I Watched You Change (into a fly) | Solo
He watched them as they stood upon the sidewalk, the mother bending down to fix her daughter’s jacket. They were humans. And that meant that the world wasn’t safe for them. Ever. There would always be something lurking in the shadows, licking their lips for a taste of something sweet. Ezra nodded in the direction of the family as they headed down the busy sidewalk. He left the wall behind him, casually sipping at his flask with one hand stuffed into his jacket pocket for warmth, and followed them at a distance. His eyes never left those figures, and when they headed down a side street and came to a quiet neighborhood quite distinct from the district they had just vacated. He watched them cross the road once again, heard the rattle of keys as they opened the front door, and watched them disappear into the recesses of their cozy little home. The rest was terribly predictable.
He looked both ways before he crossed the street, walked straight up to the front door and knocked on it. It was the little girl who invited him in. Shadows moved behind a curtained window, the glow of an electric lamp illuminating them like a pantomime. Suddenly, movement. There was a scream, a flurry of panic, and the window suddenly grew dark as the lamp crashed onto the living room floor. Then a silence, the stillness after the storm. But he didn’t kill them. Instead, he had forced the father to tie his kids and wife to the dining room chairs and then asked them to play house. “Pretend I’m not here.” He had said.
The father had tried to fight him, hit him on the back of the head with a vase with no success. And now he was on the floor, nursing his broken jaw. Someone like him couldn’t fight a demon, it would be like trying to beat back a typhoon. Ezra stood in the living room, breathing in deep for a moment. One of the curtains had been pulled down in the movement, he strode across the room and quickly hooked it back onto the rod. So he settled down on the couch, a cozy, yellow thing with plush arms and decorated with blue flowers, and propped his foot casually atop the frightened man’s fluttering chest. “Don’t get overexcited.” He warned the man, voice calm and as soothing as he could make it - a useless gesture, given the situation.
“You humans have the capability to do terrible things and feel nothing afterward.” He started, pressing his boot harder on the man’s chest. “I mean, you want goodness, and then you blame yourselves for your weakness. It’s emotional self-flagellation. You wish to punish yourselves for actions which are absolutely logical. And this moral code causes you nothing but pain. So why keep at it?” The idea of the soul came to mind. To feel so human. Ezra was amazed at how easily people could torture themselves. They thought up emotional punishments that no one else could dream of. It was such a burdensome thing, having a conscience. Ezra didn’t know how Angel and Spike could bear the strain of it. He watched the family in front of him with a scientist’s gaze, cold, dispassionate, but obviously interested, like this were creatures from another dimension and did not understand how they functioned. Their minds worked upon different patterns.
“A-are you going to kill us, Mister?”
The little girl spoke. He tilted his head, like a questioning animal, looking slightly confused by her question. They could not see him in the darkness, but he could see them perfectly. He tightened his lips a little, not bothered but thoughtful, as if he were searching for the right words to phrase it. “I had planned to, but-” His voice was conversationally level, as if this was a mere statement rather then some twisted admission. “I don’t think I want to. Funny, don’t you think?” Ezra did not entirely quantify it himself. Though normally silent in that strange, unnerving way of his, Ezra was also honest. It was not from some secret code of morality which abhorred lying. He simply lacked the creativity. Most direct questions received direct answers. Ezra had nothing to hide. He was not ashamed of who he was, and felt no need to either impress or disguise his own motivations from others. If they were offended or disgusted, Ezra was unbothered.
“You don’t have to kill us if you don’t want to.”
She had such a sweet voice which made him smile. Things used to be so simple. Life used to have the most meaning for him when it was paired beside it’s end. Everything appeared in sharper focus, colors were brighter, and he could almost imagine that he saw the life in people, not just their outer facades. He fed off the death’s of others like the vampire he was. Not for his own continued life, but like a drug. Death pleased him. He liked the power it gave him. And afterwards he felt invincible, and acutely alive. Every death was simply another memory, a heightened period of intensity that he would remember long afterward. Now, as he stared at the horrified faces of a mother and her children and the broken man under his foot, Ezra felt like there was something wrong with him somewhere hidden beneath an air of frigid dispassion.
This was all that fucking warlock’s fault. Like that annoying winged prick sitting on his shoulder telling him that he had faith in him and that he believed he was different. Was he really? Weren’t vampires carved from the same rotten stone? No, they weren’t. Some were more ravenous, or more stupid, or more adventurous, more bloodthirsty, more naive, more romantic, more patient, more reckless, etc. So why couldn’t he be different? Part of him wanted nothing more to kill them, but instead he stood from his sitting position and made his way towards the table where the little girl sat. He ran his fingers through her hair, kissed her forehead and walked out the backdoor.
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