had control of their own lives ... even if those women had yet to appreciate, or even understand, her efforts. At least it keeps Athenodora's mitts off the family fund, Carmen thought, though she expected Atia to change that soon enough. Why is she so taken with that evil bitch?

Seeing her boy on the edge of his seat, Sulpicia decided to put him out of his misery. Aro never said it was a secret, she reasoned.

"Your father will be instructing the tailors as to who will require what, but I believe the guards are all to have new black uniforms with the Volturi crest. The north tower will wear the same with silver detailing, the south tower will have gold."

"I cannot understand for the life of me why he wants us all to be colour coded!" Carmen interjected, thinking of the fabulous gowns she had accrued since she arrived at Volterra and wondering if they would all now be wasted.

"I believe we will only be expected to wear 'coven colours' when in the throne room, my dear," Sulpicia offered, which pleased Carmen greatly.

Felix hadn't said anything to his mother's news. Gold? Wow. Oh fuck. I am going to look a complete reject if he keeps me in these fucking things, he thought as he pulled a thread from the hem of his fraying tunic.

Carmen saw her nephew brooding. "Surely this is good news, Felix?"

"Yeah, it would be if I thought for one second that Aro wasn't going to use this as another way to put me in my place - bottom of the heap!"

Carmen rolled her eyes. She wondered how Sully put up with the boys sometimes.

Felix glanced to Carmen's paperwork. The payroll! he thought excitedly. I could buy my own if he won't but them for me. I'll buy better clothes, I'll show him.

"So ... am I on the payroll?" he asked casually. He was overjoyed that Aro had turned his complaints into reality and was already planning ways to spend his new-found fortune. Clothes, women, jewels, women, wine, women, ale, women!

His mother raised her eyebrows to him. "You will be, one day."

Felix narrowed his eyes. "One day?" he repeated, as though the words made no sense.

"You have to 'earn' a wage, Felix," Carmen told him, pointedly.

Felix snatched the list from Carmen's hands. "Is Demetri on here?" he asked as he scanned through the document.

"Put it down," Sulpicia ordered, as Carmen took it from him.

Felix saw his brother's name and before Carmen could roll up the scroll, he spotted Jane and Alec too. "The twins are on that!" he exclaimed. Is there no justice in this fucking place?

"The twins guard your mother," Carmen said as she moved the rest of the documents from her nephew's grasp.

"Demetri doesn't guard anyone!" Felix spat in return, his temper flaring.

Sulpicia smiled tightly to her son, hoping Aro wouldn't be long. I don't want to deal with this today, she thought, we have too much to do. "He is still on Magnus' rota for guard duties - you have been restricted to this tower for the best part of three years."

Carmen laughed. "Not that you have stayed in the tower!"

Felix leaned back in his chair. "So, I don't get anything?!" he asked, not quite believing his father's cruelty.

"You still have free board and lodgings," Sulpicia commented, sharing a smile with Carmen and pissing Felix off even more.

"… and clothing," Carmen added, outright taking the piss of her nephew's unfortunate predicament.

Felix puffed out his cheeks, sure he could feel them burning with shame. "He's doing this on purpose," he mumbled to himself.

"He who?" Carmen asked, already bored with the boy's self-pity after all the trouble he was causing.

"Fucking Aro!" Felix spat, though he quickly looked over his shoulder in case the bastard was looming.

Sulpicia sighed. "Felix ... "

He scrapped his chair back noisily across the floor. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Back to my fucking cell!"