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Bookcases surrounded the bedroom that belonged to Rowan. A desk stood across the room from his bed covered in a black sheet, made perfectly neat. At the desk, Rowan sat with a blank, endless expression, one of his hands resting on his thigh with the other dangling below him beside the chair.
The mirror in front of him reflected his vacant stare. He was still wearing his black jacket over his white shirt but lacking his hat. It hadn't even crossed his exhausted mind to shrug any of his clothes off yet.
In the deafening white noise of his head, Rowan attempted to trudge through the tangled mess. The first thing he could discern in his sea of unorganized thoughts was Seren. An idea to pay her cage a visit. Then Rowan remembered his father was downstairs and Matthew could've passed as a camera by this point. If he was in eyesight, he was guaranteed to be detected. It was something Rowan would have rather avoided.
Accepting his thoughts were all he had for now, Rowan slumped down further in his chair and sighed deeply, his eyelids flicking shut. What he saw in front of him in his mind was the blurry memory of one of their performances.
He recalled now -- Seren was wearing a red dress with brown undertones that night, shiny tight bronze jewelry dangled along her body as if she were a Christmas tree full of ornaments. He remembered her leaps during that performance, the absolute spectacle she put on... hell, none of those audience members appreciated her performance even half as much as Rowan did, truthfully. He could have never admitted that sometimes he got closer to her on stage just to try to muster a clearer sight.
Her bright jade eyes stared back at him in his memory. His eyes were still shut in present time, and his heart rate was beginning to slow. The way she danced with him that night, her twirling and footwork more agile than he could ever have dreamed of replicating. He was full of admiration.
That long straight brown hair that reached the small of her back and swayed mesmerizingly -- especially when it was done to look nice by the handlers for the circus. Those bright green slitted eyes, sharp inside the eyeball but the shape of her eyes was soft and round in contrast. Not to mention her round lips. Her sharp and soft features mixed well. She definitely possessed more soft features than her mother did. Rowan was starting to drift off somewhere.
His brain hand-fed him a memory of her eyes darting his way at the end of her part while he was far off stage at the time. Instead of looking at the crowd, or her fellow freaks, she--
"Rowaaaan," he heard his father shouting downstairs, shattering his thoughts. He rose out of his seat as if he were in a military camp of some sort. Unallowed to sleep, stand up immediately. Treated like a machine.
As he began to make his way out of his bedroom and down the stairs he heard his father's voice again, only louder and the growl more clear. As well as this time he sounded even more annoyed.
"Roowaaaaaan!"
His son's tired eyes greeted him a few moments later. Before he could even think of what to say, his father blurted out a string of slurred words again.
"Didya get th' last take?" Somehow even intoxicated out of his mind he managed to sound angry. Rowan just slowly blinked and replied shortly.
"Yes."
"Well didya clear the stage off for the next set?" Nobody else but Matthew's son could decipher the drunken nonsense he was barking. Unfortunately Rowan could have used blissful ignorance for even a moment by now.
"Yes."
"Don't get fucking smart with me, boy!" he spat, pointing his finger wobbily before his arm fell back down soon after. "Go on an' make sure the.. the trucks have fuel..."
His aggression seemed to simmer only because he spotted his glass on the table next to his chair and Rowan suppressed a heavy sigh. "They are filled."
"I said go!" Matthew immediately seized the opportunity to just shout over Rowan. After all he knew he'd listen to his orders. As Rowan turned to leave out the front door, Matthew kept rambling in his direction.
"I tol' you to make sure, when ar' you gonna listen?" When Rowan didn't so much as turn, Matthew was unhappy with the lack of a reaction he wished for. "You're so fuckin' small, you.. you look damn pathetic, boy..." he grumbled, finally shifting his judgmental gaze from his son back to his whiskey.
Finally, when he was out of the house, Rowan released a deep sigh and adjusted his collar as he walked out on the property towards the group of trucks. The first one in the line he unlocked and jumped up in the driver's seat to check its amount of fuel. Regardless of the fact he knew it was full already.
He continued to check each truck, hopping in and out of the driver's seat to check the fuel gauges that he knew were all full. On the fourth truck he inserted the key and stared at the gauge blankly for a moment before his hand rose up and struck his face.
As a reaction, his head jerked downward and to the side, and he shut his eyes tight, head hung with a hurricane high above it. Forget the storm cloud. A hurricane followed him around everywhere. Or rather the hurricane was at home, or at the circus sometimes, and if he was away from it for a bit he could consider himself out of the eye. Yet he always felt the effects no matter where he was.
Mustering the strength to get it together, Rowan pulled himself out of the truck and trudged to check the last two. Once he had confirmed what he already knew, he shut the last truck's driver side door and began to make his way back to the house. His head was still hung low, his hands in his pockets as he approached the main source of his stress again. He was like a Geiger counter. A radar to detect the radiation close by.
When the door creaked open, Rowan forced himself to lift his head. Anything less would've resulted in even more complaining and anger.
Matthew looked back at him with glassy eyes, clear to even Rowan from across the living room and with his limited vision. He didn't blurt out something immediately, and Rowan knew that meant he was waiting for him to speak up.
"They are all full, I checked." He kept completely calm, his expression unchanged from any other situation. He was scarily skilled at masking by this point. Twenty one years around Matthew gave him lots of practice.
"All of 'em?" Rowan could tell Matthew wasn't convinced.
"Yes, sir." His dark brown eyes looked so dead.
"You're lyin'," Matthew instantly interjected, "you weren't out there but two minutes." He ended it with a scoff, completely unwilling to believe his son's words were anything more than a lazy lie.
Rowan hesitated to respond. He knew to just go check again. Avoid the extra stress and just do what he wants. He was angry underneath the layers of walls he had built up around him but he could stifle it for just a bit longer. It would be a few more minutes without him--
"You know what, boy?" Matthew's voice had grown octaves louder in a matter of moments, though still riddled with slurring. "I'm fuckin' tired of you lying!" His growl curled as he finished his sentence, aggression and volume rising more and more each word. After the words stopped pouring from his mouth, he threw the empty glass sitting right beside him with full force, straight at his own son's head.
Rowan flinched and bent in half, his hand instinctively reaching for his head. He felt the warm blood flow almost immediately. His thoughts told him he should've expected that to happen.
"That's what happens," Matthew slurred. Rowan even beyond the ringing in his ears heard his father stumbling to approach him.
Rowan felt his father's heavy hand on the back of his neck, grabbing a hold of his shirt and yanking it towards him like he was scruffing a misbehaving animal. In Rowan's ear, he hissed, "that's what happens, boy, when you don't listen..."
The blood kept trickling down Rowan's head quick as ever. "An' you know what, I'm sick of you, you.. you're a disgrace. Aaany other heir would've been better than you.." He kept emphasizing his words, clearly his only intention to plunge the knife as deep as possible into Rowan.
The ringing overpowered his father's berating and insulting. It wasn't so bad aside from how uncomfortable it felt in the first place, but anything was satisfactory compared to the things he'd heard time and time again over years from the same voice and varying degrees of sobriety.
Seemingly because Matthew lacked yet another reaction he wished for, he traded his grip on Rowan's collar for an even stronger grip on his hair. Now the aggression boiled over and Matthew pulled Rowan's head back into the wall as hard as he possibly could. Not just once, but three times, in quick succession. He gave Rowan no time to react anymore and immediately followed it up with a heavy slap and nestled his hand around his neck.
"You fuckin' hear me, boy?"
Rowan was struggling to keep his eyes open at this point. He could barely even feel the blood on his skin, and it had reached his shirt by now, tainting its purity and cleanliness with dark red.
"Hey!" Matthew shouted. Rowan vaguely felt the grip on his throat tighten. His father leaned in towards his ear again and spat through gritted teeth, "you're worthless. Mor' than your own fuckin' mother was."
Rowan peeled his eyes apart as best he could and stared lifelessly forward, his vision so blurry he could barely discern shapes by this point. His head was throbbing profusely, and--
"I hate your fuckin' face," Matthew's aggression rose yet again, lowering for only a moment prior until it peaked again and he threw his hand against Rowan's face once more. "You.. you're a stupid bastard." It was evident he was fighting with the whiskey in his system. It didn't matter much considering his anger was leagues stronger than the effects of the alcohol.
Just when Rowan thought he had gotten all of it out, Matthew grabbed his shirt and pulled him forward before throwing a sloppy punch to the back of his head. Although it wasn't perfect, it still did the damage he intended it to, and two more came soon after it.
He couldn't withstand it anymore. His legs gave out from underneath him and all of his weight dropped to the floor, face first, his cheek planted on the ground. Blood streaks covered his head and face, all the way down to his neck and shirt. He was completely out.
"Fuckin' worthless waste of life..." Matthew mumbled, turning back to huff off back to his chair like a predatory animal full of energy who gave up on its prey. "Can' even take a beatin'..."
Rowan remained that way limp on the floor for a handful of minutes. When he awoke again, his father was already passed out in the same room, laid in his chair in a drunken unaware slumber.
Sitting up with an extreme lack of balance or any center at all, Rowan tried to lift his hands up to his head. It still throbbed with horrible pain, and with limited feeling he wiped some of the blood on his head and peered at his hands through narrowed eyes.
When he tried to lift himself to his feet, he stumbled, yet wasted no time trying again to find his balance. Once he managed to, he staggered out of the front door as quiet as possible. Somehow, Rowan found his way to the car on their property, at least the one he had keys for -- and he shoved himself into the driver's seat before starting the engine.
The headlights glared in front of him bright, disorienting his already blurry vision. There was no universe in which it was remotely safe for him to be operating a vehicle right now. Did that thought cross his mind even once? No.
The first destination he drove to was the building where the freaks were bathed and prepped for performances. The man with dark curls and fresh blood still on his face stumbled through the dark hallways and unlocked the door to one of the rooms.
In there he turned on the light and searched desperately. Once he had spotted what he was looking for -- a hairbrush -- he shuffled out of the room and turned off the light before closing the door. Then he found his way into another room, grabbing an unopened drink and a package containing a dessert of some kind before he left that room too.
Now he shuffled back to the car, placing the items in before himself. His ears started to ring again as soon as he turned the car back on, but with a quiet pained grunt, he pressed on and began to drive. The car didn't stop until he was on the property of one of the storage buildings.
Paired with a few more half-suppressed pained noises, Rowan grabbed the three items again and stepped out of the vehicle with them in hand.
When he opened one of the two doors to the storage unit, he was met with four freaks sleeping on the floor relatively peacefully. Rowan expected to see as such. Even Seren was fast asleep, her stomach rising and falling calmly.
He approached her cage, making certain that he was as quiet as possible unlocking the cage and creeping in through its door. After shutting it behind him, Seren stirred on the floor in front of him.
She wasn't fully awake until she felt Rowan's palm faintly touch her back, and then she turned her head and tried to gather her consciousness.
Within a few moments the sight in front of her became visible and clear enough to discern the lines of blood all over his face. Seren immediately sat up, her body stifling the drowsiness for the time being.
"What happened?" she whispered with concern, her special accent seemingly even more noticeable. It was like the more emotion she felt, the more her speaking style poked out.
"You don't have to worry." Rowan answered simply and his voice was just as deep and monotone as ever. He diverted her attention, or at least attempted to. "Look," his gaze lowered to what he was holding, "I brought you these." He was still being careful to be quiet.
Seren kept looking at him for a bit longer, then noticed the things in front of her and her gaze reflected shock.
She recognized at least one of the things on the ground in front of her: a hairbrush. The other two she wasn't too sure of. As if he read her mind, Rowan spoke up again in lieu of her stunned silence.
"This," he held one of the items she couldn't recognize closer to her than the rest, "is a dessert for you to eat." When she kept looking at it with raised eyebrows he continued. "It tastes sweet." She peered up for a moment to realize he was looking at her entirely.
"And this is a drink." He tapped the top of the can with his finger instead of moving it to avoid much sound. Seren blinked and kept gazing at him.
"Water?"
"No, not exactly," his eyes diverted down as he grabbed the can and held it out towards her, "Here-- take it."
She blinked, unresponsive for a moment before she glanced at him and accepted the drink from his hand. He wasn't entirely satisfied by how she set the drink by her side immediately but her follow up question gave a bit of reasoning to it.
"Please. What happened?" Seren tilted her head to the side, pointing with her finger to her own temple. Rowan looked at her for a moment and then looked down with a soft sigh. Her eyes softened further.
Now as his eyes met hers again, he found it hard to find his next words. He didn't know what to tell her. It wasn't like his father, where he could just easily choose to not reply. Even if he wouldn't admit it to himself, he cared about Seren. That much was obvious. Therefore he couldn't just ignore her concern.
"It was an accident." His answer sounded too stiff to be convincing -- to anyone but Seren. She didn't know better. "It's okay."
Concern was still present in her gaze, but she accepted the answer she had been given. "I'm sorry."
"It isn't your fault." His tone may have not revealed much of his emotion but it was coming through clear with his words and behavior. To divert her attention again, uncomfortable with the focus on himself, Rowan reached for the hairbrush. His voice got quieter.
"Is this alright?" Despite his tone not changing aside from its volume, she believed his expression was softening ever so slightly. "Do you want--"
She cut him off with her soft voice -- only cut off because he stopped speaking as soon as she started. "Yes," she meekly answered, sitting up with her arms perched on her legs, her head perfectly still and facing straight.
Rowan was somewhat surprised. Lifting his arms, he grabbed a delicate hold of a group of her strands, and he attempted to softly pull the brush through the tangles in her dark brown hair.
Seren raised her chin a bit and closed her eyes. Rowan wasn't sure if she was enjoying it or not -- until he discerned that the corners of her round lips were curling upwards. He did his best to ignore the wave of adoration he felt wash over him and continued brushing out different parts of her hair, from the root to the end near the ground.
Rowan was just basking in Seren's own satisfaction, his mind taken off the "accident" he had experienced earlier, the throbbing in his head, all of it. Until he felt his arms begin to grow weak and his vision falter.
Seren's eyes were still closed when he slipped out of consciousness, the hairbrush remaining in her hair as his hand lost all of its grip and limply slumped to the floor along with the rest of Rowan's body. When she felt him descend her eyes snapped open and she instantly leaned over him.
"Rowan?"
She didn't say his name often. The second time she repeated it, still quiet, echoed fear.
Her concern surpassed the worry of him lashing out if touched, and she gently placed her hand on his shoulder. "Rowan?" she repeated yet again. She was terrified. She had no idea what was happening.
The longer time drew on without him waking up, the minutes seemed to feel longer. Seren fixated on watching him obsessively, not taking her eyes off his unconscious body for a second to look anywhere else. In the midst of all the panic she was drowning in, she just sat and watched. Guarding him.