burning cities to taste ash.

Pretty

When his hand reaches under the covers, Roman knows that his mond should not drift that way: should not drift to the sensation pressing a razor to his legs and watching the hair come off almost effortlessly brings him.

His mind should not drift to Peter's working hands, to his stubble scrapping newly shaven -proper- thighs or to his long hair that would look almost horror-like wrapped in the long, bony spindles of Roman's own pale hands.

He had tried to grow them out once but Olivia had recognised the size, had noticed the length growing before demanding them cut.

Cut, clipped to the skin until they could have bleed, he had snorted at the thought: now they match his thighs, cut. He stares at them, his hand working him into a painful orgasm that will leave him shaking, sobbing and broken -don't you know that pain is beauty?- and desperate, so goddamn desperate as his body screams out in a war cry, as his body desperately cries out for Peter, for the boy in his science class who asked him for a pencil, for the man at the bar who promised him pretty sweet nothings before his mother had taken him out -she doesn't only save you from men with anger and a glass pressing against too high and noticeable cheekbones- and hell, even from said man in the bar who had promised him violence, and domination, and nothing but cruelty.

Beauty is pain, pain is beauty.

Her hand against his cheek, smacking and so cruel to something of her own creation, but the sharp stinging hit will leave him wondering if the hit was enough to stain like blush on his cheeks.

Pain is beauty.

He cuts his own face open, cheekbone lingering because he recalls in history books that men who would be shamed would be cut there and smearing his own blood across his lips, he is all shame, fear and broken.

But he loves it, oh god he loves it, because he finally recognises his reflection, because he finally recognises any remote resemblance of attraction to the image he sees.

He is no longer Roman Godfrey with the blood smeared acrossed his lips in a twisted version of lipstick: he is not Olivia Godfrey's spoiled brat of a son nor is he the Godfrey heir, but smeared lips in front of his bathroom mirror, he is Roman.

He is the Roman who hangs out with Letha, the Roman who protects Shelley like a mother hen. He is the Roman who is used to hearing Peter's voice murmuring it like a prayer. He is the Roman that Roman Godfrey is to be ashamed of, he is the Roman that Roman Godfrey has to hide, the vulnerable part.

He is Roman, a boy, a teenager, a son -no longer a faceless mold, no longer a heir, no longer hers to mold and shape. He is the Roman that Peter would have been able to fall in love with, the Roman with teasing eyes who makes horror movie references and sarcastic jokes.

He is the Roman that Peter would have wanted to kiss, the one that Peter would have loved and worshipped instead of Letha.

He is the Roman who would know what Peter sounds like panting in lust and so close to that peak, and ranting out Roman's name like a prayer, like a mantra. Like Peter owns it.

He is the Roman that Peter would whisper 'mine' to as he loses himself in his thrusts, he is the Roman that Peter would cum inside of like a mark as his teeth, boring a bit of werewolf canine burrowing into his shoulder or his collarbone.

Roman does not know why Peter always has teeth, even in just his mind and fantasies.

Maybe it's because he wants to be torn apart by teeth, because he wants to be a victim, because the thought of Peter being the one to tear him apart inside and out, fits.

Because Roman feels more victim than survivor.

Because Roman Godfrey always lingers in the Roman that Peter would have fallen in love with.

Because Roman Godfrey was named after the Roman empire, and when his mother named him Roman Godfrey, She thought it meant power.

To him and very few others, it means crumbling and breaking as he does in his fist after the room is dark, when he can creep a hand under his covers and he'll be broken still seconds later as he licks blood from his split lip -not enough blood to satisfy- that he had bit hard enough to bleed because otherwise he would have screamed.

Is pain beauty?

Roman Godfrey will crumble in his own bed, sobbing and shaking from the orgasm that fills his mind when he thinks of Peter's stubbled chin scuffing his jaw as he kisses his neck, and lip split to stop himself from crying out for Peter, for anyone, for a God.

He will break when Letha's skull cracks off the ground she had thrown herself off a building to, when Shelley is more missing than signs of concern from his mother and when Peter is gone too.

He will walk around, chest empty and eyes blank as his heart has been torn from his chest -is being kept with Peter wherever Peter ran off to- and he simply becomes a ghost of who he used to be, set out to haunt Hemlock Grove for the rest of his undead life.

He will fall when Peter takes him up on the promise of keeping his heart. They had both fucked up, and they both know it, but Roman had fucked up first so he was to blame, for a majority.

Roman Godfrey will fall outside of the Godfrey estate, heart and throat torn out by the man -vargulf now, he guesses- who has always owned the former.

Roman Godfrey was exactly what he was born to be in namesake alone; he was born to crumble, to break and then fall just as the Roman empire did.

Well, at least it was pretty while it lasted.