Precious

[voicestm]

The comfortable weight of her in his lap is heaven and a welcome relief. She's something better to hold onto than the drugs. A nature high with none of the shortcomings. Ha. His smirk is hidden against her hair, the little tease knew locked behind his lips. He didn't want to get punched after all. But he was nothing if not capable of amusing himself. He's been the class clown his entire life. Hides the pain. Helps sooth the soul. If he had one. Wasn't sure about that with the thing living inside him. I have a name. You don't.

It's spring.

It's the usual fight. But it's louder than usual. And it's very displeased with the thought of being away from their offspring's. Cat and Rosie were the beast's s much as they were his. It was possessive, it growled when someone threatened or hurt them. He feels it crawling through his veins and he shivers.

"Yeah, take a day for us. Dorian has the kids handled."

[cherishedgray]

"And I can get him some back-up." It's always available. Just a text or phone call away. She pats herself down until phone is found, thumbs quick to construct an unalarming message and send it out to a few people. Back ups on back ups on back ups. Just in case.

"You wanna get out of here? Be somewhere else entirely?" Sometimes it was called for. Leaving not just home but country. Just like once upon a time. There was no real running from their demons, but they could at least hop a jet with them and go somewhere with more room for them. Somewhere that didn't feel close to home... like it might touch everyone else. It's been a minute since any significant time in L. A. They could go there, or... "We never did hit Chicago. Willis Tower. Lots of bad ideas there to catch up on." She's got a theory that it won't even appeal... now, maybe, but not once they're there. She's tested it before. When the reminiscing tells her things were better back then, more exciting. She's gone chasing that high, only to find it lacking. Maybe it's what he needs to. Or maybe they do a little adrenaline chasing. Either option works.

"Lambo or Maclaren when we land?"

[voicestm]

"I got left back, remember?" True, but they were still hovering close in age. A year or so apart. Not the age differences that meant one or the other were responsible. They had been equals in all things. Especially the dark things inside of them. Not the same. Their demons. But for years they vibed in the same rooms together.

They knew each other in ways he's not sure anyone else in their lives knew them. A bond. That's what it was called. This thing they shared. And for a second he's ashamed he had nearly.. Slid into that baggie of happy pills.

Would he have taken them if she hadn't shown up?

Yes.

He doesn't fucking know.

"We're not. Babies, mansions, careers."

[cherishedgray]

"You know something? I didn't remember that." Highschool feels more than a lifetime ago. She couldn't bring herself to care about most of what it had included. Did she even know Josh had been set back a year? Maybe. Then again, she'd been so wrapped up in her own misery she barely knew or acknowledged that anyone else existed. Selfish. For once in her life.

Sometimes... Babies, mansions and careers are not all they are cracked up to be, and that's okay. She just pushes a sticky kiss to his cheek about it and curls into him, leaning on his shoulder, one hand on his chest. "Do you need a break from them?" There's no judgement possible within her at the thought of such a need. They do try, to still make time for themselves and each other. They have more family than they know what to do with these days, and they rotate them accordingly, calling in favors and paying them back in kind. It's always been okay in their home, to not be okay.

Usually she'd put Cat in his arms, to banish his struggles. She's magical like that. And there's Rosie now too... but some inner sense tells her, not today. Not right now. So she keeps her place in his lap and plays with his shirt, giving him time and space to say or not say anything else that might need it.

[voicestm]

Know it's bad when he doesn't hear her. When the click, click of her heels don't make the beast inside perk up. Mated for life or some shit. If he listened to the thing inside him the world would look a lot differently and he wouldn't have made it this far. Shoulda stayed on the mountain, where your sisters are, where you were meant to die. Like well, fuck you too. The shadow in the corner of his eye moves and he sucks down a deep breath before he looks up to drink her in. Still as stunning as the day he saw her across that dark club. His wicked little snow white. Never knew addiction like her.

You should eat her.

Fuck. Right. Off.

"No.. Just.. In my head. You know I'm old, right?"

[cherishedgray]

"Hate to break it to you, but we were in the same class." She says it conspiratorially. Funny that. Their tastes before each other had always skewed older. Men. Women. Sure. But people with experience. People who could take care of them for a change, instead of making them the carers yet again. Him with his sisters. Her with her father... and in some ways, her brother. Sometimes. In a way. He was older but she was the girl. Maturity was expected of her.

And then each other, and back then? Neither one of them would believe the now.

"We're not doing so bad for a couple of thirty year olds though. Are we?"

[voicestm]

During the interview he's laughter and light, that mask so easily slipped into place that there's no hint of the darkness inside. But that's how it's always been. He doesn't think he could change it even he tried. All there was was control. Doctors handwriting filling him with whatever pills they think will keep him from nose diving into the darkness and the ruin that follows.

He's grateful.

But fuck.

He's tired.

Not the girl's fault. But he's ben so busy with his life he hadn't realized.. He's way north of twenty seven. What did he have to show for it? A family, you fucking asshole. A career, you ungrateful piece of shit. Yeah, but are they gonna remember my name? Remember me? Joshua Washington. Not Bob's kid. The Washington boy. Got talented but he's unstable.

If he had joined the legends before he hit twenty eight maybe they'd whisper about him a hundred years from now. His father's in his head now. Talking.. And Talking.. But still when she asked.. How did he feel now when he use go on the record claiming he wouldn't make it to twenty eight.

Like I got something to live for. Got something to prove.

Wasted genius. Just horror, Joshua? Why not try branching out? Because Susan.. It's his life's work. Making fear a masterpiece.

He reaches for that secret baggy taped to the underside of his desk.

Once a junkie, man.

[cherishedgray]

She takes the breaks she needs to take when she needs to take them. That's what it means to her to be a... all the things she is, really. A mother, mostly. A wife. A sister. A daughter. All to people who need her, just constantly enough that she's lucky if she puts together a collection once a year, let alone seasonally. But every time she takes a break, there Chanel goes just dusting off the archives and making them walk again. Barely changed. It's infuriating. It's one thing to homage the classics and never let people forget the brand, but it's another to just copy-paste as lazily as they do. And it works every time too, putting the itch back in her fingers and making her clear some room in her schedule.

She's just coming to update him about it, so they can adjust together, make sure there's always someone additional on hand when she travels, etc... only to find him looking at that baggie of pills like maybe this time it really will have the answers he's looking for. Nevermind that it hasn't before. She's sure something's whispering to him that this time will be different. Nature of the disease. Nature of addiction. He's clean, but he'll never not be an addict. They know this. She married him anyway.

"Hi," she greets, sunny as ever though her expression is titled at an angle and very concerned. "We partying tonight?" Nope. She knows what that looks like, and this isn't it, but she's always opened these conversational doors gently for him. It's what she does. Just like she makes some room and helps herself to his lap.

[cycutmondie-deactivated20250322]

[cherishedgray]

Long days bleed into longer nights for one Billy Russo. He's gotten far, don't get him wrong, but he still has a ways to climb before he could settle. Doesn't mean he's all work and no fun.. Just.. He doesn't have time for both. Good thing he has a girl at home who doesn't mind waiting around for him. She puts a smile on his face even before he hits their front door, keys jingling in his hand as he presses into their pretty penthouse. He calls out her name once but doesn't get a reply. Not important. Not a surprise. It's a big place. He should shower first anyways. So he heads towards the bedroom, his mind set on the chore of getting ready to set in for the night. He isn't excepting to see his girl laying in bedroom, black leather straps and red bottoms clinging to the soles of her feet.. And he might have appreciated it a hell of a lot more if it wasn't for that kiss mark on her right ass check. His gun in his hand, he loads one into the chamber and in the steadiest of tones.. "..Where the fuck is he?"

She's half-asleep by the time he hits the door, plans of surprising him in something skimpy drowsily forgotten. It isn't the call of her name that rouses her but the sound of his footfalls drawing near, expensive Italian on beautiful hardwood, a sound she loves to hear for what it brings her. Charlotte's just about to roll over his way when she hears the slide of his gun pulled free of it's holster, quickly followed by him chambering a round. Intrigue makes her arch a brow as she peers over her own shoulder at him, waiting to see just who was meant to be on the receiving end of that.

"He who?" It's not her playing-dumb act, carefully reserved for the right times and places, but legit curiosity and a little bit of sleepy forgetfulness. A kiss print meant to tease and tantalize and really just complete her aesthetic vision. The outfit alone hadn't been enough when she was preening in the mirror, it had needed a little something personal added. A transferred kiss print had filled the brief and tickled her pink. The last thing it was meant to suggest was another man.

She catches on when she more or less follows his gaze and can't help but crack a smirk. "You think some guy did that? Put on lipstick and kissed my ass?" He's so terribly cute sometimes.

[cycutmondie-deactivated20250322]

[cherishedgray]

(x)

Gone is Pink and in her place is Charlotte, as Billy has always known her to be— even if not quite in the spot he last left her in. She usually sleeps easily in his arms, and particularly well after an amorous night such as they've had, but something had woken her all the same. Nothing bad as far as she can tell, just something restless.

Rather than stay put and fidget, likely interrupting his own sleep, she'd slipped from the coccoon of their sheets and into her robe to go look out on the city below. Close enough that her love shouldn't feel that absence of her sounds, her breath in the night-quiet room, the subtle shift and rustle of her just... existing in his proximity.

Dazzled by the lights of the never-sleeping city, she can't help but trace delicate fingers over cold glass and wonder... what even is New York City? An amalgam of boroughs... little carved up territories that might as well be miniature cities themselves. A great sprawling empire. Eight million souls, buzzing about, coming, going, doing, living... dying, sometimes. A world capital. A destination. A dreamcatcher. It's a thing too great to look upon and see all it's facets. Buried in the layers of it though was a plane that existed just for Billy to conquer, one inch at a time. Valhalla to The Cage and beyond. Endless plans being manicured by the buffet of lawyers they keep on retainer, anonymous corporations held in trusts and managed by anyone but a wanted man, all for the privilege of climbing up via real estate holdings and more. An effective laundering of the money his army liberates from Brink's trucks Brooklyn to the Bronx.

A world within a world within a world. Like being stolen away to a faerie court, she thinks. Close enough... and isn't that just a thrill?

She's smiling long before Billy catches up to her open back, wrapping her up in his arms just to go at her neck like some kind of vampire. It makes her laugh and squirm, elbowing him for the nerve even as she wishes he'd do it some more.

"Watch it, mister. Or your old lady is going to end up looking like your mistress."

[prettytm]

The sudden 360 doesn't feel right. It feels false. A rushed decision so she could run from him. But why? What was he missing? What hadn't he recovered yet? He's asking himself a million questions he has no answers to when another voice whispers through his mind. It's louder than everything else, drowning it out. It's hateful and cruel. Does it matter? She was leaving just like everyone else. She was no better than his mother or Frank. But that was hollow and seemed untrue as the way she was acting towards him now. If she wanted nothing to do with him.. Why had she come, why was she here now? That was illogical. Yet here she was, in the safety of Gilded but now she was running? Why?

He's ready to ask her, mouth parting for the words to spill from the cage of his lips and teeth but he doesn't get the chance. She's speaking again.. And thought the anger of her words have heat, even as they sear through his heart.. He doesn't reaction at all like she's predicts.

Pretty boy.

It's aimed like a weapon. The last person who had said anything near it had been left with a stickball bat shoved through his chest. She knows what she's saying and her intentions are to harm. But he could tell by her eyes, the set of her jaw, she's ready for the usual violence and that gives him pause. Why did she want him to hurt her? "..I'm sorry."

[cherishedgray]

"You don't plug me now, before you say another word, and you will be." Sorry. To have ever run into her on the street— to have brought her here to this swanky safe-haven where even now people are either afraid or respectful enough of him to keep averting their eyes from the scene, only daring to steal fleeting glances of it all as it goes down. He's going to be sorry, someday, that he ever uttered such apologetic words to her. If her father's right, he's going to want to choke them out of her pretty little head so she can never have the luxury of remembering such an undeserved thing.

It doesn't really occur to her, even now, that the problem is that he knows her every bit as well as she knows him. Even now. As if they weren't miles and eons from the people that they used to be. Children playing at love. Puppy things. High school sweethearts. Innocence of yesteryear. He treats her like she's still the girl who would never tell him an outright lie, or let him believe falsehood. Not her, not even as an heir to her father's own strange brand of deception by omission— because it's not really a lie if you don't say words. And really, what can she possibly have to say to this man?

A man who doesn't remember her lie; doesn't know her betrayal of him. She can't even begin to know how to utter it. It's all she can do not to let him go on as if she hasn't done him as dirty as the rest of his life has. That would be dishonorable. So she tries to fast-forward to the end, to the end that she deserves in the hopes that it warms him some day; that even when he didn't recall what she'd done he'd been wiser than to let her live.

"Or don't worry about it. I left you once before, Billy... and it looks like you made it big."

[prettytm]

"Not at first.. Everything was.. Scrambled." How to explain Frank's attack, his own involvement and Krista. It leaves him feeling disjointed when he has to sit and think of how to piece together that short period of his life. Right after waking up from the coma, with the mentality of himself at twenty five and a body that was broken. He hadn't known who to trust, who to believe and the doctor who was meant to help him.. Well, that had been a shit show. She's where she belonged, right beside his mother, well taken care of and yet unable to ever hurt someone again.

"Remembered bits and pieces before I got real help, real therapy but it's been a long road. I still suffer headaches, get triggered less often not but.. Memory isn't what it was." He laughs softly, mostly at himself and to fill the silence she's left. He thinks he understands. Has to be surreal for her. He was supposedly dead. Billy Russ isn't a name but a handful still call him. It's Jigsaw now. She doesn't know him. Doesn't know the man he was before the attack nor after. He doesn't begrudge her that. But fuck.

It's so good to see her.

"Ramen, huh? Still buying for that overpriced shit? I can get you some oodles of noodles, Lottie." He teases, like nothing had changed, like over twenty years hadn't went by. And he's more than ready to be whacked.

[cherishedgray]

No. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two-hundred dollars.

It'd be easy enough to— take his admissions and turn them back on him; blame him for forgetting. And how long would that last? A day? A year? A decade? It wouldn't matter— it'd be the stupidest thing possible to do. Whatever idyllic paradise they built on those kinds of lies would come crashing down one day when truth intruded. The rest of his memories would come back one day— they almost always did, and none of the after would matter.

There's an impulse in her to ask her what he would do if she stood up right now and left him but that's a question she can still answer, even now. Even that would be too cruel. Too manipulative. Had the potential of being misread, misunderstood. So she doesn't ask, she just swallows, restrains a grimace and stands.

Anything Billy Russo has ever let go of has his claw marks deeply imbedded in it. Tale of an orphan. Group homes would do that to you. Being made to share— never having a thing of your own, until you did. And then heaven help the thing that ever tried to become them and it. She's the them. She's the it. She's it all, pushing back from that table, purse shrugged a little higher on to her shoulder as she gets up and makes to leave him there. Not that he'll stay. No he's going to chase— upset, hopefully, offended and hurt beyond measure if right is on her side.

Any second now he'll snap out of it and grab her arm. Claws. Not letting go without a fight. Impact. She's ready for it, ready to stare down a probably very literal barrel. Game. Hand on her bicep. Set. A half-twirl back to break the hold. Match. Hazel eyes blazing with unfathomable emotion, pink manicure shoving hard into suited center-chest. What a scene. Good. It should be— it deserves that. The tale of how she commits suicide by Russo. She ought to smack him, really trigger him, except that she can't bring herself to do it. Not when he's looking at her like that and all she wishes in the world is that he wouldn't. She stopped deserving that too many years ago. One very important lie ago.

And poor silly Billy. He thinks she's mad because he forgot her, and not the other way around. Time to set that mistake to rights...

"What— one Dear John wasn't enough?! You want another, pretty boy?" Scoff. Challenge. Bait bait bait. Draw on her so she can put them both out of their misery with but a few more words.

[prettytm]

He's finally able to peer into mirrors, the shock of his own features and the accompanying nightmares manhandled so he appeared some form of normal in his every day life. What is reflected back is not the boy of eighteen he had been but a man well into his forties. One who looks splendid, yes, but still a man. The boy was all grown up, he had lived a life, fragments of it play out for him now.. Like jagged, faded images on a ripped screen. And all this to say.. That she, Charlotte Gray, hadn't aged a day. She's still a girl, twenty if she was lucky, most likely still carded when she slipped into places like his own clubs and bars. He knows had she been an unknown and he found her seated at one of his tables in Gilded or Cage.. He'd have her removed just to be safe. She's a shining memory come to life and it isn't until they're seated there under artificial lights that he finally felt safe telling himself she was real. He was beginning to think he might have lost the last remaining bits of sanity he had left. But she's real. She's seated opposite him. A perfect picture of art come to life. Though by her expression was confused and curious as if she was wondering the same of him. Was she asking herself how he was alive and if he was real? Was she dreaming up a figment of her own imagination? He wants to put her mind at ease but he isn't sure he has words and if he had.. He isn't sure he could speak. He's too busy watching her, studying her face, her hair, her hands.. Not a strand out of place, nails as pink as her umbrella and fingers shaped so delicately. She's.. It's almost too much to bare, pain was pulsing behind his left eye. He doesn't remember snapping again but soon they have drinks and he has pills to help fight back the pain before it becomes blinding. "..Charlotte.."

[cherishedgray]

If he's forty, she's forty. There hadn't been a gap between them when she stole him from the Met an age ago— there wasn't one now, deceitful appearances aside. It hurts to see the age on him though, makes pretty hazel eyes go looking for patterns in the wood grain between them; darkly stained and perfectly elegant... a table worthy of her father's homes. Easier to think about than what time has done to her youthful love. The scars were nothing... but the rest? The subtle paths laughs and tears both have etched on his face? She's damn near afraid that if she goes searching in his hair she's going to find strings of silver and then what will she do with herself? "Mm?" She's not ready to meet his gaze when he calls her name. Let him take his pills— take his drink. Better that. Better that than just about anything she can imagine right about now. It's all dark and dangerous and... sad. Something usually forbidden to her. It puts an itch in her hand to snag his glass and drain whatever might be left in it— an impulse best left as such.

"Do you really know me?" His head hurts. His face... like someone tried to rip it off of him... so, TBI? Amnesia? Something like it or... worse? The shortlist of explanations why she's sitting pretty instead of dying ugly. Like she'd said she had. Unforgivable. She'd known it when she agreed to the lie. Lived with it every day since. Hazel on black, she goes looking— squinting with effort, just a little. She doesn't deserve the boy staring back; only his righteous revenge. A thing she's well schooled in. And maybe she should be afraid, but she's not. Just... vaguely numb. Ready... or maybe readying herself. Bracing for impact. Of some sort.

"I don't suppose you sell ramen in this joint." A test? A throwback? A joke? She'd know when he did.

[cherishedgray]

@prettytm

He'd been little more than an unsolved mystery for well over a year. One day an upstart military contractor CEO, escorting New York politicians through chaos and headlines— the next, a barely reported missing person. The papers that bothered putting in ink words about an explosion in Brooklyn not too long after sure took care not to mention ANVIL... or it's owner-founder; let alone his status in the wind or otherwise. That much sleuthing is left up to the denizens of dreddit and other such forums, always digging between the lines and offering their own conclusions. Conspiracy theories and the like. Government coverups. Scandals. Stabs at truths kept hidden from them by Big Brother and all his cohorts.

And then one day, there he is. Live and in-color on plenty a local television screen. William Russo, armed and dangerous. A fugitive from... something. Or somewhere. Another bout of details ommitted; the focus placed solely on the menace that he is, like a tiger escaped from the zoo.

If he's ever found, it's never said. No court dockets ever bear his name— no arrest records. He's a ghost of one kind or another. A shade in a concrete jungle with so much darkness to hide in. Maybe a body in a river. Maybe bones in a pauper's grave, unmarked in Potter's field. A pang in a doubting girl's heart. Father says if it was true love, she wouldn't wonder. She'd know it if he was dead or alive. She in turn loves him enough to keep the peace and not remind him that he hadn't known any such thing until he was told just like everyone else. The truth about love and prescience is... that there is no truth. Only anecdotes. Only feelings. Only sometimes.

Like a bolt of lightning zinging down her spine one rainy afternoon, making pink frills tip back back back to reveal a crooked smile and eyes like coal, a little too happy to see her when they should be anything but...

"Is it?"

She ought to be a notice lost to the sands of time. A letter of condolence. Mayhaps a figment of imagination. A heart's desire. A wish upon a star. A girl gone down in a plane, supposedly. Burial at sea. Pretty words for body irrecoverable. Instead he looks at her like treasure he'd always known he'd find. How? Why? It's the dying to know that has her following him in to his place of business; all dark mahogany and deep forest greens— the kind of elegance that had stunned him stupid once upon a time; all his now. VIP table, just for them. Snapped fingers putting bodies into motion— not like a general commanding an army, but like a made man making employees scuttle.

Old dreams, strangely come true.

[cycutmondie-deactivated20250322]

[bbyyygirl]

[unstablecryptid]

asserting dominance by fucking the fathers of people I despise

[cycutmondie-deactivated20250322]

[cannibalchan-deactivated2022030]

.・:･ﾟ｡*･ﾟﾟ:･ﾟ✧ ゜*･ﾟ✧

[cherishedgray]

@voicestm