Author's Notes: I am just in a Damien and Pip mood. It's hard to find stories with them that I enjoy, so I figured I'd take a shot at it myself. :) Just a prologue. I hope to do another update soon with more interaction, especially from Pip.
Prologue
When you're the son of Satan, seeing something as universal as a mugging in an alleyway becomes as natural as taking a piss.
It happens so frequently; sin, that is. Gruesome murders, petty robberies, raping for the sake of fulfilling an overdrive of lust, or torturing just for the sake of torturing – all of these things are familiar in the life of someone in my position. Being born as Lucifer's son comes with having to witness, and, consequently, not care about the vilest acts of nature. Being ensconced in this environment is sort of a package deal with the whole antichrist thing.
And being exposed to the worst the world can dish out and more has made me distant and unfazed when witnessing (and performing) such acts. I didn't care for humanity, let alone the moral high horses some people claimed to abide by. I spat on it and laughed and did a little dance for the sheer humor of someone thinking of me as their rescuer. Being the hero or a saint was not really my forte. I preferred to bypass any unneeded trouble that would surely stick to my shoes and follow me everywhere I went henceforth. I didn't want the baggage of human comfort or any of the obligations that came with it.
… So why I went out of my way to save a small, little kid was beyond me.
And by God, it sickened me when I thought back to it.
The neighborhoods I drifted in and out of were not what one would call "safe" or "comforting." I enjoyed the company of the misfits and darkness, after all. So when a scene caught my eye as I was taking a smoke outside of a trashed up bar downtown in some hick mountain town I couldn't help but be curious.
Mugging, as I said, was common, and I didn't really care one way or another when it happened. It was all about being in the wrong place at the wrong time… However, this case seemed to be unexpectedly fascinating.
At first what I thought was a girl – now, I obviously knew it was a boy, but at the time he looked dainty as shit – was carrying a small bag around their shoulder and looking nervously up from a piece of paper; directions, most likely. I wanted to laugh a little at how out of place he looked, so timid and kempt with his flowing blonde hair and proper, pressed attire. He stuck out like a sore thumb in a sea of ratty t-shirts and torn jeans. It was no wonder when he also caught the eye of a couple of burly looking guys drinking on the curb by a dank alleyway. The boy didn't look particularly wealthy, but apparently he had potential enough to be halted and forcefully coaxed into the obscuring darkness between the two buildings.
I flicked the ashen ball off the end of my cigarette blandly and blew an easy breath from my lips. Rape. Theft or rape, I surmised.
From where I had been standing there were only a few noises I could make out over the humming music from inside of the bar and the chatting and laughter outside of its door, like shoes scuffling and the gruff mumblings of drunken men defiling another innocent person that caught their eyes. I still stayed put, though, with my back against the brick wall and took another inhale from the tobacco stick between my fingers. I remembered getting about halfway done with it when I heard it. It still pissed me off when recalling it.
That strangled, helpless noise that made something slimy crawl up my spine, like a snake or slug or something.
"Stop…!" was all they said. Why the fuck did one stupid word make my insides twitch for a brief second? I'd heard that word many times, sometimes even directed at me. But as the sound carried in the cool night air, my cigarette left my lips. It wrapped around my ears and burrowed deep inside, the sound accompanied with a mental picture to match the voice. I knew the expressions people wore when in dangerous scenarios like that. The sound and the expression I assumed had exploded over his face made me take a long pause.
I had snubbed the cigarette out on my shoe, gently eased myself away from the icy wall, brushed my shirt off calmly, before casually making my way across the street.
I didn't remember details after entering the narrow space in the darkness. The sound of bone cracking, the shrill pitch of laughter from one man and brusque curses from another, and the smell of blood. Such a strong smell almost made me reel, but I kept my footing and placid façade.
It only took seven seconds before the two morons noticed I was standing behind them, watching with my hands in my pockets. Removing them was as easy as a flick of my wrist, their faces that once rested on their cueball heads now smeared onto the walls of the buildings. Snow crunched under my shoes as I quietly walked past the motionless bodies beside me, my eyes never leaving the stilled, twitching body resting in a crumpled pile by some garbage cans. I knelt down to look, only to look.
So pitiful.
His bag had been cast away, books toppled out of it and frozen in the snow meters away from his body, heavy breaths rising and dipping his chest. He didn't look at me and kept his large eyes down at the gravel as he gasped quietly to himself. It was such a shame. That hair that had been so lovely even reflected in the moonlight was now dyed with the crimson life that flowed out of scrapes on his face and body.
"What a waste," I remembered muttering, thinking nothing but of his hair.
Why I had decided to help him was still beyond me. Why I pulled him to his feet and took his semi-conscious body back to my hotel room still baffled me. Why his voice and face made a dull numbness tickle at the base of my stomach and clear my mind to blankness made me irritated.
But most of all, why the next morning I woke up with a razor blade to my throat, the boy standing over my bed watching me with a look of bitterness in his eyes so impossibly sour stilled me into silence.
I felt my lips peeling back in a small but amused grin as I peered up at him, the slightest whisper of teeth showing from my mouth.
Being a saint just wasn't for me.
