#dukemassetti

[cuorepietoso]

Friday 8 March 2019 Osteria la Mandorla 2220 h  /  10:20PM Closed for @dukemassetti

     There’s a dark corner in this bar, an alcove with a window, half-hidden by a fall of curtain. Battista makes his way there with his shoulders straight and an ice cold mixed drink in his hand, keeping his gait slow and purposeful. It wouldn’t do to be seen as anything other than cool and deliberate, especially not here, where he’s spent what seems like hours flirting and charming half the crowd here. 

     Still, he is technically hiding. The stress of the past few weeks, months, years feels like it’s getting to him, turning a silver tongue to lead in his mouth once more, and he just needs a moment to himself in the dark, to let his shoulders slump, to hold the frigid glass up against the heat bleeding from his cheeks, artificial warmth flushing his skin. He just needs a moment to himself in the dark to convince himself he’s not being hunted, there’s no noose hanging over his neck, no-- 

          Stop. 

     It’s not something to be thought of now. He needs to keep his head, he knows. So he cracks the window, lets the cold spring air seep in around him and cool his blood, and sighs hard enough that he can see his breath cloud outside, fogging the glass. The condensation from the drink still pressed to his cheek runs down his cheek, his neck, into the collar of his shirt. Footsteps behind him barely audible over the music cause his shoulders to tighten, and he buttons down his expression once more into something neutral, glad of the instinct when he sees just who it is lurking behind him. 

     A name he can easily put to the handsome face, considering the company he keeps. Orion Massetti--Orsino. So much for not being hunted here, he’d be lucky if the man just decided he wanted to try to gut him here. The thought amuses him. So he gives him a guileless raised eyebrow, and pulls his drink away from his face to take an unconcerned sip. “Do you often follow strangers around at clubs? Or did you drop something over here--” His voice is dry, and he leans back against the wall, where the cold air seeps into his skin and hair like little digging fingers. “Don’t let me get in your way.”

[ofcastora]

THEY WANT YOU TO BECOME LESS CALLOW, LESS SHALLOW

DIVERONA + BROADWAY @dukemassetti

[cuorepietoso]

Saturday, 9 April, 2019 Montague Holding Cells 1130h / 11:30am Closed to @dukemassetti

          He’s said his piece. 

     Whether or not Rosso heard him remains to be seen, he supposes, as does whether or not they’re going to have to learn the hard way again. It doesn’t matter-- Massetti’s still alive. It’s been two weeks, and he’s still alive. The thought almost turns his stomach. Not necessarily out of pity, just out of… the sheer fucking stupidity of all of it, he thinks. The endless cycle. Capture, torture, people die in the rescue. Rafaella Capulet, Orion Massetti. Why don’t they just kill them and be done with it? 

          What’s so fucking satisfying about revenge?

     Battista lets himself into the cell and his gaze flicks instantly to Orion. The last time he remembers seeing the man is in that bar, casing Montague territory. He thinks about asking him what he knows about Rafaella’s escape, but that’s not even close to what he’s here for. No information that falls from the tongues of the tortured can be trusted. They’re either spiteful lies or desperate ones, dangerous half-truths given to stop the pain. Anything, to stop the pain. He knows this, so he doesn’t ask, just wanders forward on silent feet and touches his fingers to Orion’s shoulder. “You awake?” He asks, like he doesn’t care one way or another. 

     Taking stock of the wounds he can see makes him heave a heavy sigh, if only at the thought of the work he has cut out for him. Battista almost doesn’t want to look at his hands-- the thought of his playful parting promise to paint him creeps around in the back of his mind. Artist to struggling artist; he can’t help but wonder if he ever got around to it. But that’s not what he’s here to ask, either, and he won’t do him the disservice of flinching away from any of his injuries. Battista Tahan has seen and done worse. He looks him in the face. “You look like shit. Want a cigarette?”

[eastoncravens]

// O R S I N O

location: the tempest timestamp: march 20th, 21:30 closed to: @dukemassetti

Some days, you just need to let someone punch you in the face and follow it with a lot of whiskey. Today, as the bruise blossoming on Easton’s cheek and the grazes on his knuckles could attest, was one of those days.

It wasn’t that today had precisely been a bad day. But, as was becoming the norm since the death of the Witches, it also hadn’t exactly been a good one and frustration had driven him, as it so often did, into the welcoming depths of Measure by Measure. There was a certain peace in the violence, in the clarity that came from focusing only on the moment, where there was nothing outside of fists and bone and blood; something freeing in pasting his problems heads onto whatever was beneath his fist, a blazing centering in the sharp burst of pain as he took a hit.

Even the dirtiest of fight left his mind clear, the high note of adrenaline lifting him out of the morasses of his own thoughts. The first glass of whiskey goes down in a single practised motion; the second he nurses, spending as much time with the cool glass resting against his battered cheek as against his lips. His phone chirps on the bar in front of him and he glances at it just long enough to recognise it as a notification from Grindr before he mutes it and slides it back into his pocket. If something catches his fancy tonight then sure, but he’s not in the mood to go shopping. 

Easton’s gaze stops on a familiar figure in the crowd, and he quirks an eyebrow, knocking back the last of his drink and gesturing at the barkeep for another two before he makes his way over.

❝ Massetti. ❞ He acknowledges, sliding one of the whiskies across the table to the older man as he drops into the seat across from him.  ❝ Figured you probably need that about now.  ❞