Hey dudes! An update! For some reason, even with two SACs and a garble amount of homework I'm really happy and I wanted to thank you to because you guys make me so happy as well!
XWhiteRabbitX thank you so much, you do not know how much your review inspired me. I mean, not just motivated, but full on inspired me, so there are a few paragraphs that are dedicated to you in this chapter. You'll never find them but I'm just saying.
And OXRosinaOX, thanks for sharing your little story. I know how it hurts when you can't tell a really close person how you truly feel; only regretting it after it's too late.
And for all you other wonderful lovely, lovely, lovely reviewers, yes that you Raven Starhawk, Molala24, styleforever20, Your Fictional Affair, Rachel5M, Gleek1210, Atoxiclullaby1 and Little Wolf Vamp Hearts Yaoi, thank you so much! You guys are awesome, have I ever told you that?
Sorry for the long AN. If you even read ANs, he he.
Let's just get to the chapter shall we? Hope you enjoy~
Chapter Ten: I'm okay, I promise.
He rolls from my side onto my back uncomfortably, my eyes racing through the words of the book aimlessly, processing no meaning from them. He continues to stare at the book stubbornly, knowing that his brain won't process anything. That is one thing I learnt about the antichrist: he reads a lot. It must have been from being alone all the time in hell. I bet he has read most of the books ever written on earth, and maybe a few that has been written in the afterlife. He reads like a friggin' scanner, I sometimes doubt that he's even catching any of the words by the speed he reads. He already went through my whole bookshelf (which is not that much), and this is the third time he's going through this one (Catcher in the Rye, yuck). Finally, he gives up reading and drops the book to the ground, throwing my hands behind my head and sinking into the bed with a deep sigh.
"So- is that it?" I ask him dully.
"That is what?" He asks.
"So now you're just gonna lock me in here like a no-life pretending that you're so preoccupied by the books that you read over fifty-three times?"
For a second, he stays silent, and I think that he's going to ignore me and my offensive tone like the asshole that he is.
"I thought you were ignoring me?" He finally says, not ignoring me to my surprise. His voice is not as dull as mine, but is more, exhausted. I try to ignore the feeling of pity inside me so I scoff.
"Well, it's kinda ridiculous ignoring you forever. We are living in the same body." I feel like sighing. "Besides. Ignoring you won't take us anywhere."
To be honest it's becoming hard to ignore him, because deep inside, I'm screaming out desperate questions at him. What are you thinking? Why did you suddenly attack Kyle the other day? What was that weird dream I experienced? Why do you even want to be here, on earth, if all you do is mope in my room and avoid people all day? We are sharing the same body, yet there is so much I don't know about him. And frankly, I didn't even care, not until recently. It's not like I want to understand him, I'm still too pissed for that. It's just, I hate these conflicting feelings inside me that makes me confused how to feel about Damien. But I don't want him knowing that, so I shut my mind out, nice and tight, the way he always does to me.
My eyes are staring at the ceiling while we are both in deep thought, deep enough that we aren't sharing any of them. I've become an expert of my ceiling over the past few days. He has the habit to stare at things, and most of the time, there is my ceiling in my view, especially recently. Go on. Ask me anything. The number of cracks, the colours and sizes of the stains, the noises it makes when different people climb up and down the stares, I will answer them all. God. What a joke.
"You know you can't avoid them forever." I tell him. By 'they' there is one person that comes to mind, but I don't want him getting all irritated and ignore me again so I don't refer to him specifically. But I think he knows what's on my mind.
"I know." He quietly slides off my tongue, more to himself than me.
My vision shifts, aimlessly from my ceiling around and down onto my desk, and then he finds something. The sheets shift and the springs under me slightly creak as Damien gets up, my eyes still on that one thing. My insides gain warmth again as I look at it, but somehow my eyes narrow, ever so slightly. My footsteps seem to echo in this silent room as Damien approaches my desk and takes what my eyes were focusing on, in my hands. It is a photograph, magically protected in a frame, something very unusual for my doing. But the photograph deserves it.
In the photo there are two boys: one looking this way, smiling proudly with his thin arms hugging the head of a slightly bigger male laughing in his firm hold. The photo was taken after a football match, and the two boys are laughing ecstatically because the taller boy had won. The smaller one, who was only there for cheering his friend, seems even more proud and happy than the quarterback laughing in his arms. His joy for the taller boy gives life to the whole photo and makes anyone who looks at it unable to hold in a smile. That's why it's been in a frame ever since the day it was printed. Because over any other photo stuck to my wall, it shows how close the two boys are and reminds the person looking at it that there's no way to separate the two.
But even this photograph seems to have one person that it cannot cheer up. And that person stares at it firmly, eyes slightly narrowing, before putting it back faced down, sealing the laughing boys against the wood of my desk. My heart feels like it twitches throbbingly as Damien does that, and a new wave of confusion and anger towards the antichrist swells inside me. Maybe he didn't like the overwhelming joy beaming out of the picture, him being all emo and whatnot. But even as the frame faces down, he continues to stare at it, as if he can see right through to the beaming duo.
The air gets thicker as the time passes, but strangely, the time feels like it has come to a halt, like the tension in the air has frozen the world around us.
But then there is a knock. It echoes through us, breaking the dense silence and makes the world turn again. Damien finally lifts, or flings, my vision off the back of the frame and onto my bedroom door, wondering if that knock was just an imagination. But then it comes again: the soft and careful knock.
"Stan?" A muffled voice, quiet and even more careful than the knock, leaks through the wood of the door, making my body jolt in surprise. The unexpected voice freezes Damien and silence fills the room, until the muffled voice continues. "Stan, um- I'm coming in…"
Before there is even an answer, the door creaks open, just as slowly and gently as the knock and the voice. It sways open all the way, until it reveals the owner of the careful voice. A troubled smile tints his cat-like lips, wondering whether to be reassuring or to hide the nervousness that is flushing his milky cheeks pink. They break apart, and move to quietly say, "Hey".
My jaw is clenched as my eyes stare dumb-founded at the nervous emerald orbs of the boy standing at the doorway. Then my voice finally says as well, "Hey".
A small silence follows as the two stare at each other, praying for the other to look away first. But neither of them back down. Their gazes stay intertwined until Kyle's pupils begins to shake and he finally breaks the connection, chewing on his bottom lip as he drops his gaze to the ground.
I notice Damien releasing some of the tension in my body when their gazes break, but the second Damien notices his relaxed stance he tenses my body up again, standing firm and defensive. How ironic. I feel like twitching my nose bitterly. After what he did to Kyle he's the one feeling defensive now.
The second I get distracted by bitter thoughts, Kyle takes a step forward, still looking down and chewing on his lip. My heart jolts in surprise, and although Damien does a good job hiding his sense of panic, he can't hide it from me.
But to be honest, Kyle's action startles me too. With each step he takes, the jitter in his dropped eyes and the mowing of his lips become more rapid. I can practically feel his nervousness leaking into me, infecting me more than Damien's confusion.
And he takes another step towards me, and another, and another, until he comes to a halt. He releases his lips and his eyes stop jittering, staring at a spot on the floor for one last moment as he swallows hard. And then he looks up, his emerald orbs burn into my eyes, and I notice that he's only inches away from me. His breath brushes my neck, and I can imagine his racing heart from the speed of his breathing, heavy and fast.
Damien loses himself in Kyle's eyes staring up at him. So many emotions trapped in there, making his deep green glow overwhelmingly. And then I hear a slight thump against my chest. My eyes sway down and I find a small hand placed above my heart, slightly pushing deeper into my shirt, feeling my temperature. As Damien stares at the hand, I hear Kyle's breathing become more rapid. I can imagine the explosion of thoughts rushing through his head, but I can't seem to make out a single one of them. And I know that Damien can't either.
Then his breathing suddenly stops, as if he had just made up the decision of his life and began collecting the courage and determination to act through it. And after a long moment of complete silence, he does.
Kyle leans up, the fingers placed on my shirt entwining into the fabric as he moves up, until his lips reach mine. It is a light brush, as if just to make sure I was here, and the disconnection almost comes too soon. He drops back down onto the soles of his feet, but his hand is still on my chest. And slowly, I feel strength flowing into it.
His hand becomes heavier and heavier, and with my body like cooked spaghetti, Damien lets the hand push right through, making him sit back onto the bed that has been waiting patiently behind me. The springs underneath me squeak as another body leans onto the mattress, straddling my hips.
My body is frozen, Damien is frozen, his mind tangled up in furious knots as Kyle sinks his warmth into my thighs. His cheeks are burning a bright red, and his eyebrows are furrowing in what seems to be raging embarrassment. But he bites his pride down and wraps his fingers firmly around my hand, gently bringing my hand up to let his lips glaze across my skin.
I'm surprised my body hasn't moved automatically. If normally, I'm confident I would have jumped him ages ago, not being able to contain myself. But my body doesn't seem to want to move. And it's not only because I have no use of my body. Even with the full control I don't think I would be able to move. The determination and concentration practically flowing out of Kyle keeps Damien frozen under his soft touch, and keeps my mind frozen too. But as Kyle continues to stare into my eyes firmly, the strong desire to let him do whatever he's is planning to do himself bursts inside me, and I can't bring myself to care that my body belongs to someone else right now.
After kissing each of my fingers carefully, he brings my hand to his chest, the sound of his thumping heart echoing though my fingers directly inside me. And he leans in, pushing me back into the mattress as he presses his mouth against mine. As his tongue slides into my mouth he slips my hand underneath his shirt, letting my hand caress his vulnerable skin just above his heart.
The warmth sinks through my fingertips and flows through Damien, and somehow, in the abyss, it reaches me. And I can feel it, I actually feel it; and it's overwhelming. It's as though Damien and I are connected, and I'm not talking about this body. I'm talking about something much more deep down somewhere where no one can ever see. Everything he feels I feel, and everything I feel he feels. And right now, all I feel is Kyle and his gentle warmth.
But then just as the feeling of the human touch sinks into me as reality, Kyle's mouth leaves mine. He breathes out shaky breaths onto my lips as if dying to say something. And then he says it.
"I'm sorry about the other day…" His voice breathes against my neck nervously. Half of me is killing to just reach up that small inch to press my lips against his, but Damien stays put, listening carefully to Kyle's words. "-It's not like I didn't want to. It's just you kinda…" He lets out a sigh that tickles my hair as he rises up a little. But as he does, he entwines our fingers together under his shirt against his chest, making up for the small gap he has just created.
"…Scared me." He finishes. I hear my heart jump at that those two words and my eyes widen at him as he continues. "You just seemed like you lost yourself dude…" And then he leans back in, bringing our lips back together continuing our kiss. But my eyes stay widened and my body stays tensed, until Damien's energy finally begins to flow back into my hand against Kyle's chest.
"It's okay." My voice whispers, gently against Kyle's lips. It pauses our kiss, Kyle's eyes opening in confusion. The strength in my hand gently pushes Kyle as Damien sits up, letting the redhead sit up on my lap. Kyle's eyes stare up at me, round and blank, and looking at them, a smile tints across my lips. "You don't have to do this." Damien continues, the small smile still in place. He slides my hand out of Kyle's shirt and wraps my arms around his back, bringing him close in a firm hug. "I'm the one who has to apologise. You don't have to do anything."
With that, Damien lets go and Kyle slides off my lap and onto the bed back first, looking up at the ceiling in a daze. Damien follows suit, lying back beside him, staring at the ceiling. And then to my and Damien's surprise, Kyle suddenly chuckles, and that chuckle slowly turns into a laughter, breathless voice echoing through the silent room. But then, just as suddenly, his laughter dies down, and his eyes return into a blank daze. The silence that follows is heavy, yet calming, and it seems to suck all the air out of us.
"I sometimes feel so alone lately…" Kyle murmurs, eyes glued to a certain crack on the ceiling. "Like I'm missing something really important. It's like, when you sit beside me, what's taking your spot is not you at all."
I feel my heart begin to thump loudly, but the pace is still steady and comforting. And Damien asks, "…What is it then?"
"I don't know," His high voice rises defensively. "But it sometimes scares me. Yet sometimes, it becomes comforting and warm. I don't know. It's just the unknowingness that scares me, I guess." He tilts his head and meets eyes with Damien, staring into my eyes coyly, a troubled smile tinting his pink lips. "It's strange isn't it?" He asks doubtfully.
To this, Damien smirks, "Yeah. That is strange." He says and sits back up, leaning my weight into my arms behind me. And then he looks down into Kyle's puzzled face, the smirk on my face loosening into a warm smile. "You're strange."
"Shut up!" Kyle chuckles as he sits up beside me. He pushes Damien on the arm making my body rock to the side, bringing Damien to laugh with him. But my body doesn't spring back up. And when the antichrist notices, his chuckle dies down confusingly and he glances down onto my arm. Kyle's hand is still there, securing Damien in his spot. His thin fingers wraps around my sleeve, his nails digging in as his fist slightly shakes from the tension.
"…Are you okay?" Kyle finally breaks the heavy silence, his voice unsure. "Really?"
Damien tenses my lips into a frown, but relaxes them quickly before the redhead notices.
"I'm okay." Damien says firmly, leaning into Kyle so that our noses are barely apart. The emeralds glow, almost too brightly, but Damien doesn't squint my eyes at them. "I promise." He finishes with reassurance, and a small smile crosses my lips.
Kyle's eyes shine, then they quickly look down as his cheeks begin to turn a soft pink and his lips pout embarrassingly. "That's cool then." He matters as he jumps off the bed, not wanting to show his flushed cheeks to me any longer than necessary.
He crosses the room swiftly, staring at the small bookcase placed in the corner beside the door, pretending to be engaged with my books. He already read through my books about four times and I bet he has memorised every single one of them. But Damien doesn't say anything. Letting Kyle pretend to be distracted away from me, to let himself think, to clear his mind.
Again, his thoughts are completely cut off, not letting me look into his mind. But there is still something inside me that I feel. It is so deep; I can't really get a good hold of it. But as I concentrate on it, I get closer, and just as I think I have my hands on it, Kyle's voice breaks my thought and the feeling slips through my fingers and disappears.
"I'm going now Stan." He says, voice slightly jumpy. He rocks on the balls of his feet, arms tied behind him nervously. I look at him in confusion and notice the time. "I need to, ah… To say the truth, I haven't done any of my homework due tomorrow, so…" He nods towards the door, smiling in ask for my confirmation.
"Oh, yeah- um, sure!" Damien bursts in consciousness. "Sure, so I guess- I'll see you tomorrow, huh?"
Kyle's questionable smile widens into a pure bright one. "Yeah, dude. See you tomorrow!"
Without much of a pause, he rushes out the door and I practically hear his feet tumble down the stairs. God. He must have heaps of homework left over. The thought makes my stomach tinge in slight guilt. He must have been pretty stressed if he was unable to do his homework…
A deep sigh escapes my lips and Damien kicks the ground, rocking up onto my feet. He slides across to the window and leans out into the cold air, looking down to see Kyle jogging clumsily down the street. A small smile crosses my lips that instantly disappear into the coldness that attacks through the open window.
The window slams down shut before Damien turns around, sliding against the wall until I reach the floor. My forehead rests on my knees and Damien sigh into myself, deeply, in frustration. It suddenly makes me feel uncomfortable.
There are a million thoughts rushing through his head, I can tell. But not one of them does he share with me. They are locked up in him, deep where he doesn't share. But then the feeling, that feeling, it suddenly floods through me again. It is so overwhelming and this time, I begin to understand what it is. It is really deep, but it is there. It is that aching feeling that I can't really get a grip on.
It's somewhere deep in my chest, but it can't be, because it's not my chest now. It's Damien's. This stinging pain with gentle warmth digging through it, like grinding a scar wider, is Damien's. And there I feel it again, the sympathy, only this time it's not overcome by anger. It stays there, cold, and helpless.
"Damien…" I murmur to him, automatically. But he doesn't respond. He continues to sit their, arms wrapped around my knees, head locked inside the gap. And there is nothing to make me want to force him out of it, so I keep quiet.
Just as I prepare myself for hours of moping in heavy silence, Damien springs up onto my feet. The sudden movement nearly makes my head turn, but Damien stays firm, something keeping him straight, determination flowing through him.
"Damien?" Is all that I can say, and I sound confused and surprised. But again, Damien ignores me. He crosses the room to fish my leather jacket out of my closet and swings it on, followed by a scarf and my poof-ball hat.
"Whoa, wait. Were are you going?" This time, it's an actual question.
"Pip's" Damien answers finally, tugging on some black gloves.
"Pip's? Why?" I burst out of complete confusion. But Damien doesn't seem to notice my exploding tone and pauses halfway out the door, glancing at the bookshelf.
"Wasn't there another book there?" He asks lightly, nodding at the corner of the bottom shelf. But I'm pretty distracted by his sudden choice to go to Pip's.
"No" I answer with an irritating huff. "Just tell me why the fuck you suddenly chose to go to Pip's"
His trace of thought halts at my question, my body suddenly tensing, then relaxing just as quickly.
"For research." He finally answers, walking though the door.
"Research? What research?" I spit, annoyed. But my stinging attitude suddenly cools down when the front door swings open, stinging cool air attacking my skin. Something must have really screwed up. Although it is faint- and I mean, hardly noticeable- I can feel the bitter coldness. I can feel deep inside me, and I know that something, the connections between Damien and me maybe, have gone completely haywire.
Damien looks up, and I look up, watching the snow fall above us, swimming around us.
"Research on what is keeping my body from not being able to stay on earth. To find out what kind of seal or magic is cast on me so that I can be free, in my own body." He voice trails off as a snow falls on my cheek and trails off as it melts.
"Why?" I ask. And time stops for a brief moment as I wait for Damien to answer. Warm breath flows out my mouth and creates white smoke in the air, slowly disappearing into the snow.
"So that I can leave you." He says, watching the snow fall. "And so that you can be you, and I can be me again."
But that answer doesn't help my jumbled up puzzle. "No I mean, why have you suddenly decided to brake the curse, or whatever? I thought you were going to stay in me for a couple of years or something?"
"Why? Can't I change my mind?" He says with a cheeky smirk. "Or are you too comfortable in there?"
I scoff in disgust. "Are you fucking kidding me? I'm sick of it! People not knowing I'm a different person is-" My sentence dies off under the sound of crunching snow and the scene that begins to move around me. The snow hitting my isolated figure as Damien makes his way through the icy whiteness.
"Yes." The devil says quietly under my breath, more to himself than to me. "Me too."
And with that suddenly, I feel like a stake has been nailed to my chest, but I feel more shock than pain. A spark shoots through my mind and I feel like I would swing my eyes wide in instant realisation. I feel more conscious, awake, aware, than ever.
Normally, I'm as dense as fuck, just not dense enough to be oblivious of the fact. But now, being inside here with Damien, I feel like I have understood everything. Why I felt that bubbling disgust and not just anger towards him. Why I felt so sympathetic and sorry for him. And now that I've realised, that aching throbbing feeling in my chest is grinding inside me worse than ever.
While I have been experiencing small fragments of Damien's sensations, all this time, he has been coping with all my thoughts and emotions directly entering his mind. Knowing this, I feel empty, because I think I know what that has led to.
"Damien have you actually…" I ask him with painful sympathy flooding insensitively through my words. He doesn't answer, just continues to dig my way through the snow. But even without an answer, I think I know. And I can't help but feel helplessly sorry for him.
I wonder what it's like to hold the one you love and be called someone else. I wonder what it's like to gaze at the one you love and be gazed back by with just as much love, only knowing that that emotion isn't directed at you. I wonder what that's like.
Hey Damien? How does that feel?
A.N-Thanks for reading! My lovelies, please review! Every single one helps me write. Even a smiley face! But the more precious time you put in the more it contributes to my writing. But I understand if you don't want to…
Actual notes on the story- What Damien's experiencing, is what I call the Sada-Kaworu effect. (It's from the manga version of Evangelion when Rei's feelings for Shinji enter Kaworu.) I mean the term as being confused and developing feelings by directly experiencing someone else's feelings, thoughts or sensations.
Oh yeah, and if Kyle seems OOC and too angelised, it's because this is written in Stan's POV. And he's like, love sick so Kyle is naturally angelised to his eyes. That and mostly because I like it that way, but let's just say it's because of Stan.
I try to have a meaning and logical explanation behind everything I write, even the filler scenes. Just thought I'd put it out there.
Anyways! Thanks for reading my stupid author's note! Autumn holidays start next week! Yessssss…(Which means more writing! Yes I have a life…)
By the way, I love Catcher in the Rye.
