The Devil of Whitechapel (Under Editing)

ii-xv. Ezra

God, was dinner awkward that night.

They normally didn't have much to talk about at family meals, so it wasn't so much the silence as it was the type of silence. Ezra didn't know how to describe it. There was just a God awful tension that night, even after a full twenty-four hours of Tristan's – erm – sexuality being out in the air. Verity still didn't know, obviously: judging by the way she looked between her parents and her brother, though, she knew that something was up. And it was only a matter of time before she asked about it, and they had to explain all of that to his daughter. And, since they hadn't exactly the talk in general with her, they would have to have two talks with her.

Please don't ask about it, he'd begged in his mind for the past day. Please, God, don't ask about it. Everything's totally normal. Everything's totally normal; just don't ask about the tension in the room.

"Is everything... okay?" Verity asked about halfway through dinner, that night.

"Of course, everything's okay," Ezra said quickly, before Vera or Tristan could say anything else. "Everything is totally, absolutely fine. Very normal, indeed. Why would you ask?"

Verity looked between everybody, again. She didn't believe it, obviously: sadly, she wasn't quite as trusting as she used to be.

"Are you sure?" she asked carefully. "Nobody really seems like they want to talk to each other."

Vera opened her mouth to speak. "I-"

"Of course, I'm sure," Ezra said. "There's no problems. No problems, whatsoever."

Vera gave Ezra a look. Poor Tristan looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock and never come back out.

"Ezra, dear: can I talk with you for a moment?" Vera asked. She spoke kindly enough, but the look on her face said something else, entirely: she must have been mad at the way he was handling that situation.

Ezra smiled right back. At least, he tried to. "Of course, darling."

The two of them stood up and went into the foyer to have a discussion.

Vera started the moment she thought they were out of earshot from their kids: "Ezra, what's going on in there?!"

"She can tell, can't she?" Ezra asked back. "Verity can see right through me: she knows that something's up."

"Well, you aren't exactly hiding it well," Vera said. "I think she'd be able to see through you if she were blind."

"That bad?" Ezra asked. "Maybe... what if we just came clean with it? Let her in on it."

Vera gave him another look. "Ezra-"

"She's going to find out, eventually," Ezra said. "You know her: she's nosey. And, frankly, I don't know that it'll take too much for her to figure it out. Shouldn't we just be open about it? Keep it from becoming some big, awful secret? I don't want her to think of her brother any less than she does-"

"And what if she starts talking to her friends about it?" Vera asked. "I don't trust her not to talk about it. Especially if we don't make it clear that this is a serious, serious thing."

Ezra didn't have anything to say to that. She was right: Verity was a chatterbox, whether or not the subject was appropriate for her to talk about. The last thing they needed was for the topic of who Tristan was attracted to to become the talk of the neighborhood.

"So... I need to calm down and stop acting so suspicious," Ezra said. "Got it. I-I think I can do that."

Vera didn't say anything, but she didn't need to: he could practically hear her in his head. Please do.