erron auger | seven | fin

Trails of smoke drifted into the night. A boy's feet dangled from the roof of the Auger Estate and his eyes looked at nothing in particular, usually dark irises looking even darker with only moonlight the illuminate them. With one last drag of his cigarette, he flicked it away and watched as it tumbled to the ground in a heap.

He was Erron Auger, the oldest son of Rupert Auger. That small statement had gotten him out of trouble countless times, and he honestly hated it more than loved it.

("We'll have to take you in for questioning, boy." "Fine. Just let me tell my Dad first." "Who is your dad?" "Rupert Auger." "Oh, I didn't realize--")

He was highly convinced that, without his last name, he would already have a cell in the detention center permanently to call home. For now money has its way and as long as he gets to walk free he isn't questioning the system.

There have been times when he wondered if he hated his father simply because he was envious of all that he had accomplished, or because it was expected of Erron to carry on his legacy. (Maybe both.) Either way, the years had created a rift between the boy and his father. Erron often thought his father would have preferred Olly or Iris were born first, or perhaps that the family tradition wasn't to give the business to the eldest child. Really, anything that wouldn't result in Erron inheriting the business probably sounded like a good idea to his dad. Which was fine, of course. Erron knew practically nothing about architecture or carpentry, despite his dad's love of talking about it during dinner.

He wanted to be a lumberjack. Stupid, of course, and he was well-aware of it. His mom really, really enjoy reminding him: ("Just please explain to me why you would want to work such a low-wage job when you could have all of this, Erron!" "Probably because I know it pisses you off, Mom.")

He scaled the wall down from the roof and stamped out the tiny ember that remained in the end of his cigarette. With a quick flick of his neck, he saw the light illuminating his parents' bedroom flicker out, leaving the entire property a home to shadows. He pulled his jacket tighter around him and he didn't have to look back to feel the house disappearing behind him.

It would take him about fifteen minutes before he was actually off of the property-- two and a half generations of successful business, it turned out, resulted in lots of land that was never used. At least not anymore. When he was younger, he and his brother and sister would play games of hide and seek on the expanse of forests and ponds. There was a large rock about twenty acres into the woods that they played King of the Hill on. He had always remembered it as this huge mass, practically the size of a mountain. Now, he guessed it only came up to his ribs. Funny how time changed things.

There was a tiny excuse for a pond behind the house that had been overtaken by lily pads, seemingly centuries ago. Once he and Olly were having a stick war and Erron had stupidly grabbed a snake with the impression that it had been a stick. It wasn't poisonous, but there was still a gnarly scar on his wrist where it had bitten him: two small, deep shiny lines on both sides. He doubted they would ever go away.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets after ducking through a wooden fence he had once had balancing competitions against Iris on. (Iris always won.) Once on the other side, i was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. There, he did not belong to his father, or his mother, or the stupid last name he'd been born with. He was just a boy in the night, up to no good.

He lit up another cigarette and hefted out a lungful of smoke. He had started smoking ironically, to piss off his Dad at one of those stupid parties he was always throwing in the ballroom. His work friends would always show up with their spouses and spoiled children. Erron and his siblings would have to dress up in clothing they only ever wore for such occasions, clothing that Erron particularly hated, and they had to smile at all of the adults and let the other children play with their toys.

He had been sixteen at the time, and he remembered making it a point to excuse himself from dinner because he "Needed a smoke," just so his father would have to take notice.

Now, he actually liked them, and typically either had one perched between thin lips or hanging from pointed ears, not even closely obscured by his dark, mousy hair. When he was younger he had been blond. None of his friends ever believed it was really him in the pictures that lined the walls of the Auger Estate, and he, in turn, always told them he wished they were right.

Eventually, he became a part of District Seven's nighttime society. Most of the people who lined the streets were middle-aged and burly, the men with long, wild beards and beady eyes, the women with hunched backs and unbrushed hair. These people were his usual crowd, but one boy stood out in particular. He recognized him instantly as one of the children who used to attend his father's parties. He was one child of perhaps a hundred, and he had always enjoyed spending time with him, he remembered. Abraham. He sat on a bench, lost in his own thoughts, and Erron couldn't help noticing he had aged well. He didn't appear to be particularly tall, as was the case for most to the boy who exceeded six feet in height, but he had well distinguished features and warm eyes.

He decided not to speak to him, and instead trudged on. (He had decided long ago to let the past stay in the past.) He brushed his shoes off upon entering a tiny pub that was actually just a house. The owners lived on the second floor and, sicne they were never particularly busy, had stopped worrying about things like age in order to survive. Money was the only thing required to enter and, as it happened, Erron came from a wealthy family. He saw his reflection in one of the several mirrors that lined the walls; girls were always complaining about their make-up being messed up and not being able to see themselves to fix it so the owners eventually broke down and put mirrors on almost every blank space their walls had.

His nostrils were flared in slight disgust as the mixed scents of smoke and alcohol and stale breath filled his lungs. His mouth was closed tight, as always, and his jaws stood out from clenched teeth. His mom had always doted on and on about how beautiful all of her children were, but she had also always been a woman that only cared about material things: beauty, money, success, that sort of thing. If Erron remembered correctly, it was his mother who had first started orchestrating the parties, probably to show off all of the nice things she had.

"What'll it be?" asked the bartender as Erron took a seat. "It's a whiskey kind of night, I think." he replied. But what he really wanted was so much more:

Motivation?
Aspiration?
Better Parents?

None of those things would come as easily as the alcohol that now sat in front of him, though, so for now, he would settle for it.

He tossed the drink back.

"Another?"