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Realistic or Modern Two Giants Scream Nonsense

qunqun

qunqun

Give me your herbs, worm.
MOOD:
Awkward

OUTFIT:
Giggle at a funeral

LOCATION:
Spoiler
basics
MENTIONS:



INT:
Ezra geminiy geminiy

tags
TL;DR: Don't hate me please.
tl;dr
Auguste
Trigger warning: Suicidality. Mentions of parental abuse and violence.

Auguste never cried.

No, really, this was a point for him. This was a thing about him that was unspoken, but it had carried him through the street gang and the abuse and the death he’d had to process all by himself.

Auguste never cried. At least, he used to cry, and then he didn’t.

When he’d finished his first ballet performance and won, he’d cried. That was the last time.

By a long shot.

See, the funeral had been open casket. And he’d been about to start sobbing right then and there.

And then his mother had tightened her grip on his arm, enough to break his attention away from his father’s corpse, hard enough to bruise later. And she’d whispered something in his ear.

“Your family is watching. And they need you to be strong. Don’t cry, you can cry when this is all over.”

So he swallowed his tears and settled into a feeling of complete numbness as he walked through the funeral, like a puppet being animated by a greater being.

He hadn’t been able to cry when he’d gotten home, because that was when his mother had her breakdown.

He hadn’t been able to cry the next day because that was when his grandparents came knocking at their door and his mother had argued long and hard with them to keep custody of him.

After all, it hadn’t been over yet. None of it had been over yet.

Auguste didn’t cry, because it hadn’t ever been over, and he was waiting… praying for the day that it could be over.

Which meant that when there was a lot of emotional stress, he kept it like a lead ball in his chest as it dragged him down down down to the pits of Hell until he was standing on some kind of precipice that he didn’t want to be on.

Thoughts were swirling around his head today.

You’re a terrible son. You’re worthless. Nobody cares about you. Everyone hates you.

Fun stuff, he knew. But hey. This is what happens when you can’t afford therapy, right? So instead, he was doing the next best thing: going on a long ass walk.

Shadows were following him. But they were always following him. On bad days like this, it felt like he was constantly getting followed. Constantly being watched with a million eyes that just wanted to watch him burn.

The PTSD was really bad today. He almost could see people following him out of the corners of his-

Wait.

When his therapist had diagnosed him, she’d said that his symptoms included flashbacks and paranoia (which fed into a severe anxiety) and depression and suicidal ideation and night terrors (which led to insomnia) and a self-destructiveness.

Nowhere, had she ever said that he suffered from visual hallucinations. And quite frankly, he trusted her judgment way more than he trusted his.

A turn into an alleyway, he could hear footsteps behind him. More than one pair.

So it wasn’t just him.

“Hands where we can see them, big guy.” What a fucking pain. His hands slowly went behind his head.

Honestly, this was sad. A former gang member getting mugged by two… idiots. Seriously. None of his entire figure said that he had fat pockets or an easygoing nature.

“Wallet. Don’t try to run.” One of them was wielding a knife. Well. A little poker that probably wouldn’t be able to stab a mouse. But whatever.

“I don’t have any mon-” Auguste began

“Don’t argue with me”

Okay. Fair enough. They’d find out for themselves. He slowly reached down and pulled out his very empty wallet. Maybe there was a whole… 5 dollars? Wow. What a haul, guys.

A punch to the stomach. And then a blow to the head and Auguste was thrown to the ground. Rage seeped into his veins, as he slowly picked himself back up into a crouched position.

Something in his fucked up head clicked. Suddenly this wasn’t a mild inconvenience to his day. Suddenly, they were in Paris and these people wanted to tear apart the group that were the only ones that ever understood who he was and they needed to just fucking die die die die die die die die-

To be quite honest, he doesn’t remember what happens next. Next thing he knew, he was on top of one of the fuckers and beating their fucking heads in, blood pumping through his veins as he pounded into one of their skulls.

A falter.

What was he doing.

Paris bled away. And he was straddling a mugger, their partner trying to wrestle him off. There was so much screaming and the person underneath him was moaning in the type of pain where he was barely processing it at all.

What had he done. What had he done what-

Pain in his side.

A shove off of the person as he regained his footing. The one still standing was running away, the wallet left abandoned on the ground.

Auguste looked down. There was a knife sticking out of him, where there shouldn’t.

One thought ran through his brain.

“Huh. That shouldn’t be there.”

Shock had probably set in. And then he realized something:

He had to die.

He was just as bad as when he’d first been full of rage and anger and tried to hurt everyone around him. He’d always been compared to an attack dog and… what did you do to dogs that were overly aggressive?

When stabbed, you’re not supposed to pull the knife out, because that leads to you bleeding out faster…. He knew this.

Auguste pulled the knife out, as it clattered to the ground. He fell to his knees and collapsed as pain overwashed him. Choking him. He was bleeding out.

Why wasn’t he crying? Because this was it. This was the end.







His eyes were fluttering closed.







A woman screamed.







It wasn’t the end.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Auguste woke up, groggy and disoriented. Beeping noises, sterile smell. Hospital. Figures. It wasn’t the first time. A glance around. American television?

The memory of what happened slammed into him like a truck. And then his icy eyes slid over to a man sitting patiently at the foot of his bed.

“Hey there, son.” Oh. A detective. Probably came to take his statement or whatever.

He didn’t acknowledge him with a response. He didn’t talk to cops. Snitches get stitches and all that.

“You wanna tell me what happened, son?”

Auguste didn’t even bother making eye contact. He should’ve died. Why wasn’t he dead.

“You can talk to me.”

No. He wasn’t a fucking snitch.

“You know what day it is, son?”

What.

“It’s a Tuesday.”
What.

“You’ve been out of it for a whole 48 hours.”

WHAT.

Auguste made eye contact. His mouth opened and a hoarse noise came out. The detective quickly offered him water as he tried to sit up. “Easy, easy.”

Pain flared in his side.

Some choice words in French came out as he spilled the water on himself.

Eventually though, he managed to wet his throat.

“I have rehearsal tomorrow.”

“Son, you aren’t gonna be getting on your feet for a while. You got stabbed-”

“I need to go.”

“What about who did this to you, son.”

“...”

“Can’t you tell me?”

“...” And then a thought entered his head. He looked the officer dead in the eyes. “I did it to myself.”

Slight blink of stunned silence, and the realization dawning on the detective’s face that he wasn’t going to get anything out of the demure boy despite his seeming pliantness. Pulled into a frown.

Auguste blinked twice, a flinch, and pride at the same time that he managed to psych someone out. That he still had it in him. And then immediate guilt. He was supposed to be better than this bloody mess of dominance.

Whoops.

“Do you want to contact anybody?”

There was nobody for him. There was nobody that he could even fathom that might even care a little bit.

“... A cab to get me home.” Wrong answer, the pursing of concerned lips from his elder. A slight flinch as the detective shifted on the bed closer to him. Trying to become more personal and gentle. People didn’t get the chance to loom over him often. He hated it.

“Son. You need to get treated.” Broken. Weak. The detective didn’t mean it, but when did Auguste ever play by rationality? “Be nice to the nurses. They’ll take care of you.”

A half a week later, Auguste was finally allowed to contact someone to get him home.

So…. who the fuck was he going to contact?

… He didn’t have any other option.

Fuck.

code by valen t.
 






Ezra Gray




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Fuck you, Auguste Cortes.

Yeah, Ezra meant that this time. That wasn’t just a simple proclamation, not a breathy joke between the pressing together of lips, not a tired sigh. No, Ezra Gray was mad, truly and fully mad, the type of mad that had him drinking expensive whiskey by the loppy California ocean front until he couldn’t feel anything but the buzz of the alcohol and the feeling of another stranger’s warm skin against his.

Auguste had fucked him over. Maybe he didn’t know it, or at least not the full extent of what he had done, but ghosting Ezra had really hurt him. For a while, Ezra tried not to be mad about the whole situation. Surely Auguste was just busy, or maybe he forgot to pay his phone bill again and instead had opted to disconnect until his next paycheck. Ezra tried to believe that this was the truth, he really did, but nothing explained how quickly the guy had just seemed to up and vanish from his life.

Auguste was nowhere on campus, all of Ezra’s calls went to voicemail. As far as he could tell, Auguste Cortes had just up and vanished off the face of the earth.

Fine. If Auguste wanted to disappear so badly, why shouldn’t Ezra just let him? Obviously their friendship wasn’t important enough to have them stay in contact, so why should Ezra be worrying himself insane over his whereabouts? Auguste couldn’t even send a damn ‘hey, I’m alive’ email so why, Ezra continuously asked, did he care so fucking much?

Letting him go would’ve been easier. Cutting his losses and calling the whole thing fucking quits would’ve just made his life so much better. Ezra was never one for anything long term: no lifelong friendships, no relationships, no hookups beyond a month or two. Everything about the floater’s life was just easier when there was nothing to anchor him in place besides his own free will and desires. For the longest time, there were no problems with this plan.

Of course, Auguste Cortes had to turn around and fuck him over. He had to go and make Ezra actually care, he had to go and push things past the black and white and into the hazy space between where Ezra didn’t even know what they were anymore. And then, of course, Auguste had to up and vanish in the thick of it all.

So once again, fuck you, Auguste Cortes.

Life got back to normal. Ezra pulled back the reins on his drinking after a day long bender that left his head throbbing and his chest hollow. The long string of hookups were replaced with a failed attempt to catch up on not one, not two, but three business assignments that he had forgotten to turn in. His apartment was flipped entirely, cleaned ceiling to floor. Ezra even went out of his way to get his vintage Rolls Royce Phantom cleaned and detailed.

As far as Ez was concerned, Auguste Cortes didn’t even exist.

Gang Man
them
hey mon frere

Oh fuck that guy.

To make a very long story short, Auguste thought that texting him entirely out of the blue was okay. No apology, no explanation, nothing. No, instead the little asshole had asked him for a favour. Originally, Ezra had scoffed. As if he owed Auguste anything after he got entirely ghosted for a week. And no, before you ask, that is not a dramatic response. Ez was deeply hurt by the whole thing and honestly, who could blame him? It wasn’t every day that he actually started to care about someone beyond the simple lust filled basics.

It was that care that kept him from blocking Auguste’s number to begin with. Part of him wished that he had out of simplicity’s sake but another part, perhaps a mildly stronger and indefinitely more irritating part, was glad that he didn’t. If he had, who else would be there in their car, the radio silenced and fingers nervously tapping the steering wheel as he pulled up outside of the inpatient wing of the hospital?

Auguste would be out any minute, sliding into his passenger seat. Likely, he’d pretend that nothing happened, that everything was entirely fine. Fuck, he couldn’t stand that pretentious shit.

Ezra got out of the car long enough to sign off on his duty as personal chauffeur to the prior psych ward patient and to throw his bag into the boot of the car. As soon as the engine sputtered back to life, Ezra cranked up the radio and pulled away from the curb, the cab of the vehicle filled with awkward tension and the soothing voice of Frank Sintatra.

He couldn’t bring himself to speak, much less look over to where the tall Frenchman was seated beside him. Ezra’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

“So,” he eventually managed, not reaching to lower the radio to make his voice clearer, “am I just taking you home or what? I’ve,” Ez paused slightly, tapping his thumb against the smooth leather of the steering wheel, “I’ve got plans tonight.”






♡coded by uxie♡
 
MOOD:
I'm sorry

OUTFIT:
Giggle at a funeral

LOCATION:
Ez's car
basics
MENTIONS:



INT:
Ezra geminiy geminiy

tags
TL;DR: Don't hate me please.
tl;dr
Auguste
Trigger warning: Auguste being Auguste (mentions of violence and gangs and general mental unwellness)

So. How was Auguste doing?

Shit. He felt like shit.

Being wheeled out of the hospital was not triumphant. The five steps he’d had to take carrying his bag to the trunk of the car? Horrible. An exercise in his ability to blink the black dots out from his eyes as pain radiated from his side and not fall over semi-dramatically. A slight lean and a slight limp to the normally graceful man’s gait. Shorter quicker steps followed by shallow breaths like the panting of a dying beast and the paleness that said a lot more than his suddenly expressionless face.

There was a solid five minutes he’d had to stand there, hovering outside the door trying to catch his breath before he could bring himself to duck into the car. He looked up to Ez as he entered. His pale eyes had this kind of stare where he was definitely looking at his friend, but not seeing him. The world was moving around him but…

Well, after a week of therapy where they dragged up parts of his past in a kind of exposure therapy and getting put on pain medication and eventually his absolute refusal for further treatment kind of fucked him up just a little bit.

He tried to curl up in his seat, make himself smaller. Try to alleviate the intense pain in his side.

“So.” If Ez saw the slightest flinch from Auguste at the sound of his voice… no he didn’t “Am I just taking you home or what? I’ve-I’ve got plans tonight.”

“I… I’m sorry. You didn’t have to pick me up.” He said, a quiet slur to his voice, the thickening of his accent as he struggled to remember which language he was supposed to be speaking in. “... Thank you ehm… yeah. Just… Home sounds nice.”

Nailing talking. He wrung his hands as he spoke, trying to slowly make himself even smaller in the seat.

Ez was mad. Ez was mad. Ez was mad. It was all his fault. It was all his fault. It was all his fault. He had to fix it he had to fix it he had to fix it he had to-

“I’m… I’m also… really sorry… for ehm…” Everything. For existing. For being a constant burden. “... being a terrible friend.”

That about summed it up.

Something started stirring in him, though. Why were they friends? He was… kind of awful to be around. What… why was Ez even friends with him? What did he possibly have to gain?

Well, previously, it was “sex” as the answer. A physical relationship. Ezra didn’t deal with feelings. They all knew that. And Auguste didn’t even…

He knew that he wasn’t worth breaking that streak of not giving a shit. So… What was happening here.

There was a pressure in his chest. There was a pressure behind his eyes. And in his throat.

And then that pressure forced out a single question.
“We… we are friends… right?” A quiet tremor to it. Thick with pain and tears welling up in the back of his throat. Or… something that would’ve been tears on anyone else. Because Auguste didn’t cry.

Back when he was in the gang, there had been whispers about him to new people. Auguste, the ever brooding, ever dangerously unstable fighter. When you hear him laugh, that’s when shit really was about to go down.

He laughed, once, at a joke. And everyone had frozen solid. Frozen completely solid and stared at him, with wide terrified eyes. Because apparently the last time they’d heard him laugh it’d been when there was a gun to his forehead after he’d beaten up the guy’s friend and he was telling the guy to pull the trigger while making direct eye contact.

So no. Auguste didn’t laugh beyond a snort or a chuckle here and there. And Auguste didn’t cry.

That didn’t keep him from sounding broken, though. Especially when his voice sounded so tired, and so dangerously close to breaking down into sobs.

“I… I’m so sorry I don’t know where this comes from they put me on pain medication-”

code by valen t.
 
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Ezra Gray




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Riiiight. That wasn’t awkward at all, totally not even a little bit. Ez had made the mistake of lying about his plans for the evening which, up until an hour ago when he got that text from Auguste, consisted of a heavy workout and then several episodes of trashy reality television. Sure they were technically plans, but it wasn’t something he needed to rush for and especially not something Auguste should’ve felt bad about.

As annoyed as Ez was by the entire situation, he was glad Auguste called him. Sitting awkwardly in a car together was uncomfortable but the thought of Auguste stranded alone at a hospital was somehow worse.

Fuck him.

“I… I’m sorry. You didn’t have to pick me up.” Auguste spoke in the seat next to him. Ezra gave a soft, nonchalant shrug and fought the urge to crank up the dial on the radio. “... Thank you ehm… yeah. Just… Home sounds nice.”

“You’re welcome, I guess.” Ez replied sharply, far more harshly than previously intended.

Another round of silence. Great, Ezra’s favourite pastime. Normally, he’d fill the stale air with some sort of flirtatious joke or playful touch to slice through the tension but this time, his mind blanked. This time, Ezra was rendered entirely speechless. Instead, he focused his mind onto the soft music thumping through the speakers and onto the sprawling freeway ahead of him.

“I’m… I’m also… really sorry… for ehm…” Abandoning me? Not answering my calls? Getting stabbed? Using me for a lift after ghosting me? Making me fucking care about you? “... being a terrible friend.”

Oh.

Right.

Ezra swallowed and shifted slightly in his leather seat, the strap across his muscular chest tightening uncomfortably.

Auguste’s voice spoke again. Before that moment, Ezra had been dying to hear from him. Now? Well, now he wished that he’d just shut up already. “We… we are friends… right?”

Well fuck him sideways and call him Petunia, how the hell was he supposed to answer that? Yes, Ezra assumed, they were friends with a heavy emphasis on the past tense. If he had asked Ez a week ago, there would’ve been some sort of joke with the hidden message of ‘yes of course we’re friends, what sort of stupid question is that?’. But now, Ezra wasn’t entirely sure. He’d never had close friends before, never anyone to care for beyond a few drinks or a casual fuck, but he was pretty sure that ghosting your friends wasn’t something you were supposed to do.

“I… I’m so sorry I don’t know where this comes from they put me on pain medication-”

Ezra sighed, moving one hand from the steering wheel to push his hair back. “Yeah. Yeah we’re friends.” Ezra spoke those words but honestly, he wasn’t sure. “I mean at least I think so. Why else would I be here picking you up?”

Because you like him, idiot.

No, that wasn’t a valid thought. Turn it off, lock it away.

“It really wouldn’t have killed you to call, Auguste,” Ezra continued without thinking, voice soft and shaky, “I mean you just disappeared off the grid without warning. I was-” Ezra cut himself off, squeezing his thin lips together. No, he wasn’t going there.

His fingers tightened against the steering wheel again. The car began to pull off the highway, pausing at the bottom of the offramp before pulling onto a nearly abandoned road illuminated by a few scarce streetlamps and lined by houses with dark fronts and tired cars sitting in cracked driveways. Was this the right street.

“Why did you do that? Why did you just disappear?” Ezra sighed, jaw clenched and tired. “You went and tried to fucking off yourself and now you’re concerned if we’re friends or not?” His tone was bitter, icy even, but he couldn’t stop the venomous words dripping from his lips. “You didn’t care when you just disappeared last week, so why the fuck care now?”

Fuck it, this is exactly why Ezra never had close friends. Fuck this.





♡coded by uxie♡
 
MOOD:
Fucking hell.

OUTFIT:
Giggle at a funeral

LOCATION:
Ez's car
basics
MENTIONS:



INT:
Ezra geminiy geminiy

tags
TL;DR: Laughing and crying in one post? You better believe it
tl;dr
Auguste

Auguste was shaking just a little bit. Small tremors running up and down his side.

Fear ran his entire world. Fear. The terror of the knowledge he was burdened with: he’d snapped when he was with his mother. He knew exactly how much a person could devolve and become just the absolute worst being possible.

It was this fear that kept him in line. He needed to be better than that. He needed to be better than that.

So… why wasn’t he any happier now that he was trying to be more functional and less of a burden for everyone around him.

… oh.

With this sudden epiphany that struck him, Auguste’s blood ran cold. Even as Ezra was quietly confirming that they were friends. “Why else would I be picking you up?”

Pity. Because it would’ve been really fucking awkward to say no. Because there’s a hidden agenda that Auguste didn’t know about. Pick one of the three, Ezra.

Attacking him never went well for anyone. Because there was always that one percent. That one percent chance that Auguste would attack back and be the absolute worst again and-

But why did he care so much? Why would he care about not being as angry and as spiteful as when he was in the gang if… if he wasn’t any happier now?

For the first time since he came to America, Auguste felt the rage seeping in like venom through his veins. And fuck… he wanted to make Ez hurt. Just a little bit.

Because quietly, Auguste understood something. He was a being of suffering. He suffered a lot. And he tried to make it as quiet as possible that he was suffering. Tried to keep it to himself. Keep it lodged in his chest where it’d never see the light of day.

But… why? Why would he bother when he was staring into the face of someone who was making him suffer?

A single finger lashed out and stabbed the radio’s power button. They were sitting in silence now.

There. Suffer.

“Why did you do that? Why did you disappear?” It started quiet. Auguste was shaking a little bit in his shoulders. Even as Ez continued talking. Auguste’s hand went over his mouth.

He was laughing - the sound of it some kind of hybrid between a wheeze and a cackle.

“Tu te fous de ma gueule?” He said, the smile sharp and wild. Angry. “Sorry, English, are you fucking kidding me? You’re… You’re genuinely hurt I don’t-”

Another wheezy laugh. “Right, because the great Ezra Gray gives two shits about how anybody is feeling at any moment in time. Parce que le grand Ezra Grey se soucie des sentiments des pauvres à ses pieds.”

“Mon frère, tu… You’re…” A trail off as Auguste stared at Ez’s face. “You’re fucking pulling on my dick right now, no? This… This is a joke, right? Ezra, you don’t care about sentiments or emotions. You’re the one who goes ‘Oh I’m Ezra Thaddeus Gray, if anybody shows even the slightest inkling of affection or emotion or sentiment or attachment to me I ghost them for forever because I don’t do attachments and my emotional availability is nothing’ You’ll have to… You’ll have to excuse me if this isn’t the guy who I call first when I fail to kill myself for the third time.”

He shook his head as he gave a couple of chuckles. “I already fuck this up beyond repair so I might as well be honest, no? Even if we are friends, because mon frere your response doesn’t give me much confidence that we are, then what was I supposed to do? Hi, Ezra, I know that you despise things like being emotionally available or understanding that someone is attached to you, but I try to kill myself earlier. Anyways, bonsoir. Have a nice day!”

A pause for breath.

“I know one of my failings is.. Ehm.. that I can’t conceive of the possibility that someone might actually care about me without expecting favors. But… Ezra…” He gave another shake of his head, another sharp grin. “You can’t tell me that you actually care about me. You… You’re charming and rich and outgoing and you have parents who give shits about your existence and siblings who love you and… tons of chances to have a real connection with someone.… There’s so many better options than me. I’m… I’m…”

Not particularly good looking, not really very charming, not even unique. A bit of a workaholic.

“I’m… a dime a dozen starving musician with a depressing backstory and… I… I guess I’m just fucked. Fucking… The second I leave this car you can go to the ghetto and pick up another starving musician and-and… And you can spin this exact same charm and they’ll fucking fall in with you as well. You can’t possibly feel that bad that one person doesn’t talk to you unless this is some kind of fucked control thing you want to have over me.” Another wheezy bark of laughter.

“I’m not special. And your normal is not giving a single shit about feelings, even more than this you can’t possibly even begin to empathize with the amount of bullshit I have to deal with on a daily basis. I care now, or I cared five minutes ago because despite all this which I know about our friendship it’s still the best thing I’ve got.”

And with that Auguste gave a really really wet laugh as the realization of what he’d just done sank in. Hands doing a quick wipe under his eyes.

“This is it. This is all I have. Happy? I cared because this is it. Did that fuel your narcissistic ego you fil de bouge? I didn’t want to burden you with my bullshit, and I contact you now because it’s mostly all blown over and you could pretend like everything was fine.”

code by valen t.
 
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Ezra Gray




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Ezra had been annoyed since Auguste called him, fighting the urge to scream his frustrations at the top of his lungs and to let every compounding feeling in his head out in a burst of rage. He wanted to howl into the void, begging anyone to hear him even a little bit. But that wasn’t going to happen, Ezra had really dug himself a deep, unclimbable hole this time. And then there was Auguste, turning off his fucking radio. Fuck that guy.

What he really couldn’t expect, what Ezra couldn’t have begun to anticipate, was the laughter. Deep, untamed, broken laughter, words flowing from Auguste’s lips that Ezra couldn’t even begin to understand no matter how hard he tried, vicious statements stabbing into his chest and cranking his ribs apart to keep him vulnerable and exposed.

Ezra had been annoyed earlier but now, he was fucking pissed.

In an instant, Ezra was lovingly reminded why every broken down wall had been built up in the first place. No one, no matter how much Ezra tried otherwise, would stick around. Not friends, not family, not hookups, not Auguste. Ezra had never had much of a reason to stay either, no one to capture his muse and keep him on his toes long enough for the walls to fall. No one to make his heart race or his mind churn, no one to captivate his every waking thought. Auguste wasn’t wrong about that part, it wasn’t as if Ezra was known for playing the perfect little housewife, but something about his words made him sound… incapable.

Incapable of caring.

Incapable of loving.

Incapable of anything more than hollow selfishness that left nothing but destruction and pain in its wake.

How the hell was Ezra supposed to do anything else? He wasn’t the person that people wanted to keep around for anything but the superficial, for anything more than a quick fuck or a few quick shots of expensive tequila. What was so wrong with playing that role? What was so wrong with being the temporary and never the long term that anyone really cared about? Fuck it, it was easier to stay detached when the crowds around him up and left at the slightest sign that something better had come along.

With Auguste, it had been different. Auguste cared, Auguste made him feel human instead of simply a being to be used until the enjoyment ran out. Maybe he was right, maybe Ezra had truly come across as someone that really didn’t care, his reflexive nonchalance taking the reins when he truly felt so much more than that. But at the end of the day, Ezra really had cared. At the end of the day, the walls had fallen and his heart had begun to open.

What a stupid fucking mistake.

“This is it. This is all I have. Happy? I cared because this is it. Did that fuel your narcissistic ego you fil de bouge? I didn’t want to burden you with my bullshit, and I contact you now because it’s mostly all blown over and you could pretend like everything was fine.”

What did ego have to do with it? Ezra knew he’d fucked up before, not knowing how to express the feelings rattling around in his chest, but wasn’t that the opposite of ego? Wasn’t that fear of rejection the opposite of needless narcissism?

Ezra didn’t speak — he couldn’t speak— his voice stuck behind a lump in his throat. It was agony, listening to all of these words spewing from Auguste’s lips. All he could do was press his foot into the gas and tighten his grip on the leather steering wheel.

Just a few more kilometres.

Just a few more minutes.

Fuck it, he couldn’t do this.

Ezra slammed his foot into the gas, tires squealing on pavement as the entire car lurched forward into a heavy stop. Ezra was seething, his hands would’ve been shaking if it wasn’t for his iron grip. They were only a few minutes away, Ezra could see Auguste’s street from here, but there was no way he was driving the rest of the way.

“Fuck. You.” Ezra eventually spoke after a few seconds of silence. “Fuck you for beliving that I don’t fucking care about you. Fuck you for beliving that there’s no possible way that I’m capable of doing anything but hurting people. Yeah I fucking ran off after you disappeared because I didn’t know what else to do after you left.”

Pandora’s Box had been flipped wide open and now, there was nothing stopping him.

“Maybe I don’t know how to show that I give a fuck but why is that only on me? I’m trying, I fucking tried, and this is what I get.” Ezra slammed his hands against the wheel, finally turning his head to face the person beside him. “I drove across fucking Los Angeles to pick you up from he hospital after not hearing from you for a week. Why the fuck would I do that if I didn’t care? No sort of ‘casual fuck’ or ‘manipulation’ or whatever the hell else you think I’m in this for is worth the fucking anxiety you just put me through, all the fucking worry.”

Ezra’s facade began to crumble, his heart beating wildly in his chest.

“Last time I was at a fucking hospital, it was to say goodbye to my fucking sister who had been tied up to all these machines keeping her alive. I had been watching her die, Auguste, and today I thought I was going to watch you die too,” Ezra’s jaw tightened, a deep swallow causing his throat to tighten closed, “so fuck you for thinking I don’t fucking care.”

Ezra fell silent again, hands shaking as his fingers balled into tight fists in his lap, fingernails digging deep grooves into the soft skin of his palm. He squeezed his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to swallow the anxiety down and to stop the fearful tears from flowing.

“You say I don’t care, hm? Fine. I’ll go fuck other people, I’ll go be this person you want me to be. Because heaven forbid that I should fucking care about you. How dare you not be the fucking victim for once.” Ezra didn’t mean that last part, he really didn’t, but there was nothing else to say. Instead, he jammed his finger into the unlock button and turned his head to stare back at the road, hands back on the wheel. “Now get the fuck out of my car. I don’t give rides to strangers.”






♡coded by uxie♡
 
MOOD:
It gets better

OUTFIT:
Giggle at a funeral

LOCATION:
Ez's car
basics
MENTIONS:



INT:
Ezra geminiy geminiy

tags
TL;DR: Woo catharsis
tl;dr
Auguste

There were three types of people in the world: strangers, wolves, and friends.

Ezra had lived in a weird gray area between wolves and friends. Auguste genuinely had no idea where to put him. How would he react if Auguste showed him his neck?

He knew now, at least, that Ezra was a wolf. And you don’t show your neck to the wolves, lest you get your throat ripped out.

It’d happened too many times at this rate that Auguste knew better than to try.

So instead of showing Ezra his pain, Auguste chose instead to smile and laugh. Because at the end of the day, what else was there for him to do? He couldn’t do anything otherwise.

It wasn’t the terrifying wheezy cackle from before, though it sounded awfully like it. It was wet, and too full of tears and pain and frustration to actually be convincing of a laugh. Really, it came out as somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

You can’t show the wolves how much pain you’re in, though, because that was when they went in for the kill.

“I hope you do, mon frere, find someone better than me and I hope you treat them better than you treated me. For both of your sakes.” Auguste said, as the doors unlocked.

Honestly? Thank fucking God. He was this close to telling Ez to pull over and let him just walk the rest anyways.

“I wish I could believe you, that you actually cared about me. But… You state over and over again that this is not in your nature and that you don’t care. So you were either lying to me then or you lie to me now. And considering that we are in the middle of arguing, I say that it is more likely you lie to me now.” A simple shrug in the middle of a pause in the hysterical laughter.

“I want you to be happy.” Auguste said, simple. Straightforward. “And… if what you say is true, then I don’t think you know what you want. You want me to tell you when things go wrong, you want me to be open to you about my fucked up life and to try to be supportive, but you tell me that you never get attached and that whenever someone shows you affection or tries to get close to you, that you run away.”

“I hope you figure it out, mon frere.” He said, stepping out of the car. “But it’s not going to be with me. I really hope that you find what will make you happy”

And with that, Auguste slammed the door shut and gave Ezra the brightest smile he possibly could through his tears and a wave and began the long walk home.

Because you don’t show the wolves your throat.

You don’t show them your pain, until you get home.

Auguste stood there, door closed to his shitty apartment he could barely afford behind him.

It was over.

It was over.

A sob forced its way out of his throat.

It was all over.

The end of the friendship. It was over.

It was over.

All of the pain suddenly forced its way out of him.

Ezra hated him and probably never wanted to see him again.

He was supposed to be dead right now. Three times over.

He wasn’t going to be able to ever go back home.

He had done so many awful, terrible things and hurt so many people when he had been in the gang.

Charlie, his first love, had rejected him and called him a slur.

His mother hated him, probably for forever.

His grandparents didn’t want him

He was never going to see Papa’s face again.

And then, clarity.

He sat up after sobbing for what felt like a good hour. Clear headed.

He needed to change some things in his life.

Starting right this very fucking second.

code by valen t.
 






Ezra Gray




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Auguste exited the car without a fight, leaving Ezra in the deafening silence of the now abandoned cab. He wanted to scream or get out of the car and chase after Auguste and beat some sense into him or speed out of there and go find another lonely soul to keep him company. But he wasn’t about to do any of that, out of fear that whatever possibility came to him first would only prove Auguste’s actions correct.

Instead, he waited and watched, keeping his car far enough back to stay mostly out of view, though he was certain that Auguste was more concerned with not passing out than watching for him. Ez knew he should leave, he didn’t owe Auguste anything, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so until Auguste dipped safely into the apartment complex and out of sight. It was only then that Ezra cautiously pulled away from the curb and circled back to the highway.

Ezra drove in silence for a few minutes, his mind numb and his fingers sore from tightening his knuckles into two perfect fists. Was Auguste okay? Had he really been the one to fuck up? Fuck the silence, his mind was too loud. Ez pushed his thumb into the radio and cranked the volume dial, his ears craving any sort of input besides the deafening quiet and the sound of car horns on the busy roadway.

I said that's life
(That's life)
And as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks
Stomping on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down
Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinnin' around

A soft, broken laugh from Ezra’s lips, choked back in a successful attempt to stop the tears from flowing down his cheeks. How fucking ironic that the universe chose this of all the songs to play through his speakers.

Another press to the dial. The silence was better than whatever that ironic shit was.

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

It had been weeks since Ezra last spoke to Auguste. Hell, it had been equally as long since Ez had even seen the guy at all and honestly, he was kind of okay with it. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ had become Ezra’s unspoken mantra.

For a month, he considered calling, texting, showing up at his apartment, anything to hear that Auguste was okay. Ezra just couldn’t bring himself to follow through. He’d type in the number and hang up before he even hit dial or type a message and delete it before he could hit send. Maybe it was for the best that Auguste was nowhere to be seen. Ezra had finally learned his lesson about caring too much.

DING!

Ezra’s eyes darted up to the top of his phone screen, scanning the reminder outlined in red font.

Auguste music showcase @ noon. Don’t forget, asshole!

A sad pit formed in Ezra’s stomach. Shit, that was today. There was no way he could go now, that would be way too awkward. Slowly, Ez sat up in bed and locked his phone, trying to ignore the thoughts racing through his head. Yeah, it would be awkward to go but, on the other hand, he paid good money for those tickets.

It wouldn’t be… entirely wrong to go, right? To support his other peers, not Auguste.

If he didn’t go…

Fuck it, he wasn’t about to waste that cash.

Ezra dragged himself out of bed and began to get ready for the day. Yes, for the day, to go support his peers, to not waste his good, hard earned money.

Why are you looking at him like that? It’s true!






♡coded by uxie♡
 
MOOD:
Wooo

OUTFIT:
White stripes count as color, right?

LOCATION:
Parking Lot
basics
MENTIONS:



INT:
Ezra geminiy geminiy

tags
TL;DR: I'm not crying, you're crying.
tl;dr
Auguste

Auguste promised himself after sobbing on the floor for what had amounted to a whole hour and thirty minutes that he'd make some big changes to his life.

First big change? He’d grown his beard out.

Second big change? Going to therapy again.

“But Auguste!” Someone who definitely was not Ezra might object “You can’t afford therapy!”

Well no, but listen. He was being forced into it. After the whole “I tried to kill myself and yes this is a repeated experience” lie that he told the police, they’d gone and gotten a judge to force him into therapy.

So anyways, he was medicated now. Hooray!

And today was his big music debut. Which was honestly something that Auguste had genuinely looking forward to.

He’d heard the rumors flying around - the great ballet prodigy was trying his hand out in music. The quiet snaps of people who were doubting him and were here to watch him fail.

Watching them change their tune was the most gratifying experience in the world for him. After all, he didn’t usually have many fans in the crowd - people saw him when he was in ballet and immediately thought he’d be too big and clumsy to move in a particularly graceful way.

It was the best thing in the world to turn a crowd to his favor.

The first strums of the guitar sending electricity through his limbs, perfectly in time with the beat from a backing track. Alright, it was show time.

He turned and began singing into the mic and watched as everyone’s attention shot to him.

Auguste saw the exact moment when he won the crowd over from trepidation to ecstasy

“We’ll name our children Jackie and Wilson raise ‘em on rhythm and blues.”

They were clapping… on the 1 and 3 but still. Clapping was clapping.

He gave the brightest smile as he leaned away from the mic for a moment. The bridge into the next part as he let out a high and wild howl along to the bridge.
“Cut clean from the dream last night, let my mind reset.” He made direct eye contact with someone in the crowd, he couldn’t see their face due to the stage lights. But he gave them a wink as he popped the t. Watched as they cheered louder with a smug grin. “Lookin’ up from a cigarette and she’s already left.”

“Start diggin’ up the yard to see what’s left from our little vignette. For whatever poor soul is coming next.”

Auguste couldn’t stop smiling between lines of song, even though his stage persona was supposed to be rather dour to help his singing style of not really expressing much or smiling at all.

“We’ll name our children Jackie and Wilson, raise ‘em on rhythm and blues.”

And then silence.

And then cheers.

Auguste lit up, his eyes brightening.

“So how’s it goin’ out there.” A slightly bashful grin and the pulling locks of hair behind his ear that hadn’t gotten picked up by the messy bun of hair. “Thank you for comin’ out tonight. I’m gonna play a couple of songs for you tonight and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

It was bleeding a very careful down to earth strand of charm. Something very… Auguste. More down to earth and kind of dorky. Like he was completely unaware of the flirty wildness of how he became mid performance.

“That song was called Jackie and Wilson. This next one is going to be about love, I guess, at… at its most momentary and-and futile. And shallow. And useless. And empty. It’s called Someone New.”

He played the opening chords, singing as he went from the quiet and humble talking stage persona to the flirty wildness as if a man possessed.

“Go and take this the wrong way.
You knew who I was with every step that I ran to you.
Only blue or black days
Electing strange perfections in any stranger I choose.

Would things be easier if there was a right way?
Honey, there is no right way.”

He threw another little wink at the guy that he’d been flirting with earlier during Jackie and Wilson. Why not? It wasn’t like his heart was given to anyone at the moment.

“And so I fall in love just a little, oh a little bit
Every day with someone new.”

He gave himself a little exaggerated swagger during the chorus. A tiny swing of his hips as he played his guitar.

“There’s an art to life’s distraction.
To somehow escape the burning wait, the art of scraping through.
Some like to imagine the dark caress of someone else. I guess any thrill will do.
Would things be easier if there was a right way,
Honey there is no right way

And so I fall in love just a little oh a little bit,
Every day with someone new.”

No, in fact, he did not write this song about Mr Thaddeus and his ridiculous swagger. Even though he was sure if the guy was in the crowd, he’d want to think it was.

He was kind of glad that Ezra sure as fuck wasn’t going to be in the crowd for this one. That would’ve been really fucking awkward.

During the round bit he heard one of his friends from music class doing the round.

His face split out into the widest grin as he shouted the lyrics back at him perfectly in time and in key.

“Fair play, mon frere.” He said in between lines.

“Love with every stranger, the stranger the better.” He continued singing till the end.

‘Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Ehm… I’ve only got two more songs for you all, but I’d like you thank you again for coming out and… ehm. Supporting me. You’ve all been lovely tonight. I’ve been having a great time.”

And then he did a cover of Say My Name by Beyonce, crooning softly into the mic, at one instance, pointing it to the audience for them to sing along. His face lit up in another bright grin.

And then the opening chords of his last song started, and he slung the guitar behind him.

“My lover’s got humor, she’s the giggle at the funeral.” He started, gripping the mic and softly crooning into the mic, he took it off the mic stand as he gripped the empty spot where it used to be, moving around it carefully.

“‘We were born sick’ you heard them say it.” He sang, doing a little air quotes around the sick. His movements becoming larger and larger as he paced around, and intense as the fire started seeping through into his singing, giving it more and more of a bite.

“She demands a sacrifice.
Drain the whole sea.” A gesture of go down as he stared at the crowd with that deep intensity.
“Get something shiny.
Something meaty for the main course.”

The demands of a god to his flock as he continued the commune.

“No master or kings when the ritual begins.” He got soft again as he sang directly to some dude in the front row, down on one knee. Stage lights. He couldn’t actually see who he was singing to but hey. The effect worked either way.
"There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin.
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene.
Only then I am human. Only then I am clean.”

The intense passion and fire that he had inside of him showing its face as he stood to stare at the rest of the audience and belted out three Amens and going straight into a growling

“Take me to church, I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies.” As he thumped his chest.
“I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
And good God let me give you my life.”

As the song’s big chords ended out he raised a hand and gave a breathless “Thank you again for coming, hope you all have a lovely night.”

And then the set was over and he hustled off stage with a final wave goodbye to cheers and applause.

He took off the stage makeup and went outside to get his bike and go home.

And that’s when he saw two elderly people walking towards him. Spanish immediately clicking in his head as they were speaking rapidfire.

Grandparents. They were his grandparents. And they were proud of him

They were so proud.

They were crying.

The woman was… short in Auguste’s eyes. But that meant she stood at around a 5’8 as she gave him a hug.

And his grandpa was 6’5 and also hugging him and saying that he was so proud and they had so much to catch up on.

And if Auguste was crying… well, he thought at least that he’d have an excuse because he finally had a family again.

code by valen t.
 
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Ezra Gray




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Ezra shouldn’t have come. No, Ezra should’ve deleted that notification and gone back to mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. He should never have cleaned himself up and thrown on a somewhat polished outfit, never should’ve gotten into his car, never should’ve made his way into the stadium.

But he did.

He did get cleaned up, he did put just a little too much effort into looking impressive, he did roll up to the stadium with a small orange ticket in hand and a numbed expression on his face. Ezra blended well enough into the crowd that even the people he did recognize stayed away, either in a flurry of excitement or after a recoil from the soured expression creasing lines into the pale skin beside his lips.

“...and please hold out your wrist for me,” the woman behind the ticket counter spoke sweetly.


Ezra did as he was told, though he didn’t bother to acknowledge the girl besides a quick thank you and a careful gaze of her being. She was young, likely a year or so younger than Ezra, warm skin surrounded in a halo of dark curls. She, who’s name was obviously Jada by her nametag, was pretty, Ezra’s type on paper. There was a second that Ezra considered playing his cards onto the table and scoring this girl’s number. So much so, in fact, that Ezra had bent down slightly to hear the melody in her voice as she talked about the performers ahead.

From the corner of his eye, movement caught his attention. A figure hovering slightly above the crowd, tall enough that the being could be clearly seen. But there was too much silver in his hair and there was a woman by his side. Too old to be Auguste, though there was something about them that felt familiar.

Ezra hadn’t noticed that he had rather rudely jerked his arm away from the woman, slightly smudging the phone number that she had been writing onto his admission band in neat scrawl. He mumbled an apology and shoved his hands into his pockets. Into the crowd Ezra disappeared, at least as much as a 6’5” man can, to follow the hoard down the stairs into the sloped stadium and onto the flat floor at the bottom.

His previous plans had Ezra in the front row with a bouquet of flowers in his arms and a playful grin on his face as he cheered on his friend on stage. But now Ezra found himself in the centre of the crowd, doing his best to shrink away into the sea of people.

“Excited?”

Ezra turned his head to the guy beside him, another attractive face that seemed to be quite literally bouncing with an abundance of energy. Ezra offered a soft shrug in response and forced a friendly grin onto his face.

“I guess so. What about yourself? You seem,” Ezra’s eyes trailed the man beside him, earning a soft blush in response, “enthused about it all.”

The man nodded, cheeks splitting with a wide grin. “I love indie musicians. You never know what you’ll find in places like this. Oh, and I’m Shawn by the way. Do you go to LAU too?”

Ezra gave a nod and extended his hand. “Ezra Gray, and yes I do.”

The two continued to speak, exchanging information about their majors (Shawn was in art history), family (two brothers and four sisters, too big of a family for Ezra’s liking), the music they liked (softer beats, preferring male artists), small talk about the weather (too warm for Shawn’s liking, he was used to the colder weather of Sweden). Eventually, the house lights began to fall and the music began to play.

There he was on stage, guitar slung over his shoulder by a strap, hair pulled back and a beard on his jaw. Ezra really hadn’t expected so much to change physically in a month, yet somehow the person standing before him was a completely different entity than the person he’d left behind that night.

It hurt to see him doing so well. Ez was happy for him, he really was, but there was something about seeing the man he cared so much about thrive under conditions that excluded Ez that caused a burning ache in his chest. It was a selfish thought, Ezra knew this, but the acknowledgement of the sentiment didn’t make it any less true.

Ezra stared blank faced at the stage as Auguste sang his songs trying his best to ignore the incessant thumping of his heart behind his ribs.

You aren’t here for him.

He doesn’t want you.

He doesn’t need you.

Auguste’s eyes drifted his way and Ezra found himself forcing a stoic expression, hands curling into worried fists in the pockets of his jacket. His gaze came closer, closer, closer. His gaze landed on fucking Shawn who, somehow, seemed to only become more energized by the mindless flirtation of the musician before them.

Ezra felt fucking sick. Not angry, not sad, not numb. No, he felt as if his body was giving out on him, refusing to work if it had to witness this shit.

He remained through the set, trying hard not to read into the lyrics and the playful gazes that came his way before washing right over him and onto the idiot beside him. The second Auguste left the stage and Auguste left the stage, Ezra began looking for an exit. The room was closing in on him, causing an uncomfortable tightness in his chest and unfamiliar quiver of his fingers.

“He was totally flirting with me, right?” Shawn chirped lustfully, rushing a hand through his blond hair as if somehow Auguste was checking him out through the walls. “He totally was. I should find him, get his number.”

Ezra’s fists tightened more, a deep swallow causing his jaw to tighten. “You couldn’t pull him, kid. All of that was just a performance,” Ezra reached a strong hand out to clasp the guy’s shoulder, squeezing a little more forcefully than intended, “don’t even bother trying. You should probably stay in your league, yeah?”

Shawn was rendered speechless, standing like a scared child lost in a Walmart clothing rack as Ezra turned around and pushed his way through the crowds. Behind him, the lights went down once more and some other musician began to play. Ezra didn’t give a fuck. Screw his five bucks, it wasn’t worth it to sit through more of this shit with Auguste about.

Ezra pushed through the doors after a few minutes of wiggling his body through the crowds. He offered a nod to the woman that had taken Jada’s place and continued his march through the stadium foyer. A few more paces to the front door, a few more minutes until fresh air and freedom.

There were people crying, three of them. Ezra recognized the older set as the people he had seen earlier and the third…

“Auguste.” Ezra spoke before thinking. Trapped in his own awkwardness, Ezra cleared his throat and took a few cautious steps towards the trio, it wasn’t as if he could just turn around and pretend he hadn’t seen him. “Hey, uh…” Shit, Ezra, say something. “Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you and your…” Ezra didn’t know who these teary eyed strangers were. “Company. I was actually just leaving but, um, since you’re here, I just wanted to say that your performance was great.” Ezra awkwardly shifted on his feet. “You really looked at home up there on that stage. Oh,” Ezra then turned and extended his hand to the two people from earlier, “excuse my rudeness. I’m Ezra Gray, pleasure to meet you.”






♡coded by uxie♡
 
MOOD:
Awkward

OUTFIT:
White stripes count as color, right?

LOCATION:
Parking Lot
basics
MENTIONS:



INT:
Ezra geminiy geminiy

tags
TL;DR: And then Ezra showed up.
tl;dr
Auguste

Auguste was crying. He was crying and his hair was being petted and told that everything was alright and it was just making him cry harder and his grandparents were holding him like he was their last hope and-

And it was not a pretty kind of crying. It was an ugly sob of all of his pain getting washed away as he realized that he was loved and had been loved this entire time. That people had in fact wanted him, they just couldn’t get to him.

And then something came crashing into this feeling of cathartic release.

Ez’s voice was one that Auguste was not expecting in the slightest. It was a shock that he even came to be quite frank.

Why in the world did he show up-

Why in the fucking world did he think now was a good time to pick a fight?

Auguste wiped his face, not quite loosing the red rimmed nature of his eyes, his face falling back into the broodingly stoic pain of before the breakdown… too quickly for him to correct it again. He was trying to be better about that.

His grandparents took a glance at how his face suddenly went from so painfully expressive to gearing up for something unpleasant. And then they looked at what appeared to be a 6’5 douchebag speedwalking their way.

Now see, Auguste’s grandparent had his same white streak in graying hair, and was thin as a rake. And these pleasant warm brown eyes that had seen genuine war - that had fought tooth and nail to become a self made man after the war and provide for his family for years to come.

And Auguste’s grandma was more than willing to hit someone with a shoe if needed.

So when they saw a 6’5 douchebag with an asshole’s smile, and they saw their long lost grandson’s face drop, they moved in sync - in the way only people who’ve been united for very long amounts of time could be in sync. Well, they put Auguste just a little bit behind them, and stared at Ezra with hatred.

“¿Quien diablos eres tú?” Came a sharp bark from Auguste’s grandma. “Julien. Quién diablos es éste. ¿Cómo te acaba de llamar?”

Auguste winced just a little bit. “Ehm… ehm… mi nombre es Auguste ahora. Et… ehm.. Y él es…”

He trailed off. “Un amigo?”

A blink. A beat of silence before he realized suddenly that Ezra had indeed actually said something worthy of a response. “Ehm, sorry Ez I don’t think they speak much English. Thank you… Yeah. I… work on this for a long time. So. It means a lot. To have… ehm… people come to my set.”

Was that too formal? Last he’d seen Ez he’d gotten kicked out of his car because quote unquote “I don’t give rides to strangers.”

That meant they weren’t friends right? So. What the fuck was this then?

“Auguste, ¿tenemos que llamar a seguridad?” Auguste’s grandpa had a tight grip on Auguste’s arm. Not hard enough to bruise though. But a protective gesture.

“Non! No! Nononono. Está bien.” Auguste said quickly.

“¿Te ha hecho daño?”

“Ehm…” Auguste trailed off. Quick change the subject. “Ezra! Meet my grandparents! This is ma mémé and mon pépé. Mémé, pépé, estes es Ezra.”

"... Dice que es un placer conocerte." Auguste quickly tacked on at the end.

"... Pleasure is all mine." There was a heavy, heavy Spanish accent accompanied to the gravelly passive aggressive statement. And an iron grip to the handshake, verging on painful.

His grandmother was not much better in that regards, staring him down with a brutal kind of murder in her eyes and not even bothering to say it's nice to meet you too.

Yep, this was going great.
code by valen t.
 






Ezra Gray




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Oh boy, this was awkward. Tears, whether happy or sad or scared, were never Ezra’s thing. Hell, emotion as a general idea was not something Ezra found himself gravitating towards, especially when it was two strangers and an angry Frenchman that were displaying such verbose amounts of it. As soon as Ezra had approached Auguste and his little fanclub of the elderly, he decided that it would have been better to just turn around and leave. Alas, it was too late and now, he was stuck in this interaction.

Ezra moved to open his mouth to try and cut through the awkward silence and laser-sharp stare that Auguste was boring through his head when the two elderly people began to speak rapid fire in some language that Ezra didn’t speak. Spanish, he thought, that would make sense.

What were they saying? By the scowls on their faces and the way Auguste verbally chased after them in a hushed tone, probably nothing good. That was fair, honestly, Ezra hadn’t exactly done anything of any good to report back to the family, if that’s even what they were saying.

“Ehm, sorry Ez I don’t think they speak much English. Thank you… Yeah. I… work on this for a long time. So. It means a lot. To have… ehm… people come to my set.” Ez breathed out a soft breath of relief, covering it up by clearing his throat. At least Auguste seemed to remember that Ezra didn’t know what the hell was going on and had begun speaking his-

Oh look, there they went again.

Ezra tucked his non-outreached into the pockets of his brown slacks, rocking awkwardly on his toes a few times while Auguste and his grandparents exchanged words once more. Then, as Ezra was about to move the other one to his other pocket, Auguste’s grandfather gripped his hand. Hard. Verging on bone crushing. Ezra grasped back, silently thanking the muscle surrounding his wrist and fingers from keeping his bones from turning to dust.

"... Pleasure is all mine." Auguste’s grandfather spoke before releasing his hand while his grandmother seemed to have no interest in saying anything at all or meeting Ezra’s gaze. No, instead she was busy trying to slice through his being with her eyes alone. Ezra feared that if he stood around for long enough, she might succeed.

With his hand now released, Ezra resisted the urge to shake out the lingering ache from his skin and instead, tucked it nonchalantly into his other pocket. He tossed a few words around in his mind, trying to minimise the damage about to drip from his words. Yeah, he was in too deep to back out now, but he might as well try to put a nail in the board of repair for their friendship, if there was even a friendship to save. Honestly, at this point Ezra wasn’t sure there was.

“I’m glad that they showed up, Auguste.” Ezra began, forcing a soft smile onto his lips. “Your performance… It was amazing. I’m glad that you had people in your corner rooting for you. You deserve it.”

Subconscious acting and muscle memory had Ezra reaching out to gently clasp Auguste’s shoulder, mostly in pride and partially out of the habitual need to feel people beneath his touch. It wasn’t until his hand came into view that he realised he was reaching at all, a deep flush warming his ears as he made a quick attempt to recover by brushing his fingers through his own hair, the dark strands once laid out carefully now muddled into a messy heap atop his skull.

“I, um,” Ezra cleared his throat, “should probably get going, leave you to your family reunion, yeah? Here,” Ezra reached into his wallet and pulled out a few hefty bills from the leather to give to Auguste’s grandparents. “Treat yourself to a nice dinner tonight. Los Angeles has a few great places to eat.” Silence, blank stares. Had he done something wrong? Oh right, no English. Ezra winced slightly and slipped the money into Auguste’s grandfather’s hand before turning to Auguste himself. “Have a good night, Auguste.”





♡coded by uxie♡
 
MOOD:
Awkward

OUTFIT:
We're becoming more emotionally stable

LOCATION:
Volleyball
basics
MENTIONS:



INT:
Ezra geminiy geminiy

tags
TL;DR: Flirty fun with friends.
tl;dr
Auguste

This was fine. This was going great. This was going fine.

If Auguste could keep telling himself that… Maybe, just maybe, it’d come true.

Listen, he knew. He fucking knew that Ezra was… Ezra. And that really, maybe he’d been expecting just a little bit too much. And even though Auguste knew that he was right, it probably all could’ve come out… way more pleasant than insults at the drop of a hat.

Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Auguste was still right.

“I’m glad that they showed up, Auguste.”

It was all too formal. It was all too… nice. He didn’t like it. It was wrong. This wasn’t how interactions with Ezra went. Interactions with Ezra were a verbal sparring match of trying to very carefully get what he wants while gently corralling him in the direction that he wanted his friend to go.

Following along as Ezra went and did fuckshit while Auguste stood off to the side, bitching and moaning the entire time, but going along with the entire deal.

He didn’t like this Ezra. Nice Ezra. Gross. Icky. Probably had cooties.

Hair behind the ear. Compliments that sounded genuine. Obvious. Like a bashful demure little school girl with a first time crush meeting her favorite celebrity.

Ezra, what the fuck.

Despite the very clear paper thin flirting that was happening, Auguste gave a small smile. It was different than the usual wolf smiles he had. The ones that he painted on. It looked.. nice. Peaceful. It reached his eyes and brightened the shadows that seemed to constantly haunt his face.

“Yeah. I… guess there is about… 18 years of catch up which needs to occur.” He said, just a little softer in tone than the exceedingly formal and awkward tone that he’d taken on before.

Family… was something that was always a sore spot for him. The idea that nobody cared - not even those that were supposed to be closest… It hurt, and it had hurt a lot more than he really tried to let on. It was… nice to know… that there were people that had actually loved him.

Sorta.

Well, mostly.

Something in him told him that they wouldn’t be as pleased to learn about the gang.

At least his grandparents were just watching this, with still murder in their eyes.

And then Ezra whipped out his wallet and held out some money to the group.

What.

Ezra was met with blank stares again. Clear confusion. This time from all three party members, not just the grandparents.

“Qu’est ce que?” “¿Qué?” Currently, the familial resemblance was uncanny when it came to be completely dumbfounded by Ezra’s bullshit.

“... Eres un prostituto?” Both of the elderly stared at Auguste. Auguste glanced between the two of them.

“No I’m not a hooker-” Not in Spanish. Shifty eyes of distrust to the fellow giant. Then back at his grandparents. He quickly followed up with a proper denial.

“¿Es estúpido?”

Another long pause as Auguste considered the question. And then a nod. “Muy.”

And then a glance over to Ezra. An apologetic smile. “They don’t want to take the money, sorry. But ehm… I will… We see each other at volleyball, no?” As diplomatic a response as he could.

And then with a very awkward wave goodbye, Auguste and his grandparents went to leave… Still just awkwardly avoiding the money offered by Auguste’s former friend.

—-------------------------------------

It’s amazing what having money could do to someone.

Auguste was actually medicated, he’d moved out of his dingy apartment that he’d shared with three different stoners…

Also, a new development: Auguste was leaving his shell.

Yeah, call all the media, because Auguste Cortes was actually starting to socialize properly with the people around him.

Fuck him, it was difficult sometimes. But he was getting out there and socializing. Making friends. Making connections. There were a couple of people he even figured that he could tour with if he got big enough to go on a tour.

And he was starting to just…talk. With people.

Which led him to the latest beach volleyball practice that he was attending. Listen. Auguste had fully recovered from the whole ‘stabbing’ incident, so he was ready to… well, mingle.

Only bad thing? Incredibly awkward one-night-stand turned friendship-ish turned enemy turned tentative fan Ezra Gray was also on the volleyball team.

That is to say, he gave a slight nod of hello to his fellow giant when they locked eyes, but generally kept his distance.

There was this guy who he’d started talking to anyways. His name was Jack. Handsome fellow. Friendly. Originally from Haiti - they bonded over the stupid Americans around them. A beautiful set of eyes.

Yeah okay, Auguste was kind of checking him out. And Jack was… touchy too. Had a hand on his shoulder a lot. Patting his arms. Giving him warm encouraging smiles whenever he stuttered over his words.

And now they were put together filling water bottles together for the rest of the team.

“You’re a handsome fellow, y’know that?” A grin at him. Oh, so it was flirting after all. Auguste flushed pink.

“I wouldn’t.. I wouldn’t say that…” A little duck, pulling at one of the loose strands of his hair. A flicker of his gaze towards the man next to him. A trill of realization running through him. “You have beautiful eyes.” Auguste said, a small smile gracing his lips. A ducking of Jack’s head. Equally bashful. Wow, these water bottles they were filling up were really interesting.

A glance to the boy. “I’m… ehm… not really… looking for a boyfriend right now, if that’s alright with you.”

“Me neither. I just want to experiment.”
“... I don’t mind being the, ehm, the guinea pig.” Auguste said quietly.

A white smile from his new friend. He won an equally bright smile from the giant as they bumped shoulders. Rubbed shoulders to return to filling water bottles.
As they walked back, Auguste jumped at a small pinch on his ass from Jack who gave him an overly flirty smile and a wink. And the musician just blushed and smiled in return.

“Fuck off.” But there was no heat behind it. There was a grin as they went to line up. Auguste taking his usual place next to his awkward former friend ish Ezra Gray.

Auguste was naturally a bit athletically inclined if he so wished - height had its advantages after all. And his ability to leap and stretch himself and extend his body really had its place in volleyball - ballet had more transferable skills than what appeared at first anyways.

Teams where he got to play with Ezra usually were pretty one sided that way. Which was why they always were put on opposite teams. This time was no different.

“Cortes. Go on Jack’s team this time round.” Lucky him. Winks were exchanged alongside a couple of daps. What could he say, he was trying his hand at being a generally friendly person. They lined up.

The game started, and Auguste’s eyes sharpened from the now somewhat laidback chill to an almost predatory focus as his eyes landed on his former friend.

Three steps back, and a deep calming breath as the whistle blew to serve

Auguste’s past lent itself well to volleyball. A flexibility to his back alongside jumps and leaps that defied gravity from ballet and a terrifying stare and focus from his days fighting tooth and nail for bits of gang territory.

That is to say, he tossed the ball up, leaped, seemed to float in midair for just a second, eyes locking directly onto his target, and slammed the ball down towards the man with pinpoint accuracy, right as he fell back down and went into formation with the rest of his team.
code by valen t.
 






Ezra Gray




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The next few seconds passed by in a confusing trilingual blur. Granny Cortes was still staring daggers through his head, the smooth skin of his forehead seemingly having been painted with a nice red bullseye right between his eyes. Gramps was still refusing to take the money, stubborn old codger, and Auguste… Well, he was Auguste.

Ezra was kicking himself for not opting to take Spanish his first semester, at least that way he wouldn’t be entirely confused and left behind in this one-sided conversation. No, instead he was standing there like a shell shocked idiot while they flip flopped between languages until they began to walk away.

The next few words, which Ezra detected as insults, left him stunned. Something about an idiot prostitute? Yeah, that had to be it, especially since Auguste was now refuting the idea of being a whore himself. Ezra had to bite his tongue at the opportunity to make a poorly timed, highly unsavoury joke about how Auguste could’ve fooled him by the way he’d acted between the sheets. Of course, nothing had been the same since the impromptu hospital trip and, as much as Auguste’s nonchalant careless disposition was pissing him off, he wasn’t about to expose him to his poor old grandparents.

Next thing Ezra knew, Auguste and his grandparents were walking off, leaving Ez alone in the foyer entirely confused with the wad of cash still in hand.

Had he done something wrong?
“Auguste! Wait up!”

Ezra turned his head, his mouth once agape in confusion pressing into a thin, annoyed line. Of course, there was the fucking Swedish kid that had been inside, bounding over like an abandoned golden retriever as a thin arm reached up to wave rampantly in Auguste’s direction. Ezra’s arm shot out to grab the kid by his shoulder, yanking him backwards harshly.

“Oh, uh, hey! I was just going to go see if Auguste wanted to-”

Ezra shoved the boy back harshly, jabbing a finger into the hollow point in the centre of his chest. “Fuck. Off.”

The boy blinked a few times, crystalline eyes glistening with a childlike wonder that made Ezra almost bad for wanting to cave his stupid face in. “What?”

A laugh rumbled from Ezra’s chest. “I said fuck off, mate. He doesn’t need some little parasite like you leeching off of him. Can’t you see he was with his family?” Another rough shove. “Now fuck off and leave him alone, yeah? Wouldn’t want things to get messy now.”

Shawn the Swede scampered off in one direction, glancing over his shoulder at either Ezra or the doors that Auguste had disappeared through. Ez couldn’t tell, nor did he care to figure it out. Once the blond pushed his way back into the auditorium, Ezra was alone again.

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥​

Ezra wasn’t sure what was more annoying to wake up to: his blaring alarm clock or a phone call from some girl he had promised to get dinner a few weeks ago. Third call since Wednesday afternoon, each one left unanswered, and at least twenty unhinged texts chasing him down in an attempt to see their plans through to fruition.

Look, Ez had made the dinner date promise right after all the stupid shit with Auguste and his performance, back when he was certain that he just didn’t care about the guy anymore. Plenty of fish in the sea with much lower standards and much more interest in actually spending time with him, right? In a way, Ezra had been right, there were lots of fish in his sea. Some of them just happened to be annoying brunettes with an ego that rivalled his own, a squeaky voice, and what he was certain as enough lip filler to make her able to float in water.

He hung up and turned off his phone before slamming his palm into the top of his alarm clock. Fuck, it was going to be a long day.

A shower, breakfast, and a protein smoothie to go later and Ezra was out the door before the sun could finish rising in the sky, a large gym bag slung over his shoulder and a haze of grogginess covering his features.

Ezra really didn’t want to go to the volleyball practice today. Hell, lately he didn’t really want to do anything at all. Since the performance, Ezra had fallen into some sort of strange routine that he wasn’t used to. Any and all spontaneity was gone, replaced with a hollow boredom that left him entirely okay with having zero entertainment in his life. He’d only gone out for drinks with his friends a handful of times since the performance, started clocking in more hours at his placement, spending more time in the library grinding away at his studies.

As much as he hated it, not having Auguste around was taking a serious toll on his mental health. He found it difficult to enjoy shit, difficult to just pack it up and move along. There was almost an ache that had made permanent residency in the pit of his stomach, a quiet acknowledgement that things were just never going to be the same between them. Hell, Ezra had even come to the realisation that there wasn’t a “them” anymore. Just two strangers cohabitating in the same university.

Ezra had missed the past few practices, citing an ever-busy work schedule. Being one of the top players on the team meant that this decision was met with resentment from his coach and plenty of scolding from his teammates, especially after one terrible practice a week before that had left the team feeling entirely hopeless and unprepared for the upcoming game against their rival school. So finally, Ez had decided that he had to drag himself in less he risk getting kicked from the team entirely.

As he pushed open the doors to the gym, having to pass through the space to get to the locker room, Coach’s head popped up and he gave an enthusiastic nod.

“Mr Gray, so nice of you to finally make an appearance,” he bellowed across the noise of squeaking sneakers and the dribble of volleyballs against the wood tile floor. Ezra shrugged, the bag on his shoulder shifting slightly.

“Guess I decided that I couldn’t let you all flounder without me,” Ezra shot back playfully, but the energy in his voice was entirely gone. He was tired, drained even, anyone could tell that. Coach opened his mouth to reply but Ezra was already gone, shoving his way into the empty locker room.

Slinging his bag down, Ezra changed into his uniform and yanked his water bottle free from the side pocket, scowling as he untwisted the lid and flipped the bottle upside down. “Son of a bitch.”

Yeah, of course he had forgotten to fill it. Mumbling the curse beneath his breath, Ezra took the back exit out of the locker room and took a left down the hall to fill the bottle up when he heard voices, a painfully familiar tone mixing in flirtation with another unfamiliar voice.

Auguste fucking Cortes.

Ezra stopped and wondered if he should just turn back into the gym, he could just come and get water later. But the voices, the tonality, the silent thrum of water into the bottom of aluminium bottles… Ezra stood still, listening into the conversation.

“Me neither. I just want to experiment.”

“... I don’t mind being the, ehm, the guinea pig.”

His large hand closed tightly around the bottle in his hand, squeezing the metal in his grip. Guinea pig? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? And why the fuck does this other dude, whoever the hell he was, think that Auguste was only good for some stupid experimentation? Ezra swallowed deeply, turning around abruptly and marching back towards the gym.

Throwing the doors open, Ezra made his way inside. He chucked his water bottle at the bench before he started his warm up routine, staring with furrowed brows into the empty space in front of him. Eventually, the whistle blew just as Auguste and his little friend decided to stop eye fucking each other at the water fountain and to actually join practice. Auguste fell into line beside Ezra, throwing a stupid smile his direction.

Clearly, he wasn’t as fucked up about the whole situation as Ezra was. Clearly, he was totally fine to go galvanting with some fucking asshole who didn’t want any sort of fucking committment or anything. And why, exactly, was that suddenly okay with Auguste “Why Aren’t You More Committed, Ezra” Cortes? He was just okay with this nobody using him for his little Straight Man Gay Fantasy that he was trying to stir up when he wasn’t okay with Ezra even trying to open up and push things ahead?

God, Ezra could’ve fucking killed them both.

Team stretching aside, the group of young men split apart into their regular teams. Ezra stood in the back left corner, stretching out his calves as he desperately attempted to avoid the nagging presence of Auguste still beside him. Then, in some sick turn of events, Coach blew his whistle again.

“Cortes. Go on Jack’s team this time round.”

Ezra stiffened as Auguste made his way around the net to the other side, swapping places with another one of the boys on the team. He seemed entirely too happy to have made the switch, exchanging flirty glances and playful grins with that fuckinga asshole, who’s name was Jack as Coach had so lovingly reminded him.

Auguste took the ball and took a few steps back. Ezra had studied his serves before, partially out of interest in the game but mostly out of admiration for the Frenchman’s physique. He was a built athlete, strong and flexible. Normally, Ez would take the opportunity to push himself a bit further now that he was playing against a worthy adversary but now, all he wanted to see was Auguste fall flat on his fucking ass.

A heavy palm slammed into the ball, serving it high over the net. Ezra’s teammates knew better than to get in the New Zealander’s way, instead keeping well back as Ezra dropped into a sort of crouch as he prepared his hands to push the ball back over. There came the ball, soaring at top speed right towards his face. Ezra lifted a hand and jumped, his fingertips moulding around the ball to send it spiking gracefully at the boy right in front of him.

Jack.

Luckily for the boy in front of him, Ezra had overshot ever so slightly and the ball bounced onto the hardwood floor behind him, the white leather of the ball grazing the top of Jack’s stupid hair. Ezra landed gracefully back on his feet as he watched the ball hit the floor and listened to the whistle of a confirmed point ring through the gym, one of his teammates clasping him on the back as the ball was rolled back to the guy who was due to serve. Jack looked none too pleased and Ezra was practically begging the guy to say something with that agape mouth. Instead, he remained silent. Ezra took a few steps forward, an angered grin pulling his lips apart.

“What’s the matter, Jacky? Forgot that you’ve gotta actually keep the ball off the ground, mate?” Ezra snarled, lacing his fingers through the net as he stared the boy down. “Maybe spend less time trying to dick down your teammates and more time remembering to hit the ball, yeah?”

Another blow of the whistle and Ezra swooped back into place, shooting a glare at Auguste.

“Gray, stop harassing your teammates. Its poor sportsmanship.” Coach echoed as the rest of the two teams found their places.

“Don’t worry, Coach, it can’t be poor sportsmanship when we’re playing against a poor little boy, yeah?” Ezra laughed, a few of his teammates joining in. Coach rolled his eyes and blew the whistle again as Ezra dipped back into position, staring into Jack’s eyes through the net.

As the ball was served across the net, Ezra made himself a silent promise: he wouldn’t miss this time.





♡coded by uxie♡
 
MOOD:
Kinda annoyed but it's whatever

OUTFIT:
We're becoming more emotionally stable

LOCATION:
Volleyball
basics
MENTIONS:



INT:
Ezra geminiy geminiy

tags
TL;DR: Hey, what the fuck?
tl;dr
Auguste


Here’s the deal when you’re 6’7 and you’re playing a sport with mostly 5’11 people. You win. You just win. That’s all there is to it. You have a larger wing span, you can block shots, you over take everyone’s jumps.

You just win.

So, in the act of keeping everything fair, Auguste generally tried to smack the ball towards the best player on the team so that everyone had a chance to actually play the fucking game and it wasn’t just him steam rolling everything. Or, do soft blows just so that the team had some time with the ball.

In this instance, that would be the 6’5 Ezra Gray. Thus, serving with full power right at the man’s face.

Apparently, Ezra did not feel the same.

The ball wooshed right past Jack’s head and into a spot behind him on the court.

Banter was exchanged mostly on the side of Ezra. Whatever - hey wasn’t that a bit of a close call? Wasn’t anybody gonna say something? Auguste gave his buddy a lil thumbs up “You get it next time!”

A cheerful little smile on his end. Soft and bright. Like a puppy wagging its tail. Hey, he could be supportive when he wanted.

A serve from the other side. A nice and easy receive from Jack, followed by a set to Auguste.

Well, if he and Ezra weren’t playing fairly anymore, he might as well exchange blow for blow, right?

Auguste leaped and twisted midair, a nice cross shot that whistled past all of the blockers and landed perfectly in the lines… right next to where one of Ezra’s teammates had been standing.

A smile as he was praised by the coach and his teammates for actually trying for once.

A comment from the coach:

“We should separate you two more often if it’s going to make you do shots like that.” Well, maybe. It would be better practice for everyone to have to learn how to receive his spikes, wouldn’t it?

“Sorry, I just saw the opening, yes?” He called to the somewhat rattled teammate - unused to having to deal with Auguste actually being a bit violent with his shots. Locked eyes with Ezra a moment after as his face fell back into seriousness. A single lock of his hair being freed from its bun and falling into his face.

Blow for blow, Ezra.


His eyes returned to remaining firmly on the people around him and the ball. Times for taunting and competitiveness falling away as he worked as a fake out and a blocker.

A serve, a receive, a set, a spike. A one touch block meant that it sent Jack and Auguste running and diving out of bounds to slam the ball once more back towards the court where they just barely managed to get it over the net.

Oh this one was going to Ezra this time. Auguste watched as he spiked downwards straight towards Jack who was still quite a ways away from the net and off to the si-

Hey now wait a second there was a wide gap in their defense on the other side of the court where they hadn’t managed to reach yet.

Auguste was close by as Jack suddenly got the look of a deer in headlights with the ball coming straight at his face even though they were barely in formation again to receive anything - frozen solid. Auguste extended his arm and slammed a fist upwards into the oncoming ball.

There was a thunk, and Auguste did a side roll, popping right back up onto his feet - his hair now fully removed from the messy bun that he’d created exceedingly quickly and fully getting into his eyes, looking around wildly to try to find where the ball had gone.

Everyone was looking upwards. So Auguste looked up as well.

The ball had firmly lodged itself in the rafters of the building.

Oops.

“Gray. What was that.” Oh, right. It’d been aimed weirdly towards Jack. Auguste glanced over.

“You good?” A quiet tone as Ezra got reamed, quietly speaking underneath the coach’s voice

“Yeah, thanks.” A nod as Jack shook off the mortal terror he’d felt a moment before.

“No problem.” An easygoing shrug. He was just lucky to have reflexes from when he’d been fighting other children in little gang territory wars… Funnily enough, times had been simpler back then. Not that he’d ever wish to go back. No, whatever this was was was much more doable than a return to fighting.

“What’s his deal? He’s acting like a jealous boyfrie- you two dating or somethin?”

“No, no no no. We were just fooling around. He made it pretty clear that he didn’t want feelings attached and was just looking for some fun.” Well, he did at least. And then he got all pissy when Auguste didn’t talk to him for a week. But that wasn't really relevant, now was it? At this point, he probably should've gotten over it if he hadn't gotten over it the minute he'd left that truck.

“Weird.” Jack shrugged and gave a small smile. It was hard to be particularly dour when Auguste seemed to be in a pretty good mood despite it.

“Cortes!” Auguste’s head whipped away from the Haitian, straightened his posture a little bit. Oh shit, he was being looked at now.

“You’re going to get a new ball with Ezra. Because you so lovingly lodged the volleyball into the ceiling.”

Well shit.

Auguste pulled his hair back into a loose messy bun and held the door open as they started the way too long trek to the closet to go get another ball while the team played with the spare.


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Ezra Gray




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That sly mother fucker had another thing coming to him if he thought he could just waltz in and upend Ezra’s fucking happy place. Even when times were toughest, back when Natasha was sick especially, the gym had always been the place he could blow off steam, a place where he didn’t have to worry about being cocky or suave or cool. He could just be himself. For a while, that space was shared with Auguste. The taller man pushed Ezra to his limits, challenged him in a way that Ezra wasn’t used to before. They truly did make a good team, that was the reason why they always ended up being on the same team together.

But now, that little fucker was standing before him as if he owned the goddamn room, as if he knew anything about being good at the game. No, he was a nobody, worthless to the team. Ezra had no problem showing the rest of the team that.

Coach made some stupid comment about them taking strong shots, Ezra just rolled his eyes and shifted his weight between his two feet. Another serve, this time from the opposing team. The ball was passed back and forth a few times, Ezra never getting much of a chance to get close to the ball. Being in the back had that effect: not close enough to spike, too far away to do any real damage. Sure, he was performing well, but each time he looked up there Jack was. Each time he saw Jack, the tighter the knot in his stomach grew.

An opening, a teammate not paying attention. Fuck it, Ezra didn’t really care that this was technically against the moves. Ezra took a few bounding steps forwards and launched himself into the air, flying towards the net as his fist slammed into the ball. Ezra made eye contact with Jack as the ball spiralled towards his face.

Faster.

Faster.

Ezra’s mouth parted in an evil grin.

An arm cut through Ezra’s field of vision and smacked the ball, the white object flying upwards and landing with a thud firmly within the rafters. As Ezra landed, there were a few hushed whispers behind it. Ezra was known for playing fair and that, right then, had been a really nasty foul shot.

“Gray. What was that?”

Ezra glanced between Coach, Auguste, the Asshole, and the ball wedged in the ceiling. Coach raised a hand, beckoning him over. The smile never faltered from Ezra’s face, not even as he stopped shooting daggers towards the pair on the other side of the net.

“Yeah?” Ezra asked nonchalantly, lifting the hem of his jersey up to wipe the sweat gathering on his brow.

“What’s gotten into you? That was a foul shot, you know that.” Coach reprimanded as he dropped the silver whistle from his lips to dangle on the orange lanyard around his beefy neck. “You’re already on thin ice, Gray. I won’t have someone taking cheap shots with the intention of hurting another player on my team, that’s not how we do things here.”

Ezra let out an angered laugh, deep and directly from the depths of his chest. “Oh come on now, old Jacky could’ve hit that if his head wasn’t triple the size of the ball. Maybe tell him to use that skull of his and get it in the game, he hasn’t hit a shot worth anything this entire game.”

Coach reached a hand up to rub frustrated circles on his temple. “I don’t care how many shots he did or didn’t miss. The fact of the matter is that you just played a dangerous game on purpose and I can’t count on you to not play like that again. Cool down. You’re benched until next practice. Clear?”

There was no time to respond before Coach was calling on Auguste, jutting a thumb up towards the ball in the rafters that refused to come down. “You’re going to get a new ball with Ezra. Because you so lovingly lodged the volleyball into the ceiling.”

Ez hadn’t had a problem with being benched, probably the best for poor, meek little Jacky if you asked anyone else in that room, but playing housewife with fucking Auguste? Now that got to him. Auguste didn’t seem to mind, walking off and out of the doors while Ezra took the key from Coach’s hand before following after him.

Walking through the held open door, Ezra didn’t even mutter a thank you as he passed. No, he refused to speak to Auguste, to even look at the guy. All they had to do was get one of the good balls, no big deal. Yeah, it was a long haul to the storage room, but at least it wouldn’t be the rest of the game. They’d get the ball, they’d go back to the gym, Ezra would study plays on the sideline, Auguste could go back to trying to fuck their teammate. No big deal.

Ezra walked silently at breakneck speed down the hall, though he knew Auguste would have no problem keeping up. He refused to acknowledge his existence in the slightest, keeping his eyes trained somewhere in the middle distance as he charged on. Just a few more minutes.

The locker room came into view and Ezra, slick as ever, let out a soft sigh. Twisting the key in the lock, Ezra tugged the heavy door open and gestured for Auguste to head inside. “Just grab the ball so we can get out of here,” Ezra snapped, pressing his weight against the open door. “Wouldn’t want your little fuck buddy to miss ya too much, yeah? Poor thing’s probably wailing at your very absence.”

Ezra’s tone was bitter, drawn out in an almost snarl. As he watched Auguste enter the room and head towards the back rack where the pristine white volleyballs marked with the school’s logo sat on a metal rack, Ezra considered just leaving. This clearly wasn’t a two person job and entirely one of Coach’s interesting plans to increase “team spirit” or some bullshit. Well, Ezra wasn’t buying it and he sure as hell wasn’t going to become buddy buddy with someone who clearly didn’t give a fuck about him.

A pang of hurt shot through Ezra’s chest. He swallowed and tapped his foot impatiently against the ground.

“What the hell is taking so l-”

Something inside the room rumbled, a shelf slanting slightly off balance in the darkness. There was a scuffing sound before a few loud clunks rang out as an entire shelf of lacrosse sticks began to tumble off the top shelf and directly towards Auguste’s head.

Ezra shot forwards to steady the shelf, abandoning his position at the door in favour of keeping the lacrosse sticks in place. With one strong shove, the shelf clicked back into place, a few rogue sticks slipping down the side and safely onto the ground without taking out anyone else in the process. Sighing a heavy breath of relief, Ezra turned to face Auguste and shook his head, throwing up his arms.

“The hell are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?” Ezra snapped, though he immediately winced at his own words. Was that too soon? Fuck it, if Auguste didn’t want him to care, he wasn’t going to. “Oh wonderful, you found the ball. Let’s go.”

Ezra turned around and reached out for the door handle in the dimly lit storage room, giving it a twist.

The door refused to open.

He jiggled the knob again, pressing his shoulder into the door as the stupid thing still didn’t budge. Ezra cursed, knowing damn well that this door was infamous for sticking. With his entire weight, Ezra slammed his shoulder into the door once, twice, three times, yet the door remained unmoving.

“Fuck.” Ezra groaned, chest heaving with the effort. He then took the palms of his hands and began to slam them against the door, putting his face close to the crack. “HEY! HEY, WE’RE IN HERE!”

His efforts, although valiant, were of no use. There was no sign of anyone outside except for the vague shuffling of sneakers in the distance. Ezra punched his fist into the door, hard enough to hurt but soft enough to not actually damage anything.

“Wonderful, just fucking wonderful.” Ezra cursed, running two frustrated hands through his hair.

The room felt as if it was closing in, beginning to swallow him whole. Was it always this hot in here? Why the hell was it so dark? Ezra suddenly became aware of the lack of windows, of vents, of any alternative escape route. The shelves were stuffed to the brim, so filled that clearly the shelves began to buckle under the weight. And this room, why the hell was it so small?

Ezra couldn’t breathe, his hands had begun to shake and his ribs had locked his lungs in a vice grip. He pressed his back against the cool brick in an attempt to steady his breathing, to force some of the stale rubber-scented air into his lungs, but his throat was dry and his vision was swimming and his feet were tingling and his skin burned.

Fuck, he had to get out of here.

Ezra began pounding on the door again, screaming out in an attempt to get someone, anyone to come and get them out of here. Seconds turned to minutes, a minute turned to five. Ezra knew that for a fact, he was counting the seconds. There was no one coming.

“Fuck!” He cursed again, pressing his forehead to the door. Then, he realized he wasn’t alone, that he was trapped in here with fucking Auguste. Slowly, Ezra turned around and blinked back the tears that had begun stinging the corners of his eyes. “Well? Are you fucking happy now? Is this the cherry on top to your perfect fucking day, Cortes? I’m sure this is what you wanted, yeah?”

Ezra couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. He wanted to, he wanted to scream and yell and make it well known just how hurt he was by everything. What difference would that make? Auguste didn’t care about him, he never did. He just wanted something, someone, to flex his power over. Ezra had never been important.

Slamming his back against the wall, Ezra slid to the ground and wrapped his arms around one knee, forcing a few deep breaths into his lungs. If he didn’t, he was sure that he was going to explode.





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Auguste

The silence was tense.

Extremely tense.

Well, Ezra was usually the chatty one anyways. Auguste really never had much interest in silence. Made an entire personality around weaponizing it. If he wanted to stomp around like a toddler giving the silent treatment, he could.

Honestly, this was the type of shit that was Auguste’s bread and butter, Ezra, did you think that it’d get him to crack?

He shoved his hands in his pockets, easily keeping stride. A bit on the fast side, but hey. Whatever. Ezra was feeling pissy and it wasn’t Auguste’s job to regulate the guy’s moods to keep him from being… less.

Ezra broke the silence first. As usual. Auguste wasn’t really the type to fall for that kind of bait by begging someone to talk to him. Conversations were usually actually quite the burden. Though weaponized silence did not feel nice either, but between the two he’d much prefer to be in his domain of remaining quiet.

“Wouldn’t want your little fuck buddy to miss ya too much, yeah? Poor thing’s probably wailing at your very absence.” Ezra snapped. Quite tetchy today… Wonder if he got stood up last night, that was probably what happened.

“I think we both know that one is unfair, mon frere.” Auguste said with a soft chuckle. Not his actual wheezing laugh, but just enough to pretend. That’s what he had to do, anyways. Pretend to be a normal human who does normal things. “If you’re still mad at me, you don’t have to get pissed off at the people I associate with, no?”

A pause, a head tilt. “Besides, since when have you been offended by mutually agreed upon casual fuckery?”

Soft, calm. An infinite patience. Therapy really had done wonders for him.

Well, that and also he really had absolutely no idea where this was coming from… A lack of control? Probably. Though, Auguste never really pegged Ezra for the type to be controlling of his hookups’ extra curricular activities when not with him. Weird.

But, Auguste went to the very back, ducking his head down to dodge the light to grab a volleyball.

It was stuck.

A tiny little pull administered. It was still stuck.

A little squeeze and a shimmy shake. Still stuck.

A glance upwards at the precarious placement of the rest of the . What would be worse. Those sticks falling on his head, or prolonged time with a very pissed off Ezra Gray, or - and this was the worst case scenario - having to spend a couple of minutes in close quarter contact with Ezra Gray.

Well. One would be painful for him. The other two would be painful for the both of them - it seemed the longer that Auguste and Ezra were together, the more pissed off Ez became. So clearly, there was really only one option.

Auguste leaned back down over and aggressively shook the volleyball back and forth, prying it out of the spot where it’d been lodged while also delivering a solid rattling to the rest of the shelves. He tucked his head in, eyes closed, and ready to have the shelves fall upon him…

… that never came.

The opening of one eye.

Ezra had caught it and pushed it back into place.

Oh.

Oh that was nice. Okay.

Go team!

“The hell are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?”

Well, at worse it’d be a mild concussion. But that risk factor had already been added in. Auguste opened his mouth to gently let it be known that he did, in fact, think of that and the likelihood of death was exceedingly low… paired with a reminder that considering that he survived getting stabbed, this would be a very pathetic way of him to get taken out and also didn’t you say that we weren’t friends anymore why do you even care if he got hit on the head a little bi-

Ezra had turned around and was already trying to leave.

Oh.

Well. Guess that answered the last of those questions.

Ezra was really really really trying to get out.

This seemed… A little bit more than “I’m mad at you and I’m feeling really awkward so this is all coming out as aggression.”

“Hey… Hey… Mon frere-” Soft and gentle. Classic Auguste tone, though perhaps a bit kinder than usual. Like trying to lull a very excited zooming cat to sleep.

“HEY! HEY, WE’RE IN HERE!”

Loud. Very loud. Was Ez claustrophobic? That would be news. He was usually on the other side of the panicking interactions. What did Ezra usually do? Make a joke… Ignore it…

Yeah okay that wasn’t really in Auguste’s nature-

“Well? Are you fucking happy now? Is this the cherry on top to your perfect fucking day, Cortes? I’m sure this is what you wanted, yeah?”

Right. Ezra’s fight or flight response was fight. And… well, Auguste was the only thing really to fight.

And then Ezra melted into the floor.

Well, more like he slowly slid to the floor and was now taking very heavy breaths - Christ, was he crying?

“... ehm…” Silence. Well. Generally speaking, you’re supposed to comfort the person. Right? “Ezra?” Like a little turtle peeping out of its shell.

“... You ehm… you know breathing exercises no? They… They help with hyperventilation. Counting to five?” He was really trying to help here. Soft, calm tone. No overtly sarcastic or aggressive tones.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

He can do this.

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Ezra Gray




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God, he couldn’t breathe. Every attempt to pull air into his lungs burned his throat with the strain, each exhale sputtering and coughing out of his mouth. The walls of the storage room had closed in, squeezing him between brick and concrete and metal racks, pressing against his warm flesh and burning into his muscles.

He needed to get out of there. Now.

Ezra was trying to calm his racing mind, trying to remind himself that he was in no real danger, when Auguste’s voice began to cut through the screaming static in his ears. At first, they were just indecipherable noises, syllables that made no real sense until they began to meld into words, then sentences, then, finally, a full phrase.

“They… They help with hyperventilation. Counting to five?”

A laugh, deep and angry, bubbled up from Ezra’s stomach, his eyes stinging with tears as he raised his head from his hands to glare at the man in front of him. A manic smile parted his lips, a fire burning behind his eyes. “Count to five? Where’d you learn that magical little trick?” Ezra snapped, voice raw and words interrupted by choking sobs. “Fuck you, Cortes. Don’t pretend like you care.”

The words had left Ezra’s mouth before he could think about them, brain shooting them out before any sort of filter could catch up. Ezra pushed himself up from the ground, taking his head in his hands as the pounding agony of fear rattled around inside his skull.

He needed to get out.

Everything needed to just stop.

A few deep breaths, a few smoothly rubbed circles on the sides of his head. The noise began to quiet, the walls slowly began to release. The fear subsided into anxiety, anxiety into rage. Ezra slammed his hand down onto the table of football pads in front of him, the wobbly metal legs rattling under the pressure as a few of the pads slid to the ground.

“You never did care, did you?” Ezra asked, though he already knew the answer. Another laugh crackled from his chest as he lifted a hand to bush away the tears grazing his cheeks. “All this time, you convinced me that I was the problem, that I never cared. But I did, Auguste, I cared. Fuck,” Ezra shook his head, his dampened hair ruffling with the motion, “there wasn’t any time that I wasn’t fucking thinking about you. Yet you convinced me that somehow,” he straightened his body and turned to look at Auguste, “that I was the problem.”

Ezra took a few steps forward, the unhinged grin still exposing his teeth. Then, he raised a hand and jabbed a finger into Auguste’s chest. “You told me I didn’t care, that I was just in it for some bullshit sort of fun. Maybe I was at first, but you and I both fucking know that it was more than that.” Slowly, Ezra’s hand dropped back to his side, fingers tangling in the hem of his jersey.

“At least it was for me. But,” he threw his hands up, “I didn’t care, yeah? I didn’t worry sick about you when you decided to up and ghost me for a week, no explanation. I didn’t break every fucking speed limit to come and get you from the hospital. I didn’t sleep for days after you got home, after you reamed me out for ‘not being emotionally available’ and assuming that I didn’t give a shit about you, because I, what, hate you?” Ezra reached his hands out and shoved Auguste back lightly, his face turning redder by the minute, “I didn’t fucking hate you, Auguste. I tried, I tried so hard to be someone you wanted and it was never enough for you. So terrible, in fact, that you had no issue just up and never talking to me only to replace me with some random ass dude who just wants to fucking use you as some sort of experiment!”

Ezra slammed his hands down again to steady his waving frame, his chest heaving with laughter and choked sobs. The words continued to flow in perfect time with his tears, tone slurring with pain and anger. This needed to be said, needed to come out, he needed to say this.

“You blamed me for not caring, blamed me for getting angry because someone I cared deeply about for disappearing only to find out that he tried to kill himself.” Ezra shook his head, the smile faltering into a shattered expression of agony. “Jesus, Auguste, why couldn’t you fucking see that it was never just about meaningless sex? That I truly did care about you.” Ezra took another deep breath, swallowing hard. “It could have been more, I wanted more, but instead you claimed that my ‘ego’ made me hate you.”

Another broken laugh and a final choked sob. Ezra reached his hands up to frantically wipe away the tears clinging to his lashes as the final drips of emotion sunk into his core.

“You said I was the problem. But you, Auguste,” Ezra looked up once again, meeting Auguste’s gaze with his own, “maybe you’re the problem. You can’t handle love, can’t handle the idea that maybe, just maybe, someone could love you, flaws and all. Because you, Auguste, are always the fucking victim. You only want people around who don’t really care. When someone else starts to care, when there’s a possibility that anyone could possibly fucking love you, you shut them out.” Ezra shook his head and blinked a few times, the salt of tears still stinging his eyes. He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowed as he threw his hands up in defeat. “Maybe I’m not the one with the ego after all.”





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Auguste

He could not do this.

Well, poking the bear with the stick exploded back in his face with tears and anger and shaking and- is this really what he looked like when he was going through his own episodes? Jesus Christ.

“Where’d you learn that magical little trick?”

“... therapy” Came the quiet response. Maybe this was not the time for jokes. Yeah no. That wasn’t really the best response he probably could’ve given. Bad Auguste. Let the man speak.

So Auguste did. He stood there. Completely silent as Ezra slammed things, trying to blink out images of plates flying at walls and loud and angry French swears being slung at him.

Still. Some quiet fight or flight mechanism in his brain whispered: maybe if you stand completely still and don’t move he’ll forget that you’re there and you can escape.

No. No he did not forget that he existed.

“Ezra… This is all… ehm… good that you are speaking your mind… but.. I’d… I’d really really appreciate it if you… ehm.. Stopped hitting things.” He mumbled. Blink. Blink. Bad response again. “... sorry, continue.”

A lot of fluttery blinks - not really keeping any tears back. Just pure nervousness. Some part of himself had detached now, and was watching him from the third person. An overwhelming sense of calm washed over him as he was poked roughly and shoved, having to take a couple of steps back to rebalance himself.

And then. Finally. Silence.

Blink. Blink. Blink blink blink.

Slowly, the words were processed. The last couple minutes of Ezra’s rant, filtered away. Quietly, the nagging whispering voice that Auguste had been trying to slowly become accustomed to with therapy and medication whispered again in his ear.

A deep breath.

“... Ezra, the ehm… my mother, yes? She… she would say that she loved me after… ehm… choking me until my vision would fade. Or after she would be done stitching up my face after a plate she threw shattered on my head.” It was quiet, calm. Soft. “I just… affection… it is hard for me to… separate in my mind which is genuine and which…” was the abuse.

But he trailed off, letting Ezra piece it together. “And... ehm… I know this about myself, yes? I tend to… ehm… not believe it when people say that they are proud of me or love me. Because something in my brain tells me that they are only doing this so that I stay. They.. ehm.. She would do this. I would run away as a kid, and my mother would worry and tell me that she was worried sick and that the world was dangerous and that she loved me and the rest of the week she would be a normal mother… And then she would start saying that because she did so many nice things, that I was spoiled and that I needed to work harder. Things like this.”

A pause. “I… I know that this doesn’t excuse my ehm… foul behavior. And truly, I am sorry for how I yell in the car. It was… extremely rude. And you were doing a nice thing… You didn’t deserve that.”

Silence again.

“I… didn’t know that you cared, though. I would like to say that I would’ve been ecstatic to know this back then… and I-I would’ve. Truly. Nothing would’ve made me happier. But… ehm…” He wouldn’t have believed Ezra.

That was just it.

He wouldn’t have believed Ezra back then.

“If ehm… this helps… I-I never thought, though, that you hated me. I thought that at ehm… at worst I was annoying you by being too clingy. At best I thought that you liked me enough to put up with… ehm…” A general and vague gesture to himself.

“As for my thoughts on this, ehm… Ezra… your reputation precedes you. I tell myself at first that I wouldn’t get attached to the guy who claims that he doesn’t get attached to anybody and all of this. And ehm… it hurt a lot to-to get attached. Because I could see myself falling for you - watched myself slowly fall for you - and… ehm… I think we can both agree that I am damaged enough without adding ‘wasting away while pining after the idiot falls in love with the guy that doesn’t get attached’ to my list of ehm… self-destructive behaviors.” A small snort. Trying to make this somewhat light. “So… so I suppose… I shut it down before I could feel any pain again. Which was… very unfair to you.”

A pause. A head tilt.

“Wait. You wanted me to contact you after our fight? I thought you said that we weren’t friends.” A blank stare

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There was no clear cut way to feel about this whole situation and that was what scared Ezra most. He’d come to the conclusion through his nonsense rambling that he was entirely in the right in saying what he did, for calling Auguste out for hurting him that day and leaving him to rot on the side of the road. Yes, Ezra was confident that the emotions he felt, although raw and stinging like a wound in salt as they poured from his lips, were right.

What he hadn’t been anticipating was the flood of guilt that washed over him as Auguste responded, recalling tales of a time that Ezra was certain he’d rather forget.

Auguste had never told Ezra much about his parents, outside of the fact that they weren’t in the picture and a brief history of the twisted abuse he endured from them, and Ezra never really pressed. He knew what it was like to have familial skeletons in the proverbial closet so instead of satisfying his own curiosity, he let it slide. Somehow, he had been okay with it. Somehow, things felt okay.

Things weren’t okay anymore, everything had been upended and destroyed as fast as Ezra slammed his foot into the brake pedal that day and now, he’s clearly triggered something deep inside of Auguste that he’d been trying to keep pushed down. Ezra knew that expression, the look of silent dread as something terrible looms on the horizon.

Ezra couldn’t apologize. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. He was stuck standing there, frozen with his arms glued across his abdomen in a sort of self-hug.

Once Auguste was done, Ezra realized two critical factors of the conversation: he hadn’t imagined the feelings that were there, they had been 100% real, and that whatever it was that they had was long gone. Auguste no longer cared.

Was it his fault, Ezra wondered? Had he done something wrong to warrant this response? Yes, Ezra silently decided, he had fucked up with Auguste. There had been merit in Auguste’s angry words that day in his truck and that was precisely why it had hurt so badly. Yet even beyond the truth, beyond the glaringly obvious flaws in Ezra’s being, there was something worse than knowing Auguste was right. It was the very idea, the very concept having unknowingly been performed, that Ezra hurt him, pushed him away, made him feel alone.

It made him sick to think about it. So, as Auguste talked, the rage wilted to a dull frustration, anger replaced with guilt and remorse.

This was all his fault.

“Wait. You wanted me to contact you after our fight? I thought you said that we weren’t friends.”

Ezra shook his head, forcing a few breaths through his mouth to soften his tone before he spoke as he fought back the urge to yell again. No, he needed to stay calm.

“You had just finished telling me that I couldn’t possibly care about you, that I was just being around you to fuel some sort of narcissistic urge. So yeah, I assumed that we weren’t friends anymore,” Ezra shrugged, another deep breath, “but I shouldn’t have said half the shit that I did. I was just… I dunno, overwhelmed? Angry? Doesn’t matter. I’m sorry for saying what I did. I did want you to contact me,” Ezra raised a sheepish hand to rub the back of his neck as his ears flushed red again, “I waited and waited and you never called. That’s not an excuse, I could’ve called you. I was just under the impression that you hated because, you know, you pretty much said it verbatim, mate.”

Ezra leaned gently against the table behind him, fingers gripping the ledge as he shifted his weight backwards off of his feet and onto the table. He thought for a moment, recalling the conversation through a crystal lens. He’d played this conversation over and over in his head enough times to be able to pinpoint the exact thing he has wanted to bring up.

“Do you really feel that way? What you said, is that really what you think, or thought, maybe?” Ezra’s face softened, the hand dropping from his neck to once again entangle in the hem of his orange jersey. “Look, I know that I didn’t give you what you deserved, I didn’t treat you as well as I should’ve, but what did I do wrong? There had to have been something…”

Ezra’s voice trailed off, a sad smile softly tugging on the corners of his lips. “Nevermind. Stupid question. Don’t answer that.”

Silence. Ezra didn’t know what else to say, what else to do to satiate the situation. Instead, Ezra raised his eyes again to look at Auguste, an inquisitive eyebrow gently raised.

“Does he make you happy? Jack, I mean.”






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Auguste

Auguste was watching Ezra fold into himself as he spoke. A little trill of guilt ran through him. Maybe… maybe that was a bit too much for Ezra “I Have Never Cared About Anyone Else’s Feelings Besides My Family And Also Apparently You” Thaddeus Gray.

But… Well, Ezra wanted to know, didn’t he? Or maybe he wanted someone he could hate? No, he was… hurt. Because Auguste had hurt him. And people want explanations for why, right? And people wanted to not hurt anymore, correct? How was he supposed to make Ezra not hurt?

Well, the simple answer was that it had to come from the man himself. That nothing Auguste did truly mattered. All he could do was give his side of the argument, and hope that somehow it brought the man some semblance of peace, whatever that meant.

“… oh.” Quiet. Soft. “I thought you… ehm… I was under the impression that ehm… the-the second I talk about my feelings that… You would… not want to be around me… anymore… because I’m too much trouble… for what I’m worth…”

Silence. A pause. Blink blink blink. Auguste slowly decided to sit down, a hand resting against his knee, and patted the ground next to him. An invitation to sit, though perhaps not as close as he’d originally intended. Apparently this talk needed to happen, and quite honestly Auguste was tired of standing up for it.

“... it’s just… ehm… I’ve been… made to feel like… I’m completely disposable at any time, no? Like… I didn’t… I don’t really matter to my mother - or she would say things like this and switch constantly between ‘I need you here with me, you’re the most important person in the world’ and ‘I’d be better off if you died like your shit father’. I’m a constant burden on her - and ehm… the-the gang things, yes? They… There is a camaraderie in.. in this culture. But you-you know… when you’re in this kind of environment that… ehm… you’re very replaceable as a human… And it’s-it’s very hard for me to imagine that-that…” A pause.

Silence. The mouthing of words. English was his third language, and it was hard to articulate himself in it. Especially when he was an already rather awkward and timid person by nature.

“When I see you, yes? I see… someone who could get anything which he could ever ask for. And… And it was… it was… I don’t think that I’m… special. Or that I’m… wanted at any given point. I try to be better about this now, yeah, I’m really… really trying to believe that people actually enjoy my presence. But… sometimes I-I wonder… why anybody would ever want to… to… and maybe it’s… I’ve lived so long without anybody who genuinely cared that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be wanted… ehm… and… and… It escapes me, yes? It escapes me why… I’d be any different than any of your other hookups or friends or…. Or anything like this. And this… I suppose this is all just incredibly low self-esteem. But…”

“I-I don’t know. The-The idea that you could ever possibly want me... I guess… I thought it was too good to be true. That there has to be some… some kind of catch to it.”

He was pulling at a little string in his jersey now. Not really meeting Ez’s eyes. “And… ehm… being told that “I don’t give rides to strangers” it… it sounded like you really really really did not want me to talk to you ever again and… and this… this hurt a lot… but… ehm… I guess it was a wake up call to… to… stop being so self-destructive.” Another sad laugh.

And then silence again as the question mark of Jack set in. Auguste was trying to formulate the words.

Because, what was happiness anyways? He had to think about it a lot, and he wasn't sure if his answer was satisfactory or not.

“... Ezra, I’m… I’m not… I’ve been so… miserable… and suffering. For so long… in-in the relative silence and the-the complete isolation… I’m… I don’t know if… I know how to be happy.”

“It’s… It’s difficult, yes? Like… Performance makes me happy, but it is… it is not happiness, if this makes sense. But… But I’d like to know how to be happy again… Or at least, be at a relative state of normalcy where I know how to be happy. And… ehm… the-the reason why I liked talking to you, hanging out with you… is… ehm… when I did, hang out and talk with you and flirt and do crazy shit… I felt like… I could possibly pretend to be normal for long enough that this becomes actually true. Like… I was acting, no? I’m not… as ehm… meek and mild as I pretend to be… and-and… When I was with you, I pretend to be… normal? Like, that I was not… horribly fucked up and struggling constantly with... with ehm... all of this. And… I guess, I deluded myself into thinking that… ehm… that was sustainable for a friendship and that if I faked it for long enough, it’d become a reality.”

A pause.

“Just… with Jack, I… I guess I want to see how… being me will… will work… in a relationship… and if this brings me more peace…”

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No.

No, no, no.

Ezra could feel his facade crumbling, pieces falling away and clattering to the ground like chunks of a tired coliseum. He fought the urge to press his hands to his chest, to try to feel the rapid fire rise and fall of his ribs in a pitiful attempt to calm his racing mind. Instead, he forced himself to listen. Everything that Auguste was saying, every exhausted, worn out, broken syllable, had a certain merit to it that Ezra simply couldn’t bring himself to believe. They turned over in his mind, reeling and becoming jumbled and misconstrued as every second passed.

It hurt, really and truthfully ached, that Auguste would think so poorly of himself and the world. Auguste, someone that Ezra had grown to care deeply about, couldn’t seem to stomach the idea of not being miserable, unable to process the idea of an effortless smile or warm sun tanning skin or the feeling of floating on the gentle waves of an ocean. That type of agony was years in the making and Ezra, so focused on his own feelings and thoughts and desires, had seemed to forget that Auguste wasn’t just like him.

Yes, Ez got a lot. Being born of wealth, he wanted for little. He went to the best schools, lived in a custom mansion in the beautiful New Zealand countryside, his ambitions were nourished and encouraged to grow by parents who cared for him and loved him deeply.

But life wasn’t ever perfect. Ezra Gray couldn’t stop the cancer riddling his baby sister’s blood. He couldn’t stop her hair from falling out, couldn’t stop the tears from flowing, couldn’t stop the worries and the fears, couldn’t stop the agonising screams of his mother each time they were recommended to come and say their goodbyes. He couldn’t stop his friends from abandoning him the moment he chose to spend his free hours by his sister’s side, couldn’t stop the crippling anxiety that had woven his way through his being and made permanent residence in his stomach.

He couldn’t stop the constant thought, hollow and nagging, that happiness was not real, that money and status and experiences couldn’t keep the inevitable ebbs and flows of life at bay. Happiness, true joy, was a farce; the fake glee that people strove for was temporary.

Auguste stopped speaking, setting the final nail of sadness into Ezra’s chest. Jack, someone who seemed to be no more truly interested in Auguste than a bad television show that people only watched to laugh at, was the person that cured Auguste of this pain, that offered him a reprieve from the storm of pain that had been plaguing him.

If anything, every playful smile and every small act and every moment spent together with Ezra had only served to send him spiralling further.

Ezra hated it.

Quiet settled between the two as Ezra focused on his breath, doing his best to forget that there was another person in the room with him. Tumultuous thoughts and emotions tugged at each corner of his mind, far too much to express verbally or otherwise. Instead, he felt the rope tightening, tighter, tighter still, until eventually, it snapped.

The tears stopped flowing.

His breath began to calm.

His face softened before growing cold, stone-like and unmoving in the dim storage room light.

“So that’s it then.” Ezra eventually spoke. “All I was doing was hurting you. All that time, everything we experienced together, that was just pain for you.” Ezra’s voice wasn’t angry, hell it wasn’t even tense. More than anything else, his voice was raw, as tired as his shoulders that had begun to straighten out from their previously slouched position.

“Fine. Fine,” Ezra repeated, pushing himself up off the floor, “you made your point. You were miserable, I wasn’t helping. I get it.” Straightening his back, Ezra straightened out his jersey and ran a hand through his hair, mussing it about until it felt right atop his skull. “But you’re wrong, you know. I don’t get everything I want.” Ezra laughed, the faintest smile pulling on his lips. “Hell, I wanted you more than anything and we all see where that got me: alone and hurt because you couldn’t see the fact that maybe, just maybe, someone could love you.”

Ezra shook his head, taking a few shuffled steps towards the door between racks of basketballs and baseball bats. He looked over his shoulder, the smile gone and replaced with the iced stare from moments before. “Message received, Cortes. You won’t hear from me again,” Ezra patted the door a few times with his fist, “now help me get the hell out of here.”






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Auguste

The softness in his expression was still there, trying to gently guide Ezra towards what exactly led to this moment — his entire viewpoint on the incredibly fucked up world that Auguste had had to live in. His struggle to claw his way out of it. His internal self-doubts. His struggles to be himself and not what he thought the other person would want.

And then Ezra almost comically missed the entire point.

It would’ve been funny, if it hadn’t been a wonderful reminder to Auguste on why exactly they couldn’t be friends anymore.

There was a long drawn out sigh. See, August was willing to take so much of the blame here, he was bad with his feelings, he was bad with thinking that people didn’t want him around, he was mildly paranoid. But this one was solely on Ezra’s shoulders. He stood, his face visibly shuttering back as he retreated into his generally mild-mannered blank expression.

A deep breath, he felt words bubbling to his lips. Well, it wasn’t like Ezra could feel any worse about this situation, could he? So, Auguste just let the words loose with the tiredly spiteful weariness that he’d been holding back quite fantastically with his entire point being misconstrued:

“Ok, Thaddeus.”

A phrase that he’d been holding back, because what else could Auguste say after being confronted with a fantastic showing of Ezra’s emotionally stunted nature.

And then he stood to go examine the door. Looked at the seams very carefully. Then got a couple of pads from the equipment room to barricade his shoulder with a very calm and practiced manner of doing things.

Usually, Auguste would just run into the door a couple of times bare shouldered and just suck up the bruises or the dislocation. But he figured that if Ezra threw a small fit over the lacrosse sticks, he'd probably actually use proper padding for this.

“Ezra, move away from the door please.”

That is all the warning the man got as Auguste flew towards the locked door, ramming into it with all the strength and precision after years of doing this right into his shoulder.

There was a loud crack, and a feeling of weightlessness as Auguste shifted his weight into a roll onto his shoulder, popping back up onto his feet in something similar to a pose straight out of Spiderman.

Huh. Usually that took at least three tries.

The entire frame of where the door had previously been secured with the lock had been smashed open, the door hanging off one of its hinges, the frame similar destroyed on the other side.

Auguste stood, face completely blank as he stared at the destruction he’d accidentally caused.

“... Oops.”

code by valen t.
 






Ezra Gray




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A strange, lesser known fact about Ezra Gray was how much he fucking detested bars. Dress it up all you want — add the velvet sofas, the crystal decanters, the silk ties and Givenchy — but at the end of the day, a bar was always just a bar and Ezra despised them.

You would think that a man of class, raised on wealth and home-chef cooked food, would enjoy the luxury of sipping an excessively costly glass of whiskey (neat, of course) in a quiet V.I.P. booth with his father. You would think that the idle chatter between businessmen in finely tailored suits would be Ezra’s comfort zone, pull him out of his own head and into his rich man element. But no, Ezra was entirely lost and uncomfortable. His tie was too tight, his shoes too squeaky on the marble tiles underfoot, the crystal too rigid against his lips.

Unfortunately for Ezra, he was presently trapped in the booth between his father and a middle aged gentleman with a name even more pretentious than his own that he simply couldn’t be bothered to remember. Four other men lined the benches, laughing and carrying on over drinks about some sort of new business venture taking off in Japan while Ezra, try as he may to do anything but, was stuck in his own goddamn thoughts.

Fucking Auguste Cortes.

Ezra lifted the glass to his lips and dumped the whiskey down his throat, the cool of the liquid replaced with the hissing burn of the alcohol within moments. A cheer erupted from across the table, a hand clapped Ezra on the back with pride nearly causing him to cough up the drink he had just downed.

“Atta boy, Junior!” One of the men — Jeremy, Jason, Joseph, some sort of stupid J name that Ezra couldn’t recall — hollered from two people over. Ezra fought the urge to scowl and instead raised a hand to the knot of his tie to loosen it from around his throat. Another round of cheers. Ezra simply rolled his eyes.

Ah yes, rich man pride was never stronger than when passing on the gift of generational alcoholism to their equally pretentious sons.

“You take after your Pops there, Junior. Hey! Hey! Waitress!” Another man called out, waving a frantic hand towards the poor woman that had been unfortunately tasked with serving them that evening.

As she approached, looking just as bored and mildly uncomfortable as ever, the men began barking orders at her before she even had time to register that they were even being placed: two vodka sodas (cheap), a pint of the house beer (disgusting and honestly kind of sleazy), a glass of a French wine that the dude who ordered it couldn’t even pronounce correctly (the French don’t say h’s, asshat). Then the eyes were on Ezra who, ever so politely, raised his hand and covered the open top of his glass.

“That was it for me. Thanks anyways.”

Controversy! Oh the horror that poor Ezra, already three glasses in and well on his way to becoming tipsy, had decided to stop drinking during their business meeting. Yeah, that was the whole damn reason that Ezra had even been invited there in the first place. He was supposed to be receiving important information about his father’s recruitment business and the company’s newest asset: a music school in the heart of Europe that was sure to bring in cheques with more zeros than poor Ezra could even count. But there had been no talk of business outside of casual humble-brags about each of the investors’ newest projects of their own and a very brief mention of the school before the waiter returned with their drinks two rounds ago.

Ezra needed an excuse to get out of there. Needless to say, business with his father was anything but entertaining and numbing the extreme boredom with alcohol was starting to get real old real fast. Besides, if true business wasn’t going to be discussed, why was he there at all?

“Excuse me gentlemen,” Ezra said, sliding suavely out of the booth with his jacket draped over his arm, “I think it’s about time I head home. You know me,” a soft shrug and a gleaming smile, “always on the grind. I have to get back to work.”

There was a flurry of speech, bartering him for just one more drink or a not-so-sly attempt at making him stay by asking him about what business he was going to attend to. Ezra simply offered a professional nod of his head and his hand out to shake. Once he had been passed around, Ezra made a mad dash for the bar.

“Excuse me,” Ezra called out to the woman from before, “I’m here to pay my tab.”

The woman, who’s name tag now clearly read Meghan, smiled warmly and reached her delicate fingers out to grab Ezra’s credit card. Her fingertips brushed the back of Ezra’s hand, sending a chill of shivers up his arm. It was exactly then that Ezra developed a brilliant idea. He needed a distraction from Auguste and his body was buzzing with enough liquid courage to put this plan into action.

“I’m Ezra, by the way.” Ezra extended his hand to Meghan. When she found it, Ezra delicately lifted the back of her hand to his lips. “You really are quite beautiful, you know. What time do you get off work?”

The pair of brown doe eyes looking up at him through hooded eyelashes turned siren, glistening with anticipation. Clearly she was on the same level that Ezra was. A smirk parted her red painted lips, her hand moving from Ezra’s hand to his bicep.

“In an hour,” she spoke calmly, a soft tongue darting out over her bottom lip, “why? Do you have anything in mind, Mr Ezra?”

Ezra laughed, shrugging as he ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve got a few ideas involving dinner and the backseat of my Bugatti if you’re interested. I’d hate for such a beautiful woman to spend the evening alone.”

Meghan immediately perked up. Ah, the money card worked every time. Chicks digged rich guys. Meghan handed the now processed card back to Ezra, winking as her fingers once again brushed his.

“Meet me at the back doors in an hour.”

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥

The windows were steamed as the two panted in harmony, half dressed in the backseat and still intertwined in each other's arms.

Ezra’s ingenious plan had been successful: he escaped the bullshit meeting, he got some great food followed by some great sex, and the entire time he hadn’t thought of fucking Auguste Cortes. This just proved that he could do better, that he didn’t need that asshole who couldn’t admit that maybe he cared too, that Ezra really wasn’t the asshole for trying to love him.

Yeah, Ezra was better than that. He was moving on.

BANG BANG BANG!

“Meghan?! What the fuck?!”

Through the fogged windows was an angry face, quite handsome if it wasn’t wrinkled in pure fury. Meghan, still topless and with a messy head of dark red hair, stared back in horror as she scrambled for her shirt. Her lips were moving at a rapid speed, mumbling some sort of string of curse words that Ezra didn’t entirely catch.

“Get the fuck out of the car, Meghan.”

“Jesus, calm down! I’m coming!” She huffed in response, shooing the man away from the door so that it could swing open.

Ezra, still hazy from the alcohol and lust, could simply watch as Meghan got out of the car and immediately entered a shouting match with this guy. It then clicked, yes embarrassingly late, that Meghan was arguing with her boyfriend. Immediately, a wave of nausea rolled over Ezra, his mouth running dry and his throat beginning to burn.

Oh hell no.

Look, as sleazy as Ez was, he was not a cheater or an accessory to cheating, at least not willingly. Sure, he loved his hookups and casual flings, but he was committed to never cheating as he was of the belief that it was one of the worst things one human could do to another. Yet there he was, the touch of a taken woman still mingling on his skin as she argued with her boyfriend outside of the car.

Ezra pulled his dress shirt over his shoulders, struggling to do up the buttons as he shot out of the car. “What the hell? You never told me you had a boyfriend!”

Meghan huffed, rubbing her temples in frustration. “Look, we’re on a break right now, so technically I’m not with him. Kyle’s just a fucking psycho that stalked me here.”

Right, it was always a fucking Kyle.

“Bullshit we were on a break. We had one goddamn fight! That doesn’t mean you get to just go out and screw whatever desperate man approaches you.”

Ouch. Ezra finished buttoning up his shirt and raised his hands, trying to brush off the comment as now was definitely not the time for a sarcastic outburst. “Okay first, definitely not desperate.” Fuck, there went that idea. “Second of all, I never would’ve done anything with her if I knew she was dating.”

Kyle reached over and snatched the phone right out of Meghan’s hand, unlocking it and shoving the screen right in his face. There Kyle was, front and centre right under the time, as Meghan’s screensaver. Obscuring Kyle’s chest was a flurry of texts from a contact called “Lover Boy ❤️”.

Shit.

“Look, I didn’t even see her phone, and I-”

“Fucking save it,” Kyle spat, shoving the phone in his pocket, “you’ll get what’s coming to you. Get in the car, Meg, we’re going home.”

Ezra stepped backwards as the two continued to shout, leaning against the back of his car for support. Meghan reluctantly got in Kyle’s car and the pair sped off into the dusk, tires screeching against pavement as they rushed off.

“Fuck.” Ezra cursed, stumbling over to his own car.

Off he went, wanting nothing but another drink, a cold shower, and the comfort of his bed. Ezra felt awful and truly disgusting, subconsciously lifting the sleeve of his shirt to wipe at his lips still stained by the red lipstick. Cranking up the music, Ezra turned down a side street. Fuck the highway, he needed to get home as fast as possible.

It wasn’t until Ezra pulled down another street towards the condominium complex that he noticed a car following closely behind him, a small silver thing that looked older than Ezra himself. He turned down another street, the car was still there. Another and another and to no surprise, the car was still there. By the time that Ezra had taken three rights, effectively making a circle, he was sure he was being followed.

Wonderful, just fucking wonderful. The hell was he supposed to do now?

The world decided for him as a car pulled out in front of him, forcing Ezra to swerve into an empty parking lot. Slamming his foot onto the break, Ezra let out a heavy sigh and looked over his shoulder. There was the car that had been following him, blocking his only exit.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Ezra cursed, frantically searching for anything he could defend himself with. Before he could grab anything, the door swung open and a knife flew by his chest, cutting the seat belt as he was forcefully yanked out of his car.

Chunks of crude gravel flew into his mouth, concrete ripping at his tanned skin at the sheer force of being thrown. For a split moment, Ezra was impressed. Ezra wasn’t a small guy, nor was he going down without a fight, so this person had to be really damn strong.

Ezra made an attempt to scramble to his feet only to have a foot pressed into his back, crushing him against the pavement. There was a chorus of laughs and some rustling from within the car. Ezra strained to look back, his vision blocked entirely by several pairs of feet, all clad in expensive looking sneakers.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the cheater.” A gruff voice chuckled, grinding the toe of their shoe into Ezra’s shoulder blade.

The cheater? Surely they didn’t mean what happened a while ago, there was just no way.

“Fuck you, man.” Ezra spat, straining against the foot against his back. “I didn’t cheat. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

Another round of laughing, followed by two sets of arms grabbing him and pulling him upright. Now, he was face to face with the owner of the violating foot. Although he attempted to look tough, this guy clearly won the cool guy Olympics. He was jacked, veins popping out of tattooed biceps bigger than Ezra’s thigh, scars adorning his semi-exposed chest (tacky, really, who wears half-open button downs anymore?).

The man reached up and grabbed Ezra’s jaw, squeezing it harshly between his meaty fingers. “Nope, you’re definitely the guy. Seems like you’ve gotten yourself into quite the bit of trouble, crossing our Kyle.”

Oh fuck no. “Kyle? You mean that scrawny ass dude? Come on, mate, you can’t seriously think that I believe you’re with that dude. He’s a shrimp and you’re,” Ezra gestured to the man in front of him with his eyes, “super cool.”

The man dropped his hand and continued to laugh, deranged as he rubbed his sweaty palms together. “Kyle’s one of us. Trust me, Ezra, he is and we take care of our own. So, that brings us to why we’re here.”

Before Ezra could even register what happened, a heavy fist connected with his face. Pain shot down his neck, up to his forehead, through the ridge of his nose. The fist had been wearing a ring, slicing a deep cut into Ezra’s lip as it pulled back.

“You fucked with our boy, Ezra.” The tattooed guy snarled, “Now you gotta pay.”

Ezra scoffed, spitting out the blood that had dribbled from his nose to his mouth. “If you want money, fucking take it, I don’t care. Hell, take the car. If he’s that fucking hurt that he can’t keep a girl then maybe a little shopping spree will make him feel better. I’m always here to help a mate out.”

The man shook his nearly bald head, a toothy grin splitting his lips. “Oh no, Ezra, we don’t want money. Kyle’s hurt and he wants you to hurt too.” The fist returned, slamming into Ezra’s ribs once, twice, three times. Eventually, there was a sickening crack as Ezra was thrown back to the ground. “You get it now? You get to pay in blood.”

Ezra couldn’t react in time as a foot connected with his back, hands pulling him back up to his feet. He swung back, trying to ignore the agonizing burn in his chest as he raised his fists. A few good hits landed, his shoulder barreling into the tattooed guy in an attempt to tackle him without any luck. He stumbled a few steps backwards before shoving Ezra off and swinging once more.

There was nothing Ezra could do as hit after hit landed, the other four or five men joining in. They hit him everywhere, his entire body screaming in agony as he fell to the ground as the world swam around him, vision blurry as five men turned to ten, multiplying before his eyes. Blood pooled behind his lips and in the hollow of his cheek, dripping from his lips. He could feel the searing pain of broken ribs and a broken nose, the burn of ripped open skin. The spark within him, the passion that flickered behind his eyes and within his soul, slowly began to extinguish at the relentless violence.

Was this it? Was this the moment he went too far? Was this the end of everything? Would his family ever find out what happened? Who would find his body? Would they abandon him here or would they bury him in a shallow grave, never to be seen again?

Natasha would have to grow up without him. What about his brother? He couldn’t continue thriving without Ezra’s careful guidance. His parents, finally free of the endless fear of their daughter dying, would have to lay to rest their eldest son. All the potential and passion was gone, bled from his body with and every hit.

Ezra didn’t fear death, he never had. Even as the hits continued to land, Ezra didn’t fear what he knew was coming. There was a coldness about it all, accompanying the sick realization that maybe he deserved this. Maybe he deserved to be found battered and bruised, punished for his idiocy and lustful gluttony. Maybe this is what was going to happen all along.

Was this what Auguste meant? All those times he spoke of his past, subdued fear behind his beautiful eyes, was this what he spoke of? This was the type of violence he described, the type of cruelty that raised him and crafted him into a man that didn’t understand love. If Ezra was hurt, he could run to the family he worried about destroying. Auguste had no one to turn to, no safe haven to hide away in.

In a moment of pure clarity, everything began to make sense. In this moment of clarity, Ezra felt guilty, selfish, like a total asshole.

Ezra’s eyes fluttered shut. Through his own agony, he could feel only a fraction of the hurt that Auguste felt. In that moment, he only wanted to apologize, to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. If this was the fear that drove Auguste, if this was the pain he felt daily in his body of scars and terror filled memories, Ezra wanted to give him shelter, to give him a safe place to turn to.

A boot met the side of Ezra’s skull and the world fell entirely black.





♡coded by uxie♡

[/QUOTE]
 





























OCTOBER 31ST.

Auguste lived in a rough part of town. His apartment was much better than it had been, thanks to some generous donations by his grandparents and access to a very large inheritance that had been kept from him for years as a result of essentially being an orphan living by himself. This alongside being a student with a troubled background and a surprising amount of skill in the arts leading to grant money and scholarship money abound, allowed him to finally live comfortably.

… Comfortably, that is, in a rougher part of town where he did watch beatings regularly out of the corner of his eyes. But he had a mean scowl for a resting face, and 6’7 stature, and dressed in a manner that did not attract any kind of attention with the slightly too short sleeves that he wore that basically screamed “impoverished college student, not worth stealing from.” He wasn’t really the kind of man that most people – especially those that knew what they were doing – would try to jump. Which was good.

Immensely good.

Well he was taking a nice walk to clear his head. Jack turned out to not really be looking for anything serious, he was bi but just… confused as fuck. And that was fair enough, they still talked regularly but they were just friends.

He liked walking in the rich neighborhoods and watch the not-so-subtle staring and purse clutching and crossing the street that occurred when the rich became incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of someone who looked so thuggish walking in their streets. It brought him an immense kind of satisfaction to make them nervous. He was white, though, so luckily for him it didn’t usually end in a call to the police.

That’s when he saw someone getting the shit kicked out of him in a parking lot near Ezra’s place and… Huh.

That was strange.

They were gang members. What the fuck was happening there, that was interesting.

There was a loud “Hey what’re you looking at” And Auguste averted his eyes quickly pretending to start scooching away. Not worth his trouble if some rich asshole was getting his comeuppance fucking with a gang member.

Wait. That was definitely Ezra’s car. He remembered it very distinctly from the whole “stabbing” incident. Wait.

Wait.

Oh, what the fuck Ezra.

“... Ehm… you know that your point kind of gets lost when the person you’re trying to hurt no longer feels pain, right?” He said, turning back around to greet the four(?) men.

Quick count. Four. It was four. Four against… one. And maybe a half if Ezra felt like waking up soon.

Well, he’d had worst odds before, to be completely frank. At least these guys were all shorter than him.

Oh. Those were knives. Okay. Maybe this was a really bad idea to go for a physical option.

“You should at least slap him awake before continuing. How else is he going to learn his lesson if he’s-he’s asleep for this?”

The four gang members stopped to stare at him. And then back down at the crumpled form of Ezra. And then back at him.

They seemed to realize he was right.

“Thanks, man. You do this shit before?” There was a crouch down by one of the thugs to slap Ezra awake. Whoopsie. Oh well, it was best to gain trust for this before any other manipulation.
“A couple of times back home.” Which was the honest truth.

“You from here?”

“France.”

“Ah.” Someone invited him closer and he stared down at the bleeding form of Ezra Gray and wow. He looked like shit.

“What’s the fuck getting his shit rocked for?”

“Fucked my boy Kyle’s girl.”

“I see.” Of course he did, Ezra you fucking idiot. “To be honest, I was supposed to trash his place. He did the same to one of my boy’s girls.”

Probably best to not bring up any homosexuality around these… fine gentlemen.

“No shit?”

“For real.”

“Well shit. You want to take a crack at him?”

“We’ll see if he wakes up first.” Came the light reply.

Ezra did not, in fact, wake up. So they started to panic.

“Shit shit what do we do now?”

“Scatter, I’ll call saying that I found someone who was assaulted.” Auguste said, pretending to be shocked as the group started scurrying around him

“Thanks man, we owe you one.” And then they drove off.

Auguste watched them leave until they were gone. And then he raced to find Ezra’s phone. Gloves. He needed gloves. Using his shirt to keep fingerprints from getting on it, he unlocked Ezra’s phone and took a picture of the street signs, and then a picture of Ezra and sent it to his brother. Done. Okay. Someone was on the way. He threw the phone into the passenger seat of Ezra’s car and then stared at the passed out man before him.

A couple of hauls into the backseat of Ezra’s car and legs carefully folded to fit to be laid down across the seats, car closed, keys in the ignition. And then Auguste hid from the shadows to watch as Ezra was found and taken away.























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