I'm sorry I'm such a dick and I don't post anything anymore. I'm gonna try to fix that. Here's some Damien/Chris to make up for it.

Maybe the YoungArts contest will take fanfiction submissions, right.

warning: highly experimental writing style. If I could, I would write like this ( random jumbled sentences, with no plot or character development) all the time, but then no one would ever put me on alert.

It starts with my fingers brushing his chin, and him looking away and not saying anything, and obviously he must want it too.

It ends with him pushing me and snarling "you fucking beetch don't you fucking-" and wordless breathing of adrenaline.

Excitement and fear sound the same and I can't tell them apart.

And I want to say, no, it's okay, I won't, don't-

Don't be afraid.

He's already gone.

The hero's journey cycle is a staple of fiction.

I've graduated high school, so I know how this shit works.

First:

the call to adventure.

then the refusal of the call.

I touched and Christophe pushed and obviously refused, so,

That makes him the hero and I guess I'm the villain.

Staple of fiction number two:

The antagonist fights the hero.

He's a monster and vicious and cruel, while the hero fights for justice.

We oppose.

Whatever he wants, I want the opposite.

He wants me away from him.

(staple of fiction: the hero wins in the end)

We both pretend it didn't happen.

That I didn't come close and touch and whisper and ask with my eyes and body language, and he didn't push me away.

We're forced to interact on the job. My father says the three of us make a good team. He says that interaction on earth with humans as a normal human will teach me some character, or some shit.

(I already know what kind of character I am, dad, I'm the villain that's what I am and I'm going to lose, aren't I?)

Gregory notices the tension right away, in the way that I stand looking away from Christophe and Christophe stands looking away from me and both of us are looking at each other anyway.

"Right," he says, and doesn't comment, and proceeds to lay out the plan.

And maybe we would have gone on like this for a while, except Christophe is thrown off a building.

The third tier of the cycle is "the road of trials." And I don't know if it's a trial, but being thrown off the building ought to at least hurt like a bitch.

I kill the bastard who did it, of course.

And I carry Chris to the hospital.

He wakes amidst the cords and IV drips and looks pissed as hell and he asks for his fucking cigarette and I give him one and light my own and we smoke in silence, fuck what the nurses think, and I'm happy this part of him will never change.

He asks if I killed the bastard, and I say yes, I killed the bastard, and Gregory is currently killing the people who sent them.

So that's all right, then.

He sucks on his cigarette and asks me, what was that all about.

What, I say, knowing what he means.

You – touching - me-

Well, I say, you know what it means.

He glares at me underneath the thick eyebrows and scars and bandaging, and says, you're not even human.

I leave the hospital then, and I lean against the alley brick, and I smoke and breathe as evenly as I can.

"Well, fuck you, too," I say to no one.

And, of course, after the long journey is over, the hero is forced to fight the dragon.

When he comes up to me and we haven't spoken for weeks since he got out of the hospital, and he barges into my apartment and jabs a finger into my face and snarls, "listen, antichrist, I work wiz you because Gregory zinks it 'elps our missions, but if you keep looking at me like zat while we're on ze job and-"

I grab the wrist extended to me and slam him into the wall, and push up close to scare him or to be close.

"What are you afraid of, Christophe?"

"Get ze fuck off of me-"

"Shut up. Shut up. I've seen you looking back. I know I have."

He turns his head away, and I can tell it's not an invitation this time, but I move closer anyway.

"You're not even 'uman," he says again.

I don't pull back.

"What are you afraid of?" I demand.

He stares at the ground.

"I don't – I don't need-"

"What."

"I don't need someone to – look after me. Pick me up and carry me around and deal with all my broken bones. I can do zat all on my own, you know. Just because I'm 'uman doesn't make me weak."

"That's it? That's why you won't- "

"Shut up, antichrist," he says, "zat's not why anyzing, just zat 'as to be ze first rule if-"

"Chris."

"What-"

"Chris."

I'm close enough to taste his warmth.

"Chris, look at me."

He looks at me, finally.

"If we're going to do zis, zen zat 'as to be ze first ground rule," he says finally.

I kiss his jawbone, and wait frigid-numb as I wait for him to pull away. He doesn't .

"I will let you fuck yourself over all you want," I promise.

Then, at the very end of the story, there's the ultimate boon, when the character achieves what they wanted in the end, what they set on the quest for.

For Christophe I guess it would be freedom.

Freedom to push me down, freedom to climb on top of me and make me promise not to use my supernatural abilities to overpower him, to do this as equals-

Ground rule number two –

It is monstrous and vicious and cruel, the way we grapple on the bed, sweating panting laughing sobbing (please let me go please hold me harder)

but it's freedom,

Freedom to wrestle and play and fight viciously until our clothes are off and our skin raw with toothmarks and it only starts with the first touch,

And it ends with the cold quiet drowning roar as the feel of him against me overwhelms to the point where the me that is monstrous dies, and me that has always been a little bit human is trapped in this released in this shaking convulsing

skin

touch

He snores, stupidly unromantic.

I can't help but grin to myself as he lies (not quite) next to me (but still on the same bed), and our fingers are linked even in his sleep.

Can't help but wonder which of us was really the hero in the end.