After centuries of possession by a vampire, the ring had come into the hands of the hunter that’d killed her. Though Litha had been a particularly high-profile foe for one hunter, Ezra had managed without winding up dead by exercising sheer bullheadedness. It was his first major accomplishment as a hunter, and it had garnered him some acknowledgement from the others in the guild; the elders that had looked down on Coopers since they had joined the legion of supernatural wardens sat up and paid attention. By putting an end to Litha, he had closed the chapter on a string of heartless reapers bent on destruction.
Research had always been his least favourite aspect of hunting, but the dull work had saved his life a time or three, and now he depended on it to save Esca’s. The ring’s power had been documented in chronicles dating back to the Roman era, when the songbird Litha had been given by the Emperor Nero to a reigning gladiator. The gladiator was known as the Divine Arm at the time, a sword of the gods, but his real power had been a darker gift. Vampirism. The power of the silver ring had given him the ability to fight in the Colosseum with the sun on his shoulders. He cut men down with fanfare for nearly a decade before Litha took his magicked ring from him and left his cage with the gift of immortality.
When she fell, her bones a fine, white dust in her silks, Ezra pocketed the ring for himself. It never occurred to him it might find use again by another.
Their affair (he refrained from calling it a relationship for fear of dredging up the questions that lingered unaddressed in both of their peripheries) had a way of pushing them each beyond their limits. It was against Ezra’s nature to be involved with vampire if it didn’t involve a helping of vervain, or the sharp end of a splintered stake — and it was against Esca’s to walk with the sun on his skin on a hunter’s arm. It seemed they were cursed to drag one another through life-threatening situations, but it had yet to stop either of them. The connection they were nurturing went beyond the dark humour with which they had armoured themselves (a good way to deflect from important questions their predicament posed). Though it was a tentative bond, it ran deep and threatened to dismantle them at their core and outward.
“Think of it as an umbrella,” he said with a bit of a smirk; he found the metaphor clever at least. “And I’m just talking a walk around the park, Esca. We’re not sunbathing. If you start to feel drained, we’ll come back in.” Ezra wasn’t afraid that the ring wouldn’t work; his research was fool-proof. He’d also made his own modifications, and consulted fellow witches to do the same. The magick was in tact and infallible, but he did worry of the psychological effect it might bear on Esca, and the physical drain. His advanced age made his situation more precarious, and potentially made him more vulnerable to certain elements — where in other ways, it made him stronger.
The hunter was nearly ready to throw in the towel when the lean vampire gave into his tugging and stood, though he wrapped himself around Ezra’s arm as if it were an anchor. Still, it didn’t hurt which was telling. His strength could have turned Ezra’s bones into powder, but he managed a remarkable self-control that even the most ancient of vampire could not recreate. Living in such close quarters with a vampire was forbidden, particularly for a hunter, for this reason. It blurred all of the lines, and created a life-threatening situation where none previously existed. For both of them. They lingered in a limbo together, now, in shadows just beyond the recognition of their peers, but if light was shed on them, everything they had would coming crashing down.
It was a possibility that Ezra was working on accepting. Not just a possibility, but a reality. This could only go on for so long before the cracked foundation gave way.
“You’re not going to burn. If that was even the slightest possibility, do you think I would risk it?” A stern look accompanied his words.
Ezra laid his hand atop Esca’s and lead him toward the front door which yawned open in answer to their approach. The severe angle of the sun caused a perfect line of shadow just beyond the front porch — a representation of their worlds colliding, a perfect balance of light and dark. When he reached the threshold, he took his sunglasses from their perch atop of his head and offered them to his lover. “Doubt they’ll make much of a difference,” he added with a shrug, turning his back on daylight to inspect the ring and its winking obsidian stone once more time. He laced his fingers through the vampire’s, and kissed him again, perhaps showing a sluice of his own worry.
“If you start to feel faint, or your skin starts to burn, tell me right away. All right? This ring could save your life if it works — no one expects to find a vampire hiding in the broad daylight. But if it doesn’t ..” He trailed off and took a step backwards toward the glaring sun.
“An umbrella?” He knew he did not sound convinced-- nor appeared as such in the moment. Yet there was an amusing lilt to his voice; even though the vampire wasn’t certain if it happened to be genuine. Consider it an umbrella, he thought, attempting to protect you from potential ash. Even so, he figured a single ray would be the equivalent to sunbathing for someone of his kind.
He knew Ezra understood, as a hunter, the severity of what he asked of him. He knew that Ezra would never expect him to override his own decisions in placement of his, but he knew the repercussions of choosing denial. He knew he’d damage their progress in that selection. He knew they may never return to the place they were now, and that sparked more fear than the prospect of the sun could ever begin to ensue.
Esca felt the distaste for the day, potent as blood upon his tongue. He knew a millennium of shade where light had ceased to dwell, and now he planned to willingly cast its cursedly safe promise aside. “I will feel drained,” he reminded quietly, “I am just not certain how quickly. Or how uncomfortable this will be..”
His frown was impregnable, and it only deepened as Ezra began their journey toward daylight’s hellish gateway. He danced around a heated beam streaming through a hall window, and kept his body pressed firm to the darkness the walls exhumed. But as the front door crept closer, the sun beckoned, and he found himself with a refusal to answer.
Until he saw Ezra, and the pure instinct of his nature was lost upon him, demanded extinction.
Before their encounters had turned loving, he would have challenged Ezra’s query, and the stern look in which accompanied it. “No,” he admitted, his hand traveling the length of his bicep, “now I wouldn’t.”
He doubted the glasses would do much past aiding in lessening the severity of which the light would invade his eyes, like a bullet embedding a bulletproof vest. The impact was bound to be a piercing, cringing blow, but at least he’d know a somewhat swift recovery. He slipped them up the bridge of his nose, and lost the impeccable color of the world in which vampirism granted him.
His hand took up its puzzle-piece slot within Ezra’s hand, fingers intertwining in their respective places. The press of his mouth was enough distraction to tug his rejuvenated heart toward the porch. His lips brushed against the hunter’s cheek as space was drawn between them. For a moment, as his enemy lover drifted beneath the glare of the sun, Esca’s face fell.
He saw him off most dawns, a sorrowful parting when the ring hadn’t existed. Never had the flaming sphere invited him to walk upon the earth as it warmed beneath its blaze.
“I’ll tell you.” One step. The black leather of his boot shined when breaching the shade’s line. “I didn’t know you...” Two steps. The light now sliced through his knees. “I didn't know what the ring meant to you past this." Three steps. The hand which held Ezra's was encased in light, bare to the gold that colored porcelain. He paused, gaze flicking back to the dark rooms behind him. "I didn't expect my life to hold meaning to you as it does." It means little to me. As did the shelter he flashed away from, an inhuman speed that hurled him into a human structure. He gripped Ezra, his face finding the hunter's neck before the sun could mar it.
He would not bask in what was cruel, what promised to incinerate him if not for the gift snug upon his finger. Tolerable was the word he associated with the feeling. As he lifted his head from Ezra's shoulder, bearable became another. But at what price? How much blood would it take to mend his strength, and whose would it be in the end?
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