#redacted freelancer oc | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

us3rnam3-r3dact3d · 16 days ago

Text

all you have is your fire

Ao3 | 10k Words | Damien's POV

Damien had thought about falling asleep in Huxley’s arms many, many times, but never like this. Bleeding profusely from three, several foot long lacerations spanning from the edges of his jaw to the middle of his chest, barely conscious, listening to Hux breathe raggedly around the edges of panic and exhaustion. And Lasko was definitely never involved.

___

After the Inversion, Damien goes home. He tries to hold it all together. Instead, everything falls apart.

Huxley helps. Sofia makes everything worse.

TW: Inversion, scars, OCD, compulsive behavior, sleep deprivation, disordered eating, weight loss, abusive parent, emotional distress, internalized homophobia, homophobic slurs (used against oneself)

But eventually, he did fall asleep. Well, maybe he passed out, but that was just semantics. The point was, when he closed his eyes, his nose was pressed into the junction of Huxley’s neck and shoulder, breathing in the scent of his sweat and fear and that earthy, subtle cologne that Damien could never quite place. And when he woke up, he was laid out in a scratchy, uncomfortable hospital bed, his skin stiff and dry from rubbing alcohol and slap stick, messy healing.

Oh, and the loudest snoring he’d ever heard was setting off ringing in his right ear.

“We’re going on hour three, now.”

“Mother,” Damien couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. His voice was thick and lazy on his tongue. “You flew back out?” She was sitting to his left, clad in a pressed, maroon suit. She looked for all the world to be perfectly put together, except that her bangs were mussed across her forehead. Except that there was a crease between her eyebrows that he had only seen in elementary school when he had fallen off of the monkey bars at the playground and broke his humorous clean in half.

The silhouette of calm was there, but the details were off, and his mother was nothing if not detail-oriented.

She was worried. Very worried.

“My boy was trapped in a bubble with a bunch of monsters.” She shrugged and smoothed out a wrinkle in her skirt. “I took the first flight back.”

“Is it bad?” He asked softly. He pressed his hand to his chest. There wasn’t any gauze, no bandages, just a stiff hospital gown. He didn’t dare crane his neck to see, didn’t try to assess the damage himself. He felt small and scared.

“Healing magic is incredible stuff.” His mom tapped her phone impatiently, clearing a few text notifications from her lockscreen. It was a picture of the two of them from his high school graduation. “But you were badly cut.”

“Clawed,” He corrected. “Never thought I’d get clawed by something.”

“Yes, well,” his mom smiled softly, “my point stands. The… lacerations were deep and long. They healed the majority of the damage as soon as you got here, but you lost a good amount of blood, and you’ll need some more healing to mitigate the scarring.”

“I don’t care about the scaring.” He replied. If he had said that sentence a day ago, it would have been a lie. But it wasn’t. Not now. There was too much running rampant like smokey monsters in his mind to care about scars. He turned his head and caught sight of Huxley, his large frame pressed into a compact hospital recliner. He looked to have cleaned the dust and blood from his face. Somebody had given him a new t-shirt, and the gray fabric stretched snugly against his crossed arms. His forearms were scraped where they mostly covered the D.A.M.N. HEALING HONORS SOCIETY logo across his chest. He was still wearing the pants to his E&E Games tracksuit. Damien could see where the black material had gone stiff and dark with blood.

“He’s loud.” His mother said, shifting in her seat. “And he hovers like a lost puppy.”

“Leave him alone.” He replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “He’s perfect.”

“Hmm.” She hummed, inspecting her fingernails. Damien could tell before she opened her mouth that she was about to say something sharp and painful. He held his breath and braced for impact. “He’s leaving.” She said. “Going home. His mothers called while you were being stitched back together. So don’t get too used to the noise.”

His heart stuttered a bit in his chest. Every time he looked away, Damien felt his nerves alight and begin to search for Huxley’s aura. He couldn’t imagine what he would do if Huxley left, how his panic would drive him insane. Huxley had been right there, at his back when he needed him since they’d met. He’d been there for the hours and days and years that they were trapped in that ward. Damien couldn’t bear to imagine him missing, couldn’t imagine the ringing left in his eardrums once it all went quiet.

“He’ll come back.” Damein replied easily. His mother sighed and stood, brushing her hair back.

“They said you could leave this afternoon. You’ll come home.”

Damien knew better than to argue with his mother, not when he was stuck in an incredibly flammable bed in a room with an oxygen machine. He’d break the news to her later. There was no chance in hell she’d get him away from Dahlia without physically dragging him, and that was much too undignified for her.

He stopped listening after that, and eventually his mother claimed that she was going to speak to a healer or consult a nurse or something. It was just an excuse to escape the heavy tension in the room. Damein stared at Huxley’s twitching form until his eyes were too heavy to keep open. He hadn’t stopped snoring, even as the room’s temperature rose a few degrees. Damien was grateful for the noise. Eventually, it lulled him into an uneven, dreamless sleep.

Huxley was gone when he woke.

It was Huxley who called in the end, a week and some change after Damien had been discharged and three days after he’d finally gotten his mother to leave town. He had thought about it plenty of times, sure. He’d hovered his thumb over Huxley’s contact a dozen times since he’d been left alone with his thoughts, but he never went through with it. He couldn’t bear to. He couldn’t bear to break the tenuous silence that had overtaken his apartment.

But Huxley did. Damien was sat on the floor of his living room when he felt his phone vibrating. He hadn’t gotten himself to sit on the couch since his mother left. He couldn’t get into bed. He couldn’t use his kitchen, couldn’t dirty a cup. Mother had left the place spotless. She had him scrubbing the floors a day after his chest was opened up by a creature from Death. After she’d gone, he couldn’t disturb the perfection she left behind.

Huxley’s contact photo filled up his screen. It was a poorly taken selfie of the two of them walking home from the gym late one night. Damien’s stress-induced insomnia was almost always cured by a work out session at the twenty-four hour gym near Huxley’s apartment building. He didn’t always tell Hux he was going, but he when he did, Hux would drag himself out of bed at ungodly hours just to keep Damien company. Huxley always insisted on walking Damien back to his own place, seven blocks in the opposite direction. The photo was blurry and dark, and Hux had this huge, lopsided grin on his face that made Damien’s chest ache. His own brow was pinched in frustration as he tried to swipe his phone back. Huxley was so much taller than him.

He answered before he had time to really consider what he was going to say. He’d been rehearsing an angry rant in the mirror for a few days now. It was full of ‘how dare you’s and ‘you disappear after everything’s, but now that he was faced with actually saying any of it, the words died in his mouth.

They had been through an ordeal. Hux wanted to leave? That was fine. He was entitled to see his moms. He was entitled to crawl home after being beaten into the ground. He was entitled to mourn, to wail, to hurt.

Damien couldn’t find it in himself to deny him that. Not even at the expense of his own peace.

He was angry. He could feel the heat coming off of his cheek where his fingers curled around his phone. In any other scenario, he would have been ranting by now. If it were anybody else, the bridge would be burning at his back in a moment. But this was Huxley.

“Hey,” Hux’s voice came through the speaker softly, deeper than Damien remembered it. He’d only been gone a week and Damien was already sick of the silence he left behind. He sounded so tired.

“Hey,” Damein replied. The anger extinguished in his chest.

Huxley came home two weeks later. Damien was waiting at the airport with a ride. In the almost month that he’d been gone, Huxley’s student housing had lapsed and he hadn’t been sure he was coming back. That meant that he had no apartment, his shit was crammed into a teammate’s tiny dorm, and he had no real plans for what to do next.

And that meant, of course, that he’d be crashing with Damein until he figured it all out.

Huxley looked smaller than he had before as he dropped his bags in a heap on Damein’s living room floor. He heaved out a heavy sigh and massaged his hand into the tense plane of his shoulders. Damien couldn’t help but stare at the line of his throat as it bobbed with his voice.

“Your apartment is so clean.” He breathed out a half-hearted laugh.

“Yeah,” Damein said softly. “My… my mother was in town.” Huxley looked around the room carefully.

“Yeah like… three weeks ago.”

Damien cocked his head to the side and followed Huxley’s gaze around the room. He’d been eating food straight out of the box or from styrofoam take out containers, so there were no dishes in his sink. He’d scrubbed that thing out until his fingers ached. He’d been taking showers at the gym so all of the bottles were still perfectly arranged where his mother had left them. The sheets on his bed were still creased precisely in her military folds.

“Dude,” Huxley said. His big hand landed gently on Damien’s shoulder. There was plenty of room for him to step out of the touch. His instinct screamed at him to back off, to get away from the contact, but he was starkly aware of the fact that he didn’t want to. His muscle memory was warring with what he wanted, what he needed. He leaned into the touch despite himself. “Take a load off. This is your home, right?”

Over the course of the next week, Damien came to the horrible realization that Huxley was messy. Not dirty, not disgusting. He cleaned his dishes and didn’t leave dirty clothes on the ground. Maybe messy wasn’t the right word. He… took up space. He spread out on the couch, moved the pillows, tossed the throw blankets over his legs when he got cold.

Damien was probably being anal retentive, but every time he watched Huxley exist in his space, something in his chest sparked to start a fight. He didn’t. He swallowed down the smoke that bubbled up in his throat and didn’t let it spill out.

Hux talked every second that he could, filled in the dead space. He sang little songs, snippets of verses that he didn’t remember correctly. Damien woke one morning, not sure when he’d gone to sleep, to Hux’s voice, low and tone deaf.

“All you have is your fire…”

When he did sleep, Damien slept on the floor. His bed was a king, large enough to comfortably accommodate him, and as soft and luxurious as a bed could be. He had reveled in it before the games, kept a precise sleeping schedule, enjoyed the occasional lazy morning in his heavenly, light sheets and breathable blankets. It was one of his favorite things.

Once the healing magic wore off, every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was swaths of shadowy figures, razor sharp claws, breathy screams and moans filling up every inch of space in his head. So he slept as little as possible.

His bed was too soft. It was too comfortable. It was so warm and soft around him. He couldn’t help but sleep when he laid down. At least on the floor, with the hardwood cold and digging into his hip and shoulder, his sleep was shallow and tenuous.

Huxley was there for nearly two weeks before Damien’s body finally caught up with him. He’d managed to get by on a handful of hours a night if that, always startling awake before the sun rose. Huxley somehow slept like a log, legs hanging over the arm of his couch, snores loud enough to shake the whole fucking apartment. It must have been the noise, Damien thought, that helped him sleep. His place had been so quiet before Huxley got home. Now that he was close again, now that Damien’s body knew that he was there no matter the time of day or night, it couldn’t help but relax.

He laid down, back cracking and sore, on the hardwood of his bedroom floor. He didn’t bother with a blanket or pillow despite the chill outside. January had come on fast and the cold hadn’t let up since the Moonbound Solstice. He couldn’t feel it anymore, not really, not like he had that night. The edges of it crept up on him sometimes when he wasn’t paying attention, curling around his toes and fingers, the tips of his ears and nose.

His eyes were so heavy. He intended to stretch his back out before finishing up the last of the paperwork he needed to apply to his summer internships. He was sure to be offered more than one, most certainly the position in his mother’s office. He was a week ahead of the deadline, but if he didn’t get it all turned in soon, she would start calling him about it. He thought that if he had to listen to her lecture about the Rhone name being dragged through the mud by his late application, he would actually blow a fuse. He squeezed his eyes shut, frustration and heat flaring up in his chest when he thought about her.

He opened his eyes and Huxley was hovering over him, big, warm hands framing Damien’s face, his voice high and tense with concern.

“Hey,” he said softly, “hey, easy, easy, you’re okay! You’re okay!”

“What-” he realized his voice was raw as he tried to speak. He sat up too quickly, his head spinning. Fuck, he was exhausted. It was dark out. Did he fall asleep? Or was Huxley just crazy fast and quiet?

“You’re okay,” Huxley said again, his hands still hovering over Damien as he shifted. Damien noted, somewhere in his foggy brain, that Huxley slept shirtless, even when it was cold. He wanted to curl up in that chest again, to fall asleep in his arms.

His mother’s voice sounded in the back of his mind; fag.

“It was just a dream, dude.” Huxley said. He was talking low, his voice intentionally quiet, like Damien was a wounded animal he was trying desperately not to spook. “It’s over. You’re safe.”

“I know that.” Damien snapped. He ran his fingers through his mused hair, pushed it out of his face. “I’m… I’m fine, Hux. I didn’t even realize I fell asleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”

Huxley stared at him for a moment, his face pinched in something like confusion.

“You were screaming.” Huxley said softly. “Screaming for me. I thought… I don’t know. I guess I thought you were dying.”

Damien didn’t know what the fuck to say to that.

Huxley made waffles the next moring, and they were fucking delicious. Damien didn’t make a habit of eating shit like waffles, of course. Too much sugar, and he did his best to stay away from carbs as often as possible. But when Damien emerged from his room the next morning, there was a plate stacked high with homemade waffles waiting for him. They were topped with powdered sugar and fresh fruit and Hux had found his seldom used gravy boat to serve some brand new, store bought syrup out of. How cute.

“I thought we could use a little pick-me-up.” Huxley smiled. Damien hated when he did that, said we when he meant you. He swallowed his protests as Huxley trucked food over to the breakfast nook that only seated two. He placed a cup in front of Damien as he sat, too big for his chair.

“Is this…”

“I went down to that little coffee place Lasko likes.” Huxley admitted it like a secret, blushing handsomely as he looked away. Damien took a tentative sip from the little recyclable paper straw sticking out of the plastic take-out cup. He nearly melted at the taste.

“You remembered my order?” He asked.

“Well, yeah.” Huxley smiled gently. “I wrote it down in my phone.”

Damien ate his waffles. They were fucking good. They filled in a hole he didn’t know was sitting in his gut. He hadn’t exactly been eating all that much since the games, given that nearly everything made him nauseous. Not this, though. This just made him feel… warm.

He cleaned up. Huxley was a messy person and an even messier cook. He offered to clean up after himself, but Damien insisted. It didn’t feel polite to make him do all the work when he’d made Damien such a nice breakfast.

He washed each plate three times. Three felt good. Three felt safe.

He scrubbed the counter with a sponge and soap to make sure any flour or batter was really gone from the dark marble surface. But then he began to worry about bacteria in the sponge. It was new and it didn’t smell, but he couldn’t be sure. He tossed the sponge and grabbed a sanitizing wipe from under the sink. Then he worried about bleach or whatever the fuck chemicals they put in those things getting on his cutting board or in his food. He was halfway through wetting a paper towel to wipe down the counter for the third time- three felt good, three felt safe- when Huxley interrupted him.

“Hey Dames,” he said, and fuck, he could hear that nickname roll off of Huxley’s lips a million times and not grow tired of it, “want to go… like do something? Like um… what about a bookstore?”

“A bookstore?” Damien parroted back. “Do you… do you like bookstores?”

“I mean…” Huxley laughed, “I don’t know. I’m not like… one hundred percent sure I’ve ever been in one.”

“Well I’m not dragging you around to bookstores just for my benefit.”

“We can do something else.” Huxley said in a hurry. “Just… I don’t know. I’d love to get out of the apartment for a little bit. Spend some time with you.”

Damien swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“Let’s go for a run.” He said softly.

Damien ran in this park nearly every day. It was quiet, especially in the early morning, tucked away from the roads and only accessible on foot. A paved running track circled a man-made pond, surrounded on three sides by a tree line meant to mimic the natural world, but just this side of too-thin to do so. It was cold out, and the early morning sun hadn’t yet melted the frost that consumed the browned grass surrounding the lake. Steam seemed to rise off of Damien’s exposed shoulders, what used to be a too-tight compression tank top falling a bit looser around his chest and stomach. He tried not to think about it. The cold crept in around him, phantom sensation biting at his exposed skin.

It wasn’t real. He didn’t feel the cold. If he did, there was something very wrong with him. There was nothing wrong with him.

Huxley was faster than Damien expected him to be. As big as Huxley was (and he was big, a fact that Damien’s brain couldn't seem to get away from in its current state), he didn’t sacrifice mobility for strength. That much Damien knew already, of course. He’d been pulled along, their hands latched together in a vice grip, across the whole of the E&E field. He had been shocked then by how quickly Huxley could move, but chalked it up to adrenaline. As they jogged down the paved path that wound through the park, though, he found that it was not a fluke.

Damien wasn’t slow. He reveled in cardio. He loved running. It wrung him free of the constant shake in his muscles, set a burn under his skin that he didn’t have to try and control. He had participated in a few 5k’s since moving to Dahlia, and finished in second in one of them. He was no slouch. He took his hobbies just as seriously as he took everything else.

So it surprised him when Huxley easily outpaced him, his stride half-jog and his breath easy, while Damien struggled to maintain his unsteady trot. The lack of sleep was catching up to him. Everything seemed too difficult, every movement of his body too strenuous. He was so tired that he could likely lay down in the frosted, early morning grass and sleep while the sun rose and set. It would warm him, at least. He was so fucking cold.

There was nothing wrong with him.

Threes felt good. Threes felt safe.

He hadn’t realized that Huxley stopped until he ran face first into him. Hux let out a panicked little sound and wrapped a steady arm around Damien’s waist as he stumbled, planting his hands firmly on Hux’s chest. He flushed, stepping back. Hux’s touch went with him, big fucking hands wrapping around his hips.

“Easy,” Hux said softly, “sorry, dude, I didn’t mean to stop so fast.”

“No, fuck,” Damien shook his head, his palms still burning with the feeling of Huxley’s chest. Pervert, his mother’s voice accused. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Huxley’s hands flexed on his hips, those wide, soft eyes flicking over his form before retreating. Hux managed a smile when he looked up and met Damien’s eyes.

“Are you… cold?” He asked softly. Damien drew his arms up around himself, defensively tried to block him out. “It’s just… you’re shaking, dude.”

“I’m fine.” Damien snapped, suddenly defensive. “I can’t get cold. Fire elemental.”

“Right.” Hux nodded, his face still plainly concerned. It made Damien nauseous to watch the crease form between his brows.

“What made you stop, anyway?” Damien huffed, desperate to change the subject.

“Oh,” Huxley’s face split into an overt grin. He was distracted, it seemed, from whatever had bothered him about touching Damien in the first place. It was his heat, Damien knew it. Nobody touched him for long, not unless they were a fire too. He made people sweat. He had burned people before. He could hardly blame Huxley for staying away. “I heard a bird call. A red-winged blackbird.”

Damien cocked his head as Hux paused, pointing towards the underbrush of the scant tree line. He waited, holding his breath, as the sounds of the birds and small animals around them washed over him. He’d never once stopped a run to listen to the birds.

Then, a shrill, shrieking call rang across the early morning air, like a disk scratching in the middle of a song. A pause, then another call. Finally, the underbrush rustled, and a small, black body erupted from the cover. Damien watched, eyes wide, and caught a flash of red as its wings fluttered frantically, carrying it over the trees and away from the park.

Huxley sighed and Damien’s gaze drifted back to him immediately. His face was some strange mixture of fondness and grief that Damien couldn’t put a name to.

“My Mama loves bird watching.” He said after another moment of quiet and birdsongs. “There aren’t a ton of birds that live back home and in Dahlia. So when I hear a red winged blackbird… I don’t know. I just think about home, I guess.”

They finished their run. It took him longer than usual to complete a lap of the pond, but he forced himself to do another. Huxley kept pace with him the whole time.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mother.” Damien sighed, his phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear.

“Nobody knows what’s going on in that class besides you and your professor.” Sofia snarled. Damien could almost feel the heat radiating off of her through the phone. “So do I need to reach out to Richard and find out that way?”

His fourth and final English credit was set out to be Historical Texts from the Empowered World, a class he’d been fighting tooth and nail to get into since his first semester at D.A.M.N.. It was a coveted seminar, one that only fifteen students a semester were able to attend. He’d been lucky enough to snag his seat within the first five minutes of enrollment being open thanks to Lasko’s efforts. Now, four weeks into the semester, he was eeking by with a seventy-six percent. It was the worst grade he’d ever received in a class.

His mother found out, although he wasn’t sure how. She’d called him at three in morning, either unaware of the time difference from wherever the fuck she was or too concerned about the first C he’d received in his seventeen years of schooling.

“Do not call him.” Damien snapped, louder than he intended. Huxley was sleeping in the living room. He didn’t want to wake him. Damien opened the door to his ensuite bathroom once, twice, three times before stepping in, stepping out, stepping in again. Even in the darkness, he could see how drawn and exhausted his face was. He hadn’t been sleeping when she called. “I’ve got it under control. There’s no need to bother him.”

“Are you skipping class? Are you not doing the work?”

“Mother, I have it under control!” He snapped, bending over to rest his forehead on the cool porcelain of his sink. He felt so hot all of a sudden.

“Do not take that tone with me, Damien Rhone!” His mother replied in precisely the same tone. He was his mother’s child, after all. “Every day when you step out into the world, you represent me! You use my name, my reputation! You won’t tarnish it at my alma mater!”

“Jesus Christ,” Damien shouted, his volume rising without his permission. “It’s one fucking C, Mother, I think your reputation will survive!”

Silence from the other end of the line. He thought that maybe he’d managed to strike Sofia Rhone silent for the first time in her life.

When he pulled his phone back from his face, melted plastic, metal, and glass stuck in his hair and against his skin. He’d gotten so hot he’d melted his phone.

“Fuck!” He cried, prying his fingers off of the hunk of metal as he started to process the alien feeling of burn across his skin. What was left of his phone clattered into his sink, smoking and smelling of an electrical fire. He didn’t know if he should turn on the faucet or not, if that would help or just make it worse. There was a knock at the bathroom door.

He couldn’t hide this from Huxley. He couldn’t slip out now, make it to the free clinic that D.A.M.N. ran and back before he woke up. Damien didn’t even know exactly what they would do for this, just that he knew he couldn’t fix this on his own. Huxley was awake. He was talking softly on the other side of the door, cooing sweetly about being there if he needed to talk. Damien touched the doorknob once, twice, three times before turning it and letting Hux in.

Huxley's face twisted with horror as he took Damien in. He probably looked like a mess.

“Dames,” Hux breathed, stepping closer, taking the uninjured side of Damien’s face in one big hand. He must have been unbearable to touch at the moment. A fine sweat had broken out over Huxley’s body. Fuck, he slept shirtless. Damien could see so much of his skin, rippling and wet and covered in pretty, floral tattoos (fag, fag, fag). He blinked hard, his fingers shaking.

“I got too hot.” He said simply, his voice raw. “My mother…” he didn’t know how to explain it to Huxley. She made him angrier than anybody else on the planet. She was his favorite person alive. He wanted to strangle her. He would kill somebody if she asked him. She had narrowed his life down to be exactly what she wanted. She had put the whole world in front of him, ripe for the taking.

“It’s okay.” Huxley said with such certainty that it must have been true. “It’s gonna be okay.” He wrapped an arm around Damien’s shoulders, his big hand circling Damien’s wrist like it was nothing, keeping his injured hand steady. “Come on. I’ll take care of you.”

“Have you ever had a burn debridement before?” The healer asked, tucking her hair up into a tight bun before bending over to get a close look at his face.

“I’ve never had a burn before.” Damien said softly. “I didn’t know this could happen.”

The clinic was freezing. That was all Damien could think about. His anger had fizzled out and his heat went with it. He was propped up on the paper-covered exam table, sat with his legs dangling over the side. He couldn’t lay down. He hurt too much to stay still. Huxley was sat in one of the tiny guest chairs in the clinic, clad only in a sinfully tight tee-shirt and pajama pants, having relinquished the giant hoodie he’d thrown on on the way out of the door when Damien started shivering. He was bent over, his elbows on his knees, watching every movement the healer made like a hawk. Damien had never seen him look this serious.

Well… that wasn’t exactly true.

“Never?” The healer asked, her face screwing up in confusion. She turned to her computer and read through his chart quickly. “Oh… you’re a fire elemental?” She asked.

“Obviously.” Damien snapped, gripping his wrist tightly in his uninjured hand. Pain pulsed up his arm in time with his heartbeat, pushing out the sense and good manners that his mother had taught him. “How else would this have happened?”

“Dames,” Hux admonished. Damien risked a look across at him through his lashes, and shame burned across his skin. He was being a monster.

“I’m sorry.” The healer soothed, her tone changing in an instant. “I’m not great with auras. And your temperature is only ninety-nine point eight.”

“That’s like… a fever, right?” Huxley said softly, turning to the healer. He gave her a soft smile, easing the burn of Damien’s fucking attitude.

“For most people, yes.” The healer nodded. “But for a fire elemental…”

“I usually run around one-oh-six.” Damein sighed, fighting not to stretch out his injured hand. He was itching to move it, to try and dislodge the hunk of metal that had fused with his skin.

“So we’re definitely dealing with more than a fluctuating core, which is usually what causes this sort of accident.” The healer confirmed. “First thing’s first, though, we’re going to deal with the debris and the burns.”

It was excruciating. It was a cycle of him trying to concentrate his heat in one area, loosening the material enough that it wouldn’t rip his skin off to remove. The heat tore through the injuries, leaving him in a cold sweat after every round. Huxley had abandoned his seat and wrapped one heavy arm around Damien’s shoulders, staying on his good side to give the healer space. When it got to be too much, Damien turned his face and pressed it hard into Huxley’s chest, puffed out his breath in panicked gasps, trying to hold himself together.

He managed to melt off the large chunk of metal that had hardened the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger. The glass fused to his fingertips was harder, and though it peeled off his fingerprints, he managed it.

She healed as they went, only taking long enough to run saline solution over each burn before pulsing magic into him with a brush of her gloved fingers. As the healing magic ran its course through him, and as his delicate control became harder and harder to maintain, a familiar chill ran up his body. He let out an embarrassing sound, leaning further into Huxley’s warmth as he began to shake.

“What’s happening?” Huxley asked, his hand coming up to rest on Damien’s neck. Fuck, he could die right here, Huxley’s hands on him, warm and big and rough.

“His temperature just dropped.” The healer huffed. “His core is tapped. I thought… well, I suppose it makes sense. His body isn’t used to being this cold. Let’s lay him down-”

They kept talking, voices intermingling. Damien could feel Huxley touching him, could trace the brush of his aura as it smothered out every other magical trace in the room. His vision blackened and swam, but he held on to that touch, that magic, until everything around him faded away.

“It wouldn’t impact you academically.” Lasko said, flicking through a form on his laptop before turning it on the coffee table to face Damien. “And your tuition would be returned for this sem-m-mester.” Damien watched as his mouth curled around the sound, his eyes flicking up in his struggle to vocalize it. ‘Mmm’ sounds were the hardest on him.

He used to get so impatient with Lasko’s stutter. It had certainly gotten less frequent around him as of late. Lasko’s was the type that was made much worse by stress, and Damien didn’t really stress him out that much anymore. He had also stopped sighing and tutting and interrupting Lasko when he was trying to say something. That probably helped.

“I don’t need a semester off.” He sneered, his cold fingers tapping together as he fought the shivers that ran through him. “I need to just… refocus. I’ll be fine.”

“You need rest.” Lasko corrected. That was the only downside of not stressing Lasko out so much anymore; he had a spine when it came to Damien now. “You need to recover. Chronic MDS isn’t something to fuck around about, Damien.”

“I don’t have chronic MDS.” He said. “I had a bad night. I’m fine.”

“Your ear is m-m-mangled!”

Damien liked it when Lasko stuttered in threes. Threes were good. Threes were safe.

“I’m fine.” He said, and then it burst up and out of him again, a compulsion. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” Lasko’s voice got quiet. “I’m worried about you.”

“Please leave.” Damien didn’t yell. He didn’t have it in him.

The healer had managed to get the rest of his destroyed phone out of his skin, but a good portion of his right ear came off with it. He had been assured that, with a few healing sessions, it would look more or less normal, even if he didn’t have sensation in the cartilage. He hadn’t gone back to see her in the week that had passed, hadn’t gone to see the specialist that she referred him to either. Huxley had taken him home that night, sat him down on the couch, and he’d barely gotten up since.

Lasko stared at him from his place in Damien’s decorative armchair, his face twisted up.

“I won’t abandon you, Damien.” He said simply.

He got a new phone. His mother called incessantly. The grades in the rest of his classes plummeted. He didn’t leave the apartment for three weeks.

___

There was a knock at his door in the early hours of the morning. Huxley was curled up on the floor next to the couch, sleeping with his face in the plush area rug like he had for the last three weeks. Huxley hardly ever left Damien’s side, only leaving the apartment for class and practice. As soon as he was home, he was sitting close to Damien, letting him huddle in for warmth. He made Damien stretch out at night, move from his position curled in on himself, and try to sleep. He rarely did.

There was a knock at his door in the early hours of the morning, and Damien wasn’t sleeping. He jerked at the sound of it, a rhythmic one-two-three-four. Something in his gut twisted at the number. That wasn’t right. Whoever was out there was not safe. If they were safe, they would have knocked three times.

The knock sounded again, one-two-three-four, and Damien rose from the couch, stepping around Hux’s sleeping form as he went. He was wrapped in one of Huxley’s gigantic team sweatshirts, his sweatpants hanging loosely from his waist. He hadn’t washed his hair in a few days. He probably looked like a mess.

He unlocked the deadbolt, locked it again, unlocked it.

“Mother,” he breathed, the coil of dread in his stomach releasing. She was dressed in her usual fare, a navy pant suit, her well-kept leather briefcase under one arm. She must have been in town for a meeting.

“What in the fuck is this?” She shoved her phone in his face, his student portal open and displaying his B-C average. His breath stuttered. He had an eighty-three in Mastery of Fire-Elementalism.

“Did you… how did you sign in to my portal?” He asked. It was the only thing he could think to ask. His mind was slow, syrupy, unsure. That was a password protected database that only he was meant to be able to access. He was twenty-five-years-old.

“An eighty-three in Fire?” Sofia shouted, her face bright red. He could feel the heat wafting off of her. “Are you insane? Are you dying? Because I can’t think of a single other reason that my son would have less than a perfect grade in that class!”

“Mother-” he tried to interrupt her as she pushed past him, her clothed shoulder still too hot against his.

“I wrote the curriculum, Damien! You’ve been doing those exercises since you were thirteen! That was meant to be your easy A for the semester, and you’re flunking it!”

“It’s a B, Mother, I’m not flunking it.” He flicked on the table lamp next to the couch and then bent to shake Huxley’s shoulder. The asshole could sleep through anything. Well, anything besides the sounds of Damien’s nightmares. Every time Damien had woken screaming over the past few weeks, Huxley had been bent over him, easing him through the aftershocks.

Sofia came to an abrupt stop in his living room, looking down at Huxley as he startled and began to rise, hair sleep-mused and shirtless. Hux blinked sleepily between Damien and his mother, confusion painting his features. He placed one hand flat on Damien’s back, steadying him even when Hux was the one being woken by shouting.

“Who is this?” Sofia snapped, her eyes sweeping over Huxley critically. Damien knew that look. That was the look she gave business proposals and overly presumptuous men. She was finding the foot and handholds through which she would deftly pull Huxley apart.

“We’ve met before.” Huxley said. His voice rumbled, gravelly from sleep. Damien relaxed a bit into him, the sound and smell and heat of him, fuck, he was so cold.

He could hear his mother’s voice, echoing around inside his aching head; faggot, faggot, faggot.

“Don’t call him that!” Damien shouted, pressing the heel of his hand into one pounding temple.

“Damien,” his mother admonished. And at the same time, Huxley’s gentle voice bled into his brain.

“Dames,” he said, just that sweet nickname, he was so sweet, “sit down. You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I don’t know what is going on here,” Sofia said, her voice full of accusation, “but it’s stopping now. You’re unfocused, Damien.”

“I’m-” Damien started, easing back to the couch with Huxley’s guiding touch.

“No.” Sofia interrupted, stepping up into his space. He could feel the heat rolling off of her in waves. He leaned into it despite himself. “You do not interrupt me, young man. I fought tooth and nail to give you this life. I worked three jobs all the way through D.A.M.N. and never missed a single class! What exactly is so tumultuous about your life that you feel the need to abandon your classes for a month?”

“He has MDS.” Huxley said softly. He was still standing, his hand on Damien’s shoulder, and he was facing down Sofia’s wrath unflinching. Damien was in love.

Fag, fag, fag.

“Stop.” He whispered, just barely audible.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sofia scoffed. “He’s fine.”

“He nearly died a few months ago.” Huxley said. His voice took on a tone that Damien had never heard from him before. There was a growl to it, a danger. He could have drowned in it. “And he hasn’t talked to anybody about it. He hasn’t been sleeping, he’s barely eating. His core is fighting to keep him alive, so maybe we can cut him some slack!”

Damien had never heard Huxley shout before, not really, not at someone.

“I don’t know who you are,” Sofia said, stepping up to Huxley like he wasn’t a foot taller and twice her weight, “but you will not talk to me like that. Leave.” Huxley stared down at her for a moment, his lips pursed in concentration. Finally, he turned to Damien.

“Do you want me to go?” He asked, his voice quiet again. Damien didn’t even have to think before replying.

“No.”

___

His mother’s name was on the lease. She filled his bank account. She’d taken care to make sure he never had to work while getting his education. She had done so much to give him this life.

And so, when he disappointed her, she took it away.

___

Damien didn’t mean to eavesdrop. They were letting him stay in their home, no rent, no strings. They were letting him crash on his couch at all hours, too exhausted to speak. They were essentially force feeding him.

He was laid out on their couch, his face pressed into the pillows they’d taken off their bed for him, looking for all the world to be asleep.

They were talking about him. He should stir. Open his eyes. Let them know he was awake. He didn’t move.

“Is this a normal reaction?” Gavin asked softly. “I just… I haven’t seen somebody respond to trauma like this.”

“He’s different.” They replied. They sounded almost sad, almost familiar.

“Not from you. The two of you are… scarily similar.”

“I stopped eating during the whole… Vega situation. And sleeping.”

“He’s lost weight.”

“Yeah. All muscle and skin. And even that…”

“It’s like he’s just… fading away.”

They were quiet for a long time. Damien tried to count the time between their breaths. They didn’t do it right. One-two-breath. One-two-three-breath. One-breath.

“I always knew this would happen eventually.” Gavin sighed into the silence. “That you all would just…” his voice cracked, emotion flooding into him, “fall away from me with time. I didn’t think it would be this soon. This fast.”

“Hey-“ skin on skin, a hand sliding up a cheek, another scooping under clothes to steady against a back. They held each other in the quiet of their home, witnessed, observed. “We aren't fading away. He’s not leaving. He’s right here. He’s right here in front of you. He’s struggling right now, but you are not going to lose him. Not like this.”

“Right.” Gavin said, although Damien got the impression that he didn’t believe that. “Right. Thank you, baby.” A kiss, soft and chaste. Skin on skin. Uneven, untimed breaths. He fell asleep to the uneven beat of them.

___

His face was pressed into Gavin’s thigh and his stomach was painfully full and some cheesy Christmas movie was playing on the TV despite the fact that it was nearly April. Gavin’s fingers hadn’t left his hair in the last hour, not since they’d finished dinner. Gav was talking lowly to him, keeping up a one sided conversation that Damien hadn’t had the energy to participate in.

“My better half is considering taking up yoga.” Gavin mused, twirling a lock of Damien’s hair over his forefinger. “Which I am, of course, all for. I don’t know how they could possibly get more flexible, but hey, I’m eager to find out.”

“They were my first friend.” Damein said suddenly, cutting through Gavin’s undertone. Gav’s movement stopped, his hand coming to rest against Damien’s head.

“Mine too.” Gavin nearly whispered, like it was a secret. Damien breathed out with the admission. “We love you very much, Damien.”

___

Most nights, Damien slept in the center of the Freelancer’s gigantic bed. He didn’t know how they had managed to squeeze their California King through the tiny apartment, but it most likely involved a few well-placed utilizations of Gavin’s magic. They had countless, silk-wrapped pillows, a heavy duvet, a never ending flow of downy blankets and skin.

He was pressed up against Huxley’s chest, another warm body at his back, and a hand was trailing up and down his side as he tried and tried to sleep. When the nightmares woke him, there was always somebody there, cooing sweetly to him, pressing heat into his bare skin, reminding him over and over in counts of three; it was just a dream, it was just a dream, it was just a dream.

But he couldn’t sleep that night. He couldn’t sleep because Huxley wasn’t breathing right. He was usually so rhythmic, so consistent, he never varied or changed. Not unless something was wrong.

Something was wrong.

Damien pressed his face further into the warmth of Hux’s chest, felt his heartbeat hammer away at his ribs. His breath stuttered, and Damien felt more than heard the small sound that escaped him.

“Dames…”

Damien pressed one open palm flat against Hux’s chest. He squirmed, trapped under the Freelancer’s heavy arm and Hux’s leg, thrown over his knees. Usually, the pressure felt good. It was grounding, having them on top of him, and he’d likely never be cool enough again for this much contact to feel good for anybody involved. But now it was oppressive, constricting. It stopped him from doing what he wanted. He tapped Huxley frantically, one-two-three, as his arms tightening around Damien’s shoulders, pulled him impossibly closer. As the pressure went from comfort to pain, Damien patted for Gavin’s wrist. His hand had gone still against Damien’s ribs, his breathing evened out. He jerked suddenly, fingers flexing across Damien’s skin before he moved.

“What’s-”

The ground began to shake. Damien pushed against Huxley’s chest, trying to detach himself. Those arms tightened down harder as he tried to pull away. Damien couldn’t get a proper breath in.

“Huxley,” Gavin said, shifting across the bed to try and pull him back. Hux let out a sharp, desperate cry. The furniture and lights and the pictures hung on the wall shook with the sound of it.

Then the pressure was gone. Damien was pulled back, the Freelancer’s arms locked around him as they retreated. Huxley sat up straight in the bed, his body rigid and shaking. Gavin was knelt on the bed in front of him, hands spread out on his shoulders, murmuring softly to him. Huxley blinked hard once, whipping his head around to try and reorient himself. Damien imaged that, just moments ago, he’d been staring down a swarm of shades as they tore into Damien’s prone body. Gavin caught his cheek in one hand and turned his face back to him, forced eye contact, demanded his attention.

“It’s okay,” Gavin breathed, “it’s okay, big guy. You’re here. You’re safe.”

“Damien,” Huxley whined, breaking Gavin’s gentle hold to curve towards him.

“I’m here.” Damien said, his voice shaky. He cleared his throat before he said again; “I’m here. I’m here.”

Huxley huddled into his space, one arm coming to wrap around the Freelancer’s back, pulled them both close enough to protect, to hold and keep and not let go. He bent forward, his head coming to rest against Damien’s sternum. Damien could feel his lips move against the uneven scar tissue of his chest.

“You’re safe.” He said.

“I’m safe.” Damien replied.

___

“I don’t really know what to talk about.” Damien admitted, wringing his hands together. He had gotten warmer lately, but he stayed in one of Huxley’s hoodies almost all of the time. He only changed them out when they stopped smelling like Hux.

“That’s fine.” Cam replied, setting aside his notepad and pen. He was taking on a more casual air, trying to make Damien more comfortable. “I know this sort of thing can be intimidating. Why don’t you start with why you decided to come in?”

D.A.M.N. had stopped providing free counseling to students a month after the E&E games, and Damien had missed that window by a mile. He got lucky that Lasko knew a few people who were connected with setting up that program in the first place and was willing to relinquish his office during business hours for this meeting. Damien wasn’t feeling particularly grateful about it this morning when Gavin and the Freelancer were forcing him out of their loving and generously provided home. He’d grumbled and complained about it the whole drive, something the two of them seemed to take pleasure in.

It was most likely a good sign that he had enough energy to grumble at all.

Damien fiddled with the hem of his sweatshirt. He thought about rucking it up, exposing his chest, showing the scars. That would explain it all.

Huxley had been trying to coax him into using his words as of late.

“I was… I was in the ward. During the games.” He said. It felt like too few words to communicate the weight of the admission. Cam went still, his face betrayed him. He knew exactly what that meant, the horror hidden behind those two sentences.

“Okay.” Cam nodded. He rearranged himself, sat forward a bit in his chair, attentive. The soft glow of Lasko’s sensory friendly office cast him in such a soothing light. “Do you want to tell me about it? Any of it?”

Damien swallowed. He didn’t.

“I don’t.”

Cam’s face didn’t change, didn’t indicate that Damien had given him the wrong answer. There were no wrong answers.

“Okay.” Cam smiled. “What do you want to tell me?”

Damien thought for a very long time.

“My mother’s name is Sofia.” He said finally. Cam was quiet, waiting for him to continue. “She’s… a difficult woman.”

___

Cam sent him to a psychologist who sent him to a specialist who diagnosed him with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He was scheduled for an aggressive therapeutic course and given two prescriptions, two pills he would have to take every morning until he got better or died, whichever came first.

His doctors warned him that, though treatment could drastically improve his life, this wasn’t the type of illness he would be cured of. It had been living in him, just under the surface, not interrupting his daily life for a very long time. The E&E games were just the final crack that sent the sickness flowing out. He could patch it with medication and therapy, but he would never be better.

He called his mother. He was afraid she wouldn’t answer, given that their last conversation had ended in her kicking him out of his apartment and cutting him off. She picked up on the first ring.

She had been twenty-five when she was diagnosed too.

“How did you… I don’t know. You’re very put together.” He huffed into the phone. He was curled up on the Freelancer’s sofa, his feet tucked under him. “How do you live your life? Because I feel like I’m going to fall apart at the seams right now.”

“I did, for a little bit.” She admitted. It was the first time he’d heard her admit weakness. It made him feel strangely afraid. If Sofia Rhone could fall apart, nothing in this world was sure. “I doubt you remember, but we stayed with one of my friends for a while when you were a baby. She pretty much took care of you. I was useless for a solid month.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” He asked. “OCD is hereditary.”

“I didn’t think it would develop.” She replied. “Or… I don’t know. I hoped it wouldn’t.”

“You would have saved me a lot of confusion.” He grumbled, picking at the pilled fabric of his sweatshirt. He heard his mother take a deep breath, fighting the urge to scold him for being petulant. “I just mean that this could have been avoided. I could have been screened and diagnosed and… I don’t know. I think this would have been bad for me either way, but at least I wouldn’t have been going in blind.”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen to you.”

“It did.” He said. “It happened to you, too.”

“You were supposed to be better than me.” She sounded ruined when she said that, like she’d given away her last secret, played her final card. Damien didn’t reply. “You are the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve done a lot of extraordinary things. You were supposed to be the best of me.”

“I don’t think that’s how people work, Mom.”

“Maybe not. It’s just… you were supposed to be better. Better than this.”

“I’m sorry.” It was all he could think to say. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“Me too.”

—

His fire came on like the spring; slowly, and then all at once. That ball of heat in his chest, radiating out around him like a star, like a sun, started burning again. His threads sang with new music. He ate. He slept. He started running early in the morning. He listened to the red-winged blackbirds call.

Bad Dog Tattoo Co. was a tiny, neon-lit building, tucked between a yoga studio and a bagel place just outside of D.A.M.N.’s campus. He had never once considered getting a tattoo before. It wasn’t for any moral objection but because he simply couldn’t have imagined them ever being his particular taste. He did like Huxley’s, the swirling, naturalistic flowers and vines that crept over his shoulders like they had grown there. He’d run his hands over them many times over the past few months, felt the ridges and rises of scar tissue and noted where the ink hadn’t held properly.

“They’re great here.” Hux said, holding the door as they entered. “Cool people. Queer friendly, POC friendly. And they’re a good artist, so that helps.”

As he entered, Damien felt the familiar, shivering tell of a ward pass over him.

“They’re empowered?” He asked, turning as Huxley closed the door.

“Dude, how did you know?”

“There’s a ward, gorgeous.” A rasping, unfamiliar voice called from behind the counter. Damien turned as the undeniable aura of shifter slammed into him, crowding out his magical senses. They were as big as every other shifter Damien had ever met. They were certainly flirting with six feet and every bit of them was covered in muscle. The ripped, scant muscle tee they wore exposed their arms and a good portion of their midriff, loose jeans hanging on their hips, flashing the waistband of their boxers. Every inch of exposed skin Damien could see was covered in tattoos. A snake curled around their right arm, its tongue flicking out over their middle finger. Half of a pomegranate dripped juice like blood down the curve of their left. A naked woman had her limbs detached, exposing blood and bone as she danced across their flexing bicep. Their knuckles were adorned with tight, neat lettering as they extended one hand to shake his, sending a simple message; GOOD LUCK. “I’m Grip. You must be Damien.”

He blinked, looking over his shoulder at Huxley. He’d gone red and was making intense eye contact with his shoes.

“He talks about you.” Grip said, their mouth splitting into a vicious grin. Their face was cut nearly in half with a concave scar. He watched their smile morph with it, tugged this way and that, exposing gums. “He talks about all of his friends but…” they looked up and seemed to notice the embarrassment creeping across Huxley’s form. Their smile took on a mischievous glint. “Good to put a face to the name.”

Grip set up their space religiously, ritualistically, and Damien felt what he now knew to be the compulsive part of his brain preen with affection for their attention to detail. Gloves on, space sprayed down, wrapped, new gloves, ink and machine set up, gloves off, stencil on, new gloves. Three glove changes. It wouldn’t get infected.

“It looks straight?” He asked for the fourth time. He would feel the need to ask two more. He would try very hard to swallow them. His therapist insisted that breaking the compulsion was good for him, no matter how disastrous it felt.

“It does.” Grip replied in the same gentle, patient tone they’d told him three times before. Their smoke-rasped voice talked him through the session, the needle breaking through the delicate skin of his wrist, the jerk of his muscles as the pain ran its course through him. All told, it wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought it would be. It wasn’t a big pain, save for a few spots on the inside of his wrist, just a long one, stretched out over the course of an hour as Grip dragged careful, perfect lines through his skin.

When they were done, Grip brought him to a mirror and let him see.

“It looks straight?” He asked again. Grip smiled, standing over his shoulder.

“It does.” They replied, tone unchanged. Damien wondered if they were a natural comforter, or if Huxley had warned them about his compulsions. “It looks good, Fire. Good choice.”

Wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet in blocky, black letters; ALL YOU HAVE IS YOUR FIRE.

___

“Hux,” Damien breathed, his hips aching with the strain it took to straddle him, “Hux, Hux-”

“Just two, Dames,” Huxley groaned, because of course he was still keeping up with Damien’s EPR therapy even in the middle of their first kiss, “try for two.”

“Fuck you,” Damien laughed, his forehead resting against Hux’s for a moment. Hux was pressed into the Freelancer’s couch, one thick leg thrown over the back of it, his arms laid over Damien’s back, keeping him close. Damien felt hot, he felt like he was on fire. He was going to burn Huxley.

“You’re okay.” Huxley said, his lips finding Damien’s again. No tongue, no teeth. Just chaste, skin on skin.

“Hux…” Damien whined. He ground down onto Huxley, his fingers shaking where they threaded into his hair, wrapped around his jaw and pulled him in. “Please, please…”

“Good,” Hux nearly purred, his fingers flexing against Damien’s back. “Fuck, Dames. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, baby.”

___

“I’m not telling you my class schedule, Mother.” Damien said it all in a rush, his chest squeezing with anxiety. He tapped his finger against his phone in bouts of threes where he held it against his face. “And I need you to log out of my class portal.”

There was silence for a long moment on the other end of the line.

“Why?” She snapped. Damien took a deep breath. He counted to four in his head.

“Because I’m an adult. I don’t need you to check up on my grades anymore. They’re my responsibility. You need to let go and let me handle them.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She replied. “You are my responsibility.”

“Mother,” Damien said, taking a deep breath, “it’s not up for discussion. You want to be in my life? This is part of it.”

“There’s more?”

“I’m gay, Mother.” More silence. Damien counted to three, fuck, four, before continuing. “I don’t need your approval.”

“Well, good, because-”

“Please don’t interrupt me.” Damien snapped. He shook his free hand out and took a moment to check his heat. He didn’t want to fuck his ear up even further by exploding another phone. “I… I don’t need you to love me. Or understand me. But you could. If you wanted to.”

More silence.

___

“This isn’t oatmilk.” Damien said, staring down at his to-go cup. He turned it in his hand, the condensation already beginning to sweat against his skin. It had ‘oat’ written on it, clear as day in smudged marker. He screwed up his lips, trying to suss out the taste of whatever was in his fucking mouth.

“Oh?” Lasko squeaked next to him, turning in towards him. Recently, they’d all been doing that, pulling in, getting as close as they could when they thought he might get caught in a compulsion. He’d only had to tell them once that they shouldn’t entertain them, that they should interrupt as often as possible, as often as his mood made it safe.

Today had been a good day. Until the stupid barista put the wrong fucking milk in his latte.

“Are you allergic to anything? Like nuts or-”

“No.” Damien snapped. He closed his eyes, tried not to admonish himself for interrupting Lasko. The guilt didn’t help. Lasko would forgive him. If he didn’t, he would say something. He had to trust that, at least.

“Is it the taste? Do you not l-like the… soy or almond or… whatever else they gave you?”

“No.” Damien sighed. He pressed a hand over his face. “It tastes fine. It’s just… not right.”

“I-I could ask for a new one.” Lasko offered.

Damein could have melted when he said that. There was nothing more horrifying in this world for Lasko than complaining to service workers. And he would do it for Damien.

“No.” He said, resolute. “No. It’s okay. I’ll… it’ll be okay.”

Lasko looked up at him, something strange and sweet in his face.

___

Summer passed in a blur. He ate. He slept. He started classes again. He trained his endurance a bit further every day. His core didn’t give out on him when the weather got cold.

He did not see Sofia for Christmas. Instead, he went North to meet Huxley’s moms.

___

It was beautiful up there, quiet and secluded. Their little house, brick and vine and tree and birdsong, opened up to him like a pair of warm hands.

Huxley’s moms were nice. Accommodating without being condescending, loving without crossing his boundaries as he laid them out in front of them. They didn’t share their names, seeming to know he would insist on calling them by them. Instead, they introduced themselves as ‘Mom,’ and ‘Mama.’

He and Huxley stayed up late their first night in, long after the winter sun had set over the snow-covered hills. They curled up, limbs tangled, on the porch swing, wrapped in blankets. Damien breathed out, his breath curling around them and adding a hazy quality to the warm porch light.

“It's perfect out here.” He said softly.

“Yeah.” Huxley replied. He wasn’t looking up at the night sky like Damien was.

Somewhere in the distance, a shrill, shrieking call rang across the late evening air, like a disk scratching in the middle of a song. A pause, then another call.

He could picture it, that flash of red as its wings carried it from the snowy underbrush, over the trees, and away. He closed his eyes, resting his head back against Huxley’s shoulder, and let his fragile control go. His core thrummed with that strange new music, heat without burn, light without fire. Huxley stopped shivering, sighing in him, his thumb tracing the lines of Damien’s tattoo. Damien relaxed into the knowledge that the cold couldn’t touch him, that he could warm Huxley, warm the house if he pleased. He had enough heat to spare, and it was a cold night.

#redacted asmr #my redacted content #redacted audio #redacted damien #redacted huxley #redacted lasko #redacted gavin #redacted freelancer #redacted sofia #redacted camelopardalis #redacted darlin #redacted oc #redacted listener oc

36 notes · View notes