smilestopscars | A Room at the Arms Hotel, Saturday Morning

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A Room at the Arms Hotel, Saturday Morning

Ezra had had a pleasant ~~NPC~~ encounter or two, yesterday. But in the end, he'd gone to bed alone. Which meant that now he was also waking up alone. And, he was actually pretty okay with that. Especially now that the tug of the pollen had abated. He had a comfortable bed all to himself, and nowhere he really needed to be anytime soon.

So he wasn't in a rush to get up.

Yet.

[ooc: Oooopen for everything that these weekends usually entail!]

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"C'mon, darling," Kathy said, slipping her hand through his and squeezing. Her voice was soft, not bothering to sound cheerful when he was so clearly not okay. "Let's go for a bit of a walk."

She was ready to let go of Zeke's hand the second he wanted it back - but this seemed like a moment where maybe having even a poor shadow of a mom might help.

She wasn't a poor shadow. Especially right now. Because right now, he was squeezing her hand, and keeping his gaze towards the floor, and shrugging like it was all 'whatever' to him.

To Ezra, he looked exactly like he had the first time he'd shown up, and had misspoken about the Coterie and then looked so worried about it. It squeezed at his heart. "Okay," he said. "This way."

He wasn't going to try and take anyone's hand. Just pushed away from the doorframe and turned so he could head back towards his room.

Kathy half-wanted to take his though. She could only imagine the dread and discomfort she'd be feeling right now, if their roles were reversed. And, shit, Ez had been dealing with other people's feelings about him so much recently -

She didn't try to talk the whole way to Ezra's room. Whatever was going on was too heavy and too private for the hallway.

Did it always feel this way, to be a parent? Feeling like your heart is breaking because your child was hurting?

Ezra wasn't sure he would've let anyone take his hand, anyway. He was on edge.

His room wasn't far away. He opened the door, then bowed as he gestured them inside. "Welcome to humble and very temporary abode."

And did Zeke kind of do his best to kind of put Kathy between himself and his dad as he passed through the doorway? You bet.

Ah, Zeke, you were killing her.

She walked into Ezra's hotel room, tugging Zeke gently over to the bed where they could sit together. She wasn't sure he'd stay - certainly wasn't going to force him to - but she wanted to be an emotional anchor for him when things got rough.

And from the looks of it, things were already pretty rough.

"C'mon, my love," Kathy said, brushing her fingers over Zeke's hand. "Please, tell me what's going on?"

Maybe if he focused on her, it'd be easier?

(Nothing could make this easier.)

Nothing could make this easier.

Zeke sat down, but only for a few seconds before he was back on his feet. And Ezra thought he knew exactly why: sitting down felt like letting your guard down, like not keeping all your possible exits open for a swift getaway. It was a fox way of thinking in a moment of crisis.

Incidentally, Ezra wasn't sitting down either. He was standing, at a respectful distance, trying to appear calm.

"Do we have to?" Zeke asked, with a flatness that was reminiscent, again, of Ezra at his worst. "Do we have to do this?"

Kathy tried not to flinch at that tone, but yeah, too many memories of hearing it. At her was bad. Because of her was worse.

"I...I think so, yes," Kathy said softly. "Because you're in pain and we don't know why. And if we don't know why, we can't mitigate it."

She was guessing that this wasn't really a fixable thing.

"I know that when you're hurt, your want to curl up and keep anyone from knowing that you're vulnerable," she said. "But sometimes what you need is to talk about it, get it out, and let the people who love you take care of you."

She was so, so off the mark, but Zeke didn't want to, couldn't tell her why that was. Even with his eyes to the floor, he could feel his dad watching him and he couldn't bear to look up.

He could barely bear to breathe in. Damn his senses.

"Whatever it is, we understand, I promise," Ezra tried, softly. "I --"

"No!" Zeke snapped, just to get him to stop talking.

"Zeke--!" Kathy wanted to ask what Ezra could have done to make him hate him so much but - no. That wasn't hate. And it wasn't really anger, either. That was pain, so much pain that she thought he might be nearly drowning in it.

Kathy looked at Ezra, a little bit helpless. She knew pain like Zeke had. But her methods of dealing it were so vastly different than his - he was too much like his father in that regard. She wanted to get up, hug him, kiss him, promise him that he was loved and wanted and precious.

None of that was what he needed right now. And she didn't know what was.

Edited 2019-04-16 17:43 (UTC)

It had sounded a whole lot like anger, if you asked Ezra. But he also figured that wasn't what it was. Not really, not entirely.

A tense, quiet moment passed by. Ezra watched Zeke, wanting to give him room to do anything that he felt like doing, whether it was more yelling or something else. But Zeke was back to just staring at the floor.

So Ezra spoke again. "Zeke." His tone was soft. "Come on." No pushing, not even pleading. Just... soft. "I'm twenty-two. I'm here. Whatever's happened, hasn't happened yet."

He paused.

Slowly, Zeke looked up. It was such an unsteady and hesitant thing that Ezra barely dared to continue. But he did. "If it's a Coterie thing, or something else, a bad reaction, anything..."

It hadn't happened yet.

He paused again, looking at Zeke.

Zeke was staring back at him, his expression beginning to distort with something he was desperately holding back. And Ezra took about half a step towards him - and Zeke surged forward, a literal blur for a split second, almost toppling Ezra over with the suddenness of his clinging. And -- things clicked, and Ezra just knew. He knew what had happened.

Shit.

Kathy stood, awkward and hesitant. This, this desperate clinging, like it was the only thing holding you together, that she recognized. But this was between Zeke and his dad and the last thing she wanted was to interfere.

Instead she quirked her eyebrows at Ezra, watching the expressions shift in his face, since Zeke's was buried.

"Ez..." she murmured.

Ezra just did his best at conveying a shrug with just his face. It was kind of a brief eyebrow-raise, above eyes that looked resigned.

It was what it was.

His arms were tight around Zeke.

And Zeke was quaking, his face buried against Ezra's shoulder. Tear-streaked against his best efforts, but his best efforts weren't any match for his dad being here. His scent, his warmth, his everything.

Zeke's knuckles were white with how he was gripping Ezra's shirt.

Kathy pointed to herself and then to Zeke. Did he think it would be okay if she...?

She couldn't tell if this was a father-son moment or a family moment and she desperately, desperately didn't want to get it wrong.

Ezra nodded, then just barely beckoned her closer with a few fingers.

He didn't think she could make this any worse. And his people tended to thrive with physical comfort - at least once they accepted it.

Kathy slipped off the bed and padded over on silent feet, her arms coming up to wrap around both of them, offering all the love and comfort she could through touch alone.

She didn't speak though. Not yet. She didn't want to trample all over what Zeke might want to say, whenever he felt ready to say anything at all.

It didn't appear Zeke had inherited her tendency for word-walling. he trembled a little as he felt her join them, but he didn't say anything.

And once he did, all he said was, half in a wet gasp, "I'm sorry."

Ezra's chest felt too tight. Too tight for breathing or speaking or anything, but he forced words out anyway. "Nothing to apologize for, cupcake."

It wasn't his fault that he was hurting.

"He's right," Kathy soothed, rubbing her hand over his back. "We understand. This...this is a hard thing you have to deal with."

"It's just --"

It was so much. Too much?

He was at a complete loss for words. That did not happen often.

And here was Ezra, not really knowing what to do except to hold on.

And press his lips against the side of Zeke's head.

"It's big," Kathy murmured. "It's so big. And it claws at your guts and your throat. Makes it hard to talk or think or do anything but curl up."

This, at least, she knew. Too well, really.

She was hugging them - both of them - so tight.

"Mom," Zeke mumbled. "Don't."

He'd heard all of that so many times already, before. Here, it didn't come with the underlying guilt of knowing how much she was hurting too, but --

It still hurt, in its own way.

"Okay," Kathy said. "Sorry."

And shut up, going back to quietly hugging.

"I've already done this," Zeke said. Though it was barely audible, again. Words getting lost somewhere against Ezra's collarbone.

"We know," Ezra replied, almost as quietly.

A Room at the Arms Hotel, Saturday Morning

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