benji rowland // 6

She left him there, bare and wanting and slightly ridiculous looking because he was half naked and there were lipstick marks on his neck. Kisses had always felt like embers, like a spot of magenta in an otherwise pale world so he'd let them come. Small, little bites jumping haphazardly down his neck like scattered seeds, he'd worn a scarf for three days once where Stella had marked her territory. He'd told Scarlet that he had a sore throat.

"You missed it Stella, oh my god, her fucking face," came muffled laughter and banging at the door mid-thrust.

Missed what?

He'd wondered, but he hadn't stopped.

He should have stopped.

He hadn't.

The funeral had been cold in the middle of summer. He'd stood with his back against a pillar, eyes on the window at the front of the room and the way that the top of the frame met in a peak. The tracery was stunning in the old gothic stained glass. Weak afternoon light shone through perfectly to land on the empty casket of his dead girlfriend.

The gleaming mahogany looked good on the pale grey of the stone altar. He'd chosen the stain himself, had insisted on it. He was a Rowland, her parents did not argue with him.

He hated it.

Looks of sympathy, pity, disdain, he wanted none of it, he never had. Benji had never dealt with emotion well. He was raised with bloody knuckles from the strap, ruler, switch, whatever was handy. He'd long since learned to keep his mouth shut. Some had found that intimidating through his youth, good, he'd thought. People tended to be distracting, messy.

The same night that Scar had died, he'd been fucking Stella at a party. He'd lain there beside her afterwards, body heavy and head empty. He should have been feeling guilt then, he'd known that, but he felt nothing but indifference. Stella was just another warm body, always talking, but at least she shut up during sex.

That's all it was for him, just sex. Scar hadn't had to know about it, it'd only been once or twice. Maybe she had known though, could see it on him, she'd always been good at that. One small furrow of his brow and she'd always known when he was feeling melancholic, it had been terrifying.

He'd lain awake at night, watching her breath go in and out, wondering how she could see him like that.

But maybe that's why he'd fucked Stella, just to see if he could break that sweet smile too.

He wondered where she'd been going the night she died if she'd been looking for him if she'd just been running. Maybe in another life, he was there too, hand wrapped around her smaller one protectively and telling her it'd be alright.

He hadn't been though, he'd been fucking Stella.

Benji had spent a lot of time inside when he was little, hours trapped in bed with a book in hand because he'd been sickly. His parents were disgusted by this, they had little to do with him but express their continued disappointment with every look. He should have been born stronger like his brother Henry. It was his fault.

He'd gone to sleep each night with his head full of stories of beautiful places, of arching doorways and empty tombs. Soaring ceilings and refracting light dominated his thoughts. He'd build in his dreams, dreadful things, buildings so tall that they blocked out the sun. Then he'd tear them down and start again, refining them slowly, bit by bit, over and over until he hit perfection.

The world started to map itself out in a solid shade of blue, dotted white lines and strong greys marking up the landscape around him. Blueprints took up his little desk, his bedroom walls became covered in sketches and his hands were always stained with ink, smudged with lead. By the time he was healthy enough to go outside and make nice with the other kids, he held no interest in it, a singular focus guiding him.

"I want to make something beautiful," he'd said calmly, his first course growing cold in front of him as he held his parent's gaze, "Henry is your doctor, I'll be your architect, they'll see my buildings and the Rowland name will live on forever."

He'd promised to maintain his final treatments for his illness while boarding at Salvatore, the consequences of a Rowland appearing weak too large. It was easier to forget to keep up with the medication with no maid to remind him at first, but after a while, Benji got the hang of it. He'd always been self-sufficient, had practically raised himself.

Ever cold, calculative, he'd thought of everything. He was never late, never had a hair out of place and viewed the world with cold indifference. Stella had been an easy choice mainly because she'd instigated their relationship. The end of it had hardly hurt him, it'd just left him more time for designing.

Scarlet had been an abnormality at first, but even then, that feeling had faded into the same dull grey that his emotions always did, it hadn't been love.

No.