Pictures of You

Chapter Three: A Break In Routine

AN: Warnings for this chapter: Swearing

The familiar beeping of the standard issue alarm clock tells him it's time to get up. He can't remember the last time he was actually awoken by the alarm, his body seemingly conditioned to be awake for this time. Before he was moved onto The Estate full time Dan felt as if he was unable to function without at least eight hours of sleep; yet now he was able to run on three to four hours no problem. Maybe that was because before he was moved he was a child, a young child in fact, and he needed his sleep like any other growing thing does.

Before his mind can spiral into a bitter inner monologue of treasonous thoughts, Dan removes himself from the lumpy mattress, throwing back the standardised grey sheets and walking across the tiny room to the only other piece of furniture which stands in the servants quarter bedroom where he has to spend his nights. It's not his room, he refuses to call it that. 

He turns off the alarm, which by house rule has to be placed on the other side of the room and turned off within 60 seconds or less; a tactic used to make sure all the "staff" are not only awake, but up and dressed within 5 minutes of starting their day. Dan doesn't see the point in this, there is nothing else the staff could spend their time doing, such as reading, since books are prohibited in bedrooms and can only be read in the library found in the main house on The Estate.

5 minutes. God does Dan miss reading. He misses snuggling up under his checkered duvet in his room surrounded by his things, completely immersed in lives and universes so much more appealing than his own. Sometimes he feels like he is living in a world of fiction, one so outlandish that readers scoff in disbelief at the ridiculous way of life which they are being presented with. A way of life where children are taken from their mothers at the tender age of six, never to be seen again. Alas, this is how it is and there is nothing which Dan or anyone else can do about it.

4 minutes. He looks away from the clock and to the oil painting which hangs on the wall just above the bed, four people, stern, tall, dark. One boy stand with three adults, two men and a woman, the boy positioned in the middle of the woman and the younger man. One of them,who looks to be around 17, wears a black suit, matching his obviously dyed black hair and looks straight out of the painting at the viewer, blue eyes daring you to meet his gaze. The youngest adult who is much older than the littlest Lester stands slightly taller than him, also in black, but his hair is mousy brown and gaze far less piercing than the icy gaze of the junior. The man is tall, just taller than the boy, and his arm reaches around the eldest son to rest on the shoulder of the youngest. A woman with flowing Auburn hair stands the shortest, with her arm wrapped around the waist of the younger son. 

One hangs above the bed of every servant. A stern family portrait, one which Dan believes represents unity within The Family, the looks on their faces a challenge to break the unity. A challenge which Dan would jump to accept.

3 minutes. He turns away from the painting and pulls open the top draw of his dresser, retrieving a pair of black boxers and matching black socks, sliding the draw shut again silently. There is a nothing but silence in this room. He then methodically moves down the dresser, pulling out a white shirt and a pair of black dress trousers from the second draw, sliding it shut, pulling shoes and a black jumper with the family emblem embroidered just above the left side of his chest from the third and final draw, sliding it shut. He moves back to the bed, removing his black tracksuit bottoms, the emblem again present just above the left hip. All the servant clothes include the emblem, just in case they run away. Everything down to the biannual bra women are issued has that stupid little lion embossed onto it. He dresses quickly, long slender fingers making light work of the button up shirt, and places the bottoms and shirt he sleeps in under the floppy pillow which he had long punched most of the feathers from in nightly attempts to fluff it up. He sits down and slips on the black brogues tying the laces in a neat bow, trying to ignore the emblem found embossed on the bottom of the shoe.