The bottle scraped to a stop in front of Anya, and she glanced up into the eyes of Grace Fein.

"Truth or dare?" said Grace, and Anya tried to ignore the sense of mischief emanating from her.

Anya took only a few seconds to think before announcing: "Dare".

A nervous shuffle rippled through the room. Anya's antics were infamous, and for some reason that Anya could not fathom, her classmates seemed to be wary of her when there was anything scandalous afoot.

"I dare you to tell someone one of your secrets."

The other students groaned ("How boring!"), but Anya's heart plummeted. She could have been asked to do so many daring things and she would have done it without question. Knock on the teacher's door and run away? Climb out of the window? Do a handstand? Sneak past the headmaster's lounge without getting caught? Piece of cake.

She had managed to disclose one thing to Damian, to get one secret off her chest, to release her own burden by a miniscule amount.

But telling another secret?

It was too dangerous. Her instinct had already been screaming at her for telling Damian she was adopted, even if he did promise not to tell anyone.

And besides - how was she going to choose?

And she had so many secrets, it wasn't like these were things she could share so easily. It had already taken a significant amount of courage for her to share a piece with Damian. But if she passed on the dare, then she would lose the respect of her whole class.

Anya's eyes roamed the faces of all who sat in the circle, all wide-eyed and half-expecting Anya to make some sort of a scene or silly declaration. She nearly hmphed in frustration - did her classmates really think so little of her?

Beside her, Becky preened expectantly, and Anya's heart sank. Of course Becky would expect Anya to divulge one of her secrets to her. They were best friends, and that was what best friends did, but privately Anya knew that all of her secrets would be a bit much for Becky.

Logically, and from experience, Anya knew that there was only one person who cared enough about her to keep any of her secrets safe, but didn't care enough to make a big deal out of things and make her regret it.

Anya settled her gaze on a nervous figure across the circle from her. "I choose Damian."

"Ooooh!" the group gasped as one, while Becky made a small indignant sound.

"I guess it can't be helped," Damian sighed dramatically, and while he desperately tried to appear cool and unruffled, his ears had turned bright pink.

Together they stepped out of the circle and around the corner of the common room. Anya ignored a couple of wolf whistles from the circle, although she spotted Damian's face reddening. "We'd better go to my room," Damian murmured out of earshot of everyone else, and his blush deepened. "I just know those idiots would be listening out to hear what you have to say." And if her secret is anything like what she has already told me, I better find her some privacy.

Anya hadn't even thought about her peers eavesdropping on them, and she quickly agreed. Once in his room, Anya suppressed a laugh as she caught the sounds of hurried shuffling on the other side of his door. It seemed that Damian did know his classmates after all.

I can't believe I'm in my room alone with Anya Forger! Be cool Desmond, be cool!

Anya blinked. Damian had been alone with her loads of times. Why would it be any different in his room?

Damian glanced between her and the door and rubbed the back of his reddening neck. "You don't have to do this y'know. We can just pretend."

I don't want to force her to tell me something else if she doesn't want to.

"No you're not - you're not forcing me!" Anya said a bit too loudly, and too late, realised the double-meaning of her words. She took a step back while Damian avoided eye contact with her. "I'll do it."

Anya wiped her palms on her skirt, wondering why she was so sweaty all of a sudden. She empathised with Damian trying to look like he was cool with being alone with her, even though he was clearly nervous. Her own mouth felt as dry as Mama's egg rice. She took a deep breath and leaned towards Damian, with her hand cupped around her mouth -

- and Damian recoiled.

"S-sorry," Damian breathed. "I just, I didn't expect-" She's so close! Too close!

He visibly straightened himself, while Anya waited, and he closed his eyes. "Okay. Okay. I'm ready."

Anya licked her lips as her heart thudded in her chest. Once again, she leaned in towards Damian, careful not to startle him, and beneath her breath she whispered:

"I'm really bad at maths."

Damian couldn't help it - he laughed. So loudly that Anya took a step back in surprise as she watched her Sy-on boy clutch his stomach and double over in front of her.

After a while, Damian stood and wiped an invisible tear from his eye. "I know that one already, dummy! It's not a secret at all!"

("What is it? What did she say?"
"I didn't hear anything!"
"Shh, be quiet! I'm trying to listen!")

Rolling her eyes at the chaotic whispers on the other side of the door, Anya leaned in again and whispered: "I stopped a robbery on the weekend."

Damian scoffed, and waved her cupped hand away. "You have to say something true!"

"But it is true!"

"Try again!" Damian huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. Is she for real?

("What are they saying?"

"Are they fighting?")

"Ugh, fine!" She stuck out her tongue at him, and then rested her chin on her hand in a pensive stance. What could she tell him? What secret could she say that would be 'reasonable' and not give too much away?

And, actually, she did stop a robbery on the weekend. It was just a run-of-the-mill operation, since the perpetrators were so obviously amateur, but she managed to thwart it like she usually did. Suddenly, Anya was reminded of how none of her classmates ever believed any of her stories, because they just felt too outlandish and out of reach for them.

She needed a secret that Damian would actually believe. Like the adoption one.

That meant that she needed something real.

The thought of saying another one of her secrets out loud made her feel sick. It was against everything she was taught, everything that she believed in and yet… Hadn't she often dreamed of a life with no secrets, where she could be who she truly was, and didn't have to hide behind the pain and the lies anymore?

What if..

… one more little secret wouldn't hurt, right?

This time, when Anya leaned forward, she felt her heart speed up. She had never told anyone this before in her life.

Not even her own family.

Sensing her solemnity, Damian leaned in more towards her.

She whispered: "I'm actually not seventeen. I pretended I was two years older so that Papa would adopt me."

It appeared that whatever Damian thought she was going to tell him, this was nowhere near his list of expected secrets. For a moment, it looked like his brain had completely stopped working. Anya watched him freeze, watched him puzzle it through his own head.

"What?" He exclaimed, visibly confused, trying to work out what she had just said. "Wait…"

("What's with that reaction! What the hell did she say to him?"
"Sssh!"

"Shut up, I'm trying to listen!")

Damian's eyes widened, and he stumbled back onto his bed. "Th-this is a joke, right?"

Anya shook her head and bit her lip anxiously, hoping that she hadn't just made a huge mistake. After a moment's hesitation, she joined him on his bed, tucking her legs beneath her and making sure not to sit a reasonable distance. She had a sense that she might startle him if she moved too suddenly or sat too close. On her other side, Damian sat with his mouth agape, staring at her.

She's only fifteen? There's no way! That means that - that I can't…

Still aware of the eavesdroppers outside, Anya kept her voice to a low whisper. "It's true."

She didn't know the rest of what Damian was going to assume, but she needed him to know that she was being serious.

"How did…?" Damian gulped. His mind exploded with what felt like a million questions, and Anya couldn't tell any of them apart, nevermind see which ones to start answering.

Before he could say any of them out loud, she held her hand up to him. "Before I say anything else, you have to promise."

"What are you talking -" Damian started, but then his eyes widened with realisation and he nodded in understanding. "Right. I promise." And even though he knew it was silly, he extended his pinky finger out to her.

Anya snorted, looking him up and down. "Are you serious? We aren't ten years old anymore."

A tinge of pink flitted across Damian's cheeks, and he looked everywhere but her. "Just do it, dummy."

Anya rolled her eyes with a smile, but she took his pinky in hers and squeezed it. A strange, pleasant feeling glittered in her chest. His pinky finger was unreasonably warm, and with their hands so close, she could feel the heat coming off of him.

"Thanks, Sy-on. I knew I could count on you."

Damian had already been staring at the floor, but from where she was sitting, she got a pretty good look at his ears, which were so red they might have been sizzling.

"Sh-shut up," he mumbled, staring resolutely at the floor.

A numbing feeling tingled through Anya's legs and she realised that they had started to go numb from sitting on them for too long. She rolled her hips to lift the pressure off her feet, and let go of Damian's pinky finger in the process as she moved to adjust herself.

Anya gasped.

Out of nowhere, her chest really hurt. Anya tried to grab at where her heart was, but instead she clung on to the fabric of her uniform. An explosion burst in her chest and filled her bones with pain.

She heard Damian's voice call out to her: "Forger? Hey, hey, look at me, look-"

Anya choked on her breath and started hyperventilating.

A terrible certainty gripped her: I shouldn't have said that.

I shouldn't have told him.

I shouldn't have said anything.

This was a mistake.

This was a huge mistake.

She couldn't take it back. She couldn't pretend that she hadn't said anything. Damian knew two of her secrets - what was she thinking? How did she ever think it would be okay? Her Papa would be so disappointed in her. She told Damian that she was adopted. Her orders were to never tell anyone, and she didn't. She never told anyone. She locked it inside her and threw away the key so that noone would ever know, but Damian knew because she fucking told him-

And this secret, she had never told anyone, not a single soul in the entire world.

Not even her Papa.

I'm such a bad daughter.

Her vision blurred, sharpened, blurred again, as her palpitations worsened.

She thought she would feel free. Feel the weight of her chains start to fall away. Feel lighter. Feel something different.

Not.

This.

Tears streamed down her face as her stomach twisted. Every breath scratched her throat. Something cold pressed against Anya's hands and she gripped it instinctively.

"Here," said a gentle voice in her ear. "You can feel that, right? It's cold, right?"

Anya focused on the new sensation, the feel of the cold in her hands, and let it wash over her, let it take over her body. They guided her hands so that she brought the cold thing to her lips. She reflexively sipped when the glass touched her lips, and the cold water sliced down her throat, soothing the dryness.

Slowly, her senses started to come back to her. Her breathing hitched and hiccuped, but she could see straight again, could see that Damian was on his knees in front of her.

Her heart skipped a beat, but she was pretty sure it was nothing to do with her panic attack.

His hand covered hers, making sure that she kept hold of the glass of water. Gently, he prompted her to drink from it again.

Another wave of tears fell down her cheeks and Anya hastily wiped them away. "I'm okay," she rasped. "I think - I think it's over."

Damian nodded, his eyes creased with concern, and released his hand from hers. "Do they… Does that happen a lot?"

Anya carefully turned away from Damian so that he wouldn't see her face, and she set the glass down on the nightstand near her. "Wow, is that the time!" she tried to inject her voice with a sense of urgency. "I'd better go. Thanks for the party Sy-on. And uh, the water."

"Wait," Damian grabbed her wrist before she could get up. "Forger I - I swear it wasn't a mistake to tell me your secret. I won't tell anyone, so please don't worry."

"I wasn't… I'm not…" Anya started to protest his worries, but the back of her neck prickled, forcing her to turn back to him. "Did I… Did I say anything?"

Anya knew that she was right the instant that Damian tried to avoid eye contact. "What did I say? What did you hear?"

"N-nothing!" Damian stammered, and he jumped away from Anya, letting her wrist drop. "You just, uh, seemed really distressed, so, uh-"

Anya strode across the room before he could say anything else, before she could embarrass herself any further. She chewed on her lip as her hand hovered above the doorknob.

"Damian," she ventured cautiously, as she realised something else. "The people outside… did they hear anything?"

"Uh…" Shit! Shit, shit, shit! I totally forgot about the guys outside the door!

Out loud he added: "I'll deal with them if they did, but first we'd better check -" and he crossed over to her in a few short strides, and pressed his eye against the peephole.

Anya held her breath as she watched him, waiting for the verdict on her outburst. She must have said something while she was panicking, something had to have slipped out if he was this flustered, but Anya didn't know if she had the strength to know for sure at that moment in time. She was already exhausted just from the panic of realising that she had made a stupid mistake that had put her entire world in danger.

No, Anya shook her head. She couldn't let that happen again. She had lowered her guard and put her life, her home, her family, all at risk. If anything went wrong, it would have been all her fault. She couldn't let her guard down again.

The chains went back on.

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I've had this chapter written for AGES so I've been really excited to get to this point. I feel so bad for Anya. I can imagine that she's the type to not think much of something while it's happening but have a huge shock right afterwards.

Also, I originally didn't plan on leaving the chapter here but I already reached 2500 words and I still had a long ways to go, so unfortunately this was the best stopping point! I just love 1:1 Damianya interactions