[ family names have power. they stretch on through the generations, retaining noble staples like honor, pride, loyalty, even hospitality. Benjamin doesn't remember any more what the Roads used to mean, he only knows what they are now. nothing more than dulled lettering on the rusting mailbox in front of their yard, marred by years of neglect, forgotten and tarnished by a drunk that practically lives in the den; inhabits the living room like a cave of despair and self-hatred, choosing not to move past those things, not to accept them, but to inflict them on his children.
welcome to the Roads legacy.
he watches his older brothers grow up and grow apart, watches his sister try and pretend she has enough might to take on the world alone. and he changes, changes from a laughing child to a young man that learns to turn his aspirations and true emotions inwards. he hides behind fairy tales — stories where knights rescue princesses, where wizards triumph over the impossible, where happy endings are always available to those that fight for it hard enough — and manga, dives into impossible adventures to escape his reality. when he isn't buried in a textbook, pouring everything he has into his homework and extra credit, steering clear of sports for community service. not for the sake of doing it but rather how it might look on a college application. his salvation. his ticket out the door.
but it seems so far away from where he is, trapped in high school, boxed in a life he does his best to tune out because wherever he turns, there's a crushing realization of how invisible he is. to his sister — whose secrets he can read into as easily as it would be to crack the lock on her bedroom door and search for her journal — and all of her own problems with adapting to this life, to his father and his slurred words; to his brothers, hardened by the actuality of war, in spite of the combat training growing up in their house had been. to his classmates, his teachers, and the one girl in all the world that gives Ben hesitation in wanting to leave at all.
going there, touching that, admitting what he feels for her is true only confirms how lost he is. how nothing he touches belongs to him, and nothing goes the way he wants it to, and he's never ( not once ) going to fit anywhere so long as he calls Storybrooke home. home, the one place he can't seem to get out of, as interchangeable as the word prison.
in a rare turn of events, his bedroom door is wide open when Kathryn climbs the stairs, headed for the room next to his. he looks up from his book and from behind his glasses ( lost in the woods ) and doesn't war with himself too long when it comes to keeping her from reaching Clare's door. a battle so easily lost when she feels like a lantern beyond the trees, shining through the darkness. ] If you're looking for Clare, you just missed her.
( KATHRYN BRUNT )
welcome to the Roads legacy.
he watches his older brothers grow up and grow apart, watches his sister try and pretend she has enough might to take on the world alone. and he changes, changes from a laughing child to a young man that learns to turn his aspirations and true emotions inwards. he hides behind fairy tales — stories where knights rescue princesses, where wizards triumph over the impossible, where happy endings are always available to those that fight for it hard enough — and manga, dives into impossible adventures to escape his reality. when he isn't buried in a textbook, pouring everything he has into his homework and extra credit, steering clear of sports for community service. not for the sake of doing it but rather how it might look on a college application. his salvation. his ticket out the door.
but it seems so far away from where he is, trapped in high school, boxed in a life he does his best to tune out because wherever he turns, there's a crushing realization of how invisible he is. to his sister — whose secrets he can read into as easily as it would be to crack the lock on her bedroom door and search for her journal — and all of her own problems with adapting to this life, to his father and his slurred words; to his brothers, hardened by the actuality of war, in spite of the combat training growing up in their house had been. to his classmates, his teachers, and the one girl in all the world that gives Ben hesitation in wanting to leave at all.
going there, touching that, admitting what he feels for her is true only confirms how lost he is. how nothing he touches belongs to him, and nothing goes the way he wants it to, and he's never ( not once ) going to fit anywhere so long as he calls Storybrooke home. home, the one place he can't seem to get out of, as interchangeable as the word prison.
in a rare turn of events, his bedroom door is wide open when Kathryn climbs the stairs, headed for the room next to his. he looks up from his book and from behind his glasses ( lost in the woods ) and doesn't war with himself too long when it comes to keeping her from reaching Clare's door. a battle so easily lost when she feels like a lantern beyond the trees, shining through the darkness. ] If you're looking for Clare, you just missed her.