Edit: Due to parential jumpdrive problems, this story was put on hiatus, but it's back. A year later, I still do love this fic. I have an extensive backup of chapters that need to be edited, which we all know is my fail-procratination but I'm going to try it though; I still want to write evil!Damien which will be partly awesome, partly heart-wrenching...
Anyway, this was all written quite a while back. I did my best to patch it up, but there are still things I question. If anybody is still even looking at this, thank you, and I'll do my best to keep up some semblance of regimine.
-=-(*)-=-
Damien hated church.
He hated piety.
Only something with a sick mind came up with the idea of people sitting around in hard, wooden-backed pews for five hours without moving. If you tried, an appointed man in the back smacked you on the head with a willow pole, and if you tried to get a few hours sleep - the least you could do since there was no comparison for the five-hour boredness meter - another fellow stuck a fox's tail under your nose. It was scratchy, dusty, and when you sneezed because of it, there were hundreds of eyes turned in your direction because you'd committed A Crime In Church. It didn't even matter if you were a peasant's daughter or the king's son. You still got the same treatment.
The peasant children around him were sitting with their parents, all stiff as ramrods and staring in their alert way at the preacher who was droning on in such an eagerly manner. Even his Father didn't care about the torture. He also was alert and watching. Liars. Damien scowled. They were asleep with their eyes open. Like the fish he'd gotten once when he was younger. His shoes were unsympathetic too. Damien got a wicked pinch from them every time he tried to slip them off. The atrocities were hard, black leather, stiffling his feet and killing them every time he bumped the back heel against the pew boards.
He stared up front, examining all the different heads that he could see from his smallish height. Christie Robow in the row in front of him, had braids.
Damien pursed his lips together, a serious expression for so young a boy, and began pondering. Christie was short for Christine; Christie hated her name, and got completely furious when anyone called her by anything but her nickname. She would punch anyone who she was furious with - a left-handed uppercut towards the jaw - sparing neither boy, nor girl.
At noon, there would be a break for lunch. The children - that was as far as he got since Damien winced at the thought and his mind fled on a rabbit trail. He hated being a 'child'. Adults got so many more privileges; like not wacked with a willow pole because he was snoring like Master Jenkins over in the corner. The children - he resumed - were allowed to run about - quietly - on the Green for half a hour before they were summoned back inside. There was a bottle of ink on the bishop's desk. Damien had seen it when he'd walked in.
Two pews behind him, Balthazar Hinnons, or Balt for short, sat with his family. Balt was rather a half-celebrity among the children for his famous temper - not as ferocious as Damien's, but quicker to fire up and nearly incapable of toning down. If you crossed Balt's path, you could be quite sure you wouldn't be safe from his reaches till his father got a job in your father's business.
Damien closed his eyes, making sure he didn't slouch - the tell-tale sign of a sleeper - and then thought long and hard about a joyful half-hour of mischief on the Green.
-=-(*)-=-
"I dare you to call her by her full name."
Balthazar scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Forget it, Dam."
Damien narrowed his eyes and dug his toes into the ground. It was so much more comfortable going barefoot than wearing shoes. "I'll give you my marble - the one Father got for me in London."
Balt paused, the one boot he'd taken off leviating in his hand. "The red one?"
"The same. Just, call her by her full name. That's all."
The boy paused, glancing at the lively redhead girl who was racing out of sight of her parents and heading straight for the nearest tree. Damien was quite positive that she'd torn at least half of her petticoats climbing, and the other half fighting. "And I'll get your marble?"
"I swear."
"Spit-swear."
Damien spat on the ground and Balthazar spat after him. "I hereby swear up on this spit that if Balthazar Hinnons calls Christie, Christine, I - Damien Vesper - shall give him my red marble that has the flecks of green inside." Damien paused for a moment, rather resentful of his quite prized possession.
"And what if you don't do it?"
"And if I don't, I hereby give Balthazar Hinnons the right to give me a black eye."
Balt grinned. "Make that two."
Damien flinched. "Isn't one enough?"
"Why do you want me to call her Christine anyway?"
"Fine. Two black eyes. My Father's going to kill me."
Balthazar shrugged. "Give me the marble, then we won't have any trouble."
Damien said nothing and watched as Balt loped away towards Christie who was climbing a large pine tree and getting sap all over her dress - as usual. A round of wide-eyed girls were watching her, daring her to climb one limb higher and staring when she did it - easily. "Hey, Christine!"
Damien could practically hear Christie's soundless fury. He grinned, reaching downwards to produce the inkwell from where he'd placed it on the ground. There was no sane way anyone could place him in between that duo.
"Hello, Dalt."
Balthazar narrowed his eyes and clenched his teeth, his customary show of anger. He had an ongoing grudge with Christie; nothing much, but enough he wouldn't talk to her unless necessary. Damien grinned. He must have desperately wanted that marble. "It's Balt to you, slout-face."
"On the Sabath, Falt! For shame!"
"Climb to your own grave. Mistress Robow isn't going to fix that many petticoats."
Christie turned a deep red. "And what would you know about petticoats? Are you wearing one?"
Damien slipped closer, making sure his figure was sufficiently hidden by the few girls that were tittering around the fighting pair. The inkwell was open in his palm, now he just had to get close enough.
"Christine!"
Christie swung her left uppercut.
Balt dodged it, laughing. "You swing like a girl!"
Damien inched closer. One more twist...
"Snout-nosed, lousy, lying-" Christie swung again, making Balthazar step back for fear of her fist connecting with his nose. "-dirty-"
He yanked both braids back, dipping their tips gleefully into the full inkwell. They tumbled out dripping and well, landing against Christie's dress with a soggy sploshing sound. Damien let a smile twitch on his face. A job well done if he should congratulate himself.
A shrill shriek split the air, luckily not enough to draw attention from the adults. "DAMIEN VESPER! You TOAD!"
Damien suddenly realized he'd been at the wrong place in the wrong time. Christine had five slaverous girls at her heels, and all of them were now hell-bent on breaking his neck.
The empty inkwell was tossed frantically in the air and Damien ran for his life. Luckily for him, the girls all were wearing tightly laced dresses - even the poorer ones - and that hindered them a bit. Through their pants on his neck, he could hear Balthazar laughing his head off behind him. "And you still owe me my marble!"
-=-(*)-=-
I love misunderstood people. (Aka: *cough*LukeCahill*cough*)
This is my attempt to make Damien misunderstood.
It's a sad fate when I doom characters to making them misunderstood so that I may love them, and make them understood. Evil ones are best~