[prp] boy these family lines sure are tangled (moms + ezra)

[cibarium]

Ezra was calming down. However, Eve was not. At some point Clover had gotten up to pace anxiously in front of her charge, whining with concern and nosing at Eve's knees and hands in a nonverbal attempt to understand what was wrong. While Eve kept her gaze low, trying discreetly to wipe her eyes, the retriever passed occasional glances to Ezra as if she were asking what did you do??

Leila had scooted over closer to attend to her wife. In doing so she was conversely still and quiet -- passing along comforting thoughts Ezra wasn't privy to -- and her gaze drifted to their estranged son a couple of times, but him looking back at her would cause her eyes to scurry away like minnows in a bucket escaping a fisherman's hand.

shibrogane

good JOB ezra you made your moms SAD

 

[shibrogane]

Ezra gave Clover a look like none of your business. But he also didn't sit. He was fidgeting, where fidgeting means trying not to pace and kind of looking like a demented top.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"What do you want from us, Ezra?"

Leila's voice was strained and worn as she stood up, keeping a hand on the back of Eve's chair (something that only she could get away with doing) in case her wife needed another reassuring thought or touch. This was, Ezra might've noticed, an uncommon role reversal for the two: normally Leila was the one who fell apart easily in public, and Eve would be the one to give support. But Eve was silent and wilting in her chair instead.

"You-- you're finally able to tell us who you are, but is that going to be it? Did you really mean it when you told Eve she will never be the mother she reminds you of?"

shibogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I don't know," said Ezra. "You came to me. You asked me who I was to you. I gave you my answer and I explained why I wasn't there and why I will never exist again outside of the way I am now. I want you to live, the fullness of your years, and if that I means that I can't be part of your lives then that's what it means."

He exhaled.

"So what is it you want from me? I'm not sure how much I have to give."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

How much he had to give? Leila laughed at that, but only briefly and quietly. Things were tense, and that last bit was so moody it just felt silly to her.

"God, Ezra, no."

They both had said his name so many times, and neither of them (even silent Eve) were likely to stop anytime soon. It sparked like life every time they had a chance to say it, because he was their son, and it was their son's name, and the thought this would be the first and only time they got to openly regard him in such a way was so heartbreaking it's what spurred Leila to ask him such a thing at all.

"I want... we want to know everything about you. We want to imagine what it was like to raise you. You've been away from this side of the world for so long, and-- and you've had all this magic s**t, and gone through too much, and..."

She was trembling, rambling, barely able to force out even half of what she wanted to say.

"And all I want is to not have to care about any of it and have you back even though I can't remember losing you. I still missed you. We didn't even have to know you at all for us to miss you. Of course we want you back. You don't need to have something to offer for that. You're ours."

shibrgane

 

[shibrogane]

The thing to realize here was that Ezra might lay claim to possibly thousands of years of life, but here, right now, he looked to be barely in his 20s. The textbook he'd been manhandling was a master's-level text on musical theory. Magical s**t was his thing, it was his entire adulthood--but he had never really known the world that Leila and Eve spoke to him from. Ezra was ******** ancient. He was also maybe twenty-four, according to the birth certificate.

Maybe.

He went rigid, like his puppet-master had pulled his strings taut. His fingers snapped inward into fists (his burned hand less tightly than the other) and he took a deep breath, for all the world like someone who was about to do a polar bear plunge or volunteer for incredibly invasive surgery. Then he said, "I have a phone number now." He took one of his index cards (one side was scribbled with notes in cramped, unsteady writing) and wrote the number on it, held it out for one of them to take.

"If you want to talk, then you can reach me there."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila strode slowly up and accepted the index card with a tired smile. It wasn't enough, not nearly enough, but... it was a gateway to more. She stayed transfixed by the handwriting on the card for a moment before saying, "Thank you."

shibrogane

fin :3