you are the mask / and the wearer

info .

name: fransisco lorenzo russo nickname(s): francis, fran date of birth: october 29th, 1991 age: thirty-five place of birth: halcyon island power: precognition

gender: cis-male pronouns: he/him sexuality: pansexual

occupation: former quality assurance engineer, underboss education: halcyon island university affiliation: russo family, the current family: alicia (mother), francesco (father), rosalia & niccolo & damiano (siblings)

aesthetics: a cigarette tucked behind an ear, constantly moving fingers, the scent of sandalwood and smoke lingering on suit jackets, crooked smiles and jokes during the wrong moments soundtrack: dashboard by noah kahan positive traits: witty, quick on his feet, charming, unflinchingly loyal, methodical negative traits: obsessive, manipulative, restless, reckless, vengeful

height: 6'3 eye color: bright blue hair color: dark blonde notable features: scar on his left cheek

bio .

( tw: alcoholism, smoking, car accident, medical, guns )

you're the first born of a whole gaggle, though you don't yet know your luck when you draw your first breath.

you don't yet know that you will hold your future siblings with as much reverence as you hold a gun, fingers delicate as they wrap around cool metal and chubby little fingers alike. you're blissfully unaware that you will aim a shot with the same careful precision you use to throw your sibling a ball to catch. your life will be a constant parallel of violence and peace and you will walk it like a tightrope. only time will tell if you manage to keep your balance, or if you will fall on one side or the other. two sides of the same coin.

brilliant; that's what your parents are. and you are destined for the same. a quick study like your mother, the head of your family and the current faction, and just as quick witted, though it takes you more effort to focus on the things you don't care about. you're good with your words like your father, a skilled negotiator with an eye for business that you look up to with admiration.

though, it is the moment you pick up a gun for the first time that your true talent shows. you're eight and your father is out of the room for enough time that you can make the discovery by yourself, seated at the mahogany dining table. the machinery fascinates you. weighty metal that slots into one another with a precision and purpose that you curiously pull apart. one click after another. there's nothing elegant about it that first time, nothing methodical, but your young eyes drink it all in hungrily. then you put it back together, just to pull it apart afterwards, and this time, you're more familiar with it. you can't name all the pieces but your fingertips come to know each ridge and edge, the shapes and gentle curves. you see what manufactured perfection can become and it occupies your mind from then on.

you didn’t know back then, that blissful ignorance was not a luxury afforded to you. It’s always difficult to see what you have until you don’t have it anymore. easy to take for granted what you might miss in a few years’ time. you’re ten when your power rears its head for the first time. if you’re honest, in retrospect it might have always been there, you just chalked it up to being smart about things. but once it became apparent, it was difficult to ignore. when you predict the outcome of a situation, you’re right more often than you’re not. it takes time and a village to figure out what your power can do, and you don’t think you’ve figured it out entirely yet. the cinder incident made everything more difficult in any case, and you were left to work on exploring your powers in private, mostly on your own. 

you get accepted into the university on halcyon island for engineering and you jump at the chance to see a way out of your routine in the strict rhythm of the current, young and eager as you are. a new place where you have no roots that run deeper under the earth than you even truly realize. six feet and more. at university, you feel free. untethered. you absorb yourself in your studies most times, and other times, you do what your newfound friends and others your age do: you party. you drink until you feel a pleasant numbness, until your laughter doesn't sound like your own and your lips tingle when you press them together. it’s those times when your power doesn’t plague you as acutely anymore. you don’t preoccupy yourself with the outcomes of situations, with what most likely will happen next unless a decision, no matter how small it might be, changes everything. this is the first vice you burden yourself with. because once you start, you lose sight of the perfect moment to stop. you chase after the warmth with a greed that might have terrified you had you been sober and thinking clearly.

love finds you during that time, too, and it feels like a blessing and a curse at once. because you love yasemin. you don’t think you’ve ever loved anyone more, and the thought of loving anyone else that way makes your chest tight. you love her for as long as time permits you, for as long as this life of partying and a life with her can coexist. and when it’s time to make a choice, you choose the numbness of being drunk over the bliss and clarity of being with her. you regret many things, but this will turn out to be one of the weightiest. 

your wakeup call comes in a rain of broken glass and warped steel and aluminum. you weren't behind the wheel but under the influence you don't know when to stop, least of all tell someone else to slow down. a late night drive back to the dorms after a party ends in fire, blood running down the side of your face as you and another stumbling, injured friend pull the driver out behind the wheel and stagger away as the car bursts into flames. the shock sits in your bones numbly those few hours after the accident, but it grips on tighter as they patch you up in the hospital and feed an IV into your arm that sobers you up in a manner that's awfully humbling. had you passed out during the collision or from the alcohol, you and your friends might have died.

cynically, you wonder how much of a blessing it is when your sobriety gifts you with the foresight that the driver will never walk right again, and the friend who helped you pull him from the wreck will live with a pronounced, permanent tremble in one arm. you on the other hand, get to walk away with nothing but scratches and a light concussion and a scar on your cheek that will have you think of this night each moment you look at your reflection.

you resolve to stop drinking after that and you mostly succeed. tone it down, find ways to decline a drink that doesn't betray your deep, clawing fear that you will end up right back where you started. and yet, you trade one burdensome vice for another. cigarettes might make your chest sore the next day, they might make your fingers tremble when you abstain for too long, but they don't make you reckless. they don't take your good judgement and twist it into something that can't tell right from wrong and have you chase a thrill that will never be quite as good as you imagine.

when you return home after graduation, you come back the same, and yet entirely changed. the tightrope wobbles and shakes as you walk it, but you hold on one chain-smoke at a time. you slot into routine at home seamlessly. you didn't rush anymore. people who rushed ended up in headlines or coffins and you weren't itching for either. your degree earns you a position as a quality assurance engineer, and it's really just a fancy way of saying you made sure that each weapons delivery arrived the way it was meant to, that it was maintained and stored perfectly. it wasn't about each individual piece, but about how they came together. like a family, almost. and then, just a few years after that, you move from weapons specialist to underboss. 

you smoke, you don't drink, you hold a gun like a life-line and you indulge in the illusion of propriety and peace and your family’s power on halcyon island, even though that peace is momentary and fragile at best at every moment.

it lasts until it doesn't, and you wonder if this is what will finally shove you off that line you've been toeing, right off the edge. for better, for worse. for good.

wanted connection .