Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
@OBSOB on tumblr, A LOVE SO NICE ITS ECHOED IN DREAMS
✶
II. YOUNG AND SAVAGE
"HONEY, I'M HOME," Juliet called out into the relative quiet of the apartment as she keyed open the door and dragged herself inside. The lack of a snarky reply left a glaring silence; it was almost alarming. Ezra could be considered a personal contributor to the climate crisis just by the amount of electronics he had running at any given moment. His repeat offender was his laptop, which despite his choice of profession he often left unlocked and blaring his music—or whatever Netflix show he was hyper-fixating on at the time.
On too many occasions had Juliet come back from a job to have her return scored to Ezra's sad boy playlist or John Williams, depending on whether he was revisiting his Star Wars phase or not. A hit she had carried out on Tombstone's behalf a few months ago had seen her stumble home, bloodied and bruised, only to interrupt her roommate's one-man Spotify pity-party. Frank Ocean had come through, though, providing sufficient ambience for the subsequent stitching-up. That, Juliet could admit.
And she was the Illusionist, after all—theatricality was her best friend. Life was not a movie but that didn't mean it couldn't have cinematic value every so often.
Juliet opened her mouth to call for Ezra again when she heard the gentle padding of paws against the hardwood floor. From her open bedroom doorway down the hall slunk a tortoiseshell cat, the cream-coloured splotches in its coat catching the light of the LED strips Ezra had neglected to switch off before he disappeared to wherever it was he disappeared to.
"Hey, Monty," Juliet said, crouching to let the cat jump up into her lap. He did just that, leaning back on his forelegs for a split second before springing up onto his owner's knees. Juliet curled her good arm around him, cradling him as she eased herself down to sit cross-legged on the floor. "How are you, baby? Where did Ezra disappear off to, huh? Did you see him go?"
As expected, Monty did not reply. Instead, he simply stared up at Juliet, his eyes saffron-yellow and unblinking. This was a silence Juliet was used to, and one she appreciated: she had had Monty ever since she and Ezra moved in together, and the cat had come to embody calm in four legs and a tail amongst the chaos of his parents—Juliet, with her vaguely-life-threatening work as a mercenary and Ezra as her guy-in-the-chair.
Juliet had first met Monty in an animal shelter in the shadier side of Hell's Kitchen—a shelter that was later revealed to be a front for a drug-trafficking ring, which Juliet discovered after being paid to investigate said shelter on the behalf of a rival operation. With the neighbouring shelters at too full of a capacity to accept the front's full intake after it was shut down, the innocent volunteers had had no choice but to hold an adoption drive.
