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[katarinadupont-blog]

KAT’S APARTMENT 17 NOV — 10:20 PM Capulet territory / @ofrallis

A wine glass rests atop the coffee table, the formality completely abandoned in favor of clutching the bottle tightly within her hand as she chugs another hearty gulp straight from the source. Who is she trying to impress? Here she sits, alone and mildly healed, though the nightmares have only grown worse over the past few days. Since she’s been home, there’s been no Grace to curl up next to, no one to cling to when she wakes up in a cold sweat with visions of Marcelo standing over her, fear hunting her down, chasing her right into consciousness. So she drinks—heavily—in hopes it’ll make her forget. An empty bottle still sits beside the matching empty glass, finished over an hour ago, forgotten the moment she decided to start nursing a second in hopes it’d induce a dreamless slumber. If she was lucky. Sleep starts to take her, the bottle going lax within her grasp, settled between her legs as her head relaxes onto the couch, and in an instant, it’s darkness she sees. Her limbs feel heavy, like they were just yanked and tugged, pounded on repeatedly. A figure looms in her periphery, but she can’t quite make them out. Is it just too dark? No. She can’t fully open her eyes; they’re black and blue, nearly swollen shut. There’s a loud bang. A gunshot? And then their face appears. A familiar one, the same one she curses each time she wakes up now, but it’s stretched and contorted into something hellish, features twisted up into a wicked grin. Kat wants to scream, but nothing comes out. She’s stuck, rendered mute with fear once again, trapped in this darkness with them, forever—

                                                                Knock,                                                                            knock,                                                                                     knock.

She jolts awake, gasping for breath as she hurls herself forward, legs falling to the carpet of her living room. The bottle in her lap clatters to the floor, thankfully the contents already emptied into her stomach so there’s no mess that follows. “Grace?” Kat calls out, but feels stupid as soon as her name leaves her lips. She wouldn’t knock; she would have just climbed in through the bathroom window and curled up beside her if it had been her. And even so, they’re not supposed to see one another, a fact she remembers as soon as she pushes herself to her feet and it feels like a dagger to her chest. Like something’s missing, and something is, isn’t it? Home feels a lot less like home when there’s no one to share it with and it feels a lot less safe when you’re alone. 

It’s why Kat retrieves her semi-automatic pistol from her purse before she goes toward the door. It’s why she slips it behind her back with her good hand as she undoes the three new deadbolts she had installed this week. It’s why she doesn’t undo the top chain at all. It’s why she only peeks her head around the small gap with her finger clicking off the safety to the gun hidden in her grasp. “Alexander?” There’s a wave of relief, instant and all at once, as her eyes settle onto him. “Hold on,” she half smiles before she shuts the door and undoes the top lock quickly, swinging it open a moment later. Kat doesn’t wait for him to enter, just leans forward and tosses her arms around his neck, happy for the company and the peace of mind it offers, but a blush forms along her cheeks as the barrel of the gun taps against his shoulder blade.

“Sorry, I—” backing away, she sets it down onto the table beside the door and steps aside so he can come in. “Can’t be too careful.”

[katarinadupont-blog]

I am the bad daughter, the freedom fighter, the shaper of death masks. / I am the snake, I am the crone

Barbara Jane Reyes, from “Aswang,” Diwata

[katarinadupont-blog]

PAOLA.

It’s easy to laugh with Kat, though Paola wishes sometimes that it wasn’t. It’s too easy to relax around Kat, and too easy to be understood. Still, Paola can’t help liking Kat for her unique charm and distinct sense of humor. She grins and holds out the bouquet of flowers, carefully positioning it so that the small plastic bag inside reflects the light. “Sorry for the creepy Edward Cullen behavior – forgive me?”

She knows Kat will. As tough as Kat seems, Paola’s been fortunate enough to only ever receive warmth from the formidable Katarina du Pont.

“I was worried, though.” Her expression sobers, and she begins to fiddle with the bouquet in her hands. “The explosion… happened out of nowhere.” But it didn’t. She can smell the stench of war even in Kat’s hotel room, and she’s tempted to prod further. But Kat sees all, and besides – in this small sterile room, Verona is nothing, and Kat is the sun. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. And clearly,” she smiles, “you are.”

Kat pushes herself up further, reaching behind her back with her good arm to fluff up the pillow so she can get a good look at Paola and the gift she brought. Her nose twitches at the familiar scent. “Is that what I think it is?” Lips curling into a huge smile, she scoops the bouquet up and brings it straight to her nose, inhaling the sweet, albeit skunk-like aroma as if its the best smell on Earth. And it was, wasn’t it? “You really know the way to my heart.” She clutches the “flowers” to her chest tightly and squeezes her eyes shut in the first moment of bliss she’s had since she was wheeled into this awful place.

“I wasn’t near the bridge when the bomb went off, thankfully,” but she gestures to the various bruises, “but that didn’t stop the Montagues.” Kat leans over the edge of the bed and waves her arm frantically around in search of her bag. It takes her a few swings before fingers wrap around leather and she yanks it up atop her lap. “One in particular was kind enough to even give me this.” And she waves her casted arm out toward Paola. “But I would bet I can still roll a joint,” she quips, digging through her bag for the rolling paper she knows is buried in the bottom, remnants of her purging with Catherine. “Jackpot,” she hums with a smile. “Let me see your book for a sec?”

[katarinadupont-blog]

GRACE.

She’s been aching to touch her. To feel Katarina beneath her fingertips and brush over purpling bruises that fill Grace with a mixture of awe and anger and something that might be arousal if only for the fact that it means her girl knows how to fight – that she’ll be damned if she lets the world get the better of her. “Da,” she responds in a poor excuse for a Russian accent picked up from mocking Faron, the corner of her lips lifting into a crooked grin. “How into it?” White sheets shift beneath her weight as she climbs unceremoniously onto the mattress, kneeling at the foot of the bed to study Katarina from beneath a mess of platinum. It takes no small amount of effort to pull her gaze away and back to the unconscious Capulet on the floor, considering the oaf for a moment. “Tell him he tripped over his own fucking feet. Or that some crazy but super hot Montague came in here and you managed to fend them off for him.”

Grace draws closer, reaching for the hand that beckons her only to close her fingers around air. Concern flashes through dark eyes, brief but there, finally close enough to force Katarina’s chin to face her. “I shot the fucker, Kat.” It’s all too easy to steal a kiss and swallow the following questions that might come her way, desperate for the other to share the pride she wears upon her chest at her efforts. “Next time I’ll kill him,” she murmurs into her lover’s mouth, pressing her forehead against warm skin; a reminder that not all has healed. Leaning back, her typical lazy carelessness returns, masking an inconvenience that’s been bothering her, giving a cool shrug. “It means I can’t risk crossing over to the East of the river but we’ll figure something out, right? I’ll just– smuggle you into Montague territory in the ambulance. Only pieces of shit would attack a med vehicle.”

Katarina runs her fingertips along Grace’s forearms as she climbs atop the bed, weakly pulling her legs—the only thing unmarred by Marcelo’s fists—under herself, lips curling into a half-cocked grin. “Pretty into it,” she whispers as she takes a tuft of fake blonde hair between her fingers and starts to twirl it, a light blush forming along her bruised cheeks. “How come I’ve never seen this before?” She tugs at it lightly, eyes narrowing with desire despite the way in which she’s practically locked up in this sterile hellhole. “How come I’ve never seen you in only this before?” Question corrected, she giggles softly, but it’s cut off by the reminder of an unconscious Capulet lying on the tile a few feet away. “Super hot, yes. What a defense that will be.” 

Their banter, however, is cut short by the revelation of Grace’s latest victory, or rather her latest almost victory. I shot the fucker. Next time I’ll kill him. “Wait, what? That was you?” Kat withdraws farther away, scooting back toward the pillow behind her as much as possible, choosing to pull up her knees to her chest for some sort of barrier between them. Was she upset? It was hard to pinpoint exactly what she was feeling, really. Happy to see her lover—her girlfriend. Confused as to why she would do this—now. Kat waits for the anger to rise from the pit of her stomach, for some sort of allegiance to the man Grace says she tried to kill to gather and turn into rage for the opposing forces working against him and against those she’s pledged her allegiance to. But there’s a fire in the other’s eye, an excitement Kat can’t resist. After all, it was Cosimo’s decision to pass up on all the skill and talent Grace possesses. He was the very reason she’d been forced to look elsewhere for success. It was the Capulets that drove her across the river, and for the first time, with a would-be enemy confessing their crimes to her, Kat finally acknowledges it. 

“Good,” is all she says back, extending her hand out once more to beckon Grace closer again. “Next time you can’t miss.” But the reality sets in and forces a frown along her features, brows knitted in an understanding disappointment, but its brief as the other starts to lay out half of a plan. “True,” Kat taps a finger against her chin as she considers all the possibilities and all the obstacles laid out before them now. “I can’t get my squad car across a broken bridge,” Her lips twist up into a smirk before she leans forward and closes what little distance there is between them with a kiss, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t arrest you on this side. Who’s gonna stop me? I'm the law.”

[katarinadupont-blog]

GRACE.

The sheets smell of cheap hospital fabric conditioner, the stale metallic tang of dried blood, and the faint but nevertheless recognisable scent of Katarina’s shampoo. Her body all but sighs at the relief of being supported by a mattress, desperate for a chance to rest properly. “Us against the world,” she murmurs back, fingers stroking the soft hairs at the nape of Katarina’s neck. Grace closes her eyes, breathing in the words spoken close enough to be uttered directly into her mouth, breaths that aren’t her own warming her lips. A content smile grows at the question and subsequent answer, blinking herself to a more alert state to watch Katarina begin to drift off. “About fucking time, baby girl.” She presses a kiss to her forehead and stays until she knows for certain that the other is asleep, slipping carefully away as quietly as she can manage.

When Grace returns later that day, rested and showered, she’s forced to duck her head down as soon as the elevator opens up on Katarina’s floor and slink in the opposite direction before the Capulet posted outside of their injured soldier’s room catches sight of her. “Fuck.” It’s a mission abandoned, but only temporarily. A day passes. Then a second. Grace’s desperation to see Katarina before she’s discharged turns to pining and prompts her to take extra night shifts just to spend more time around the hospital, increasingly angered by how close she was and yet how impossible visiting her newly-declared girlfriend seemed.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Why the Montagues had such an extensive collection of wigs, she decides not to ask. The scrubs are slightly more difficult to get a hold of given that every doctor and nurse and fucking receptionist in the building lived up their own asses, but a wad of money slid in the right direction in the hospital laundry rooms helps bring her disguise together, determined to slip past the seemingly stubborn sentinel that she’s up against. “Ciao,” she chirps politely as she reaches past him to get to the door. The very close door. The door that is right there. The door that has Katarina no doubt tucked up in bed behind it.

“You, you’re–.”

She doesn’t let him finish the sentence, forcing him into the room with a hand at his neck, shoving his skull hard against the calming-blue wall. The poor excuse for a guard slumps to the floor unconscious. “Coglione,” Grace spits out, adjusting her blonde wig and smiling semi-apologetically at Katarina. “So– you look less like you’ve been forced through a sausage maker today, that’s good– your friend on the floor might be a problem for you later. I didn’t really think it through but the little shit just wouldn’t fucking leave and I’ve been dying to tell you this since I last saw you.” She sits down on the end of her lover’s bed, proud in her makeshift disguise, her mouth cutting into a grin. “Kat, I shot Cosimo.”

Sleep takes her quickly now that she’s where she’s supposed to be, wrapped up into the arms of Grace, but just ask quickly—in the blink of an eye, like the slumber she drifted off to was nothing but a mere second—she’s awoken to scuffling in the short distance. Katarina hears the thud before her eyes flutter open, still hazy from the pain-management regiment the nurses have her on, but she feels better. Less stressed, like there’s no more tension hanging heavily between her shoulder blades, and in spite of the spasms currently shooting up her arm, she uses it to weakly prop herself up some. To try and get a better look at whoever it was that just—

Oh. 

Gabriele lies unconscious in a heap on the floor. Like a bag of bones, someone had clearly dropped him, but she doesn’t recognize the blonde staring back at her. 

Not until she speaks. 

“Grace?” Kat blinks a few times, rubs at her groggy eyes as she tries to take in the information being thrown at her. “Nice wig. Were you going for Russian assassin? I’m kinda into it.” She smirks half-heartedly, but it turns into a wince as she swings her legs over the edge of the hospital bed. “Yeah, uhh, merda, what am I supposed to tell him when he wakes up?” She shakes her head with a grunt, pinches at the bridge of her nose for clarity, but a small smile peeks through behind her hand. She can’t help but love the gesture, the willingness to make it past whatever boundary lied between them. “Come here,” she sighs and extends a hand out, wiggling her fingers to beckon her over, but it falls dead atop her lap at the next words that come. 

“You what?”

[katarinadupont-blog]

BRIGETTE.

date: June 26th, 2018 location: the du pont household  time: 19:12 status: closed for @katarinadupont 

With shiny silver cutlery and porcelain plaits neatly arranged on the antique dining table, everything was perfectly set for a fine and proper family dinner. The only thing missing was actually a proper family. This wasn’t about making up for lost time or trying to recreate some old memories that were fondly nestled somewhere in their head ( for Brigette had almost none ). This was, like always, about provoking and in the best case scenario making their beloved sister envious and jealous to the point of madness. So, maybe certain childhood memories were bound to be recreated, but no one said they had to be warm and fuzzy, quite fond to one’s heart. Some memories should make a person want to tear their own heart out of their chest. 

This was however Brigette’s golden time to shine and be glorious, for inside of the Du Pont household she was always the main star with all the spotlights flaring directly at her and the main winner who got to take all the grand prizes back to her beyond lavish and spacious bedroom. She was a ferocious fighter in certain situations and when it came to fighting over attention and adoration, she would always bare her big teeth and bark at anyone who posed as potential competition. No one had to deal with Brigette’s barking probably more than Katarina, but this was the curse of every human being; one simply doesn’t get to choose their own family. 

Sitting closer than usual to her parents, Brigette kept fondly staring at them and giggling like a sweet high-school girl at every other thing they said. It was a test of patience indeed, but all Brigette wanted was to see her sister’s reactions. Finally, with a glass of rose champagne in her hand, her eyes flickered to Katarina and a rather pointless question quickly escaped her lips. ‘’Kitty Kat, doesn’t mommy dearest look breathtaking on this fine evening?’’ Everything that ever came out of Brigette’s mouth had to be overly saccharine, so sweet that one could quickly die of sugar overdose. ‘’But Kitty, how have you been for these past few weeks? Is the blue collar life treating you well?’’

It was still beyond her why she ever agreed to this. Why on Earth she would set foot back into this house, meant to be her childhood home but it felt more like a museum. It’s walls lined with portraits of people she barely knew. One of her father above the mantle’s fireplace in the foyer, on display for everyone to see and revere the second they walk through the front door. It nearly makes Katarina gag when her eyes land on it as she enters. Just like her father to greet her with judgement; even with stoic eyes painted onto a framed canvas, he’s able to make her squirm, to cause bile to rise up in the back of her throat, to make her skin crawl in the most of unsettling of ways. 

She sheds her coat into the maid’s hands as she’s shuffled into the sitting room for drinks first. So formal, so unnecessary. And yet another portrait above yet another mantle greets her once more, but this time it’s of her mother and her sister. Brigette can’t be more than four or five, holding a doll as she sits atop their mother’s lap, who smiles happily down onto her golden star of a daughter. Katarina tears her eyes away quickly, glancing around the room at the rest of the framed photographs littered around, and though redecorated at least three times since she left, all evidence of the Du Ponts having an eldest daughter are gone. She’d assumed they’d do as such, but seeing it in person, or rather not seeing proof she exists—that she’s theirs despite what they wish was true: that she never was—hurts more than she thought it would, and she clings to the drink offered to her in response, downing it in two large gulps. 

“Dinner is served,” an almost ghostly voice sounds over her shoulder. “They’ll join you in the dining room.” And she’s led into the next room thrice redecorated too, but this one was filled with vipers now. Mama, Papa, and Brigette. All sitting precariously close to one another at the opposite end of the table, the other head left open for Kat to sit at by herself. Of course.

Kitty-Kat.

Steak knife in hand, Katarina considers whipping it across the table. Slicing her sister’s stupid, sugarcane-filled throat in one clean swipe. It’d be so quick, so satisfying to finally shut her up, to silence that arrogance once and for all, but she knows this game. She’s played it time and time again, come out the loser on more occasions than she can count because if there’s one thing Brigette knows how to do, it’s tap dance on her older sister’s last nerve until she’s no choice but to snap. But not this time. Kat refuses to let her win. “You look great, Mom,” she offers up between sips of wine, clearing her throat after the awkward and forced compliment leaves her lips, but still, her sister pushes. Still, she grinds salt into the wounds just for fun. “It’s great, actually. I made detective a few weeks ago,” Kat bats her lashes expectantly across the table, leaning forward to perch her head atop folded hands. “How’s that silver spoon treating you?” She asks calmly, smirk blossoming in the corner of her mouth slowly. “Still lodged perfectly up your ass? Or have you managed to finally do something yourself and retrieve it?”

[katarinadupont-blog]

GRACE.

Tense shoulders sink at the apology, uncharacteristically wordless as she remains at the foot of the bed and watches various flashes of pain flicker across the other’s face, newly aware that not all of it was physical. Grace shifts her weight from one foot to the other and back again, incapable of standing still for too long – particularly when the air felt so full of tension and unspoken confessions. She listens to the explanation die on bloody lips and knows that a reason is never what she wanted; that recognition alone was enough. Her sullen glare is swift to fall away when Katarina moves and she steps forward without thinking, the plastic bed-frame a frustrating barrier. “I know,” she admits, a hint of reluctance in her tone, “I’ve been trying to ignore the fact that I put you in a shitload of danger when I joined the Montagues and I’m really fucking sorry. Like, really fucking sorry, Kat. I just– staying with the Capulets would have driven me insane. I guess I always hoped that you cared enough to not let it come between us. And I was right.” A smile passes shadow-like across her mouth for a moment, gone of its usual sharp edge and replaced with gratitude, uncurling her fingers to hold tightly onto Katarina’s hand.

It feels so right. It always has.

She flexes her jaw as tender words are spoken into the space between them, pressing her teeth together. Grace is exceedingly good at fighting but nothing, not even an arsenal of sharp weapons and loaded firearms, can combat the tears that fill her eyes as the fear she’s been harbouring in her body since their argument is chased away by a voice that has always calmed her anger; soothed her frustration; settled her rage. “Yeah, I remember.” She wipes her face with the heel of her palm, pressing her other hand into Katarina’s as close as was physically possible in an attempt to show just how much she means to her – but it’s not enough. She doesn’t let go as she moves to the side of the bed, all too aware that it’s the nearest to Katarina that she’s been in the last however many hours.

I love you.

A whimper-like noise of relief escapes from behind Grace’s teeth and she climbs onto the mattress, careful with purpling bruises and broken bones, reaching to hold Katarina’s jaw in her hand and press a heated kiss to her mouth as if capable of putting everything she’s ever felt for the other woman into a touch of the lips. She moves over crisp white sheets, forcing herself to draw away for a moment to settle on the bed behind Katarina, pulling in the Capulet to lean back against her between jean-clad thighs, holding her close. “I love you too,” Grace murmurs into tangled brunette hair, resting her chin on the slope of her shoulder. But it’s still not enough. She searches for a way to put into words how she feels when she wakes up in the morning to Katarina’s smile, or looks up to see her across the room, or feels her touch after a long, loveless day. “I don’t want a life without you. You’re the only person who makes me happy.”

“Shh,” she leans forward and presses a finger to Grace’s mouth, shaking her head over and over. “I would never. I was hurt, yeah, ‘cause it did feel like you just abandoned us, but... I was being selfish... childish. And I’m sorry.” she trails off and wipes away a tear that slips out and rolls down the other’s cheek with her thumb. “You always came back. And I always let you.” Kat smiles and though it tugs at a few cuts along her lip, she doesn’t mind the pain. Everything feels warm now, like those cold arms that had engulfed her the moment Grace had walked away that night were peeled off forcefully, pushed away by something better, something kinder and much more tender: the love of a good woman—the love of her woman. 

“You’re always right,” she laughs half-heartedly with a wink, bringing the back of the other’s hand to her mouth for a soft peck before she climbs onto the bed. Lying back, she welcomes the kiss, leaning into the grip on her chin, arms reaching up to wrap around the other’s neck, intent on twisting her fingers into Grace’s hair. She tugs a bit, a light, breathy moan slipping past her lips as the kiss broke, a small twinge of disappointment making itself known in the fall of her smile, but it’s replaced quickly as she crawls up and carefully spoons her from behind. Undoubtedly Katarina’s favorite way to drift off to sleep. She feels safe here, protected by someone she knows will go to the ends of the Earth for her, and she feels so goddamn stupid for ever having doubted it. For ever thinking she belonged anywhere but with her right here, right now. 

Kat relaxes into her, feeling more at ease within her arms now than she ever has, like she was finally within a grasp no one had the intention of ever dropping. Confirmed by the words that follow next, whispered into her ear, so full of the same truth Kat feels, too, it makes her chest ache. 

I don’t want a life without you.

She rolls over gingerly, as gracefully as she can with only one arm to do so, but she uses Grace for balance, a small giggle escaping as she falls back down onto the pillow in a heap to face her. “I’m not going anywhere. It’s me and you against the world, right?” Noses brushing lightly together, Kat snuggles in closer, smile curling up the edges of her mouth slowly as she presses her forehead against Grace’s, voice barely a whisper between them. “You know what this means?” She hums softly, the question left unanswered by her sleepy lids lulling shut as a happy exhaustion creeps in on all fronts, but still she answers. “I get to call you my girlfriend now.”

[katarinadupont-blog]

[katarinadupont-blog]

GRACE.

“Yeah, I was there,” Grace responds, sharpness still shining through her tone, bitter that her good deed had gone unnoticed and unacknowledged by the one person she had been trying to prove herself to. Trying to save. If she didn’t love Katarina, would she not have simply left her for dead, allowing Marcelo to have their fun? Or even shot the Capulet herself in an attempt to convince the Montagues that she wasn’t one to fuck around? Business was business and violence was violence, but love? That was something different and confusing. “I went back for you after but you’d gone.” A heavy shrug lines her shoulders, the rest unspoken.

I want you here–

She would have been happy for the sentence to end there. Would have been more than happy, in fact. Her grip on the door handle loosens and she turns to look at Katarina, her expression hardening as the words continue to fall into the space between them. The hesitation tacked to the end of the sentence speaks volumes, teeth pressing together. Grace has never been particularly good at listening, as dictated by her lack of focused attention, which was prone to drifting, and her inability to silence herself. But if she was to do it for anyone, she’d do it for her. She steps closer, hovering at the end of the bed like an unwanted house guest, limbs taught with a frustration she desperately doesn’t want to take out on the woman lying before her. Fucking say it, she wants to snap. Tell me you love me.

Instead, Grace offers heartfelt truth with a thunder cloud scowl. “I get it. It’s brutal when the good shit turns into bad shit. It fucks you up. But you can’t let scummy rat-faced exes ruin your past and your fucking future.” She passively watches the tears spill from Katarina’s eyes, uncertain of how to conjure up sympathy when her own heart still felt bruised. “I haven’t told anyone that I love them since Mikael, and you know how long ago that was, so you trying to claim that I didn’t mean it was a real dick move.” There’s a pause, uncertain as to whether this was helping or hindering her cause, the tension between them unfamiliar. Maybe Katarina wasn’t the only one who was scared. “I shouldn’t have gotten so pissed off at you but it made me feel better.”

It feels like a stalemate. Like a steel trap clamping its jaws down. Like being told she can’t when she knows she can. “So what are you saying? That I’m not worth the risk? I don’t fuck you for the thrill of it, Kat. You mean more to me than that.” Grace frowns darkly, ever ambitious, ever bold. Maybe she’ll regret her following question but at least she’ll have an answer. “If you’re too afraid to even give me a chance then what’s the point in this?” 

“Someone put me in an ambulance,” she quints, trying to recall that night without letting the memory of Marcelo creep in any further than it already had. “I think it was Juliana. She might have saved my life,” it feels foreign on her tongue, admitting defeat, coming to terms with her life having been placed entirely in someone else’s hands and them actually cherishing it. “I didn’t see you or I would have called out.” Grace moves in and Kat keeps her eyes trained on her, willing her closer than where she took up post at the end of the bed, so much so her arm instinctually reaches out. Come here, she thinks but doesn’t say, her hand instead falling flat against her blanket-covered lap. She fidgets with the frayed edge while the other talks, spinning a piece of thread around and around between her fingers, only to look back up at the mention of love once more, of Mikael, and of the three little words Kat had said instead: no, you don’t. 

“You’re right, it was,” and she had been carrying the guilt with her ever since, memories of Grace’s fallen, heartbroken face moving into her head as her eyes fall shut—not really a relief from those of her assailant, but better than anything else because it was her. “I’m sorry I said that. It wasn’t what I meant, nor what I thought I would say if you ever told me you loved me, but I just...” Kat struggles for the words, for the reasons behind her actions. And try as she might to come up with one that doesn’t require her to bare her soul in the same way Grace has, in the same way she’s done so many times before, only for it to be returned forcefully, mangled and broken apart, she can’t. It’s now or it’s never, and that much is clear when she looks back up to her, when her gaze settles onto the woman she does love with all that’s left of her heart. 

“You’re worth every risk, Grace. Haven’t I showed you that much?” Leaning forward, she grunts as she pulls herself to her knees on the mattress, wincing profusely as she exhales harshly against the pain, but nothing, not even a few broken ribs, will stop Kat from getting closer. She inches forward and reaches out to scoop up Grace’s hand in her own, needing the familiar contact if she was going to take a running leap of faith. 

“What I’m saying is I have been in love with you for a long time. I think from that first time we kissed. Do you remember that? We were dancing at that club and I just had to, you know? You looked so beautiful. So free. Like everything I’ve ever wanted.” She sits back onto her legs, but keeps Grace’s hand held and intertwines their fingers. “I’m also scared. Terrified, really, because everyone I fall for ends up not being permanent, no matter how much I want them to be.” Kat exhales slowly, tucks an errant, mashed up curl behind her ear, and jumps head first. 

“But I want you. I love you.”

[katarinadupont-blog]

Tiberius.

Sleep has evaded him far too many times to count within that last week alone. Every time his eyes shut, the image of his mother and her eyes identical to his own, stared back at him. Pitying, sad and worst of all disappointed as she looked over at him. It wasn’t worth it. So he humored himself with other activities instead: a drink at the bar, a fight or two at Measure by Measure, surveillance missions with his soldiers. Anything at all that would keep him from indulging in the sleep that lingered in the corner of his eyes, and collected in darkened bags beneath them. So when he finds himself resting now, trying his best to fight tooth and nail against the tiredness of his limbs, he welcomes the bluish glow that his room overtakes as his phone rings. 

Katarina. 

Calls past midnight usually meant someone was dead or dying, so he picks up, features tensing as he braced himself for the worst. I need your help. “What happened?” He’s sitting up now, much more alert, tightly coiled and ready to spring into action. It grates on his nerve that she can’t seem to get to the point but her voice is trembling, and the request alone is so foreign for the girl he’d been getting to know that Tiberius knew something was wrong. She tells him she sent him a pin of her location, but it’s her last words that have him out the door and into his car without so much as another word. I need you. 

When he arrives, she’s standing there, unmoving. With a slam of his Ferrari door, he jogs around the hood and comes to a stop at her side, moving her over with a brush of his shoulder so he might assess the damage. A man laid at her feet, a bullet lodged in the space between his open glassy eyes. Nice shot, he almost says, but instead, he mutters, “What am I looking at? Why did you call me for this?” 

“I-I-I don’t know,” she stutters, words failing her now as he pushes past her. Kat turns away as he goes to inspect her latest crime, and its embarrassment she feels, of all things. Ashamed she’d even dialed him in a panic and asked him here. Why did she call him for this? She was the one with the badge, the one who could make this all go away, but too risk her entire career on someone who’s life mattered so little felt wrong, like a waste of every long night she’s put in at the station, like throwing away all the years of hard work. But such a thought started to make her stomach twist in knots, the way she so easily canceled out an innocent person’s worth to protect her own ambition causing bile to rise up in the back of her throat. 

“I don’t remember,” she says instead, bracing a hand against the brick wall in front of her. “I just...” her other hand reaches up to pinch at the bridge of her nose. “I got home and made dinner, ate and fed Duchess,” she goes over her earlier night out loud, listing what she’d done, but after eating goes dark. Like its been erased from her mind, from time and space, a chunk reality just missing.

“The next thing I knew I was here, with my gun pointed at him, and he was...” she takes another step away, wanting to put as much distance between her and the John Doe’s body. “He was dead. He is dead,” the words fall flat, dying off into a whisper as she turns back around to face her ally and her victim at his feet. “I think I killed him, but I don’t kno—I can’t rememb— I—” her voice starts to crack as tears well behind her eyes, hatred blooming in Kat’s chest for her own carelessness, for making such a grave mistake. It isn’t like her; she never pulls the trigger without intent, so what the fuck happened? “I’m sorry,” she says to no one in particular. “I’m sorry.”

[katarinadupont-blog]

GRACE.

Her lips curl at the edges. It isn’t a smile but the opposite, plucking the next M&M from the packet between finger and thumb to throw, hard, at Katarina. The red sugar shell hits her fresh cast and bounces onto the floor. Grace is quick to move, snapping abruptly out of her sleepy state, bringing a boot down hard on the chocolate. She’s still for a moment before reclining stiffly back into her seat. “Do I look like your fucking doctor? How am I supposed to know how long you’ve been lying there when I didn’t even know where you were?” Frustration builds and she begins to regret stepping foot inside this room. The assumption that the other would be glad to have her here rather than wake up alone had seemingly been wrong – ridiculously, laughably so. She watches Katarina flinch in pain and a part of her is glad that the Capulet is feeling some sort of sting after the wound she’d left in a heart that was rarely offered to anyone. Grace has learnt her lesson. Telling someone you loved them was a bad idea unless you wanted to risk having it spat back in your face, as was expressing worry. “So that’s how this is going to work now, is it? Every time I say something you’re just going to tell me that I don’t mean it? That you don’t believe me? Well fuck you. You don’t get to call the shots on how I feel. You don’t know me at all if you think I’d say shit like that as a joke.”

It’s difficult to navigate being upset when her default emotion is anger. Grace stands up quick enough to give herself headrush and stands over Katarina with her hands curled into fists at her side. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be a dead lump in an alley with your blood soaked into Marcelo’s clothes. Why the fuck do you think he stopped beating the shit out of you?” She tears herself away from the bedside, digging her heels into the smooth linoleum as she paces off the rage churning through her body, kicking a dent into the bottom of the door. Her gaze doesn’t return to the bed-bound patient, not when looking at her offered more harm than comfort. Blame and cruel words are notoriously easy for her to shoulder – except when they came from Katarina. It’s a fact she hadn’t known and one she wished she hadn’t found out.

Moving as if to leave, her fingers clutch the door handle, resting her forehead against the fake wood panelling. “No, but I will if you want me to. It’s your choice, Kat. Do you want me here or not?”

“No, that’s not what I’m trying to d—” but the words are cut short by the bite in Grace’s tone, the frustration she elicits causing Kat to sink further into the mattress, hoping to hide despite being out here in the open, such an easy target. There’s no point in trying to argue back; she had no leg to stand on, nor did she have any fight left in her. Marcelo had been sure to beat that right out of her, along with her dignity, left splattered across the pavement to mix with all her blood they’d spilled. But her brow furrows at mention of them now, eyes closing in confusion as she shakes her head back and forth. “Wait, you were there?” They flash into Kat’s mind with a large smack, like the sound of knuckles cracking hard against bone. She remembers them standing over her, a boot to her ribs, and instinctively her hand goes for the bandage wrapped around her torso. “I don’t know. I figured they finished the job. Honestly, for a second I thought they had.” 

Her gaze goes distant as something like fear turns into a lump in the back of her throat, tasting like ash and hate, but as much as she wanted to put a bullet between their eyes, Kat worries if she even has it in her now. She could barely hold her own in that fight. Correction: she didn’t hold her own in that fight. Without a gun, and now without a proper hand to fire one, she was utterly useless. But its the direction in which Grace turns that scares her most, walking away from the bed and toward the door. To leave if she doesn’t say something, if she doesn’t just tell Grace what she wants to hear—what Kat so desperately wants to say, but can’t. Every other time she’s said it, it’s brought her nothing but heartbreak, so why did not saying it now feel like the same damn thing? “I want you here, I just...” her voice cracks and she goes to hug herself for comfort, but winces as her arm presses against the bruised ribs beneath the hospital gown. Still it rises like bile in the back of her throat, all the baggage and pain she’s swallowed just to make it here, all the parts of her she never wanted to share again, let alone with someone as strong and as fierce as Grace.

“I’m fucking scared, okay? That’s how I feel. Merda, of course I lov—” The four letter word goes dead in her mouth as she stifles a pathetic sob, hand reaching up to wipe away the tears starting to roll down her cheeks. “No,” she shakes her head, “I’ve said that so many times to people I thought felt it, too, but they really didn’t.” Kat looks away, drops her head as the truth crawls its way out without her permission. “I won’t survive that happening with us.” 

[katarinadupont-blog]

PAOLA.

DATE & TIME: nov 3, 11 a.m. LOCATION: some hospital STATUS: closed for @katarinadupont

Lillian is the one to share the news with Paola, but she is the one who decides to make a visit. She is the one to purchase flowers and sneak a gram of weed inside (a bud within buds, she thinks with a pleased smile). She is the one who persuades the nurses to let her in, using every bit of charm and elegance she’s picked up from Lillian’s mannerisms.

She is also the one who has been waiting for an hour for Kat to wake up. No better way to spend Sunday morning, Paola thinks as she turns the page of her book, as if her feet are not itching to run out of the hospital and into the streets of Verona in search of a single woman, the answer to the question that plagues her.

But the memory of Valentina’s face slips away when Kat begins to stir, and Paola watches patiently for Kat to awaken. “Hi,” she says gently, “Fancy seeing you here.”

Her eyes flutter open and, for just a moment, she forgets where she is. The sun is bright, cascading into the room and causing a white light to take over her sleepy vision, and in those seconds, it feels like she’s home. In her own bed, wrapped in sheets that smell like lavender and Grace, but it’s fleeting as she goes to sit up and there’s a sharp pinch on the top of her hand. An IV making itself known, stealing the breath from her lungs in an instant. 

“Fuck!” 

Next to make themselves known is Paola, wide-eyed with a book folded in her lap. It’d been days—weeks? Who knows? How long had she been out this time?—since she’s seen her, and being startled awake by a shock of pain sets her off on the wrong side of the bed. Once again meeting the day having been creepily observed until opening her eyes. “Hey,” Kat sighs heavily, trying to sit up and look at least somewhat presentable given the circumstances, smoothing out her undoubtedly disgusting hair with a half smile. “I’m so glad everyone keeps showing up to watch me sleep.”

[katarinadupont-blog]

GRACE.

It’s a well known, entirely undisputed fact that Grace Daly likes to argue. She’s been doing it her whole life – picking fights with her sisters, yelling at her parents, storming in and out of rooms with all the heat of a wildfire that doesn’t know how to stop burning. The issue (or lack of, depending on perspective) is that everything is always fine the next day. She can be rude to Catherine but her little sister will still offer her a smile the following morning. Regina can attempt to kill her but she’ll still save her sorry ass twice. And that’s what she deems as being the epitome of family, really– regardless of what happens, they’re there for each other, forgiveness unspoken but true all the same.

She had thought it would be the same with Katarina. She really did. Sure, their argument had been intense and Grace had felt the sting of disappointment she’s been feeling near endlessly over the past few months, be it in the wake of Regina’s promotion or in the missing of a shot or in the decidedly brutal way her confession of love had been cut down, but she had expected that being here, now, without any reason to be present besides caring far too intensely about the Capulet in the hospital bed, would be enough to let what happened slip to the back of their minds.

Being wrong fucking sucks.

“Fine,” she snaps, scowling. “More for me then.” She crunches on one angrily enough to bite her tongue, appetite lost, but the following silence that stretches through the room is far more painful by comparison. She struggles to understand it; struggles to understand any of this. “Are you going to keep up this shitty attitude the whole time? Should I just come back once you’ve had a fucking nap?” Grace shifts achingly in the uncomfortable seat, rubbing groggily at her eyes. Maybe it’s the poor sleep that makes her say what she does next, or maybe it’s because she finds no comfort in the way Katarina is regarding her and wants even the smallest confirmation that they’re ok. “I was worried about you.”

“Yes,” she winces, trying to sit up again, but it’s a useless, wasted effort. “How long have I been out?” Snarling back, she pays little attention to the inquiry about her cruel tone, the actual truth—hidden beneath layers of scrapes and bruises, buried underneath her cast-encased arm—was that she didn’t want to be so mean, wasn’t trying to have such an attitude and spit nails at Grace; she wanted to pull her into the bed and fall back asleep within her arms. But then she remembers what happened, what she’d said. Eerily similar to exactly what Matthias had told her as well, though he’d certainly gone a step farther. Those words couldn’t be taken back, nor forgotten, and yet there she was crunching on an m&m a few feet away, sleepy eyes ever expectant, like it was nothing.

“What?” she nearly laughs, as pain-inducing as it is, some wound she wasn’t aware of causing her to clutch at her side, teeth sinking into her tongue to stifle the yelp. “Worried about me. Whatever.” Kat fumbles for the button that should be on the side of the bed, the one that delivers more morphine, if for no other reason than it would put her back to sleep. She could end this conversation before it even started, before she said something she couldn’t take back, too. “Well, here I am,” she sighs slowly, gritting her teeth at the way it feels like someone is persistently stabbing her in the ribs. Ironic. “Safe and sound. No thanks to you.” But she lets the words fall out of her mouth clumsily, mumbled under her breath because she doesn’t really mean them. Katarina is happy to see her, glad she made it to dawn in one piece, but a small, tiny part of her shaped very much like regret feels bitter and unstoppable. And it hates being strapped to this goddamn bed, rendered weak and made helpless. 

"I’m fine, Grace,” she rests her head back against the pillow and looks away, loathing the way she still showed up, even after Kat was so careless with her heart. I’m sorry. But those words don’t come next because Grace was right all along; she is a coward. “You don’t have to stay.”

[katarinadupont-blog]

LAWRENCE.

He can’t even admit to being surprised when she responds the way that she does. 

He knew the moment the words passed his lips that this is what she would do, that this is how she would look at him. He tossed his armor aside though, threw his gun to the ground already and can’t even be bothered to raise his hands, palms flat, up in defense. He doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t want it, knows that for every step closer she takes to unlatching that safety, the prouder he feels of her. There’s a part of him that gets a sick pleasure out of it, out of seeing her so disappointed with him, out of seeing her so desperately, undeniably, irrevocably angry with him. 

Like he deserves it. 

Like he wants it.

Like this is what he’s been planning all along. 

There are tears in his eyes, he realizes after a moment, burning and blurring her image as she stands before him. Van Gogh ate yellow paint to try and force sunshine into his veins, but Lawrence swallows the darkness like there can be no tomorrow; he looks into the dark of Katarina’s eyes as she stands before him and tells himself that he sees only the dark of a night shrouded over by clouds, does everything in his power to pretend the stars he sees there don’t exist, that they don’t shine more brightly than anything else in his life, pretends beyond reason that she is not the center of his heart, that she is not the axis for which his love rotates around. “That’s okay,” he says, a ghost of a smile on his face even as the pressure of a gun barrel increases more and more against the center of his chest. “Don’t you see, il mio amore?” He has to blink, push away the wetness and let it slip down his cheeks. He doesn’t stop himself from calling her his love, though a part of him knows that he shouldn’t. He hopes, blindly, that she’ll realize that it’s not him claiming her, but rather him admitting his love knows only her, that he doesn’t know how to give it to someone else. “That’s the point.”

His jaw does not quiver. 

His heart does not break. 

“You shouldn’t believe me. I don’t want you to.”

It comes in stages, doesn’t it? Grief. Loss. The total destruction of something and the aftermath. Denial came and went within six months. She’d called and called, texted, e-mailed, would have written in the goddamn sky, if she could have just to get his attention. To poke and prod and wholly un-accept this sudden severing of their lives, of their souls. Anger was unleashed over several weeks, hell bent on the ruining of everything in her path if for no other reason than to feel something other than the hollow, nagging pit he’d left behind. She eviscerated anything that dared to give her a second glance, cutting down everyone at the knees who thought it wise to talk back. It faded quick, replaced fast and all at once, like a nose dive right into someone else’s arms. Bargaining. And his name was Matthias. He’d know it well if she ever uttered it, ever spoke about the way she let his soulmate hold her heart. If she ever told the tale of how he broke it in such a similar fashion—no wonder they’re so perfect for one another.  

You shouldn’t believe me. I don’t want you to.

Acceptance creeps up behind her in the most unsettling of ways, the last stage set in by the calmness of his voice, the unwavering of his jaw as he confirms what, deep down, she had secretly hoped wasn’t true. That he didn’t really love her. That Katarina Du Pont no longer belonged to Lawrence Vernon. He didn’t want her anymore, if ever at all. How could she know? Maybe it was all a lie, half-truths and fake moments while he bided his time with her, until she wanted something real. 

The gun goes slack in her grasp, feeling like dead weight in her hand so she lets it fall to her side, though she keeps her eyes trained on him. Acceptance pulls the gun free from her hand, sends it clattering to the cobblestone. Kat takes a step closer and it feels like her skin is set on fire, such close proximity to the sun—to him—had always scorched her, branded her in the sweetest way possible, but now it felt like a death clinging to her, weighing her down. Acceptance unsheathes the dagger strapped to her forearm, guides it into her palm as she wraps an arm around his neck. She rises to her tip-toes to place a soft kiss to his cheek. 

“I would have loved you forever. Il mio cuore era tuo.” It’s quick, the slip of the blade between his ribs, just enough to make him feel it. To feel her, perhaps like he’s never felt her before. Spiteful. Hateful. She pulls it free with a harsh tug, the flow of tears down her cheeks still not enough to stop the poison on her tongue. “Never again.” 

Katarina will rid herself of him tonight even if she has to die to do so.

[katarinadupont-blog]

LAWRENCE.

Lawrence whips his head around at the nickname and feels his heart start beating again when he sees who it is. 

It doesn’t matter that he’s not even sure he wants to see her, doesn’t matter that she is coming in with guns blaring and a hunger for blood in her eyes–when Katarina du Pont comes near, his heart begins to beat again, comes alive with the rush of a love that he’ll never be able to shake, a love that will endure in his bones even when his own soul no longer inhabits them. But here? In this moment? She’s the last person he expects to see. It’s nearing the end though, and he supposes there’s a poetry to that, an almost inevitability.

Of course it ends like this, with her gun pointed at the hollow place where his heart belongs. 

 It makes sense that the one who took it might take his life too.

He doesn’t know how to answer her. Why couldn’t you just stay away? she asks him, as if he might actually be able to produce an answer, as if he hasn’t asked himself this same question every single night since he laid her down in her bed and tasted stars again. He lifts his hands slowly, gun from Chiko still in hand, making sure she can see his finger lifted from the trigger. “I tried,” he says as he tosses the gun to the side, his eyes tracking her, and for all that he tries he can’t bring himself to match her in her anger, in her fear. The only thing left in him for her is love. 

“But you’re in my blood, Kat,” he says, even knowing that he shouldn’t. “My marrow is made of love for you.” He lifts his shoulders slightly, and even as it’s painful, he doesn’t know what else to do. “That’ll never change.”

You’re in my blood. 

It feels like a knife to the chest, poison-tipped blade piercing through her sternum, intent on finding its way right into her heart. If it were a month ago, she might have smiled at such a notion. Katarina might have let her legs carry her to him, wrap her arms around his neck as she plants a long overdue kiss to his lips, so deliriously happy her lion has finally come to his senses, finally come home. But he’d ruined that, hadn’t he? He’d slipped into her bed, between her legs like it was nothing, and left in the dead of night. A thief of epic proportions, taking what wasn’t his and claiming it for himself only when it suited him. Only for those few hours where he’d had her fooled, tricked into thinking she actually mattered to him still, but she was just as easily left as she had been eight years ago. 

That, above all else, was crystal fucking clear. 

My marrow is made of love for you. That’ll never change.

Bullshit.

“Just stop,” she hisses, closing the distance between them with tentative steps, gun shaking within her grasp. Pull the trigger, she wills it, tenses her finger just so, a mere hair’s breadth from clicking the mechanism to life and effectively ending his—but she can’t. Death would be too kind a mercy for the bastard standing before her, just another lover-turned-stranger she can barely recognize. It should be easy then, shouldn’t it? 

He deserves it, a voice growls. But I love him, another cries.

“The problem with that, Lawrence,” the barrel taps against his chest, her last step toward him halted by the contact, “is I don’t believe you.” Katarina can feel the tears come, blurring her vision, but she pays them no mind; he’s as clear as day standing before her. Laid bare by his sins, past and present. "Not anymore.” 

[katarinadupont-blog]

GRACE.

                            [ @katarinadupont ] 0018. 01/11/2018. 09:14AM. VERONA HOSPITAL.

She gets sucked into the chaos of the accident and emergency ward when one of the nurses recognises her and timidly pushes a tray laden with suture kit into her hands and points at one of the many filled beds. Grace is grateful for the chance to keep busy, riding through adrenaline highs, adding to the blood on her clothes with that of her patients, stemming post-purge wounds – and holding back the amusing irony that some may have been inflicted by herself were it not for the fact that she’d made sure everyone she attacked was well and truly dead. Corpses couldn’t rat her out to the rest of the staff. Her body begins to complain by the time the sun rises, shafts of light glaring through the hospital blinds, catching on metal instruments and spreading peachy-gold across the floor. Hunger. Exhaustion. Thirst. Curiosity. She intends to deal with them in that order.

The vending machine spits out a packet of chocolate at an infuriatingly slow pace. Grace snatches it out of the tray and starts for the exit only to feel something drop through her chest, the sight she passes registering a moment too slow. She pauses mid-stride, takes a step backwards, and glances through the narrow strip of glass in the door. Before she really knows what she’s doing, she enters the room and sits down in the seat ( notably empty – did she get here alone? ) beside the bed and abandons her makeshift breakfast to flip briefly through the medical notes. At some point she closes her eyes, drifting seamlessly into a sleep that leaves time foggy and vague.

It’s a sudden sound that awakes her, vision settling on Katarina in an instant. There’s a rustle of plastic as she offers the packet to the bloody and bruised Capulet. “M&M?”

Blackness is all she can remember first, that and blinding pain, over and over again. Something pounding against her head? A bat maybe. No, a fist. Then a kick to her ribs, a crack following. It comes in flashes as her eyes flutter open. It hurts to think about, to try and put the pieces of her night together. The bright red lights, the foreign paramedics stabbing needles into her arm. The Montague who had sucker punched her. Piece of fucking shit. Sunlight pours in from across the room and she winces at the sight, hand darting open to shield her eyes, but something thick and hard is encasing her wrist. What the fuck? Kat pushes her arm away and inspects it. A cast, navy blue and wrapped tightly around, not stopping until just below her elbow. How the hell am I supposed to shoot with this?

Every inch of her aches, limbs heavy, almost molding into the lumpy mattress she rests on. Her eyes scan the room quickly, looking for an exit. If she can just get home, she’ll be fine. She can lick her wounds in peace, curl up under her duvet for a week—maybe a month. But as she braces her hands on either side of her hips to sit up further, an uncontrollable yelp sounds from deep within her chest. Tears sting in the back of her eyes and she wants to scream at the top of her lungs, but it feels like needles line her throat and she swallows hard instead, reaching her good arm up to smack away the closest thing out of frustration. The plastic cup atop the tray flies across the room and toward a brunette slumped down in a chair she hadn’t noticed yet. Teeth nervously sink into her bottom lip and she winces once more as a cut she hadn’t realized was there is partially torn open. 

Grace offers candy and Kat wants to smack her cast-encased arm right into her jaw. “Are you kidding me?” Voice hoarse, she’s barely heard, but it doesn’t stop the venom. “No, I don’t want a fucking m&m.”

[katarinadupont-blog]

MATTHIAS.

Matthias stormed out the door, not knowing what to expect, but painted a picture of strength for his ex lover nonetheless. His chest and shoulders were broad, postured to show resilience at all this night has thrown at him, despite how worn he truly felt. Perhaps the God he was not sure he believed in anymore was punishing him for not believing, or for the sins he committed when he believed He had turned His back on Verona for the night. His arms sat ready at his sides, not dangling so carelessly but not obviously ready to strike, though ready and powerful nonetheless. His face was that of stone, trying to hide the fire that still could not be extinguished in his eyes. It was evident as he got closer that Katarina’s own fire had become too much to be contained in her pupils, spilling out into the soft skin that formed her expression, out the tender lips that carried her voice. 

“What?” he asked incredulously. “Nothing that transpired between you and I ever had to do with him.” Mikael hadn’t even been on Matthias’s mind during the time he spent with Katarina – not when they were dating and certainly not when they reconnected. Despite his ex’s closeness with his enemy, Matthias did not think to use Katarina as a stepping stone to him; perhaps it was too obvious to, with him having obvious past ties to her that could be tugged like strings of a marionette, but more likely it was because Matthias had been more focused on Katarina’s familiar eyes looking at him with an unfamiliar emotion behind them, on familiar skin pressed against his own, on familiar friction that sparked a fire different from that which burned from rage directed at the other Capulet. “I was thinking the man who murdered my father would have a taste of his own medicine – this has nothing to do with you,” he confessed through clenched teeth. 

They say one has replaced all cells in their body after seven years – this meant that Matthias and Katherine did not truly know one another, and that Matthias did not know these hands which wrapped around his throat so vigorously. It wouldn’t have been the first time she tried to pull the air from his lungs in this manner, but it was the first time she tried it with the intent of harming Matthias, who brought his hands to her wrists, squeezing with increasing might. “Katarina so help me – I will do what I must to free myself. Let. Me. Go.”

“So, what, then?” She grunts, sniffles through her blurred, tear-eyed, vision as she clasps down tighter around his throat, backing him up against the door he’d just emerged from. “You get to try to kill someone, but I can’t?” Katarina squeezes tighter as flashes of his pearly white grin, his hearty chuckle as they lay in bed together, limbs tangled and tired from perhaps a bit too much bliss flood her mind. They were so goddamn happy once, so ignorant in their willingness to pretend they could make it, at least that’s all she can amount it to now. Their relationship and the delusional, twisted little tryst its devolved into. It makes her sick, wrought with something like heartbreak, which only causes her stomach to churn more, especially the moment those memories start to swirl with Mikael’s beaten and battered face, lips so swollen he could barely talk.

For the love of god, when will Katarina stop putting her faith in such disappointing men?

“You tried to KILL him, Matty,” her fingers tense around his trachea, grip going for what last little bit of air he might have kept within his lungs, hoping to squeeze it free with all her might. Kat braces her other arm against him, elbow digging into his rotator cuff for no other reason than to cause him pain. “He’s my best friend. The only person who was there for me when you ran away like a little fucking bitch.” She spits at him now, a trick of the low-lit streets practically causing the illusion of hellfire licking up and out of the corners of her mouth, ready and all-too willing to burn Matthias alive for his crimes. For his innumerable sins against her and the people she loves—himself included. Dio, just look at him. Not even a shadow of the man she once knew, the strong, resilient soldier she’d fallen for all those years ago. 

Now when she looks at him, eyes turned crystal clear, he looks like a monster. Unrecognizable. He looks like something to be feared. Perhaps a little too much like her. Eager to rip those who harm the people she loves to shreds, just like he did. And its a realization she doesn’t like, feeling like needles in her throat as she tries to swallow the thought, but her hand loosens. Guilt pushes her a few steps back, suddenly woefully uncertain whether or not this was a death she could live with. But it still didn’t change what he’d done. Mikael’s face was proof; where was his? Kat takes a few more steps back, eyes darting around in search for the gun she’d so carelessly tossed away the moment she saw him, but it’s useless so she brings her gaze back up, wiping away the fresh tears as she meets his eyes. “Do you even have evidence? I saw his face, what you did to him. You’re so convinced he killed Marius, but where’s the murder weapon? Where are his bloody clothes if he’s the one who did it? Where’s the gaping hole in his alibi, Matt? And you’re so blinded by revenge you can’t even see it, can you? What this stupid, pointless need for vengeance has turned you into.” She peppers questions at him, the rate with which they fly from her mouth far too quick to give him any room to answer. “What you’ve become. I can barely recognize who I’m even looking at. But what I know, what I can see as clear as day, what I can feel in my bones, is that your father would be ashamed to call you his son.”