Darian did a wide sweep of the parking lot with his eyes for the second time, how long were they going to spend away?
Maybe he should have tagged along but that would only make for one very uncomfortable trip like they hadn't already had enough of that.
Plus he knew perfectly well that Leon was fine without him so why was he still skeptical?
He guessed it was pretty normal to be concerned about a friend especially around someone like Ethan who made all his hackles rise.
He forced himself to relax back into the seat, Leon wouldn't appreciate his interference and this time he might not be so lucky, he didn't want to get his teeth knocked in.
In the private dressing room, Leon was having similar thoughts, if he wasn't deathly curious about where Ethan was going with all this, he would have knocked his sharp teeth in.
Unless they were Cherry, no one touched him without permission.
Ethan's next move was unpredictable, he moved even closer, pinning Leon against the wall but just before then, he snagged both of Leon's wrists and held them behind him, tugging harshly.
Leon gasped from the unexpected pain, the sound getting caught in his throat as Ethan tightened the hold he had on his neck.
The silver studded bracelet was digging into his skin, the impact worsening from being pressed hard against the wall and at the same time, Ethan was pulling hard like he wanted to dislocate his shoulders, the abrupt and unexpected pain made his eyes water.
He clamped his lips shut after this, grinding his teeth to contain his rage, maybe Darian wasn't so far off with the way he had treated this person.
Because the person standing in front of him was an absolute stranger, Ethan would never do this. At least the Ethan he knew, he guessed time did change people.
He had given enough space for the benefit of doubt too, plus if he not so accidentally unalived him, he could tag it as self defense.
He glared up at Ethan, the amused grey eyes staring back at him only enraging him further because Ethan looked to really be having the time of his life.
But before he could land his first attack, Ethan swept forward and slammed their lips together, kissing him hard.
Leon's eyes went wide in shock which quickly turned into confusion, slowly, realisation hit and his eyes widened in horror.
He went lax in Ethan's hold, the fight leaving him.
This couldn't be happening...
He shut his eyes tightly now but it didn't stop the tightly locked away memories from tumbling back into his head.
Back in the car, Darian had had enough, if they were actually going to do a mall crawl or whatever, the least they could have done was tell him.
He had kept an eye on them when they were leaving so he had an idea of the general direction that they had gone in and after asking a couple questions, he was directed to some fancy clothing store.
Asking more questions brought him to a private dressing room, he stopped in front of it with a frown.
What would they need one of these for? Was Ethan a sucker for fancy clothes?
He wasn't sure if they were inside it though because the store worker that had brought him here hadn't sounded too sure, almost like she wasn't sure if to tell him?
He had better knock though, just to be on the safe side, walking into strangers in any form of undress would be incredibly traumatising.
He lifted his hand to knock, as politely as his impatience would allow.
"Yo Leo? You in there?" He knocked some more.
After a while of silence, he decided to try the knob, surprisingly, the door opened easily.
It hit then that he could have just called the mf but it was Leon, not unless they were in a near death situation, Leon never picked his calls.
He winced while peeking in, praying he didn't just barge into some stranger's private space.
Leon didn't hear Darian knocking, Ethan did though but ignored him, maybe the intrusive brute would go away...
He was only interested in Jaxon anyway, like everyone fucking was, even Leon...
He despised the freckled, red headed disaster and had no explanation of how he drew everyone in like flies while Ethan just hung around awkwardly at the edges.
Not anymore though, he now had what he always wanted, Leon's attention, it was absolutely worth losing both parents over it.
But then there was this blockhead...
He rolled his eyes when he heard the door creak open, quickly putting distance between them.
It was too early to blow his cover and he wasn't worried about Leon doing that, his hold over him was far too good.
Leon blinked when he was let go, his disorientation shifting to slight terror when his eyes met Darian walking in.
"I can't believe I had to come look for you two." Darian muttered when he caught sight of them.
"We were just about to head back." Leon said in a steady voice, bringing up the hand with the bracelet up to hide what must be reddening marks on his neck, it was the hand with the least bruises.
Darian pushed past his irritation to get a good look at the scene in front of him, a lot of things were off about Leon, he pretended to not notice.
"Well, are you guys ready to leave or not?" He asked.
"Yeah we are." Ethan looked Darian over like he was mentally picturing putting holes through him.
He actually wasn't, he had been waiting for this moment for over a decade and he had actually been making plans to return to Pine Creek.
Fate had brought Leon to him before that but Jaxon had ruined everything, as usual.
Darian made his way out first, making his way back to the car in strides.
He was confused about a lot of things but the one thing he was very straight on about was how much he wanted to give Ethan a little sprinkling of internal bleeding.