Here is the result of this request in which you’ll get a peek into the mind of Billy Russo before it became broken. This one took a lot of deliberation because our Billy is a lot more than just a pretty face! As always, thank you for reading (and thanks to @luminex3 for the request). Enjoy!
Images prompt 9: Billy Russo x reader (requested by the fabulous @luminex3)
Follower event tag list: @luminex3 @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @witchygagirl @breanime
If anyone wants to be added to/removed from my permanent tag list, please shoot me an ask!
And the most special of thank you’s to @its-my-little-dumpster-fire for talking about this with me and helping with the most impossble-to-title-fic ever.
The scent that surrounded him was overwhelming.
Billy Russo was dressed in all black, tucked away several meters into the forest. The sun was struggling to rise above the horizon, held hostage by lurid, impenetrable ashen fog. The air was thick and moist, holding the promise of eventual rain, but what really struck Billy above all else was the smell.
He was acclimated to overcast days in New York, the drizzle of summer rain that brought smoke steaming off asphalt; in contrast, winter’s unrelenting sleet or snow so violent, it stung your skin. He was used to the terrain in Kandahar, the rocky clay under his boots, earth split from a combination of stark under-hydration and scorching heat… the almost immediate temperature change between dry, blistering heat to numbingly raw cold. Sand pelting skin courtesy of a dust storm was nothing compared to the punishment of nightfall in the desert.
But this place, thick with vegetation and moist with dew, stunk of bitter, wet earth. The pungent smell of wood rot was so strong it was almost assaulting. It completely surrounded Billy, and he sniffed with a curled lip, waiting as some of his crew remained in the cabin, golden light from large windows glowing in the distance.
It was another job on home soil, which was exactly what Billy wanted for Anvil; the specific job a security mission for the wealthy, a family whose patriarch was dipping his toes into politics. Billy had met with the man at an earlier date, discussing options and having a walk-through of the cabin alone. Now that the mission was being carried out, he’d come out with his crew periodically when he wasn’t at the office. Sometimes he’d choose to work alongside them, and other times, he’d hang low and observe. It gave him security that he’d hired the best of the best, that none of his employees were cutting corners… and it gave him time to think.
Sometimes, too much goddamn time led to too much goddamn thinking.
Undetectable in his dark clothing, he leaned back against the trunk of an old pine tree, its bark scratching roughly at the back of his shirt. Crossing his arms over his chest, Billy fought to keep his mind clear and focused as he narrowed his eyes at the faraway glow of artificial light through the fog. In the quiet stillness of early morning, the collective buzzing of crickets fading away to a silent reprieve just before the birds started their dawn chorus, he was alone with his thoughts. There was no one there to ask or pry, and so Billy conceded to allow his mind to wander. Still gazing toward the vacation cabin shrouded in a dismal grey, the thought tucked away in the faraway corners of his mind crept into the forefront. Billy wondered if he could ever live a life likened to the dawn.
He wondered if he could settle into a life where he had the leisure to sit outside with a cup of black coffee and watch the sun rise, not while on alert in the desert or going through his morning routine— just being. He wondered if he could ever be suited for so-called “normalcy”— a life where the only things dying were flowers on the table or the last burning embers of a fire.
The thought was cut off by the realization that he would never live a Norman Rockwell Americana life— he couldn’t. There was no chance. He was stuck in the life he was blackmailed into, one that was stained by blood and death. There was no room in that for frills like second thoughts or regret.
The first calls of birdsong brought him back to the present, and he pushed his weight from the trunk of the towering pine, straightening his posture. He rolled his shoulders back and tilted his head to the left, then the right. The satisfying cracking of his neck was reminiscent of the sound of a neck snapping before life was cut off by death. There was only the absence of the weight of a corpse thudding onto flooring separating one sound from the other.
Lifting his chin, Billy began his short trek back to clear land, leaving behind him the droplets of dew and scent of molded earth along with the idea of a life he would never live. Yet as he walked, fallen, dead leaves underfoot, Billy once again reconciled with the fact that he needed the life he’d ultimately made for himself. He needed that life as much as it needed him.
Fractured Identity is related to the identity of an individual which rather than being made up of one trait. Is made up of a collective of different interests beliefs or personality traits. These traits that make up a persons identity can contradict one another. It is like pieces of a puzzle which when separated are confusing and make little sense but when pieced together are parts of a bigger picture. Fractured identity expressed within the work of an artist is something which can be unresolved, it is not straight forward often something can appear more then one way creating confusion and making it difficult to draw conclusions.
