praevaricatio: (Default)

[personal profile] praevaricatio 2025-10-10 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)
( Ezra trudges up behind his husband in one piece, blood drenching his suit. His hands come to David's shoulders as his father's body collapses in a heap. He steadies him.

Ezra's right hand runs along his husband's right arm, covering the back of David's hand before taking the knife for himself. He kisses the back of his neck and has a much-needed second, eyes closing, planning on something he promised to do when this all started.

He glances back at Bela - standby - or come, just, keep an eye on his husband, wordlessly, before he steps in front and faces his husband's mother. Or, who she is now, bloody, messy knife in hand.
)

You'll actually remember this, because I have it on good authority you set up shop before he met me. You ascended while he was missing. I assume, you're who hired Damian. I could thank you. Because, without your family line and the fucked up decisions you made hundreds of years ago, we wouldn't have found each other.

But, then I remember Jacqueline finding him at the grocer's. And I remember making the conscious decision to stand with him. To meet you and your husband. To be interrogated by you. Your background check was thorough. I didn't appreciate you inserting yourself into my mother's charity to threaten my parents. But, they can hold their own and you apparently liked her moxy.

Well. Helena. Elizabeth.

How do you like my moxy now.

( He doesn't wait for her to answer. She can't. So, he stabs. Once. Right over the heart, one hand on her shoulder to make it count. )

This is for the boy I love who never got to be a kid because of his family's legacy. Whose darkness threatens to overtake him. And who saved me when I didn't even know I was drowning. ( He leans in, speaking through grit. ) You backed the wrong horse.

( He removes the knife to let her bleed out and takes a few steps back, letting out a shaky exhale. Finally... breathing. The knife clatters to the ground, he laughs, he smiles, he looks around at Sierra and Jacqueline, Elton, Max, Rusty, Bela, his husband, and then that laughter shifts almost immediately to an unexpected, or maybe expected, cathartic, cry, that turns to a sob as he drops to his knees at his husband's feet and he wraps his arms around his legs.

He's been living in this marriage for longer than he can remember. It is his whole life. He chose this above all else. He hasn't breathed in years.
)
Edited 2025-10-10 15:12 (UTC)
an_honestword: (10)

[personal profile] an_honestword 2025-10-10 03:42 pm (UTC)(link)
We're not done yet.

[He can sees them relaxing, but Rusty only sees four corpses. He's not ready to rest, not until he's sure that all six of them are dead.

But he will take Sierra and go in search of the Harpers, while the rest of them will make their way out into the ballroom to see what's left of their parents empire.]