you're too young & eager to love

Because, because, because, because, becaaauuuseeee.

(Because of the wonderful things he does.)


-

He calls him "Frankenstein" because he remembers hearing a radio play about the mad doctor and his monster when he was a kid. It had scared the daylights out of him, and his father had whacked him on the back of the head and told him to be a man, sii un uomo; i mostri non esistono. Sometimes he wonders if that's true; wonders if he's more monster than man himself now. He doesn't think he can remember how fear feels.

He calls him "Frankenstein" and laughs every time, and after a few times Jimmy growls "cut it out, Al" in that soft and deadly voice of his. Richard always acts like he hasn't heard, but when Jimmy defends him Al thinks he almost smiles - if you can call it a smile, more like a twitch. He stops for a few days, but then he slips and says it again, and this time Richard turns his head and look at him with one hazel eye that seems to have the sharpness of two. Al feels the back of his neck prickle.

"Frankenstein... is the doctor," Richard says, in his voice like rocks in a tin can. "Not the monster. In the book."

Jimmy smirks.

Al blinks. "Well, 'scuse me, college boy," he says, forcing another laugh. "Ain't everyone's had all the time for readin' books like you. I dropped outta school when I was fourteen. Had to get a job."

"Hmm." He's still studying him, his unreadable eye roving over Al's face. For one strange moment, he wants to turn away, but not to avoid seeing - to avoid being seen. Somehow, he suddenly feels like the scarred one. "Didn't... read it in school. I brought it with me ...to France."

Al says nothing. Without really trying or wanting to, he can picture it; the image assembles itself in his mind: Richard, unscarred, unmasked, dark-haired and handsome, crouching in a trench with his rifle over his back, hunched over a book in a light rain, perhaps, smoking a cigarette down to the very end, hearing distant explosion and waiting, waiting - somehow he can imagine his face how it was, with his hair falling into those deep eyes and a mouth forever on a verge of a smile.

Trying something new. Just to test out a potential new character/fandom.


Circa Episode 7 “Home” of Boardwalk Empire, with references to earlier episodes. So, spoilers all around.

James Darmody centric. I’m including a picture of him, because Michael Pitt is a hottie.



--

You buy the man a bourbon, the real stuff, and send a whore to his arm.

This is how you make friends now. A soldier’s mentality to go with your soldier’s leg, the shrapnel that scarred your thigh and now you limp. Even an expensive suit, deep blue with ivory stripes, can’t hide it.

--

You smell oranges, and your head hurts.

You still think you can feel your fingers, sticky with pulp, from when you used to squeeze fresh juice for Pearl. A prostitute who used your gun to shoot herself in the face, and that’s not even the beginning of the horrors you’ve seen.

--

Al Copone is a liar. The scars across his face were not from the war, but he thrusts his heavy chest forward and jostles about his patriotic status. This is while the two of you are partners, making a home of a whorehouse in Chicago, and thieving Enoch Thompson out of his money. Copone doesn’t ask about Enoch, doesn’t give a rat’s ass that the man is (was) your father figure, all he knows is that you’re considered a genius and it make him jealous, ornery.

Your ambition was just waiting for the right time.

--

You left a woman back in Atlantic City. More importantly, you left a son.

Most mornings, you send cash by envelope, but your conscience still doesn’t feel clean.


--

You spent three years in France fighting sauerkrauts.

You still wake up feeling cold and hungry, and sometimes the pain in your leg makes you wish you’d had it amputated. Then you’d have a missing limb to go along with your missing spirit.