Dog Fights

Chapter 12; Territory

Ezra groans, rolling back into the warmth that was present at his side. For once upon waking up he isn't drenched in a cold sweat, or laying under a thin cloth that does nothing to contain the body heat he doesn't give off.

Ezra hides his face away from the yellow light shining onto his closed eyelids, tightening his calloused fingers into the blanket in front of his face.

Blinking open his eyes, the vampire yawns and licks his teeth at the sticky dryness of his mouth. His muscles ache, suddenly startling into awareness as something in front of him moves.

"Go back to sleep," Leon mutters tiredly, sounding only half awake. He was resting above the covers with his own thin blanket, still in his clothes from the night before.

Ezra yelps and suddenly kicks, flailing his arms as he disappears over the side of the bed. He lands with a thud on the carpet, muscles flaring with soreness as he grinds his teeth against the smell of the human in his nose.

Leon startles awake, sitting up quickly and looking over the side of the bed. "Ezra?" he asks, furrowing his eyebrows down in concern, "are you okay?"

Ezra hisses through his teeth, pulling his arms up and allowing Leon to help him from his awkward position stuck between the bed and the wall. "Where am I?" he grunts as he's pulled back into the disheveled sheets, squinting against the dull light of the closed curtain.

"...My house?" Leon asks, shrinking under the stare of the vampire, "it's just turned morning, we've only been sleeping for a few hours."

The human pauses, gripping the others hand from when he had helped him up. Leon tilts his head. "Do you not remember what happened last night?"

Ezra draws back, tugging his hand away with the anxiety that builds in his chest. Leon stares at him in slight sadness and worry, looking surprised as the vampire pulls his hand away. His arms catch his gaze.

"Ezra?" Leon starts, watching the vampire pull up his red and scarred arms in disbelief, "Ezra, just lis-"

"I got in a fight?" Ezra says quietly, flicking up his eyes, "I got in a fight, and I'm alive? I won?"

"Ezra," Leon pleads again, watching the shaking of the older's hands, "Ezra you didn't-"

"If I'm alive after a fight, Leon," Ezra cuts him off with a warning tone, flexing the swollen fingers on his left hand, "it means I killed someone. Who?"

Leon hesitates, trying to remember the fast paced events from the night before. "I-It was a hunter. He either saw the awards on the TV or online. The police as well as Orgon are after you and are both offering money."

"A hunter?" Ezra asks, looking back down at the dried blood under his fingernails in confusion, "when did we come across a vampire hunter?"

Leon's shoulders relax slightly, now able to notice the change of Ezra backing out of his defense mode. "He broke in and knocked out my father. We hid in my closet until he came upstairs and you fought him off. He wanted to take you."

Ezra sits in silence, shifting his red eyes up from under his eyebrows. They look brighter than yesterday.

Leon doesn't move his eyes from Ezra's face, moving submissively as the vampire reaches up and grabs his chin. His head is tilted to the side, showing off either two of his six fanged bite marks. They're bruised and swollen, turning his throat a dangerous purple and red beneath the closed holes.

Ezra sinks in defeat, raising his free hand to rest on the younger's neck around the blooming colors.

"...Did I hurt you?"