Yes, I'm back again with another slow update and chapter 1! I'm still working on introducing the characters but I hope you still enjoy!

Spam as much as you'd like!

Enjoy...

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"Oi, Roj!" Roger Parkins was jerked from his thoughts, well, his hunger actually, by Max's voice. "Roj! Snap out of it!" His friend's face creased in worry. "You alright?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah I'm fine." He paused when his friend didn't stop staring. "C'mon, we need to..." he trailed off as his stomach growled loudly and he heard the man at the table next to him snigger as he felt colour rush to his cheeks.

A few tables away from where Roger stood, Max cocked an eyebrow. "Hungry?"

As a matter of fact, Roger was hungry, starving even. He couldn't blame Max for teasing him when his best friend didn't know how things were for him at home. After his mother passed away and his father's working hours stretched longer and longer into the night, it was Roj who was left to care for the entirety his large family. The oldest of his siblings was thirteen year-old Catherine, his younger sister by two years. Although she was still completely dependent on him for everything, at least she still received a free school meal on weekdays. Roger's expulsion meant he had no such blessing and his wages as a waiter, even coupled with the small sum his father brought home, was hardly enough to feed six children.

His stomach rumbled again and he forced himself to smile at Max. "Yeah." He accompanied it with a snort of laughter to convince his friend that nothing was wrong. "Forgot to eat before I can here is all."

With a smirk his friend let the subject drop and Roger was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the same man who had laughed earlier became his next customer. As he took the order, he could see amusement dancing in the stranger's eyes and tried to keep his own anger and frustration hidden from his. This man had no right to laugh at him, no right. He didn't know the first thing about Roger but already the boy was a source of entertainment. Clenching his teeth, he plastered a smile over his emotions until the man had finished his order before turning on his heel to fetch it.

He was still seething when he returned with a tall glass of beer. Maybe it was his anger, maybe he just couldn't stand the humiliation anymore, but he slammed the glass down so hard that it shattered. It shattered and shards of glass exploded in all directions: at Roger, across the table, but also at the customer, who jumped up, shirt dripping with the amber contents of the cup. But then he did something Roj would never have expected and struck him. Pain shot across his cheek from where his hand had flown up to it in shock. He glared daggers at the man before him as hate overwhelmed his common sense.

And Roger Parkins struck him back.

He got home late that night. It was dark and the street lamps flickered over graffiti-covered walls and barred front doors. A light breeze blew empty cans along the untended pavements with eery clangs and drunken singing echoed lonelily through the clear, cold air.

From the pocket of his jeans (he'd been forced to return his waiter's outfit when they fired him) he drew a small key and unlocked the door of his tiny house. He grimaced slightly and ran a hand tenderly one the side of his face where that man had hit him earlier, before forcing himself to put on a smile that didn't reach his eyes and stepping inside.

He knew better than to call that he was back at such a late hour, as most of his siblings were bound to be in bed. Instead he made his way stealthily up the stairs to the room they all shared. His father's room was empty: he must still be at work, Roger decided, sneaking up to the door of the other bedroom and pressing his ear as close to the door as possible without the broken latch giving way. Silence. Gently, he eased the rickety wood open, cringing as the hinges squealed in protest as he entered and shut the door gently behind him.

The room he and his five siblings shared was the largest room in the house, but still incredibly small. Three bunk beds filled most of the space, save a small corner on the far side from the door. It was there that, when Roger came home early enough, he told his siblings stories in an attempt to distract them from the hunger he knew they all suffered from constantly. If it weren't for him, they would probably be dead by now. To be honest, it sometimes surprised Roger that he woke up every morning, let alone that the whole family managed it. Except of course his mother, but he tried not to think about that.

He was about to clamber into his bed on the top bunk, above Catherine, when he heard something. It was only a very quiet sound, and he was sure he had imagined it until... there it was again. It was somebody calling his name, and he recognised the voice as one of his twin brothers.

"Roj?"

With a half-hearted sigh he backtracked down the ladder that led to his bed and back onto the bare wooden floor. Slowly, as to not wake Catherine, Mary or especially three year-old Olivia, he crept to the bunk bed the twins shared. "Bash? Is that you?" He couldn't be sure, the voice had been so quiet in the first place, but Sebastian was usually the more talkative of the two and so Roger took a guess that it was the older of the twins whose voice he'd heard.

"Shhh, Roj, or Mary'll wake up and she was really grumpy last time."

Roger couldn't help but smile at that. "She's just tired, be nice. What is it?"

"I'm squashed."

Of all the scenarios Roger had imagined, this was not one of them. "What?" He should have come up with a more reassuring response for whatever was wrong, but he was a little taken aback and still trying to figure out exactly what Bash was trying to tell him.

"I'm squashed."

Oh, very helpful. "What do you mean?"

"I'm squashed. Francis is squashing me."

It was only then that Roger's eyes, newly adjusted to the darkness, caught sight of the younger of the twins' blonde curls on the far side of the bed. "Wh-What?" He hissed. "What is he doing in there?"

"Jake came back again today. Francis had a nightmare so I said he could come in here." The boy bit his lip guiltily. "Sorry."

Well, it explained a lot. Jake was one of those sixteen year-old boys who will do anything to impress his friends and apparently tormenting Roger and his family was very impressive. He was responsible for more than half of the graffiti covering the surrounding streets, and he and his 'gang' as he called them often terrorised the locals. Their favourite targets: the Parkins family.

"Oh, Bash. What happened?"

"It's ok. We threw rocks at him and he went away." He paused for a moment. "Francis was scared. I wasn't." Roj's insides twisted with sympathy: he knew that it was dangerous to humiliate Jake, but he could hardly tell that to the innocent face beaming proudly at him from under a mop of dark hair.

"How many of them were there?"

"Loads." If it was possible, the boy's chest puffed out even further with pride.

"Great." That was forced through clenched teeth. It was one thing to humiliate Jake on his own, but in front of his friends... this wasn't the kind of person you messed with when you had a starving family to protect. For God's sake, he had a criminal record for violence and he was proud of it. The last thing Roger wanted was to add Bash's name to the list of victims.

We'll just have to be ready for him when he comes.

Roger was broken from his thoughts by a rustle from the opposite side of the bed and another quiet, sleepy voice.

"Huh? What is it?" Suddenly Francis tensed and flinched away as he caught sight of Roj's silhouette looming over the bed.

"It's okay." Bash put his arm around his brother's shoulders. "It's just Roj."

"Oh." Francis' shoulders slumped in relief. Even in the cramped space of the bottom bunk, surrounded by cold metal, they looked so innocent and at peace that Roger found he didn't have the heart to carry out his original intentions and move Francis back to the bed above.

"Roj?"

"Mm?"

"I'm scared." The fair-haired boy shuffled towards his older brother and buried his face in Roger's jumper.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, my little star. You've got me to protect you, remember?"

Francis' response was a muffled sob which Roger could only hope was an agreement. "We're all scared sometimes. It's okay to cry."

"I'm not scared." Bash muttered, but even so, he snuggled into the embrace, wriggling until he was firmly in the centre with his head squashed between his siblings' chests.

"Shh," Francis put in, leaning back slightly to make enough space for Bash to breathe. "You'll wake everyone up."

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The sun was hot on her back, or at least, as hot as it ever got in England. Charlotte Grey carefully adjusted the thin cotton strap of the bag she carried casually over one shoulder as she hurried along the crowded streets of the city. Slipping past strangers with muttered apologies, she struggled to escape the masses of people thronging around the city centre on lunch breaks from work. Charlotte was headed in the opposite direction after travelling into town earlier for supplies: mostly food, but other necessary household items as well such as clothes and soap. Her family was decidedly poor, she recognised that, but Roger's was ten times poorer.

Just the thought of the food stuffed into her small satchel was enough to make her mouth water and her empty stomach growl, but she did her best to ignore it as she ducked into a shady alleyway in an attempt to escape both the blistering heat and the masses of people and cars packing the main roads behind her. From there, she swiftly made her way through winding back lanes, away from Leeds' centre and into its slums.

Here there were less people around, and those who were kept more to themselves. When Charlotte first came here a year ago, she had at first been afraid of the new, unfriendly air of both the surroundings and its inhabitants. Now, however, she merely lowered her head a little more and quickened her pace, the only sign of her temporary discomfort the tightening of her hand where it clutched the bag strap. Glancing around, she took one more sharp left turn and jogged the last few paces up the steps of an old brick house at the end of the street. Like all the houses around here, the door was barred and the walls streaked with graffiti which nobody cared to remove, and it was small, so small in fact Charlotte doubted the government ever even intended it to be lived in. Much more likely it had just been built to contribute to the statistics they boasted of to gain publicity and power. Shaking these thoughts away, she reached through the bars and knocked lightly on the old door.

Almost immediately, it swung open to reveal Roger's younger sister, Catherine. Charlotte darted inside and shut the door, waiting until Catherine had locked it before addressing the younger girl. "Shouldn't you be at school Cat?"

Catherine gave a quick smile in reply. She was thirteen, with long auburn hair and lips that were always ready to grin and laugh: something Charlotte admired greatly considering how the girl lived. Today however, that signature smile failed to reach her eyes. "Called in ill."

"You don't look ill."

Cat laughed shortly at that. "I'm not." Her smile faded. "Roj asked me to help with Olivia."

Olivia was Roger's youngest sister at barely three years old and had been suffering from serious pneumonia since the sudden cold snap in late April. Temperatures had dropped below freezing and many poor families, Roger's included, had barely survived. When Charlotte had asked him how they'd managed, he'd just told her that he told his siblings stories at night to distract them and somehow, miraculously, they'd pulled through. She had seen the haunted look in his eyes when he spoke of it and hadn't asked again.

At first, Olivia had just shown symptoms of a bad cold, but as time went on, she had become weaker and the pain in her chest had worsened. Eventually Roger had stopped her getting out of bed to conserve what little energy she had left, but even so, they all knew her condition was worsening, and without access to a doctor or a way to pay for medication, the rest of them were left to watch helplessly and try to make her as comfortable as possible.

"Is Roger with her now?"

Cat nodded. "He's upstairs, follow me."

He looked up when she arrived. "Oh. Arla, what are you doing here?" His eyes drifted to the overstuffed bag hanging at her side and he looked at her resignedly. "Oh Arla, you know you didn't have to..."

"It's the least I could do, especially when I heard what happened at the Jones'..."

"Yeah well," a faint smile played across his face, "as you come to mention it, how is Mr Jones coping without me-"

He was cut off as she cuffed him playfully on the head. "You know he always hated you." She pushed past him towards Olivia's small bed, "How is she?"

He came and joined her with a frown. "She's getting worse - I don't know what else we can do for her."

Indeed, Charlotte had to admit, Olivia looked worse even than last time she came. She was small, even for her age, and her big blue eyes stood out in a face thin from a lifetime of starvation and hardship, framed by a curtain of blonde hair. She could have been beautiful if circumstances were different, but now she lay, unmoving, skin as pale as the sheets underneath her and breath rasping with every weak breath. With every heave of her small chest up and down, a wince passed over her pitiful features and a small whimper escaped her. It nearly broke Charlotte's heart to see Roger's sister like this, and she couldn't imagine how hard it was for Roger. She knew his mother had died a few years back from a similar illness and for him to lose a sister...

She took his arm with a sympathetic smile and led him from the room and back downstairs where her bag was resting on the table. Wordlessly, she began taking items out of it and laying them on the table for him to see, watching out of the corner of her eye as he nodded appreciatively. She could see the weight lifting from his shoulders as he took in the fruit, milk, multiple tins of beans, and the few small bars of chocolate she had bought with the money from her salary and tips last night, as well as a little more she had taken from her brother's now empty room. As well as food, she had bought a few new clothes for his extensive family, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste.

"Arla, where did you get all this? I mean, how did you afford it?"

"Well, I didn't lose my job at the restaurant for a start, and my brother left his moneybox in his room when he went to Uni, so..."

"Y'know what, I don't want to know. Just thank you."

"You're welcome." She smiled, but that soon faded as she realised that something was missing. "Wait, there was bread in here, I know there was!" She scanned the crowded table, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly a collective burst of giggles errupted from the room upstairs, accompanied by a flash of Mary's distinctive black hair, her small hands grasping Charlotte's missing bread as she ran to join her siblings. Her worry evaporated instantly and even Roger cracked a smile.

"I was wondering where the rest of them got to."

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Characters in this chapter:

Roger Parkins by ghostofwolves

Charlotte Grey by dobblewolf

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So, there's chapter 1! I know the introductions are really slow but please bear with me until the story gets going!

Votes and comments are very much appreciated!

Hopefully the next update will be soon but as always I can't promise anything!

Thank you for reading!