i'm not a pack animal : sweetpea

extended summary

Sam still sees him. She sees him when she's alone. He's always there when she closes her eyes. And she hates it. She can feel the hollowness in the air. She can feel her mother shaking. But she is stuck. Stuck, hollow, empty. And it's always like that.

At the age of four, Rowan and Sam's mother left. She had left them alone with their father. The twins never blamed her for leaving him, no one was healthy around him. They hated her because she never though to take her children, instead she left them alone with him.

Nixon Rogers was not a good man. In fact, Nixon Rogers was a terrible man. Rowan and Sam needed be away from him, to stay sane. The presence of him haunted them. Every time Sam closes her eyes, she can feel his. She still sees his cold grey eyes staring into hers. She still feels his gaze on her presence. She could still smell the sour odour of alcohol that constantly lingered on his presence. Rowan and Sam needed to get out of that house. They could still feel his sharp words stinging them. They could still feel the pain and struggle to hold on. They could still feel the loneliness even when they weren't alone.

When he was still there, it was a living hell. Multiple scars and bruises that are still present on the Rogers could be blamed on Nixon, and his twisted, poisoned mind. Maybe it's for the best that he did it, at least Sam says so. Rowan said he just needed help, help that he didn't receive. That was the last time they ever mentioned the incident. The time that the twins woke up to his lifeless body. He had overdosed, it was left a mystery to whether it had been done on purpose or accident.

Sam Rogers wasn't innocent. How could she be? Having to stay sane in that house. She was out almost every night. Is was that or either staying with him. She chose the cold streets of New York.

That's why Sam took moving to the Southside as a fresh start, a way for her to kind of redeem herself from her past, to make up to her brother for all of the nights she left him alone in the house with him.

it was an escape that the Rogers needed to make along time ago. Like something that needed to be done, but they didn't know it then. Well, Sam knew. She knew it wasn't healthy being stuck in a house day after day with him. And so, when they finally stepped into their trailer, it felt like a heavy weight had been lifted off of their shoulders.

Their trailer was ransacked. It smelt like smoke, there was a lone couch with ripped cushions in the middle of the room, one of the windows was smashed and glass was scattered all over the floor, something was plastered over the walls and the wallpaper was peeling. But for some reason, they didn't mind.

Rowan and Sam have a rocky relationship. On the nights Sam had escaped the house to the streets of New York, Rowan hated her. On the nights she came back drunk and deluded, he hated her for letting Nixon win, letting him be in control. But on the occasional night when she'd stay in, she'd defend Rowan, she'd gain a few more cuts and bruises for him. But she'd never fight back, she'd only ever stare at him and his blank grey eyes and stand her ground, not letting him see the constant linger of fear that always hung around her. And on those nights, Rowan would love her.