Pip loved Damien, he really did. He didn't think that he was in love with him, no, but that didn't mean that he didn't love his friend, that he didn't care for him. Damien took care of him, after all.

Pip's parents had died when he was just a boy, and his sister didn't care much for him, though he couldn't understand why; he had tried to be a good boy, a good ward, picking up around the house and doing whatever she would say. It hadn't been enough though, and she didn't love him.

Perhaps that was why Pip cared for Damien as much as he did; he didn't have any other source of affection. That didn't seem right though—Pip cared for Damien because it was Damien. Because it was the boy who would tear kids apart—even though Pip really didn't condone such actions—for hurting him. Because it was the boy who had demon blood running through his veins, yet he had enough compassion inside of him to protect Pip from bullies or other sources of harm; an example of said sources of harm would be the time that Damien had pulled him out of the way of a falling sign, and even if Pip ever found out that Damien had made the sign fall on purpose to land on Eric Cartman (Damien couldn't understand how it had missed his fat ass), well, Pip wouldn't be any less grateful. Because it was the boy who had been his very first friend in South Park, and all firsts should be special.

Which was why Pip wouldn't let Damien take his first kiss.

Despite how intimate they were at times, they weren't actually lovers, and Pip was a firm believer that only lovers kissed on the mouth—which was something that Damien had tried to do to him repeatedly. Granted, he hadn't tried it in public yet, so Pip really shouldn't complain about it too much, but the prince tried it almost every time he was at Pip's house—which was almost every day.

Which didn't make much sense to Pip when he thought about it; Damien was only touching him in public to keep bullies away, after all, right?

When he had brought the thought up to Damien, the raven haired boy hadn't hesitated to answer his question—"For practice. They might adjust to me just touching you one day, and a kiss might shock them enough to make them leave us alone. You want to look prepared, don't you? To make it look like it's something that we actually do? They won't buy it unless it looks like it's something we've actually done before."—so Pip didn't think to question whether or not his friend was lying about his reasons for being so close to him.

Lately, though...

Damien was getting bolder, was touching him when they weren't being harassed. It made Pip wonder at times. What if his friend wanted something more? How would he handle that? It could ruin the only friendship he had, but at the same time...

At the same time it could be so brilliant.

Pip had to really stop and think about it. Did he want—but oh, he was being distracted from his thoughts by Christophe.

Christophe.

Damien had left them alone so they could get back to work. It had taken quite a bit of convincing—Pip didn't want to admit that he had to beg quite a bit; it brought a flush to his cheeks, embarrassing him to be brought so low, and his face had just gone back to its normal color—but it had been Pip to be the only one to do it, not their teacher who had finally come out of her shock from seeing Damien molesting the blond boy in front of the whole class; "O-oh, Damien, please, please go back to your seat. We'll never get finished with you over here, and besides, she looks one acorn toss away from giving you detention."

Damien wouldn't actually go to detention, of course, but Pip would lecture him on it later; he was a proper student, after all, and though he never got detentions, he would go to them if he did. Besides, neither Pip or Damien wanted Pip to work with Christophe, and the faster that they finished what they were doing, the faster the blond would be away from the French boy.

The French boy with lovely eyes, Pip noticed.

Eyes were really one of the first things that Pip noticed about people when he met them for the first time. Damien's eye color he noticed right away, of course—who wouldn't notice when someone had blood-red eyes?

Christophe's eyes though...

He didn't like the boy, which may have been why he had never noticed them before. They were an interesting shade of brown though—dark, almost dark enough to be black; Pip briefly wondered if Christophe was part demon like Damien, but the thought was ridiculous, so he dismissed it until later. They were eyes Pip wouldn't mind gazing into, eyes that had depth.

They were also eyes that were narrowing at him—he had been caught staring. Oh dear.

"If you are quite finished staring at me like zat,we have work to do, enfant terrible."

Pip felt his face heat up once again that day. He looked away, breaking eye contact and swearing to himself that he wasn't going to so much as look at Christophe again, but it he was curious—what had the boy said to him in French? It didn't sound very friendly... Pip had heard something that sounded like the English word for "terrible", and he knew that wasn't good. He wasn't going to ask Christophe about it though; that would involve speaking to the boy, which wasn't that something he planned on doing unless he absolutely had to.

The word Christophe had spoken to him—French didn't sound as bad as he thought it would coming from the other boy, though he would rather die than ever admit that out loud—wasn't the only thing Pip was curious about though; it was his eyes again.

Those eyes, eyes that seemed like they could stare into someone's very soul, those eyes he could fall into? They were something Pip was curious about.

He broke the promise that he had made to himself only moments earlier—if a promise was broken, it was a horrible thing, but it wasn't as bad if you broke it to yourself and not to another person, so Pip didn't feel too guilty—and glanced another look at Christophe.

Only to be caught staring again.