Churchill, Roman

[Rome]

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• NAME: Roman James Churchill
  
• ALIAS: Rome
  
• BIRTH DATE: July 11, 1984
  
• AGE IN 2006: 22
  

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• LOOKS:
  • Height: 6'1"
    
  • Weight: 172 lbs
    
  • Hair Color: Brown
    
  • Other Details: A young man composed of lean muscle and natural sinew, Rome walks with an arrogant swagger and a wide pretty-boy grin. His hair, though worn short, is generally pretty messy, often only seeing the brush of his hands in the morning or in moments of anxiety. His eyes are a blue that glitter with mischief, extremely expressive in and of themselves, and they can occasionally appear gray in certain lights. His strong jaw is, more often than not, set in some form of defiance. His skin, tan from the sun of hot summer days spent constantly outdoors, is free of ink, but marred with quite an array of scar tissue, major marks lying on his gut and his right upper thigh. His prison blues are wrinkled, carelessly handled and donned.
  
  
• PLAY BY: Jensen Ackles
  

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• OUTWARD PERSONA: Above and beyond everything else, Roman is a cocky son of a gun, his ego often too big to handle - not that he's aware of such a thing. Blunt and forward, the impulsive Texan can talk a mile a minute, more likely than not to leave even himself behind in a conversation and not think twice about it. Able to converse to great lengths about nearly anything and everything, he can appear to be a simplistic boy with the short attention span to boot, occasionally even interrupting his own line of thought to stray off to something else that's managed to catch his eye. It's not uncommon for a stretch of three or four unrelated topics to find their way into the space of a few chattery minutes with the lad. However, despite his rapid fire speeches, Rome can be easy to confuse, immediately lost when confronted with words bigger than a few syllables or with another individual capable of talking at a similar pace to himself. In that, he's not very bright, more prone to street smarts than he ever is to book smarts - and even when it comes to street, Rome can seem a bit daft at times.
  
  A relentlessly social boy, he has the overwhelming self-confidence that it takes to shove himself into places that he might otherwise not be wanted, forcing his company onto those that have managed to snag his interests. Though friendly and genteel when need be, he's very oblivious to things that would likely seem blatant to others, making his character seem quite thoughtless and leaving him prone to consistant bouts of putting his foot in his mouth. Nonetheless, once he's managed to realize his mistakes, he usually has the courtesy to backtrack over himself to make amends for his error. However, regardless of his amiability to those that he's somehow managed to keep in the good graces of, Rome is a proud man with the immaturity of a bullheaded adolescent, making him highly confrontational to those that press his buttons. When angered to any degree, he's loud[er] and aggressive, liable to throw out childish (and often blatantly derogatory) insults for the mere sake of salt in the wounds before tossing himself into a physical fight with abandon. Sarcastic to a seemingly neverending degree with as much bite as he has bark, he's a kid to watch out for, if not only for his talent to annoy.
  
  
• DEEPER DETAILS: Beneath the boisterous mannerisms and careless tendencies, there's an insecurity weaving itself through the boy, a need for attention and approval. Despite the constant smiles and laughter, Rome is a sensitive individual, easy to offend when the right buttons are pressed and highly explosive as a result. He's still carrying around a lot of unresolved anger that he's, for the most part, managed to push aside and ignore for a number of years, channeling it into the fairly frequent occasions where he's managed to provoke a fight with his obnoxious qualities. Prone to jealousy and feelings of neglect if not given enough time and care, he attempts to fill an emptiness in himself by gathering as many connections as possible. He thrives in social environments, a puppy that's eager to please all the new faces. When disliked, he grows sullen and disappointed, responding to the emotions with anger and sarcasm, prodding at it continuously and lashing out like a petulant child. Oftentimes, his humour is a mask to cover up a number of negative feelings, hiding away his confusion and his anxiety primarily.
  

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• CAREER: N/A
  
• LOCATION: Fox River
  
• CRIME: Grand theft auto and evading arrest
  
• SENTENCE: Fifteen years with a chance of parole in ten
  
• TOOLS OF THE TRADE: None
  
• AFFILIATION: None

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• BIRTHPLACE: Houston, Texas
  
• FAMILY: Daniel Lee Churchill, father, 58; Jessica Ann Churchill, mother, 47
  
• FRIENDS: Abby Foster, aka Thimble
  
• SCHOOLING: Some highschool, but dropped out by tenth
  
• HISTORY: Born in the sweltering heat of a Texas summer, Roman Churchill was loud from the start, a demanding and sensitive infant. His parents were attentive though, kind and supportive. Financially stable, they lived in a cozy suburban home and they wanted for nothing. At least, that was the image that was presented to the world at large and even to each other. Nobody saw it coming when Jessica abandoned the family, disappearing in the middle of the night, leaving her husband to wake up in the morning alone, finding her suitcases and the driveway sans her SUV. There was no note and he was stuck with the responsibility of caring for their three year old son on his own. He did not handle it well, his confusion and hurt turning to an irrational resentment against his child as Rome's needs proved overwhelming for the man in the midst of emotional stress.
  
  While Roman mourned the absence of his mother for a number of days, prone to bursting into tantrums for her when exhausted or asking about her whereabouts in seemingly random intervals, he'd eventually forget all about her and his only knowledge of her would be what he could find in photographs. He wouldn't have even been aware of those if he hadn't stumbled upon the stash hidden away in the back of Daniel's closet during one of his routine toddler adventures into places he wasn't allowed. He knew that she was blonde and pretty and she smiled a lot, but she wasn't around anymore and daddy didn't like to talk about her. With no true memory of the woman who had acted as his mother for a mere three years of his life, the cold distance kept firmly between himself and his father would only serve to trouble and confuse him, and gradually anger him once the understanding set in that he was being blamed for this unknown woman's departure.
  
  Angry at the world, he was quick to fall in with the wrong crowd. He'd always slacked in school, bored to no end with all the assignments and disrespectful of his teachers, his poor behaviour and eventual truancy led him to frequent stays in the detention room. From there, he made the sort of friends that most kids should be warned about, but he never had been and he thrived underneath the attention they gave him. They were charming, a pack of demons with silver tongues that he was too eager to fall into. He'd never had friends before, none that lasted, and he was determined to find his place in their world. They cheated and lied, and they didn't care. They had fun. From the time he'd met them in middle and through the transition to high school, he'd learned from them and picked up what he could. He spent his days smoking pot and sleeping in class, kicking back and enjoying a reckless ride through life. He had a raw talent with locks. Meshed with his long-lived passion for cars, he inevitably picked up the art of boosting.
  
  The eventual discovery that his girlfriend at the time was practicing her skill with a stick on someone else prompted his split from the group. He left school, fond of it no more than he had ever been, accepting that an eighteen year old still moseying around tenth grade was hardly going to see graduation. Returning home long enough to pack a bag with clothes and other sentimental pieces, he took his father's ride and left. He picked a direction and drove, not caring about where he ended up, just enjoying the trip one mile at a time.
  
  And there were a lot of miles. He crossed statelines, abandoning cars in any empty space he could find and zagging others. When he needed cash, he stole a car to sell it off. He hitchhiked and he worked odd jobs, fixing cars for strangers or chopping them down. The road became his life and the girls that dotted it - shiny and sleek in their fine metal coats and sexy paintjobs - were a big blur of happy memory. It was monotonous, a routine for some and it might have lost its fascination for him if it wasn't so damn fun half the time. Racing down an empty highway, exploring the innards of a brand new car, the thrill that came when starting up an engine from the wires was taking a bit too long for comfort; it all rushed through his veins, an adrenaline addiction.
  
  It all caught up to him eventually, as it inevitably would have. His pride got too big for his britches in the state of Illinois. The spark wouldn't take fast enough and he cut it too close, the owner of the vehicle catching him just as he was pulling out of the parking spot. The police were quick to respond, as they should have been when one of their own had been boosted. Turning on the siren, having a hoot with the lights, it was fun to watch the street make way for him as he raced the troops. Looking back, he couldn't honestly say what had possessed him to pull the stunt, there was no earthly way he'd get away with it. Not unless God was on his side, and He'd never had been.
  
  He managed to dodge arrest for nearly twenty miles before he flipped the car in the attempt to avoid a trap. Crawling out of the incident with only a few scrapes and bruises to tell the tale of it, he was promptly slapped with a decent sized bid in the Fox River Penitentiary.

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Today was going to be amazing, he was determined to make it so.

He couldn't recall the last time he'd cared to make his bed, if he ever had, but he was doing a damned fine job if he did say so himself. Which he did. "Damn fine job," he muttered under his breath, smoothing out the wrinkles on the sheet. Unfortunately, the task of leaning over enough to reach farther up the spread resulted in more wrinkles being made as his knees shifted along the mattress. Tidying up the top bunk of a bunk bed was no easy task, that was steadily becoming sure to the man. With a quiet curse and an idle wince of his features, he finally relented and hopped down, quickly leaning back up to his toes to make sure he could reach every inch of his bed as he swept his hands across the blankets.

"What are you doing?" The voice that sounded from the shadows of the bottom bunk was perturbed, uttered with the annoyance of someone that's been woken up abruptly. Rome leaned back enough to point a finger in to the mopey face that peered up at him, "Shut yer face." The order was quick and to the point, sending him right back to the task at hand as he began to fluff up a pillow that was beyond any of his efforts. He didn't really like his new cellie, hadn't bothered to remember his name or anything. Really, who the hell under fifty took a nap in the middle of the day? Granted, it was prison and there was only so much available to do, but it annoyed Rome. A lot of things annoyed Rome about the kid, though he'd be hard-pressed to actually point out anything rational. Just a vibe. It didn't matter, kid wouldn't last much longer anyway. Some big bull of a man seemed to have his eye on him, he'd be switched out of here before Rome could blink an eye. Good riddance.

An obnoxious squeak peeled repetitively into the air had never sounded so sweet. It paused his actions, paralyzed him as he looked to the bars of his cell and strained to listen for it again. A beat or two of his heart pounded in the space before it came again, a grating noise that brought a wide grin straight to his face.

"'Bout time!" He shouted to no one in particular as he abandoned his bed to bounce over to the door, hands wrapping about the bars and he pressed his face as much as he could into the spaces so he could see down the tier. The mail trolley, pushed by an old prisoner with more privilege than one could imagine in a penitentiary, was slowly making its way along. The loose wheel rattled and flipped around, producing the music of that squeak that had alerted him to its presence in the first place.

His spirits sank a touch when the cart came to a stop, a book passed from one hand to another and the old coot had the gaul to start chatting. Stupid wrinkled old bag. "Hey, c'mon! Some'a us ain't got all day, Cappy!" He shouted boldly, ignoring the shouts of others for him to quiet down and absorbing those few encouraging agreements instead. The sour puss of the mail trolley man tightened as he shook his head, muttered something and waved a bittersweet goodbye to his companion, hands touched through the bars before the man was turning to continue on down the tier. About time, was all Rome could care to think.

Balance shifted from one foot to the other as the Texan squirmed, anxious for the mail to reach his cell and desperate for the time to move a little fast. Or Cappy, that would have been good too.

But the oldtimer was in no rush and Rome was about ready to burst out of his skin by the time the cart was rolled up in front of him.

"Dammit, ya just 'bou' almos' made it t'a Christmas. The hell takes ya so long t'a get pas' a couple cells?" He criticized rapidly, Southern accent dripping off his words, but the older man had nothing to say to some young cock. His shaking hands only plucked a single envelope from the stash on his trolley, handing it off to snatching fingers before he was continuing on, same gimped pace as before.

Roman scoffed with a shake of his head, but his attentions were already turned away from his upset and full force on the growing excitement as he studied his letter. His smile was back and he ignored the half-heard inquiry from his cellmate. He quickly hopped up to his bed, propping himself back against the wall, legs dangling carelessly over the edge - successfully ruining what he'd managed to accomplish just moments before - and he studied the small handwriting that addressed the letter. He could just imagine the petite hands that would have held the pen. He studied his name, where she graciously called him 'Rome' rather than 'Roman'. His thumb traced over the address tucked into the upper corner, trying to recall if he knew the street she was living on now, but he'd not been in Illinois long enough to memorize any names. He'd not been in any town long enough to know things like that. He huffed to himself, smirked, because it seemed so strange to see her refer to herself as 'Abby' rather than the Thimble he'd known her as for the longest time.

It all looked so neat and organized, he almost didn't want to open it.

But that lasted for no longer than a few seconds before he tore in, eager to know when she'd come to visit.

[Sara Tancredi]

A P P R O V E D