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There are certain things you can never truly abandon and for Caesar, the Church is one of them. He may have buried his childhood along with his name, but his faith is something so ingrained in the habits of his existence that he doesn't believe that he could ever truly part from it. Caesar has abandoned the notion of ever being a good catholic, the life he leads doesn't allow it, but that doesn't mean he never tries. He may have dry blood caked under his fingernails and stolen gold in his pockets, but he still prays every night. He still goes to mass on Sundays and lurks amongst the pews near the back with his bruised knuckles and a wrench hidden in the folds of his coat. He still wears a cross around his neck, he still remembers the hymns and his teeth still grind out the litany. He's not a good catholic, not by any means, but he still tries because the alternative is giving up and he's had too many people give up on him to just up and run away from something.
----
There's a fire in him, an ire in him that manifests itself through violence. He doesn't belong in any house of worship, Caesar belongs on the streets because he's a damned soul, he was damned the day he was born without a name. He's twisted inside and it isn't something he truly realizes till the beat of the pavement under his boots and the crack of some poor bastard's jaw beneath his fist starts sounding like church bells to him.
----
At fifteen, Caesar wears his sins like a mantle, he flaunts his offences openly to hide his own vulnerability. It's just like the cigarettes, he doesn't know when he started smoking, but now he doesn't know if he can stop. It's a good excuse to carry a lighter around, he never knows when he might need to win an argument, nothing proves a point like arson.
He hardly takes any pleasure in it, not like some of the guys he's seen gazing at flames with gleaming eyes. The truth is that he hates fire, there's something primal about it, this wild destructive power that reminds him too much of the rage burning in his gut. The fury he masks behind streams of smoke, the bitter hatred that bubbles under his skin, so intense there are days he can hardly sleep. He fights when he doesn't want to feel anymore, he burns because there isn't any other light and he paints an emperor's name, his name, on the streets in blood.
----
He can taste iron on his tongue, cloying and metallic, a taste he can never seem to escape, like he's swallowed down razor blades and sliced the inside of his mouth to ribbons. He wipes the back of hand over his lips and it comes away smeared with red.
The air is humid, stiflingly hot, it makes his shirt cling to his body and sweat stick to his skin. It's late, or maybe it's early, it's still dark out and from where he's crouched he can't make out the the hands of his watch, but it doesn't really matter, not tonight. Time means nothing, especially not his.
He wishes he were drunk.
Caesar's seldom touched alcohol, but right now there's nothing he wants more. He wants to feel the liquid searing down his throat, the sting of cheap wine and he wants the relief of the way it makes the world warp and blur around the edges. He wants the relief of being able to forget. He doesn't deserve it.
The first time, the very first time he drank, he'd remembered this warmth in his gut, this boiling in his veins, his vision had waned and when he'd opened his eyes he'd been in some darkened alley, his hand wrapped tightly around someone's neck. He'd come back down to reality trying to wring the life out of the man whom he'd first thought to be the traitorous bastard he'd been hunting for years and looked down into his father's eyes and seen a stranger instead. The man's hair was too fair, his face too round and the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes too pronounced. Caesar had dropped the man horrified and watched the dark haired stranger fall limply to the ground.
He'd run then, thrown a handful of silver and run as far and as hard as his trembling legs would take him before he'd stumbled pathetically through the window of the abandoned house he'd been squatting in. Caesar had fumbled his way up the stairs, slumped on the floor beside his makeshift bed, smoked all his cigarettes one by one and screamed himself hoarse. He'd shouted and screamed till his voice rang like rusty nails and scrapped like sawdust in his throat. He'd shouted because he wouldn't cry, but he had, he'd cried when he couldn't shout anymore. Caesar had bowed his head against his bent knees and cried till he couldn't make any sound at all, cried and cried and felt the festering pain he normally hid wrack his body like the plague it was. Time had been nothing then, he doesn't know nor remember how long he spent curled on the floor in a heap, reeking of cheap spirits, nicotine and fear.
He'd stayed away from alcohol after that, had been weary of wrecking himself like that again, but recently he'd found himself enjoying wine with the other punks that ran with him. It was good, not as strong as any of the liquor he'd dabbled with that first time. Wine is more a warm buzz than a blazing heat, it makes everything easier, simpler, it makes the weight of his mother's rosary a lot lighter in his pocket. It felt a little easier to breathe with something to dull his sense and without the fear of completely losing control it's actually quite pleasant.
He wishes he were drunk.
He isn't, no right now he's sitting on the stone steps of a church, hunched over his last cigarette, sweating despite it still only being May. It's unusual hot for this time of year and his hair hangs limply in his eyes. Caesar is tired, tired of being angry, tired of the streets, tired of being so alone all the time, furious too, furious at his father for abandoning him and his siblings, furious at himself for not being any better than this, frustrated with how weak he feels. He is rage and spite, he is sorrow hardened into bruising hatred and he can't even remember what love was before pain.
----
A boy sits on the church steps and smokes his last cigarette while watching the sunrise on his sixteenth birthday. But that's not right, he's hardly a boy anymore, Caesar was forced to become a man when he was still truly innocent enough to be called a child. He's lost the ease of what could be called childhood and now he navigates life with a wrench in one hand and the other curled in a fist.
He wonders idly if he should confess once the church has opened its doors, if he should sit behind a screen and tell some kind old priest of all the sins that stain his hands, or if it's already too late. He chuckles darkly, he lost his right to absolution a long time ago.
----
He's startled from his musings when a young man clad in a priests' habit emerges from the oaken door behind him. He makes a conscious effort to stub out his cigarette before the other man approaches and draws his mouth in what could laughably be called a smile, blood seeps between his teeth and it tastes like lies.
"Were you looking to come inside?" The youth asks him politely. His voice is soft, but it echoes loudly in the empty streets.
Caesar shakes his head. "No, I was just on my way."
"Ah, are you a traveler? I don't think I've seen you before." He continues, asking questions Caesar can't really say he feels like answering. The youth is gangly in the way only growing boys can be, but he still stands half a head shorter and frankly with their difference in builds Caesar's sure he would tower over him. Caesar is all sinuous muscle, brawn acquired from constant brawling. He's sure that if the young cleric became too annoying it would only take one good swing to render him unconscious and give Caesar an easy out of the conversation. Though he's pretty sure that hitting a member of the church is completely unacceptable, he fiddles with the cross around his neck nervously.
"Yeah, you could call me that." He replies gruffly. He'd call himself a wanderer more than a traveler, a wandering menace thirsting for blood.
"Where are you going?" The youth asks curiously, running a hand through his dark brown hair.
Caesar pauses at the motion, takes an instant to observe the boy's face, to catalogue the slightly crooked brow and the dusting of freckles over his nose and cheeks and feels his stomach drop.
"I don't know. Hell, probably." Caesar tells him, finally pulling himself up and intent on leaving.
"Only God may judge the weight of your sins, sir." The dark haired boy calls after him.
"The name's not sir, it's Caesar." He says lightly not daring to look over his shoulder.
"Mine's Marco!" He shouts to Caesar retreating back.
I know. Caesar doesn't tell him. I know.
He walks blindly down the street and manages to round the corner before he throws up, all nerves on an empty stomach, it's a disgusting mix of bile and stale blood. He leans heavily against the wall and he almost wants to laugh at his own luck. What a bitter twist he thinks, pulling at his own hair and clutching the cross around his neck between trembling fingers. What a joke that fate's decided to play on him, to give Caesar back his brother when it's already much too late.
Marco.
Marco must be twelve or thirteen, he thinks, still so young and already a son of God. To find one of the siblings he lost all those years ago is...crippling. It's as though the barely healed hole inside he chest has been ripped open once again. He's tempted to go back and snatch the boy away, to ask him of the others to see if perhaps there are more of them or he might know where they are. There's no point to it, he knows this. He's surviving on the streets, it's no life he would ever force upon a child. Marco's hands looked calloused but soft, his hair not exactly cut straight but still neat, his clothes certainly not new but still well cared for and clean.
He looked happy.
Caesar would be an even bigger bastard than their father to take that away from him and besides he forfeited his right to call that boy a brother when he gave up the name Zeppeli. Now he's simply a stranger with the same face, he's Caesar, he's a shadow of hollowed out fury lurking in shadows with blood on his face and his mother's rosary in his pocket like a reminder of who he used to be. He's a lost soul, he's a sinner, he's a man made demon, he's a boy shrouded in darkness and he's not brave enough to face someone he once called family.
Caesar is greasy blond hair, bruised skin, nicotine stained fingers and not enough courage to get down on his knees and beg his brother for forgiveness.
----
On his sixteenth birthday, God gives him a chance at absolution. God gives him a gift in the form of his brother and Fate urges him to seize the opportunity.
Caesar walks away.
He crumbles and he aches and the regret haunts him for days, but he never looks back and he never cries. He goes to church on Sunday with blood under his fingernails and a wrench in his coat and he still says his prayers and his lips still know the words of the hymns, so he prays and grinds out the litany with the butt of his cigarette.
He's not a good catholic, not by any means, but he tries.