Roman let the cigarette dangle between his plump lips that began to be stained from the rich nicotine flavor. He sat on the hood of his car letting his legs dangle below him and every moment or so he would, out of habit, lick his lips and look at his surroundings cautiously.
"Hey! Godfrey!" A voice called. Roman looked to his left and spotted Peter walking towards him in the distance. He smirked, cockily. "Peter." He acknowledged. "You look like shit." He noted, eyeing his unkempt countenance. His hair looked messy and Peter could smell him from a mile away. "Yeah. You do too." Peter said in response. It was true. Roman was a man who cared heavily about his appearance and it struck Peter as odd when Roman let himself go so easily. Peter did understand though. He loved Letha. They both did.
"How are you holding up?" Peter asked. "Me? Haven't seen you in a week." Roman responded. Roman inhaled his cigarette and pulled out his pack offering Peter one. Peter took it gratefully and smiled. "Yeah. Sorry about that."
Roman could vividly remember everything from the night Letha died as if it had just happened only moments ago. He hadn't stopped thinking about it since it happened. He hadn't even left his house or his bed until now. "She loved you." Roman stated. Peter inhaled the smoke and let his sprawl throughout his body, enjoying the feeling. "She loved you too." He said, exhaling.
Roman could feel his lips quiver slightly and his eyes well with tears, but he didn't want to show weakness in front of the other boy. Roman was better than that, he was a Godfrey. He tried not to let his hands tremble any more than they were.
He was bad at trying to hide his emotions on the rare occasion that he did need to show them. "You okay?" Peter asked. Roman eyed his mailbox in an attempt to calm down.
"Roman?" He put a hand on Roman's shoulder and almost flipped when Roman jumped at the contact. "What's wrong?" He pressed on. "Peter. I-" His voice quivered when he spoke, breaking off at the end. "Hey, hey. Calm down." Peter threw down his cigarette and squatted in front of Roman, trying to meet his eyes. "I did something bad, Peter." Roman began visibly crying, tear after tear. Sniffles came up and a sob would escape his throat at times.
"Roman, what's wrong? What did you do?" Peter put a reassuring squeeze on Roman's knee.
Roman threw down his cigarette and looked up at Peter. "My mother is so fucked up, so fucking insane. I couldn't do anything to stop it, I swear. She mind fucked me." Peter listened to his complaining about his mother, knowing just how fucked up Olivia was just as much as Roman did.
"I didn't remember until the night Letha died. She made me do it, she made me. I didn't even remember." He repeated. Peter's eyebrows corrugated in confusion and he tried to listen and comfort the crying boy. "Hey. Roman, calm down. What happened?"
"My mother- Olivia. She-" He cut off his sentence not knowing how to continue such an awkward statement. "She forced me to rape Letha." He said in a hushed whisper. Peter heard him loud and clear though. "What? What do you- what do you mean?" Peter tried to reason.
"It was all a part of her crazy fucked up plan to make me become her. She forced me to rape Letha and both of us forgot about it. She thought it was a fucking angel, for christ's sake. At the moment, I was actually starting to believe her." He said. Peter couldn't believe what he was hearing. He knew Olivia was fucked up, but this was just. Inhumane.
"The baby. She's-"
"Yours." Peter finished. He stood up from his squatting position and sat beside him on the car again.
"What are you gonna do?" Peter asked.
"Try and get her out of this fucked up house and raise her." Peter listened worriedly, because it sounded more of a suggestion rather than a solid plan.
"The baby isn't normal. She's-" He cut himself off, not wanting to face the truth. Peter knew what he meant though.
"Her parents are the greatest people I've ever known. You're Roman Godfrey. Nothing can get in your way. C'mon, where's that fighting spirit I'm used to?" He slapped Roman's back playfully in an attempt to cheer him up.
Roman laughed a little and looked up at Peter. "There's something else.." He said.
'what else?' Peter thought, dreadfully. "That night. My mother. She succeeded. I'm now a fucking monster." He said. Peter looked at him in confusion and let it sink in. "She... what'd she do to you?" He asked.
"She made me slit my own wrists and die in a pool of my own blood. When I woke up, I was something else. Worse than a guy who can mind fuck people. I can't help but crave blood every fucking minute of every day. She fucked me over. I'm now her slave, her toy." Roman twiddled an unlit cigarette in between his fingers and stared at the ground.
"Fuck.." Peter hissed under his breath. How could all this happen within the span of a week? Can't a guy take a break without coming back to WWIII? How the fuck could Olivia force her kid to rape her niece and then make him slit his own wrists and turn him into... her.
Roman let each tear pass by without a single expression flow. "You're not a monster, Roman. You can't help it your mom's a complete psychopath." He reassured. He knew Roman was always unstable, but now. He understood perfectly why. Olivia has fucked him over and always has been fucking him over, day after day. It was no wonder Roman was always such an emotionally unstable asshole.
"I don't know what the fuck to do." He said. "Letha would hate me."
"No, she wouldn't she would hate Olivia. It's not your fault, Roman." He tried.
"One day, my daughter is going to grow up and ask who her mother is, and I'm going to have to explain who I am and what I did. That scares me more than anything else in this world." His expression began to crumble, finally breaking and he broke down into a complete sobbing mess, covering his face with his hands.
Peter put an uncomfortable arm around Roman and patted him on the back. "It's alright, Roman. Just calm down. It's okay."
He couldn't believe everything just happening to Roman all at once. He was going to be more unstable than ever before. Peter knew he needed to be there for him through it all, as well. For once he needed to put all of his needs aside and help his one true friend. Roman had always been there for him, fighting battles that weren't even his, just to help Peter. He'd never recognized that until now.
"We should get the baby and-" "Nadia. Her name's Nadia." Roman interrupted.
"Nadia. We should take Nadia somewhere else. Away from here, away from Olivia. So she can't hurt her, like she's hurt you." Peter said.
"Yeah." Roman nodded his head in acceptance. "We need to get her out of here."
"We can uh. Take her to my place, or Destiny can help take care of her. Anywhere that isn't that fucking house." Peter said, nodding his head toward the house.
"She wants to keep it going. This." Roman gestured to himself. "Everything that she's created. She continued it through me, now she wants me to continue it through Nadia, and I can't let that happen." Roman's voice broke a little causing Peter to slightly flinch. He didn't like to see Roman so broken and hopeless. Olivia would fucking pay.
"It won't happen, alright? We won't let that happen." Peter said, now pulling Roman into a full on hug. Surprisingly, Roman didn't deny the hug, it was as though he needed it and so did Peter.
"I shouldn't even be alive right now. All I am going to do is kill! Just like her. I'm going to crave and I won't be able to control it and I'm going to hurt people I love and there's nothing I can fucking do about it!" Roman yelled into Peter's shoulder. Peter rubbed the back of Roman's head, soothingly. "I won't let you get that far gone." Peter promised.
Roman pulled away from Peter and grabbed his shoulders as he looked directly into his eyes.
"Then promise me this. If I do become...like Olivia. Please." He paused. "Kill me."
Peter's eyes widened and his breath became hitched. "What? Roman, I ca-"
"Please. I would rather die than become...that." Roman almost choked out.
"Peter! Promise me, dammit!" He yelled, shaking Peter's shoulders. He nodded. "I promise, Roman." Peter let his own tongue drench his mouth with new saliva, feeling his mouth go dry at the request.
"I will kill you if you ever become like Olivia."