"Maybe I am," His attempt at flirtation was stilted, slurred beneath the heat of alcohol. Maybe if he'd allowed himself to get drunk before, he might have been better prepared for all of this. It was a bit overwhelming, admittedly. A more sober version of him might have repelled at that question rather than stumble into it, giggling like an idiot or a swooning school girl. He focused on his feet and tried not to fall over himself.
[break][break]
"Okayyy," He didn't make it very far before having to have Enzo help him along. Luckily, he was too far to feel shame over it. Under normal circumstances, Kosei never accepted assistance from anyone and he knew that had to be annoying for Enzo. Though, now, here was the opportunity the other had likely been waiting for to hold it over his head. The morning would eventually come and he'd have to deal with the repercussions, but that was for future-Kosei to deal with.
[break][break]
Kosei practically spilled into the hotel room. "Whoopsie." He giggled.
[break][break]
"Nooooooo, you mean you don't wanna hold me?" His grin was crooked, eyes heavy. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? Did it make you happy? Are you proud of me?" It was fucking sad, he was almost twenty and had never gotten drunk. Never went to a single party. Never kissed anybody. Enter Enzo and things just unraveled. Years of carefully controlled bullshit— what was the point? So busy trying to make his parents proud.
[break][break]
He snorted, feeling the bliss of earlier sour. Maybe that was normal, he wouldn't know. Instead, he was too busy staring at Enzo realizing that the other used him to prove a point, so why couldn't he? Or whatever. He didn't know. His thoughts turned into a slurred mess and before he knew what he was thinking or hoping to achieve, he leaned up and kissed him. It probably wasn't a terribly good kiss. It wasn't like he had comparisons and a sober version of him would have been fretting over that more, self-conscious that he was undesirably bad or something.
[break][break]
"You have booze breath." he laughed. Or was that him?
[break][break]



[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | m: vacation time | [break]

He twisted his body to the side, just enough to shield Enzo from Miu's sight. Blue would keep her back enough so that she couldn't get too close to either Enzo or the bodies. She'd already suffered enough trauma from this whole experience, but this wasn't over. It was so far from over. Despite his best effort, he couldn't keep in control of himself. "I'm sorry, this is all my fault."
[break][break]
As Enzo touched his face, he felt himself crack even more under the sticky heat of blood. He couldn't lose him. No, he wouldn't. "It's not okay, you idiot." His voice scratched.
[break][break]
Fishing through his coat pockets, he found the other's phone. His fingers fumbled over the screen, dialing and smearing a streak of blood. "Hush, I don't care." It didn't matter. He'd done nothing wrong, this was all in self-defense, right? Surely they'd realize that. Maybe he could lean on the military, but he doubted they'd be there to hold him up.
[break][break]
His free hand kept a constant pressure of the other man's wound. The receiver on the other end picked up and he began desperately reporting their position, pleading with them to hurry. "Okay, they're on the way. Please, hold on. Keep your eyes open. I need you." 


[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | im dead inside :'3 | [break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-lucario"]
[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon ponyta-galar"]

[attr="class","milkcredit"] [attr="class","fas fa-cookie-bite"]

The violence didn't shock him, he'd seen Enzo's demons before and they were hand in hand with their vices. They could never judge one another because they knew that they were reflections of their worst selves. However, there was no denying that they made one another better. Even if indirectly, they still were better off in one another's lives.
[break][break]
A sound bubbled up, burst in a pathetic way, but it wasn't a sob. It was laughter. They were okay. All of that pain and it was over. "Fuck... Enzo... I don't..." He shook his head. His hands were shaking. The knuckles of his one hand were bloodied and there might have been a hairline fracture, but it didn't matter. He'd take all the minute pain in the world right then. None of it mattered as long as they were okay.
[break][break]
With heavy breath, he picked himself off the lifeless form of the guard he'd beat to death. His head pounded and the side of his head was sticky and matted with blood. "How did you find us so quickly?" Kosei knew he'd fucked up, considering all he'd done was give the other some rushed direction and hoped for the best. Had he been smarter maybe this wouldn't have been so painful. If he'd talked to Enzo at all about it, maybe Miu wouldn't have endured so much trauma.
[break][break]
He felt sick with the pain and chaos he'd wrought. Even with Kastle's dead lifeless form on the ground, he knew he couldn't even blame the man. He was a shark and he'd tasted blood in the water. It was his fault for in shark-infested waters to begin with.
[break][break]
"God, right now, I could just..." There were a hundred things he could do to show how happy he was that the other was there, but his eyes focused on the blood steadily blooming across the other's shirt. "Enzo?"
[break][break]
The gun shot.
[break][break]
No no no no.
[break][break]
He scrambled to his feet as Enzo toppled to the ground. The panic seeped back into his voice, "No no no. You're okay. You're fine. I..." He looked over his shoulder to see Astra and Miu.
[break][break]
"Is uncle Enzo sick?"
[break][break]
"He's fine, baby." His hand pressed to Enzo's cheek and he was shocked at how pale he looked. He rushed over the corpses to the place his stuff had been thrown. Releasing Blue, he pointed. "Take Miu." Then he rushed back to Enzo. He pulled out his phone but the screen was smashed. "Do you have your phone? The hospital isn't far." His voice shook as he ripped fabric away from his jacket and tied it firmly around the other's waist. "Just stay awake. Please."



[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | im dead inside :'3 | [break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-lucario"]
[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon ponyta-galar"]

[attr="class","milkcredit"] [attr="class","fas fa-cookie-bite"]

"Uncle Enzo," Miu cried and Kosei shook his head, but it was too late to keep her from trying to dash towards him, only to be restrained further by one of Kastle's men. "Don't touch her." He shouted, but it meant very little by that point. Kastle himself, however, had switched his attention entirely onto the interloper. Panic mixed with relief in a toxic combination that he wasn't sure he could trust. The shame though was stronger, especially while Enzo was preparing to fight them all and he had crumpled on the floor like a pathetic fool.
[break][break]
"You know, you should leave well enough alone, De Luca. Go back to your fancy hotel, I'm giving you this opportunity to leave." It wasn't much of an opportunity, but maybe it was allowed for business purposes. Kosei knew it wouldn't matter either way, he knew that look in Enzo's eyes. He knew the devil that lived under the surface better than anyone and it was never to be trifled with. Even Kosei didn't push that boundary, even when he'd really wanted to back in the day.
[break][break]
Chaos erupted. Kosei couldn't move at the hard crack of metal on bone, fighting between the need to look and wrench back at the sound of Miu's scream. His heart leaped up into his throat as a body toppled and Enzo had that smarmy look on his face that he both loved to see and simultaneously wished he wouldn't be such a cocky pain in the ass about it.
[break][break]
Before he knew what was going on, Miu was being whipped out of the warehouse and the second guard was being taken out by Cassius with a shrill, pained scream as fire set light to his leg. The guard shrieked, kicking out at the dog before attempting to scramble away. It felt like it was slow motion, feeling the man behind him twist around the raise the gun. Kosei twisted around, wrenching the man's hand to the side. The gun fired as he jerked his hand against the man's elbow with a sickening crack.
[break][break]
They toppled over and then he was just fury, knuckles busting against blunt bone until the man stopped moving. Though he didn't realize until it was too late that Kastle was right behind him.



[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | im dead inside :'3 | [break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-lucario"]
[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon ponyta-galar"]

[attr="class","milkcredit"] [attr="class","fas fa-cookie-bite"]

Miu whimpered and he could feel something ugly grow through the cracks, an ugly weed of fury and desperation. In truth, he didn't know whether to kill or to plead. What was the better path? What would save Miu? The truth was that pride meant nothing in the face of real, actual terror. Had he less experience of what Kastle was capable of maybe he wouldn't have felt such sickening dread, but he couldn't imagine it under the circumstance.
[break][break]
"Miu— baby, it's okay. Look at me, it's alright." He tossed his head, jerking away from the grip behind him but the pressure was doubled. He could feel cold steel against the base of his skull. "Don't do that again" the thug behind him muttered. Miu whimpered again, a water-logged "daddy I'm scared" slipping through a wobbling lip. He couldn't stand it. Everything felt raw and red-edged, fury and misery were bedfellows in him.
[break][break]
"Let's not lie to the poor girl, Kiryu." Kastle laughed, a sobering sound that made his temper flare. He wanted to burn the world and yet the fear left him feeling impotent.
[break][break]
"Goddamn it, Kastle, we can talk about this. Just let her leave through the door now and we can settle this. If you want me dead, that's okay too. It doesn't matter anymore." Therein lied the issue though and he knew that. Kastle had said as much before, not long ago it seemed.
[break][break]
"Oh I know you don't care about that, but see, there's no lesson in that. Is there? I certainly don't gain anything from killing you, but I can choose to either motivate or punish. I'm feeling like I'm a punishing mood though." He saw the glint of the knife and all reason in him evaporated on the spot as he scrambled forward. Not the feeling of the cold metal or the click of the hammer as the gun was cocked. Only Miu's crying and the pound of blood in his ears. And then...
[break][break]
“oh, am i interrupting something?”
[break][break]
He angled his head slow and awkwardly, eyes picking out the familiar man in the corner of his eyes like a feral animal. Hand outstretched but far too much space between him and Kastle to make a difference. Part of him felt such flooding relief and yet also, selfishly, there was shame. To be found out for being quite so pathetic, a wasteful excuse for a father that couldn't protect his only daughter. Even Enzo couldn't avoid that judgement, right? Yet that was pride speaking, which didn't matter. Not really. There was also panic, because it felt like the only two people he cared about were here and he couldn't let that desperation go. "En—" He snapped his mouth shut and looked away, hand dropping.
[break][break]
"Ah, Mr. De Luca, it's been awhile. Unfortunately, as you can see, I'm in the middle of something." Kastle jerked his head to the side and the man that had been guarding the door approached Enzo, weapon in hand.




[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | im dead inside :'3 | [break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-lucario"]
[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon ponyta-galar"]

[attr="class","milkcredit"] [attr="class","fas fa-cookie-bite"]

Despair and desperation had made way for unbridled fury, to a degree he'd never felt before. It was foolish, of course, to head off without Enzo, but he couldn't just sit there and wait to be saved when this was his mistake. No one else deserved to pay for it, certainly not Miu. Not even Enzo, and yet he was dragging the other into it, sobbing on the phone because he didn't know what to do anymore. All he could do was sit there and soak in the reality until his thoughts grew too dark to stand it anymore.
[break][break]
No one ever told him how to be a parent and he'd always figured he'd made a shoddy excuse for one. Hell, even Enzo had proved a better one than he could ever be. But this would make up for that, right? He could still be the person he needed to be to save her. Maybe then he could make up for all the times he let her down.
[break][break]
By the time he made it to the warehouse on the port, he'd already made up his mind. The stink of rotting fish filled his nose, making him feel sick. The fury wasn't gone, but resignation had set in. Nothing else mattered. Sure, he could bust through the doors, be the person he knew himself to be, a killer. Yet, there was too much risk this time. They knew it too. He was just a muzzled old dog.
[break][break]
Kosei shoved past the man posted at the door, pushing through the warehouse door. "I'm here, where is she!?" He practically snarled, looking around but she was nowhere within the warehouse. The fluorescents above were blinding. "Where is my daughter?" He didn't see the man on the other side of the door, not until the hard club against his head from the butt of a pistol. He fell to his knees, feeling something wet on the side of his face.
[break][break]
"Relax, she's fine. For now." The voice was familiar but calm. All a persona. The man in front of him looked almost kind, not anything like the cruel loanshark that Kosei knew him to be. Robert Kastle was an older man, but still quick as a snake. Kosei had made the mistake of involving himself in his business and later falling prey to it due to... things he wasn't necessarily proud of, but he'd been working his way out of it. That was never fast enough for the old bastard. Maybe he should have swallowed his pride and just asked Enzo, but he didn't so he was there and he deserved to be.
[break][break]
"Please, Kastle, she doesn't need to be here. Okay? I'm here now. I can get you the money."
[break][break]
"You should know better than anybody here how often I hear that. It was different back then, right? As long as they weren't your kids, yeah? You're a hypocrite and a coward, Kiryu, and you know how much I hate those." Kastle sighed, as if he hated all of this. As if this wasn't something he'd been waiting for. Kosei was an idiot for underestimating the old bastard, for forgetting what he was capable of.
[break][break]
There was a high-pitched screech and, for a moment, Kosei only saw red as they dragged her out thrashing. "Little brat bit me." One of the man said, shaking off his hand. Kastle turned and walked towards her.
[break][break]
"Wait!" Kosei pleaded, boots sliding on the smooth cement streaking blood across it. A hand gripped at the back of his neck like a scruffed dog. "I'm sorry! Please, please don't hurt her. It's me! It's me you want so please. Robert, I'm begging you."
[break][break]
The old man looked back at him incredulously. "I'm not gonna hurt her," his voice tapered off like there was an additional yet that hadn't yet mentioned. "I got grandkids, I know what you're feeling. I'm not inhuman."
[break][break]
Yes, he was. Kosei remembered. What an idiot he'd been thinking it would be any different. And it was, only slightly because the man was having fun with it. Playing with him. Though he'd seen Kastle let people off before, with just the right amount of damaged pride. He could tell, or maybe it was a hope, that he had no intention of hurting Miu. She was simply a convenience to help him crack. The threat was in the possibility, the knowledge that Kosei had seen him do far worse.
[break][break]
He wanted to wrench against the pull, race to Miu if only to stop her from crying. She looked at him and called him dad in that scared tone, one he'd never heard before, and it snapped something in him. "I'll do whatever you want, okay? Anything. Just please." He felt another blow from behind, his head smacked hard against the concrete.
[break][break]
"Oh I know." Kastle said, ringed fingers brushing through Miu's hair.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | im dead inside :'3 | [break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-lucario"]
[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon ponyta-galar"]

[attr="class","milkcredit"] [attr="class","fas fa-cookie-bite"]

"I only left five minutes... I shouldn't have left. Why did I do that? Why didn't I just take her with me?" It wasn't the first time he'd left for the corner store, it was just down the stairs and a minute from the apartment. She was six, old enough to stay home for five minutes and yet... They must have watched him. They must have known the store owner's wife liked to bake and she'd save a slice for him and Miu. Every weekend. A different flavor. Miu like the cherry kind the most.
[break][break]
Kosei shook as he spoke, curling in on himself as he pulled at his hair. "Enzo— I can't breathe." It slipped from his mouth, coiled up in an ugly sob. "I can't lose her. I cant—" He choked. She didn't deserve any of this. She didn't deserve him as her father. She was so much better than him and he had allowed them to take her. No money in the world was worth it but sense and hindsight was 20/20. Years ago, he wouldn't have understood. It hadn't mattered as long as there was food on the table, but he'd only been good at one thing. Breaking things. People like him shouldn't be fathers. "I owed them money and I should have... It's all my fault. If she's... it's all my fault." He'd had a problem and he'd never talked about it, but it was coming back to bite him. It was affecting his daughter now.
[break][break]
He could feel Enzo's anger like the unsteady crackle of heat and flames licking at his skin. He couldn't even blame him either. This was what he deserved, to feel this pain because he'd been too stupid. All he could think about was the stupid pie. The white shoes she wore, colored with rainbow markers. On the ground, not moving. This was how a man went crazy, he was sure of it.
[break][break]
"They left me a note." He wiped at his eyes, forcing himself to grow steely. This wasn't helping her. "I can't wait for you... every second I wait is a second she might be..." Kosei didn't want to say the word. If there was any rightness in the world that wouldn't happen, but he knew who he was dealing with and they'd made examples of lesser things before.
[break][break]
"I'll text you the address." Then he hung up. He could no longer think as he pushed himself up, texting out the words crudely drawn into the backside of the ponyta. "It's okay, I'm gonna go get her back." He didn't care what the cost was.



[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | im dead inside :'3 | [break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-lucario"]
[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon ponyta-galar"]

[attr="class","milkcredit"] [attr="class","fas fa-cookie-bite"]

He'd finally done it.
[break][break]
This was the price. This was the cost. It had finally caught up to him.
[break][break]
He was only gone for five minutes. Just five minutes. Just to the corner store and back. "Sit there and finish your drawing until I come back or I'm giving Princess Sparkle your piece of the pie." She had green marker all over her fingers, on her face. Hair fraying around her face, drawn back by a pink scrunchie. Gangly long legs kicking under the table, sometimes he'd forgotten how tall she already was. It was just any other day and yet... he was only gone for 5 minutes, but when he returned the door handle was cracked in, door skewed. It was dark inside. The annoying sound of cartoons blaring on the television. It had been turned up to hide the...
[break][break]
"Miu?" He'd whispered, dazed as he stared into the open mouth of the apartment. The seat she'd been sitting in was empty, turned over. Papers scattered across the ground. White noise, blood in his ears. And then heart-stopping panic as he crashed through the front door. "Miu!?" His voice trembled as he cried. Please, let this be one of her dumb pranks. He ripped the blankets from her bed to the vacant space beneath. The bathroom. His bedroom. Every room entered with a pitched cry until her name no longer formed on the twist of his tongue through the panicked sob.
[break][break]
She liked to hide, pop out from behind the curtains or curl up in the cabinets waiting for him to pass by. She was a menace, his little menace. In the kitchen, he found the rainbow ponyta curled up on the ground. Something had attacked him. His hands trembled as he shook at the pokemon's still form, but it was breathing and stirred with a pathetic little whinny.
[break][break]
"Where is she? What happened?" Only five minutes. Why did he leave? For the stupid pie now smashed on the ground in a red slurry that made him feel like he was going to vomit.
[break][break]
Then, he found the note on the counter: We were tired of waiting.
[break][break]
The mental walls finally cracked through and he was sobbing. An uncontrollable mess of emotion, tempest-like in the way he couldn't control it. He'd never had to do this before. He was so far from perfect. Sometimes, he was the worst fucking dad, but he'd tried. He'd thought that maybe the world would quit punishing him, but...
[break][break]
Blindly, he sought out his name in the phone before calling. Minutes of silence, only the dial tone and the same wash of nausea and white noise nearly put him on his ass. Enzo's voice filled the receiver, smooth and teasing in a way that usually made him smile, stupidly soft. Miu would see it and yell, "UNCLE ENZO!?" Because she knew he made him smile. There was no girlish screech in the background, he couldn't breathe.
[break][break]
"She's gone, they took her. Enzo— I... I don't know what to do. It's all my fault." He'd barely constructed the words, forcing them through the flurry of emotions. Pathetically, he crumpled, pressing back against the kitchen cabinets. And he sobbed. "They took my baby girl. I don't know what to do."
[break][break]
She's gone.
[break][break]
There was a stain on the ponyta's hide, an address written out in green marker.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | im dead inside :'3 | [break]
[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-lucario"]
[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon ponyta-galar"]

[attr="class","milkcredit"] [attr="class","fas fa-cookie-bite"]

He could feel his face heat up more and thanked the fact he could pass it off for drunkenness. Of course, he'd walked right into that. "No, I don't need a boss. Had enough people telling me what to do through military school, thanks." Even if it was really all he ever knew and what he couldn't help but rely upon. Things were far more difficult to adjust to than he ever wanted to admit. How was he supposed to go from having his life organized to a painstaking degree and then nothing? No wonder he was there, drinking until he couldn't feel shame in it anymore.
[break][break]
No one was there to tell him otherwise, though Enzo was trying to temper him. That was odd. Part of him wanted to fight against it, to insist that he knew what he was doing and he could handle it himself, but the other half leaned on that direction like a crutch. It was familiar, so it was welcomed. He was still the same kid, wasn't he? Enzo could see right through him and he hated him for it.
[break][break]
"Gonna smack that smarmy grin off your face." He groaned, feeling the needle of a headache form between his temples. He reached forward then, to press the palm of his hand to the other's face and push, but there was very little weight or momentum behind it. In fact, he was barely balancing on the barstool as it was.
[break][break]
"I'll show you indecent exposure." He didn't, he had nothing to show him. It just seemed like an edged remark back, but it deflated on impact. Most of what he said or did was for show. Wasn't that pathetic? Oh god, he was entering into the self-grudging realm of drunkenness.
[break][break]
Enzo hoisted him up and forced himself to his feet, which tangled between the legs of the stool. Sneaky things. For a moment, most of his weight was placed on the other as he kicked free and then regained his footing. His face crammed into the other's neck. He remembered with a lot of pride that he was taller than Enzo, even if the excess was working against him in his current state.
[break][break]
Even more so he noticed that Enzo smelled good — spa water dried on his skin, the hint of cheap cologne and cigarette and alcohol. "You smell good..." Did he just say that? No way. He laughed, because that would have been dumb. "Back to the room." He had no idea where that was.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | m: vacation time | [break]

"Well how come?" He asked, not that he was wanting Enzo to be his boss, quite the opposite, but it was still a curious thing to say. Right then, he felt very little extent of what was too far and what might the consequences of that be. No one in his family drank, not unless it was a military occasion. For a moment, he remembered that he too wasn't supposed to be drinking. What would they think of him? And yet, wasn't that the point of him leaving?
[break][break]
He left because he wanted to do what he wanted, not what his parents wanted. So, yeah, he was gonna do what he wanted to do. "Well that's cause I can... I'm not cute." He said it like it was an insult, nose wrinkling in distaste.
[break][break]
"Well maybe I do," This was not actually a point of wanting to strip, but more so him standing up for what he wanted. Which was.... well he didn't actually know... yet.[break][break]
The longer he tried to be stubborn about it though the more he felt off. Bad, even. With a groan, he pressed his forehead against the bar top and leaned his shoulder against the other man. "I feel sick."



[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] vincenzo de luca | m: vacation time | [break]