babylon, the one I'm wasted on

If Damien had been more reasonable, he would stop the blame game that he seemed to perpetually throw at Roxi. He had allowed her to distract his path. He had allowed feelings for her to expand themselves. Could he not have prevented or controlled them? It was just one girl, and one time, for Merlin's sake. The Common Room held conversations that carried the promiscuous lives of not very little people at Hogwarts. In fact, the actions may be repeatedly talked about, but the players in the game was always changing. Different names were lumped together with the same, and the same name was moving from one to another, to another, and the process just keeps going on. Why, then, was he so bothered by one, especially when he could have just pretended it never happened, and moved on? There was probably something missing in his veins, something that disabled him from being like most older Slytherin boys. Even Kane and Augustine, the only boys in his year who could be considered as Damien's friends, had stories to tell -- stories involving different mates, at different times, and different places.

Damien had always feigned indifference. He had allowed Pricilla to dominate his thoughts when he first discovered feelings for the opposite gender. And then it was Mira, for forever, he thought. His heart failed at multi-tasking, or moving on. It fixated itself on one, and could never seem to get out of its fixation. But perhaps it was this very quality that made him so mad at Roxi. Mira was supposed to take that fixated spot. Pricilla was reasonable, too. They were Slytherin girls, Pureblood girls, girls who stuck to the ideology that he subscribed to. Roxi was ... just not what he expected. And yet, he found his heart beginning to fix on her. During classes, the copper-coloured hair was always the thing he would look at. In between classes, he would sometimes catch her name mentioned in conversations. And then, during meal times in the Great Hall, he would almost always find his eyes searching for this particular Weasley. It was getting overtly annoying. Mira Anderson, he still stopped to stare. But now, even Roxi? It was even worse that he would lay in bed thinking of a girl with hair that was not blonde, but copper-red instead.

Damien, with his face not even an inch away from Roxi's, tried to maintain a stance of strength. He bore his eyes into hers with anger. Even his breath was not in motion. Everything was in tension mode. And then, he blinked. Shortly after, he moved his head slighty away, backing away. Damien began to breathe normally again while looking at Roxi. Her question had forced him to consider, and to retreat. He had slowly began to realise the reason to that question, the true one. There were many, many superficial ones, even ones meant to disguise the truth, swirling around in his head. Damien tried to relax, a little overwhelmed and a little tired from the energy it took to argue with Roxi, and to fight both himself and her because of the secret he was harbouring. He attempted a smirk, but he was going to throw his answers at her.

"Because you're a Weasley. Because you're a Gryffindor. Because you're a blood traitor. Because you're a mess. Because I don't respect you. Because you tempted me at the Shack. Because you dismantled me. Because I am a Pureblood. Because I am a Slytherin. Because I am Damien D'Eath. Because I-" love you Damien blinked hard. He bit his lower lip swiftly. He had almost, almost let his words betray him. Where was the control he believed he had in his own tongue? Why, though, at a time when he desperately wanted to let it go and hold himself against Roxi, that he could not just simply do it? Suddenly, he was more angry at the restrictions than anything else. He was so tired of them. Sure, he had placed them on himself; but where did they all come from? Why did they have to inflict him so? Damien looked at Roxi, his eyes without the earlier glare. He wished he could tell her. He wished he could let it all go. But there were consequences he would regret, and then there was pride. But Damien had softened his attitude. He looked at the girl and muttered her name, as if imploring her, suddenly.

That was what she had been really fearing. She had asked her question without really questioning herself to know if she wanted to hear an answer. The answer to that was of course not, of course she did not want actual, concrete reasons why someone, anyone, could and would hate her for. She knew all the reasons, she reminded herself daily. She did not need to hear them aloud.

But if Damien had proved anything that night, he had proved just how cruel he could be. And she did not understand it. She could not understand how. She could not understand why. She did not know where she had gone wrong. She had been nice to him. She had not told his secret, their secret. She had been good. Why was she being punished?

He began to list the reasons, the excessive unneccessary amount of reasons why he hated her, why her very existence was enough to send him into an irrational rage. She stared at him, harnessing all her strength and staring through the tirade of evil- for that was what fueled his hatred, evil. There was no other explanation.

She reached a handup and wiped the tears from her eyes. Before pushing a hand through her hair. "Right. Well, I will do us both a favor and stop this charade that maybe we can even look each other in the eye, okay? Kindly let me leave this time, since you refuse to leave. Okay?" She started to walk forward to push him out of her way but he suddenly said her name. She turned and faced him, saying in a strained voice, "What?!"

Like a beast without its teeth, like a snake without its venom. Damien was half-aware that he was exactly an example to join that league of truly threat-less creatures. He just could not come to terms to admitting it, like everything else that he was trying not to admit now. His words, thrown at Roxi, seemed to reap the results he wanted. Or rather, the results that he should want. Damien, however, had his body as the obstacle, to prevent Roxi from leaving. It was, indeed, the awkward moment when you should want a person to leave, but really will never let her go. And so Damien had allowed himself a soft implore for Roxi, only to meet with a response of annoyance from the girl. Of course, what did he expect? Her to continue facing his verbal abuse? The problem was that he was beginning to feel bad for it all. He began to feel like the lousy one in this equation.

"Don't," he began, and then bit his lower lip. The eyes that had averted away from Roxi's face returned themselves to her again. "Look, Weasley," he tried to come up with a threat to follow that, but he caved. "Don't go." Then he sighed, slightly defeated that he had let that one out. And then, it was as if once the tip of the iceberg revealed itself, soon the rest will show itself up in a collision. It was human nature, after all, that once you let a little out, almost always, one might just surrender all in a matter of time. Damien leaned towards Roxi, and kissed her cheek. The contact that his lips made with her right cheek was one filled with a lot of tension. After all, it was not something he was supposed to do. He just lost some resistance for now. He was getting tired with the fight, and he thought that he would just die to go back to his dormitory without even taking what this opportune meeting offered him. Already, he could imagine himself having a sleepless night, wasted on the memory of Roxi. What was that, compared to even getting a minute fulfilment from having her here physically with him?

Damien blinked a couple of times as he held his lips against the girl's cheek. And then, he withdrew and shut his eyes, and took a few steps back; not in aversion, but more like he needed to stop and think about that action. Of course, it meant that whatever resistance he had built up all this while have gone to waste. He had crumbled the fort, and already, he could hear the troops in his mind yelling at him, disgusted at their commander. He wished he could call for fire down on them. But of course, he opened his eyes and snapped back from the chaos in his head to the calm confusion that was ready to meet him in the world outside of himself.

Roxi knew that she was not the brightest bulb in the bunch, not the whippiest wand in Ollivanders, so there were plenty of time where something happened and she had no idea what was going on or what it even meant or how it applied to her. But even so, she knew that even someone a lot smarter her would be confused. Even if she asked for an analysis from a Ravenclaw, she was sure she would get confusion here too.

What... What did he want from her? He hated her, so much that he did not want to be near her, did not want to look or talk to her, but everytime she had tried to escape, he had held her grounded to her spot. She was sure he was a sadist, he wanted to torture her. She had always thought Damien was a little different from all of the other Slytherins. But he seemed more cruel if anything.

She sighed and looked down, trying to gather herself, her tears slipping onto her lashes, threatening to fall and make them, somehow, more real. And then. She looked up and Damien was moving. She flinched, exprecting, well, the usual. The usual being rough movements, treating her like a prop or an object rather than someone who actually wanted to be handled gently.

But... he placed his lips against her cheek. Her eyes widened before fluttering shut, her body shivering with cold and a relief from fear. No one... No one really treated her nicely, rather than pushing her around and placing her here and there. She swallowed a hiccup, still shaking, and he remained there. He began to move away, to take away the closeness, that real closeness, and Roxi panicked.

She stumbled forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, dropping her face against his shoulder and neck, holding him tight, holding him close. Wanting to feel something more than attraction. More than lust. Something that mattered and did not only hurt.

Perhaps if Damien knew the effect he was causing to Roxi, he would have felt a slight sense of pride. After all, did people not say that if you could not conquer your enemy, the next best alternative was to confuse them? Then again, that was for a true enemy. That was a sound strategy, for someone who was not Roxi. For a split second of having his eyes closed, Damien remembered what they saw just a moment before they decided to hide behind his lids. She had flinched. She had flinched away from his contact. But before he could feel any kind of upset from what he would have assumed to be her repulsion towards him, he felt arms around his neck. Quickly, the thought scooted out of his brain, and Damien opened his eyes.

On first instinct, his hands shot out, holding Roxi by the shoulders. It stopped short of pulling her away from him. Instead, it held her, against him. Damien blinked forcefully until he thought he could ascertain that this was really happening. They were sharing a moment. They. Roxi and Damien. Sharing a moment, of tenderness. Human tenderness. Even that, human tenderness, Damien was deprived of. Perhaps it was his own fault, for depriving himself of so. He had never hugged his father. He had never returned his mother's hugs genuinely. He had generally avoided anything that involved any of that sort of tenderness. He had dreamt it, but they had all not manifested in real life. He certainly had a problem with it.

Now, though, Roxi took it just like that, took his embrace just like that. Damien wondered at his supposed response, his mind working on overdrive as usual. If anyone saw them like that ... but he was a little tired now to worry about that sort of thing. He had fought too long against it. Could he not just grant himself one moment without those thoughts twisting their hold around his tension-filled body? Damien felt warmth at his collarbone, a sort of warmth that is not usually felt. He looked down at Roxi, who had buried her face there. All this while, his face was nothing less than that of a shocked expression. But he bit his tongue, as if to prevent it from soiling the moment with whatever hurtful words it wanted to hurl at the girl.

Damien lowered his hands, from the forceful hold of Roxi's shoulders to a more relaxed hold of her waist. And then, he hugged her back, firmly, allowing all the parts of himself that wanted her so badly to swarm around her. Sure, this mess had all started at the Shack, and it was a messy act indeed. It was supposed to be instantly gratifying and not anything meaningful, but Damien was not someone who could do it and chug it the next day. No, he clung onto it, and he tried to get rid of it, like one was willing a disease that left the body helplessly struggling against it. He needed to learn how to detach himself. It was the reason why he kept his distances from people. The moment he let his guard down, these things happen. Damien sighed into Roxi's hair, having had his face buried into it at the moment when he returned her embrace.

He did not open his mouth, though. Damien could not trust himself to. He merely stood there in his embrace of Roxi, and decided that he should cage his tongue in.

((wow I left this awhile. Want to end it here and start a new thread somewhere?))