Leon lets out a deep breath, pulling up his jacket collar in the bathroom mirror in an effort to hide the blooming bruises on his neck. Ezra kept his promise and didn't leave any new fang prints, but that doesn't mean he didn't mask the pain of paper cut like scrapes beneath kisses that left bruises themselves. They blended in beneath the other ones anyway.
"How hard do you think your dad will stab me when I go downstairs with you?" Ezra asks, making Leon jump hard with the lack of the vampire's reflection as a warning to the hand on his back.
Leon laughs, having to turn his head to get a view of the older. He had given him clothes to borrow, as his others were dirty and scratchy with dried holy water and blood.
"Do they fit?" Leon asks, turning his body to face Ezra and fix his shirt. "I know you prefer pastel- I tried to find my best ones."
"They're fine," Ezra says, looking down at himself. He had been given a long sleeve to hide his scarred and irritated arms, a soft green with a solid black circle in the center. A winky face sits in the center, colored the same pastel green. The shorts Leon gave him were similar to the ones he had before, but these had a little rose patch sewn on one of the back pockets.
Leon turns back to the mirror, sighing again and pulling up his collar as high as it'll reach. There's no way to hide any of these bruises.
"I don't think they won't notice," Ezra murmurs, smoothing down Leon's wild hair the best he can. It defies his shaky hand, only appearing to shiver in the mirror without his reflection.
"I know," Leon sighs, finally pulling his eyes away from the mirror and turning to leave the bathroom. Ezra follows him out, flipping off the light and trailing behind him down the stairs. The heat of embarrassment practically radiates off of Leon's figure, making his visible skin flush pink even in the shadows of the staircase.
"Relax," Ezra whispers, "looking tense just makes you look worse off. And remember- silverware won't hurt me unless it's actually silver."
"That's the thing though," Leon murmurs over his shoulder, pausing before they turn the corner into the living room, "I think we have some."
Ezra makes a face, earning a sheepish smile before he's lead out into the living room. Neither of his parents are to be found, only deep brown furniture and a black TV.
"They're in the kitchen," Leon says, taking a breath, "I think my dad is making breakfast."
"I smell chemicals," Ezra makes a face, feeling his throat threaten to burn. The closer they get to the kitchen the more obnoxious and sharp the smell becomes.
Leon frowns, looking over to the vampire. "My mom must be doing her nails- she works at a salon in the city. I forget vampires have sensitive noses."
Ezra puts the side of his hand to his nose, blocking out the smell that bombards his head. Sensitive is an understatement.
"Wait here," Leon says apologetically, taking a deep breath before slipping through the doorway to the kitchen Ezra couldn't quite see into. It's silent for a moment after Leon murmurs to his mother, receiving a quiet response before his father pipes up.
"I bet he just doesn't want to come in here and see us," the man comments sourly, not rough but with a sense of hostility, "look at what he did to you. The hunter might as well have got you."
"Dad!" Leon's voice hisses, clearly not wanting Ezra to hear what he had commented. The vampire just waits.
"Joshua," Leon's mother warns, trying to defend Ezra without knowing he was listening, "you better be nice to him."
"A vampire just bit my son and you expect me to be okay with it?" Josh asks, clinking filling he kitchen as things are set on the table, "I'm sorry- but I will not just let him hide after that. Those bruises aren't light; let me see."
Ezra steps into the doorway to the room where the humans were talking, almost choking on the smell of nail polish and cleaner. The small room seemed to amplify the smell of chemicals and make his throat and nose burn.
"Ezra!" Leon's mother gasps, jumping up from her spot at the table. She pushes her chair back, trying to hastily close her bottle of cleaner and dig in her bag work bag.
Ezra tilts his chin up a quarter inch, feeling his head swim briefly with the harsh smell. "I'm sorry, sir," Ezra says, voice holding no tone of apology as he stares at the man who had his son gripped by the arm, "I just couldn't hide anymore. I didn't mean to harm your boy, but I do think the hunter would have done more hurt to him than I ever could. I mean- just look what he did to me."
Ezra pulls up his left sleeve, showing off the pink and purple discoloration of his hand and forearm. His skin had an uneven texture, looking like it was in the mid process of healing Ezra sticking his arm in a bonfire.
"Ezra you can't be in here," Leon's mother urges, appearing before him as he stretches his stiff fingers. He doesn't fight her when she grabs his shoulder to keep him from swaying with the nauseating smell, staring Josh down as a medical mask is pulled from ear to ear to cover his nose and mouth.
"My vampire clients that come it can't tolerate the smell of chemicals- you can't just stand in here," the woman scolds, dragging Ezra out by the arm, "we've had people throw up just by walking in, please come sit down."
Leon rips his arm away from his father, giving him a hurt look before following his mother back into the living room. He trails behind, watching as the vampire is sat down on the couch by his disheveled mother.
"What were you thinking, Ezra?" she asks disappointedly, just like she had been Ezra's own mother, "you're going to make yourself sick!"
Ezra hesitates slightly, not expecting the woman to worry about him rather than her bruised up son. "Me?" he asks, earning a nod before glancing at Leon, "you're not- mad?"
"Of course I am!" she exclaims, "you were getting dizzy- that smell is too strong for you to stand in!"
Leon looks down at the vampire, grabbing his mother's hand. "She's not mad at you for last night, Ezra," the human says, "we already talked about that. She's just upset about the kitchen. To be fair- I am too."
Ezra blinks, breath hot against the inside of the mask on his face meant to dilute the smell. "That's it?" he asks, wringing his hands, "you're mad at me for walking in the kitchen?"
"You were obviously in some pain," the woman says, lowering to her knees in front of Ezra, "why would you do that?"
A moment of silence fills the dark living room before the vampire chokes. Suddenly he breaks into a fit of giggles, startling both Leon and his mother. Josh walks into the room, still holding the spatula he had been using to make breakfast for his family minutes before.
"Why the hell is he laughing, Lora?" the man demands, Ezra glancing over just in time to see the glint of silver in Josh's back pocket. The vampire looks up with only his eyes, and instantly it's known between them that the violent tension is real.
Leon glances between the two, not knowing what Ezra had seen. He looks back down at the vampire, seemingly afraid to move from between the two stronger males.
"Watch it, Josh," Lora warns, looking back down to him warily. Ezra watches the wheels turn in her head, smile not having worn down from his features. "Honey- why were you laughing?"
The idea still seems funny, but he can't laugh anymore. "I apologize," he says quietly, the hint of any sincerity gone. Leon looks down, confused and startled by the other's personality change. Ezra's smile falls. "But you must understand, I just got out of a fighting ring no more than a week ago. I was locked in cages, alone, starving and beaten into being a monster. I just found it entertaining that you got worried because the smell of nail cleaner was too strong for me. I've had holy water held under my nose."
All three humans hesitate, unable to find words to make up for what he had said. "They did that to you?" Lora asks, sounding more sad then scared.
Ezra hesitates, sudden guilt weighing heavy in his chest. He doesn't feel guilty for anything he did, but rather the fact that wasn't the worst thing that went on underground. "They did a lot of things to me," he says, quieter now, "the water was always hot, put in a little metal flask as some lucky paying audience member held a lighter underneath. Evaporated holy water stings more than you would think. It would knock out my sense of smell for a week, and make my nose bleed if I breathed through it too hard. That's not the worse thing they do, though, so don't you dare feel sorry for me."
"Ezra," Leon cuts in, earning a strange look. He falls into silence for a moment, frozen briefly by the unreadable look on the vampire's half covered face. It doesn't look frantic, but not calm either. Hurt? Not physically, but emotionally? That expression looks almost forced because it's so strange, and feels just as must so. "Ezra, it's okay."
Leon sits down on the couch, keeping tall as he's looked at sideways from the supernatural. He lets his shoulders relax, shirt shifting and revealing a new layer of bruises. Ezra glances at them but looks back up immediately. "Don't worry about my marks- I saw you look. Just take a deep breath, you're starting to get worked up."
"...Do you want to know the first thing I saw when I was taken?" Ezra asks, scanning over the small group. No one moves. "They break your mentality first- scare you into obeying. It only works for a short period of time, so they do it first, and do it hard.
"I had to watch a vampire-vampire fight, since I was newly turned maybe a year before and hadn't fought once in my life. The younger one was taken out fairly quick, and with the remaining vampire's energy he tried to fight."
Leon grips Ezra's hand, but doesn't distract him from looking at the wall to avoid the parents eyes. Suddenly it seems as if since he had remembered the event, it wasn't going to go away until he choked it up.
"They took him down faster than he killed his opponent, since he was heavily outnumbered," Ezra explains, pulling painfully at the memory, "his conductor came out and gave a big speech I can't remember anymore. Something about how his fighter was tired and clearly thirsty from fighting all the guards. You know what he did?"
"Ezra-" Josh tries, but is cut off by a sharp glare. Suddenly the silverware in his back pocket seems more like a toy instead of a weapon.
"He pried open his mouth- and poured holy water down his throat," Ezra says flatly, not breaking the tension between them, "I watched him choke, unable to scream as it burned a hole through his throat. It was slow, and painful. At the time, that vampire was higher ranking than me, four fangs while I had two, so I believed for the longest time I would end with a worse fate than him if I protested; I wasn't as strong then."
Josh stares down at Ezra, his lips no more than a flat line. Neither male breaks the stare, challenging the other to comment on the current matter. "These fights are real," Ezra says, voice picking up. He lets Leon's hand fall as he pushes to his feet. "They're real, they're brutal, and they mess you up. They put shit in your head, treat you like animals, and pit you in these, these dog fights, just because they want to entertain people enough to get paid! It's not just the rich either- it's all classes; poor to elite. Some kidnappers bring humans into special rings, just to be paid to have people watch them be torn apart, or fed to fighters after a match.
"And it's not just me," Ezra jabs a finger into his own chest, beginning to fall into his own cage of pent up aggression, "I got pulled, but there are more. Hundreds in this city alone, held for years without any one person knowing who, or where they are. I was someone's cousin, I was someone's brother, I someone's best friend- I was someone's son! You people stare at me like I'm exaggerating what happened to me- like this is all some story and you're just nodding to make me happy. And I'm standing here, pretending that that silver knife in Josh's back pocket is actually going to do any harm to me, and that I'm touched by your pity, and that you people can help keep me out of the ring!"
Ezra takes a deep breath, letting it out in a heavy enough puff to hiss through the mask. No one dares say a word, afraid that if they did they would shatter Ezra's moment of calm. The vampire stands in his own quiet confusion with everything he had just spat out.
"...I-I don't-" he starts, cut off by his own hesitation. His chest seems to fill with liquid despair, struck down by the tears in Leon's eyes.
In a blink Ezra stands by the front door, having transformed into nothing but a blur to get around the humans without being grabbed and harming them. He grips the doorknob and whips the door open, taking a step before he's harshly thrown back. He lands hard on the floor, legs flying up as his head smacks the ground and makes his vision blur.
"Oh dear! Sorry, honey," a frail voice says, fuzzy in Ezra's ears as he groans and pushes to his elbows. An old woman stands in the doorway on the porch, gripping the charm of the necklace she was wearing. "Didn't mean to hit you that hard. Now come on, up up! I brought you presents."