16 Days Before The Wedding

He'd been staring at it for hours, now. Awake, barely, staring at the ring on his finger as it glistened in the light of the night sky that seeped through his crowded window. It was hard to see the stars through the trees, but they shined so bright and the ring on his finger made reflections in the darkness of his guest room. Blue, deep as the night, clear as the sky, the miles above with or without the sun. Even as dusk met the dead of night, and dawn stood hours in the past and hours in time ahead, that ring was still with him. On his hand, reminding him of red and blue. He turned his jaw at it, tried to shut the association away in the furthest places of his mind, but he'd known even then why he'd been drawn to this diamond in particular. He knew it was counterproductive, unnecessary, he should turn it in for a more meaningless clear diamond, but he never could. He knew he couldn't. He'd never rid himself of the damned glistening stone, no matter the man it swore him to.

Because he could still see eyes of the same color through the glass of his Hamilton home, still see him smiling as he kissed her. It was burned like a seared tattoo into his heart, out on the stoop like a dog, watching the boy on the other side of the leash let it go. Jon's lips on her throat and his hand at her breast, kneading, her careening closer, bending her back as his hands went lower. He'd seen so much of it, too much of it, and the memory still left him just as despondent and numb as it did the first time. It still broke him in ways he couldn't articulate, made his chest squeeze and his stomach swallow nothing. He raised his hand and watched the sunlight glisten in his engagement ring, and for once he let the tears fall.

Thick, salty droplets, welling at his eyes as he recalled the way Jon used to kiss him, with his hands polite and gentle at his waist, with shy lips and smiles, the way the ends of Jon's hair felt when his fingers brushed the nape of his neck where he'd loved to hold him. I want you , he'd said, but that was a lie. It was all a lie. Every kiss, every smile, every time he reached for his hand, was he questioning how he felt? In the last few weeks, what was he thinking when he took him in his arms and held him? When he had his hands on his cheeks and their noses at the brush and their eyes locked, was he mulling over ways to cut the string they'd unraveled together? When he caught Jon staring at him from the side, when he'd met his startled eyes and shy smile and cocked an eyebrow because he'd thought Jon just liked him that much , was he wondering what would happen if he broke his heart?

Such a fool. He laughed and shut his eyes and grinded his teeth as he wiped uselessly at them. What a fool he was, to think Jon could ever love him, to think, even if just for a little while, that he could ever call him home. He'd thought he had been, he thought so. His chest heaved with his quiet sob, and he stubbornly dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and demanded that they stop. He'd loved him, loved him so, so damn much, and that had been his fault. His mother's sin and he hadn't learned from her. Stupid, stupid boy. How could he ever think what they'd had was real?

He felt like an intruder, creeping around the Barnett Estate, knew he was anything but. The manor felt different at night, menacing, left shivers down the grooves of his spine when he stepped foot out the door of his bedroom without company for the first time. It felt like eyes were on him, not daring him, not warning him, but waiting to see with judgemental, unreasonable whispers what he would do.

So he wandered, blindly, through the dining room and the piano room, through the ballroom and the lounge, never the garden. He just wanted to clear his mind, forget the blue ring on his finger and watch the hours of the night pass on the pastel painted walls of his new family home.

It was by his mistake that he wandered into a smaller lounge, not an office, for lack of desk and books, but decorated by a curving couch and littered with podiums on which the odd trophy stood. Animal heads, bears, cows, moose, and some were odder still- needles, knives, gloves covered in blood. He glanced around the room in the dark, switching on the light as he looked from trophy to trophy, scowling at the desecrated bodies on animals, contemplating the story behind the needle, until eventually he came to a stop.

One podium, at the center of them all. Damian prided himself on the fact that he did not scare easy, did not scare at all if anybody asked, but the head in the clear box set at the top of a roman pedestal shook him- that face was familiar. The bulbous head of a man with a goatee, eyes rolled to the back of his head where a jagged line severed it from his body. His tongue was blue with the age of his cold corpse, and it hung from his blue lips and stuck to his pale face as though it'd never been moved. It lost blood to seep through the glass a long time ago- 11 years ago, in fact, and he knew that because that was the head of his first assigned kill.

Six years old and his mother had gifted him a simple job, a task to prove his training had gone well and his mother had done right by him. An easy first- and he'd never forgotten his first. He didn't remember the name, but he remembered the dossier. Mid-40s neet with a porn addiction, spent his time scrambling around his small personally owned video rental shop, touching himself to whatever videos he could find. Had never stuck his nose in the sex trafficking business but he certainly didn't go out of his way to avoid it, and while the Al Ghuls were not ones to stick their nose up at immoral behavior, vulgar behavior was seldom tolerated. The hit came from his pissed scorned mother, who had all the money in the world and no son to scorn because he'd turned it all away. He'd been told to kill with no remorse for the man- nothing new, but the specification meant even less remorse than usual . So he'd slaughtered the man in cold blood, watched his blood pool at the foot of his x-rated cut-out and cut into the slit he'd carved in his throat. He still remembered the sensation of cut flesh, the smell of blood that burned his nose, his hair in his messy ponytail in his hand as he held the severed head like he would brandish a toy.

It was the first time he'd seen his mother relieved, and the last time she'd ever cooed over him.

So why was that man's head there, in the Barnett Estate, with blue cheeks and white eyes and veins that colored what little was left of his skin? And then he remembered.

Cain raised an eyebrow, mockingly, a corner of his lips raising to show off a thin trail of pearly white teeth, single fang that looked sharper than it probably was. "My sister was always so excited about marrying you. She'd seen your portraits, heard about your first trophy. I believe Talia even sent us the head. She keeps it in a jar, you know, says that your ruthless nature is what draws her to you."

Beside it was the very dagger he'd used to slice his miserable little throat open. His stomach churned at the memory.

"She sent it to us as a demonstration of your skill, and your growth."

He jumped, whipped around with his fists clenched, but it was only Abele. Small, restless Abele. She smiled at him with her hands folded in front of her, polite, pleasant, ringlets of hair loose in waves at her shoulders, hanging delicately at her small shoulders where the straps of her nightgown sat, easy to fall if she moved the wrong way, but he doubted she often did. Her parakeet eyes were heavy-lidded and thin. He gathered that she'd had a hard time falling asleep, too. (She might have felt the same way he did, a history only the walls would know had its eyes on her and the next move was a mystery.) She smiled at him with a nod of her head, an apology for startling him. He relaxed. She took a few steps forward, light taps of her slippers on the tile until she was by his side, staring down at the bloated face of his first kill. He watched her, muscles still pursed under his skin, ready to move at a moment's notice. She was a mystery he'd yet to solve, and even in his state of unfamiliarity and her state of undress, he felt compelled to keep his teachings close.

She raised one hand to the glass, fingers gracing the delicate edges, so thin- her and the glass- that one might forget on the other side of those walls was the face of a man whose life ended perhaps too soon, who'd had years stolen from him. "I was so happy, that day." Abele started, and her pink lips twisted into a small smile. "My hands were stained with his dried blood for days, until Mama made me wash them. I still have the dress I was wearing, though. I've never washed it. It's in the back of my closet, where nobody else will find it."

His eyes widened, he swallowed. "Abele, you must understand… I am not-" he paused, regathered himself. "I am not like that anymore." Not an assassin. Not a killer. He'd promised.

Her eyes fluttered to his in small surprise, lips curved into one small circle, like she'd forgotten he was there, like she'd had this conversation alone with herself a great many times before. Maybe she had. She exhaled a laugh and shook her head. "What concerns me is that you're not mine anymore, Damian." A younger him might have bit out that he never had been hers, but the boy he was now knew that, at a time, he might have been, and as far as she'd known, he'd been promised to her, she'd been promised to him. It was not a question of who owned who, it was a question of futures foretold that would never come to pass. He pitied her.

"My whole life, I was told I was going to marry you one day." She glanced at the ground, with her slippers pointed upwards at each other, toward him, but she kept her hands tied together in front of her, dainty, ladylike, and he couldn't imagine why. "I was schooled by the best tutors, to be a woman smart enough to stand at your side. I heard for a few years that you didn't grow an inch, so I stuck to wearing low-heeled shoes for you, because I was sure you'd like that in a girl, for her to be shorter than you."

She wouldn't have been wrong. The Damian of five years ago was sensitive about his height, mocked relentlessly by his brothers with hands ruffling hair and Jon- he winced- who lorded his height over him and had continued to do so all their lives. The Damian of five years ago would have silently appreciated the thought whilst admonishing her for thinking he needed a buffer for his ego. Perhaps in another time, in a world where he'd never left the throne to his mother, where he'd never become a burden to his father, where he'd never met Jon and got swept off his feet by big smiles and heat vision and red flashing behind the frames of his glasses- in another time, Abele might have been perfect or him. But not right then, not in this world, where he knew he couldn't want her even if he'd tried. "I never asked for any of that. I didn't even know you were supposed to be my-"

She smiled and shook her head, dismissing those words unspoken. "-your wife. I know. I understand." And he knew she did. He saw his own heartache reflected in those parakeet eyes, but she was better at displaying those emotions with little restraint. He hid, like a coward, behind malice and diversion. "But you see, Damian, I am… blessed." He raised an eyebrow, and she gave him a big, genuine smile, tired eyes lighting up with something so profound, fondness, and she was happy to let him see all of it.

"You have still chosen to marry into my family, and make an honest man of my brother. I am honored, even if I may never be your wife, to call myself your sister."

He nearly scoffed, not because what she'd said was stupid, or cheesey, or even presumptuous. No, he simply couldn't believe she could let him go so easily, so selflessly. She'd loved him all her life, hadn't she? How, how could she resign herself so simply, how could she be genuinely happy for her brother? For him? Didn't the thought of him with anyone else twist a knife in her gut? Didn't she lay awake imagining how things might have been if he'd wanted her, if he'd kept his promise? It wasn't easier, but he wondered if it was better, better to let go, better to be happy for him.

She was a better woman than he was man.

He sighed, then nodded to the head. "You should bury that. I'm sure he never received a proper burial."

She blinked in surprise, then giggled and shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't do that. Even if that is not the you that you are now, that is a memory of the Damian I fell in love with."

He winced. "But-"

"Damian."

He turned. At the door, Cain stood with one hand at the rims and edges. He looked a mess. Blonde hair unusually ruffled (he looked more like Jon) and curlier, strands sticking out like a cowlick, nightshirt strewn about over his shoulders, bare chest peeking out beyond the v of his collar and the slope over his arm. His eyes were narrowed, lip upturned in a scowl. Damian raised an eyebrow, and Abele's eyes lit up at the sight of her brother. "Cain-!" He could hear the heart in her voice. It appeared Cain did not.

He stamped forward, shoulders bent inwards, tense, every step a march toward confrontation. Damian flinched as he reached out and grabbed him by the forearm. "Wha-!" He blinked, and in the next moment, he was in Cain's chest, hands at either side of his head, tucked under his chin almost defensively. He might have squeaked, but nobody could prove anything. It'd been so long since someone had held him, and somehow, this embrace felt warm, safe, certain. Cain's arm wrapped around his higher back, while his hand rested against the back of his head, fingers so heated from time spent under covers, tossing and turning. He held him close, tight enough that he couldn't pull away even if he wanted to, and the beat of his heart that he could hear as his face pressed to his nightshirt seemed to say you are mine, you are mine . And he'd never heard those words before. Despite himself, he relaxed and melted into Cain's embrace.

(Abele blinked, fingers twitching as her best friend looked at her with those eyes, the dangerous ones, eyes he'd never, ever turned on her before. The menace of her protector, the threat he'd turned on every foe he sought who laid a hand on her or tried, it was turned on her now, the way he looked at their father's enemies. Was she his enemy? He looked all the world like he could kill her, with his hands around Damian, with no playful glint in his eyes, only death, only admonishment. The warning was clear, and she tried to speak, but there were no words. She was scared, scared of him.)

"Come, Damian, we're going to bed." Damian (did not squeak ) inhaled as Cain whipped around, took not his wrist, but his hand, and dragged him forward to the hall.

(She watched as they went, and she smiled. Because that made sense. She was his enemy now, she should have known. Well, if she was his enemy, she had no plans on fighting back. "Oh… I see." Tears pricked at her eyes, blurred her vision, and they burned. It hurt. It hurt so bad. Her lips wobbled, and she'd tried so hard to smile for him, but she couldn't anymore. Was this what they were now? For as long as she stood at their side, would he see her as a threat? Not his burden, not his duty, not his friend, not his cute little sister. That. That hurt so much worse than losing her future. She hung her head and let out a sob. "If you are happy, my dear brother, then I shall be, as well!")

He wasn't sure why he was letting Cain do this, wheel him around by the hand like a ragdoll. He had no leash, and yet he followed, dutifully. The halls felt warmer when he wasn't alone. The eyes he'd felt in the walls faded into the pastel wallpaper, and there no longer seemed to be a question about what he would do under this roof. Cain wasn't looking at him, he nigh felt he refused to. "Cain-!" He stumbled over the break-neck pace. "What was all that about? Why are you-?"

"Forgive me, My Love," he mumbled, maybe for himself. "Even a man like I can feel envious of those who want you."

Just like that, his heart skipped a beat. His cheeks grew flush as he watched the muscles on Cain's back strain under his shirt at the angle from which he pulled him along. He really… wanted him. Cain wanted him, wanted him enough that he was jealous, that he would stake a claim with no shame, no embarrassment, make it clear even to his own sister that he was his . There was no question about how he felt, there was no hesitance in the way he reached for him, only certainty and lien. Even he believed it, in that moment, that he belonged to Cain. And for just a moment, he wondered if he was starting to like it.

He sighed and fell backwards into his bed with a thump, sheets billowing under his sudden weight. The weight of one. Alone. Because Iris had just left and he hadn't had it in him to invite her upstairs. He scowled at himself. Iris was his girlfriend, it should have been easy to say "Hey, you wanna come up to my room?" or "I've missed you so much, let me show you". But no, she'd stopped by because he hadn't been answering her calls, and he'd told her that he hadn't been sleeping, and they'd laid on the couch with her arms crossed at his stomach and his eyes shut, tv shifting in color as the news Iris had turned on switched from one story to the next. She'd turned it on low, stared up at him, and he'd set a hand at the back of her head and smiled down at her and apologized for being such a jerk. She'd smiled back and nuzzled into his palm, then told him "Don't do that to me again" with a gleam in her eye.

It all felt so very platonic.

She'd been eyeing him the whole time they'd been laying there together, and her nails had tipped and tapped at the small strip of his skin that laid bare between his ruffled t-shirt and his jeans. The way she pressed her lips to the skin above the button and zipper, it said "There's a sleeping aid I know," and "Tell me you've thought about it, too". He'd have been lying if he'd said he hadn't, so he said nothing, because he just… didn't have the energy. Not right then. It was so funny, he spent all that time wishing he could go back to their first time, the only time, and feel her hands on him, kiss her, touch her again with desperate hands. He wanted to hook her underwear on his thumbs and pull it down while he practiced tongue twisters on skin he hadn't tasted yet with his lips, thought about it a lot, used the thought to ground himself when he found his mind wandering to a Gotham skyscraper and a ring the color of his eyes. But right then, he just wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her up to his chest and laid there with her talking about nothing in particular. Her hair felt so nice between his fingers, but he didn't feel like digging his fingers anywhere else, not right then.

So after an hour or two, she left, because she'd already been running late to meet up with her dad, and she was satisfied with the attention, and he'd waved her goodbye then retired to his room at 2 in the afternoon. And he was mad about it. He'd had her- right there. He could have been a better boyfriend, could have had her hands pulling at his hair with her legs up in the sky, but he didn't. Why hadn't he? He was tired, he was sad, he was feeling a little lost, but none of that mattered. No, he thought as he clenched his fist in the sheets of his bed. It was because of Damian. Because of their fight, because Damian told him that the thought of his hands on Iris kept him up at night, because even though he'd done everything right and broke up with Damian, never laid a hand on Iris before they were over, he still felt so guilty. And he knew that it was stupid at this point, knew that he couldn't help it if Damian was hurt, knew that letting that get in the way of his relationship with Iris was potentially dooming, but that's how it was. He could think about making love to Iris all day long, could devise a plan of where he'd touch her and when and how, imagine her writhing under him from start to finish, but actually touching her, now? He couldn't. Didn't want to for some reason.

And it was ridiculous, because Damian was engaged, was probably messing around with his fiance as he laid there all by his lonesome.

His eye twitched.

Jon turned, grabbed his pillow, and screamed into it.

He gasped, a small, sharp intake of breath that welled in his throat and coated his chest in heat. Damian's eyes sparkled in the light of the moon, alight with mischief and tied with a coy smile. His face was a leading question when they were saddled on his bed like this, with Damian laying over his chest, chin between his heart and the ribs. "You missed me, Superboy?"

He laughed. "You know I did." He reached up, rested his palm against Damian's face, watched the way he leaned into the touch, how his eyes fluttered closed, light and content as he graced the apple of his cheek with his thumb. He was so pretty, when he was like this- happy. "Dami, I missed you so much."

"Show me, Beloved."

He wanted to, felt lost as Damian pressed his hands against his chest, ran them up and down in languid strokes, fingers brushing the most sensitive spots, making him grunt. He responded in kind, ran one hand down his back, imagined it curving under him, for him. He imagined the mischief in those green eyes fluttering shut in pleasure, imagined Damian's lips parting with small gasps as he pleaded for mercy. He pressed his forehead to Damian's and let the tips of his fingers trail down, down, down until he was grazing his tailbone, until Damian gasped. He brushed his nose against Damian's, leaned forward to kiss him then moved back with a teasing smile as Damian tried to meet him. He lowered his fingers until they brushed the curve of the crease between his end and his thighs, then set his palm against the cheek and squeezed. The reaction was instantaneous. Damian gasped and his body responded naturally, he knew without Damian's consent, inching back to press against that hand, giving him more. "You like that?"

He didn't wait for an answer, just squeezed again, dug his fingers into the skin, teased the edge that led to another more intimate place, one Damian seemed increasingly keen on letting him explore. " Jon… " Oh, he shouldn't have said his name like that. Damian leaned up to kiss him, but he pulled back, teasing him, smiling as Damian whined and rutted against him. The image of his bed rocking, of the sound of wood hitting the carpet of his room, melding with Damian's breathless whimpers, the sound of his name in a million different ways, the thought of Damian begging ...

"Dami, tell me what you want." He whispered it against Damian's parted lips, felt him gasp and felt the heat of his exhale as he realized Jon wasn't kissing him- not yet. "Tell me, baby, what do you want?"

"You," Damian gasped, hands clutching at his shoulders. "I love you, I want you."

Damian should have been upset by that petname, should have thought it beneath him, should have glared at him when he wouldn't kiss him, should have been all embarrassed about the way Jon was touching him- but none of that mattered right then. Right then, all that mattered was that Damian's hands were snaking under his shirt, skin on skin, and his nails were raking over him in a way that screamed you're mine , in a way that Damian was marking his property, and all he wanted to do was return the favor. He reached down and took Damian's rear in both hands, palmed them and squeezed until he was forcing them apart. Damian moaned against his throat, took to kissing him there as his hands explored his body. "Oh, Dami…" He slid his palm around Damian's waist, came to the front where the button of his pants came undone. Damian bit at his adam's apple, and he smoothed his hand down his pants, beyond that button and beyond the Calvin Klein waistband, eager to feel him there, see what new faces Damian would make. " Oh, Dami… Dami, I-!"

And in the next moment, he was awake.

Tangled in his sheets, alone, with the evening sunset of Hamilton easing through his window where Damian used to creep in. His limbs were wrapped tight and tugged at his sleeves and pant legs, but the heat of another body rising and begging against his own was… absent, replaced only by the tightness of his jeans and the mess he'd found himself knotted in with his sheets. He was alone, and in that moment he wanted, so desperately, not to be.

He spared a glance at his phone, thought about calling Iris, but he found he was still too tired, and he relented to the quiet of his room at dusk.

(He could still feel Damian's body under his like a memory on his skin, and he was craving the heat of his palm with their fingers laced and their sweat on his tongue. He could make himself promises but the heart wasn't yearning for lies.)