☩ judgement
@ezra-b-a
What are you?
The question’s been asked so many times that Daniel isn’t sure he even knows the answer anymore. It’s repeated every day, that dark-eyed man crouched outside his door and demanding clarity that Daniel can’t offer. Not when he doesn’t know or understand what he’s looking for, only that every time he comes his skin begins to crawl, haunted by those black pits set into his skull. He’s tried, he’s cracked open his jaw to give him something, told him he’s nothing, he’s a prisoner, a walking dead man, but none of it is what he wants to hear. And he knows, even if he can’t see, even if all he’s left with are the quiet, muffled noises next to him, that it’s Ezra who suffers for it.
It leaves him cracking at the seams, and if there’s little hope left in his chest, heart unable to sustain it, it’s been replaced by something harsher. A cold,quiet fury that he tries to cling to, because the alternative is only that feeling of panic and terror. That awful awareness how helpless he is, Ezra trapped in some hell next to him and he can’t reach him.
His back’s against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him and fighting that urge to call out for him, because he doesn’t know anywhere when that black-eyed terror is watching. But something shifts in the air, a new kind of electricity, and the distant sound of people shifts in tone and pitch. Louder, more violent, and that has him by the door, fingers curling through chains as he tries to see through the door caging him in.
That violence breaks into the room in the next moment, a flurry of activity that he strains to try and see. The rattling of chains, the sound of a cage door, and his first thought is that it’s their time, about to find out the answer to just what it is the other prisoners have been dragged away towards. Or maybe that monster come back to try and cut the answers he wants from his tongue, but anything kinder than that he can’t imagine. It’s asking too much, even if his heart rate picks up, the sound of violence reaching him. It might not promise anything good for them, but he tries to cling to whatever satisfaction he can that it’ll at least hurt their captors.
Only then there’s someone in front of him, and he steps away from the door as the chains rattle. Dropping to the ground outside before it’s yanked open, and he can’t help that moment of shock and surprise that it isn’t a painted face greeting him. It’s one of their own, and he catches a glimpse of opened cages around them. Whether it’s an escape or rescue doesn’t matter.
There’s only one thought in his head. And it keeps him from questioning that thought of rescue long, but it isn’t his own freedom he reaches so desperately for. It’s the door of his partner’s cage, his name escaping him in a harsh breath. “Ezra.”