#pls feel free to shorten it bb

[ofrosso]

date: june 11th location: capulet territory status: @evcravens

December. They had last stepped foot on Cosimo Capulet’s property in December (or rather, been dragged, to it) when the air still bit at heaving lungs and the cold caressed rattling bones. It felt right to Marcelo that they would return now, as summer shook the snow from its yawning head, on both legs, swiftly, and without a weakness reflected on their steely surface. Still, as if to prove it, the captain takes the steps two at a time — no one was around to hear the slap of their sole hitting the pavement, after all. Only the ghosts of Verona, and those that ventured into its shadows in search of them, might catch a glimpse of Marcelo, now. The sun wouldn’t be up for another hour, and lights had only just began to flicker to life across the city. 

The door closes quietly begin them, and they make quick work of snapping the lock back into place. It had taken all but one concentrated moment for them to shimmy it open to begin with, before briskly slipping up to the dark of the building’s rooftops. It had been quiet on the streets from above, a stray drunk stumbling across cement every so often, but they’d be a fool to think it would stay that way for long. With everything carefully propped back into place, Marcelo turns away from their vantage point, and with hands shoved in each pocket, begins their walk back to the adige.  

This part of the city is only familiar on fire, rattled by deafening gunshots. Marcelo knows it on paper, squiggly lines to mark roads and blue blobs signaling bodies of water, but intimately they had only traveled its streets the night of The Purge, or while watching the Cathedral smolder on its holy ground. Marcelo had been born on Montague territory, and their bones would be buried beneath its soil — still, it was surely only a matter of time before this side of the Castelvechhio, too, beat in the pulse of their veins, held by the throat in Roman’s royal fist. 

Acutely, Marcelo begins to realize that they’re not alone. An echo, here, a hovering gaze, hot on the slope of their shoulders, there. There might be a strangeness to its streets, but the captain is vividly familiar with the beasts that walk them. 

In one swift turn, Marcelo has fingers lingering on the handle of their pistol, teeth bared at the face that dares pierce their sharpened gaze into the flesh of a Rosso.

“Figlio di puttana.” 

#i: everett #d: june 11th #l: capulet territory #tw gun mention #tw death mention #tw choking #keepin this real vague #and real long #pls feel free to shorten it bb