After arriving back at the Mansion Brandon and Ezekiel silently agreed on heading up to the second floor. The sun was setting. Night crept up over the home and in the silence their beds called to them.

The smell of burning candles and soft pine danced all along the halls as Ezekiel and Brandon stepped off of the top of the staircases and Ezekiel walked beside Brandon to his room. The moment Brandon saw the door to his room, he mumbled a quick good night to Ezekiel and tried to disappear, but his name on Ezekiel's lips held him in the hall, before he could manage to even turn the door knob.

"Brandon? Wait...please." Ezekiel called as they came to his bed room. The call was a question and a demand all rolled up into one.

All throughout the hike back to the Mansion it had seemed he wanted to say something, but until now the words had remained unspoken....and because Brandon partially feared what he would say....he had allowed Ezekiel to remain in silence.

Brandon sensed something coming to a head between them. Something that they both tried ignore, but Brandon felt both of them had become far too aware of it......to just continue to ignore it.

Instantly Brandon prepared himself for a question about how he was feeling or what he was going to do with the rest of his night. Instead Ezekiel hit him with this.

"Will you tell me who taught you how to fight?" Ezekiel asked him.

With a small frown at the sudden and random inquiry Brandon turned from the door and looked at Ezekiel as he replied. "No one taught me to fight...." He said softly.

With a slight smile, Ezekiel shook his head in disbelief. "I don't believe that..." He said turning eyes full of surprise and appreciation on Brandon. "Your skill level is nothing to sniff at Brandon. You've been through some intense training. In a physical fight you could probably outmaneuver a lot of people. Your good, so who taught you to move like that?"

Felling a ridiculous twinge of pride at Ezekiels praise, Brandon shrugged and motioned to himself. "I taught myself..."

A flash of something registered in Ezekiel gaze at this, but before Brandon could figure what it was....it was gone, and Ezekiel was looking away. "Why?" he asked, this inquiry just as sudden as the last.

Brandon reached down and tugged at the hem of the leather of his gloves. Something felt like it was coming, he just couldn't figure out what it was, so he continued to answer Ezekiel's questions.

"Well...." He softly replied to Ezekiel. "I've got to protect myself. It's a big bad world so I needed to know how to handle anything that might be a threat. So I studied and read some books and eventually I had picked up a few combat tips."

Ezekiel squinted at him and asked "And now you want to go back into that? Why are you so eager to get back into danger?" He demanded in a growl.

Brandon felt a spiteful laugh fall from his lips "Am I supposed to be afraid of getting hurt? Danger exists." He responded in a cold tone that he couldn't wholly control or soften. "I'm not safe anywhere, you aren't safe anywhere. No one is Ezekiel. It's a dog eat dog world...and wherever I go, I'll be in danger. That's just how it is." He finished off with a shrug.

"That's not true...." Ezekiel tried to say, but Brandon wasn't willing to allow him to keep going.

"Whatever you say." He sighed turning his back on Ezekiel and cutting him off. "Let's just drop it. None of this will matter at the end of this week, because I'll be back on the road."

To break the awkward tension and to move away from where he felt the conversation was going. Brandon laughed, reached out to open his bedroom door and said.

"Well, goodnight Ezekiel." Over his shoulder, but he may as well have kept his words to himself, because before he would even turn the door knob Ezekiel's hand had closed gently over his wrist, his larger shadow cast over the wood, merging with Brandon's as the soft candle light danced with the shadows.

" Wait, I don't get it Brandon...." Ezekiel spoke to him with just the hint of a hiss in his voice. As always the soft timber of his voice and the heat of his body standing close in the dim light made Brandon forget that he needed to push the Shifter away. "What are you doing?" Ezekiel asked him.

With a scoff Brandon shook his head and said "We'll I thought I was going to bed....then you grabbed me and well now I'm not so sure what's going on." Of course knowing that Ezekiel was speaking about something else entirely Brandon closed his eyes and contemplated what he would do.

Brandon could have kept his back turned, he could have pushed Ezekiel back, and simply ignored the eyes that he felt on his back, but he didn't.

With a soft sigh Brandon turned and looked right back. Realizing that this talk had been coming for the last day and a half.

"No...." Ezekiel said. The grip that he had on Brandon's wrists tightening slightly as he looked into Brandon's eyes. "You're acting like you don't care about yourself. Like you don't see that you need to be somewhere safe. Why are you so interested in getting out of here? Your in a good place...a safe place with good people in it."

"I told you I've got to get back on the road..." Brandon tried to say, but Ezekiel cut off the hollow words before he was forced to vomit them up.

"That's not an answer!" Ezekiel hissed as Brandon hit him in the face with the same words for the fourth or fifth time. "Getting back on the road' is an explanation of what you're doing, but not WHY you're doing it." Ezekiel continued, modulating his voice back into a mummer. "You said you're not running from anything, but if you're not running from something and if you have no other place to go....W...why don't you just stay here? I want you to stay." he asked softly

For one second Brandon moaned on the inside. Not for the first time....Ezekiel was saying something that physically made his heart hurt. Made Brandon want to hide his face, for fear that someone would notice the pain that he tried to swallow down.

"Ezekiel don't do things like that..."

"Things like what?" He shot back as Brandon tried to pull away, but all he managed to do was pull Ezekiel closer as he stepped back into the door. Cool hard wood alerted Brandon somewhere in the back of his mind that he was about to be trapped, but he was caught up in Ezekiel's words, so Brandon didn't pay his surroundings any real attention.

"Things like that!" Brandon cried referring to Ezekiel's repeated offer. "You can't turn this all around and make it complicated and...strange!"

Brandon knew that "Strange" sounded harsh to the ear.

But that was the only word Brandon could use. Strange.

This feeling of guilt in his chest. This building WANT to heed Ezekiel's words. Brandon's budding and unwanted desire to spend more time in that mansion, with Ezekiels family. It didn't make sense. He didn't belong there and he never would. He knew this. His head understood how evil he was, so why was his body betraying him?

"Am I making you feel strange? Do I make you unsettled?" Ezekiel inquired, a soft rumble in his voice as he took a step in Brandon's direction, removing what little space remained between them.

Brandon shook his head and moved back, only managing to take a half step before his back bumped against the door of his bedroom once more. "It's not just you.... "Brandon tried to explain even as he felt Ezekiel crowding him, moving in for the kill. "It's everything that's happened. We barely know each other..." Brandon breathed. "You can't ask me to stay here. Why would you ask me to stay?" He reasoned pointing out a glaring fact....a fact that both of them seemed to be forgetting all too often.

A fact that Ezekiel easily batted away like a fat, repulsive fly.

"Explain to me why that should matter?" He questioned softly. "Do I really have to know your entire life's story in order to offer you a place to sleep or food to eat?" Ezekiel sent him a soft look. "It doesn't take that long to figure out if you like someone hanging around you or not. And we've been around each other for little over a month by now. Isn't that long enough? A month of time to figure out if you hate someone's guts and just want to get away from them?" Ezekiel scoffed and shrugged. "It should be obvious that I don't hate you or find your presence here bothersome. Neither does my family. So why can't you stay here, safe, if that's the case?

Brandon bit the inside of his cheek as unspoken words built on the tip of his tongue.

He wanted to scream at Ezekiel.

You should hate me!

You should all fear me!

You should want me dead!

I'm not leaving because I really want too. I'm leaving so I don't hurt one of you!

And in the echoes of his personal thoughts lay the sting of truth.

Of course during the course of his travels Brandon had settled down in various places. He had had to in order to learn how to fight, to learn trades, to work jobs.

But in most cases he had settled down in places with little to no care for the people around him, because those people never approached him. To him everyone was a weak, defenseless stranger. Prey for the Flame to devour.

So Brandon had kept his distance....and the strangers had remained strangers. Brandon had survived by moving along on the fringes of the world. Living on the edges of mortal society and sleeping in the wilderness.

But in the company of the Leopards he was fully integrated in their world. He was a face. He was a man. He was fed...and talked too. And the Guardians weren't just nameless strangers to him that he could easily kill if he made the wrong move. They were a family. They were parents. They were brothers and cousins. They were good men and women.

But to the flame....they were still just prey. To Brandon they were more. He cared about them but that only made them more likely to fall to him. Or his enemies.

He couldn't stay.

He had to leave. But....how did he explain something like that to Ezekiel?

In truth he couldn't. Not without terrible consequences.

"You don't have an answer do you?" Ezekiel asked him suddenly, breaking into Brandon's thoughts, as his last question remained unanswered. "Brandon please...?"

It was silly, but the softening of Ezekiels tone in that moment hurt. It made his heart hurt. So Brandon reached out and harshly shoved at Ezekiel in anger. "Dammit let me go!" With a growl Ezekiel, oddly upset by his harsh action, took both of his wrists and shackled them up above his head.

"Stop it Ezekiel!" Brandon almost begged. "Your making.....You're making this all really hard for me!" Brandon admitted hoping that his words would stall Ezekiels advance, but all he heard was a soft, dark chuckle as Ezekiel stepped closer.

Ezekiels lips brushed his temple, a gossamer kiss that left burning awareness on his skin, before drifting down to whisper in his ear. "Good...I want this to be a struggle. I want this to be extremely hard on you..." Ezekiel softly spoke over him.

"Why...!?"

"Because....I want you to stick around..." Ezekiel replied. At this Brandon did look up and to his surprise Ezekiel's eyes connected with his, before drifting down to his lips in an obvious tell.

"Don't." Brandon snatched his face away, unknowingly exposing his nape to Ezekiel. And the sly Shifter took advantage of it. Ezekiel lowered his head and hissed as he bit the soft skin just over Brandon's pulse. The feeling of pointed teeth against his skin was hard enough to make Brandon gasp in pain. But with the pain, there was understanding. He knew that the bite was a measure of Ezekiel's frustration with the present situation between them, and when Ezekiel traced the stinging bite with his hot wet tongue Brandon knew that this was a measure of something else. Something unwanted. Something impossible to ignore. Desire.

The adrenaline from the sparing match hung like a warm cloud over Brandon's normal inhibitions. He felt far too free, to weightless....and Ezekiel felt far too solid and his touch far too sweet.

Suddenly Ezekiels released his wrists. His fingertips slid down arm, sending shivers across Brandon's skin as his heavy hands trailed down past Brandon's shoulders, and across the front of his chest, until they were on his hips, where Ezekiels used his strength to pull Brandon closer. Brandon clenched his wide shoulders as a shockwave of need crashed over him. Ezekiel pushed him backward, his mouth nibbling, licking and teasing him along his throat. Brandon let himself be pinned against the wall and lost his senses as they melted into one another, their hips and pelvises thrusted against one another in mindless desire and fiery pleasure that took Brandons breath.

"Wait...Ezekiel stop..." Brandon stiffened and panted as Ezekiel started to slowly devour him. He bit Brandon just under his chin, all while his fingertips and palms slide up inside of Brandon's shirt.