If Damien didn’t spend the time before dinner with Koko, he’d spend it with the twins, having energy enough to meet theirs. Damien was constantly in stitches when playing with Dee, especially the memorable day she had proudly repeated a phrase she had heard when she was taken to the park that morning, belting out at the top of her lungs, “Titty-sucker motherfucker!” Damien had almost coughed up a lung laughing, until Mia had stormed into the room, red-faced, and demanded to know what was going on.
That had shut Damien right up, flinching away from her. “I didn’t teach it to her, I swear!”
Mia had looked at him, her matter of fact, “I know that, honey,” making him dizzy.
After dinner, however, Damien always went to Hakan’s room. They sat beside each other at dinner, and one time they had gotten to talking about Portal, which Hakan owned. To Damien’s surprise, Hakan invited him to his room after they had all washed up to play the game. From then on, it had become routine, Hakan looking at Damien expectantly after the meal. Damien had no idea why Hakan, seeming much older at fifteen years of age compared to Damien’s thirteen, would even give him the time of day, but he did.
There was something about Hakan that made Damien feel settled. Despite all the rooms being soundproofed, Hakan’s room seemed the quietest in the house. It was the only type of silence Damien had ever found truly soothing. Damien wouldn’t have described Hakan as shy, but he was definitely introverted. Reserved, although he opened up and relaxed around Damien as time went on.
Despite all this, there was also something discomfiting about Hakan. A look in his eyes that reminded Damien of Mia. A way he had when he listened, like he was looking right through you, right into you.
That wasn’t to say that Hakan was particularly intense with Damien most of the time. Mainly, they played video games, and this served as a good conduit for casual conversation.
Damien learnt how sore of a loser Hakan was, to the point of half-moon shifting once. Damien had stared in fascination as hair had grown on his face, his orbital and jaw bones shifting so that the former sunk whilst the latter elongated. His nostrils shrunk slightly as his teeth elongated into fangs. Hakan’s eyes, normally so dark, took on a strange quality. They became a little more translucent, reflecting light like the eyes of an animal of the night.
“Dude…” Damien said before he started laughing at the fact that he’d gotten Hakan angry enough to make him shift.
“Only you would laugh at that,” Hakan had muttered as he shifted back, although he was also smiling.
Damien learnt that Hakan liked running and that his favourite lessons were English and Spanish. He learnt that his favourite sweets were Red Vines, which Damien teased him about for having the blandest taste in candy ever.
Unlike Koko, Hakan tried to ask Damien about his past a few times, though Damien’s reaction taught him quickly to stop. Damien spent so much energy trying not to think about certain things that even someone mentioning them filled him with a sudden fear, as if everything he pushed down was about to leap up from the shadows and swallow him whole.
After Damien’s outburst during that one dinner, however, Hakan brought it up again when they were alone in his room.
“You were lying when you said they were fine. The McKenzies,” Hakan said almost as soon as the door to his room closed. Damien turned to him, surprised with the uncharacteristic bluntness, although the stubborn clench of Hakan’s jaw was familiar.
“Isn’t it, like, rude or something to point out other people’s physiological responses? I’m pretty sure that has to be frowned upon,” Damien bit back, but Hakan only frowned at him, steadfast. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Hakan, okay?” Damien said, turning away from him.
“But—”
“Hakan, please,” Damien said. “Just, please, I don’t wanna talk about it, okay? It has nothing to do…it’s not relevant. Just—drop it, okay?” Damien sat on the bed, staring at his clenched fists pressed against his knees.
After a moment, Hakan capitulated. He didn’t seem happy about it, but Damien was grateful. There was no way he was bringing all that there, to the one good place in Damien’s life. Although he knew that the main reason the Salgados invited him was to keep tabs on him and their secret, he couldn’t help but let himself enjoy his time there. Mia became serious once in a while, especially when Damien got detentions, but she never made him feel stupid or useless. She never shouted or smacked him. Damien couldn’t help but bask in it.
Despite how wonderful it was at the Salgados’, his time there never managed to balance out what it was like at school and at the McKenzies’. Being at the Salgados’ was an oasis in an endless desert. It seemed to serve as juxtaposition, as a way of making starker Damien’s thirst, his hunger.
Sometimes, Damien felt like he didn’t have the energy to get to the next sip of the oasis. That he didn’t have it in him to keep walking in that scorching solitude, the hatred he could feel, inside and out. It peeled his skin away, leaving him calloused and blank.
CHAPTER THREE
March dawned colder than expected and Damien struggled to sleep at night, kicking off his sheets in nightmares and then waking up bound by ropes to the bedposts and shivering, without a hope to cover himself again.
He woke up on a Thursday groggy, his head pounding. He lay motionless as Mrs. McKenzie untied him.
He was so tired. Everything in him was dust.
School days when he was this exhausted were always torture. He was easily distracted, looking out the window or slipping into sudden bursts of chatter, and was told off constantly. The threads between his brain and his body were cut and each would work against the other until he was sent out of the classroom once again.
He sat outside the Vice Principal’s office and stared at nothing, wishing he could dissipate into the air and drift away. The only thing that usually made this type of day better was going to the Salgados’, but even that failed to cheer him up. He wished he could turn their invitation down but that would simply mean going back to the McKenzies’.
Damien fantasized as he sat there. He imagined having a home to go to at the end of the day where he could rest. It was like a lump in his throat, the idea of going home. Home. Where his worst worry would be what’s for dinner. Where he’d be able to go to his room and lay on his bed without being afraid of it, where he’d be able to go online or play video games and then do his homework at his own pace, where he’d be safe, where he’d be lov—
Damien closed his eyes. He folded the thoughts down, pressing them into the infecund soil of his mind.
Despite his apprehension and exhaustion, the first time in a week that he felt the knot in his chest loosen was sitting on the floor by the low, brightly coloured table in the twins’ room. Lallo sat on a small, plastic chair at one short end of the rectangular table. He was close enough that his legs were stretched out with his feet pressing into Damien’s knee as Damien sat cross-legged. Lallo was engrossed fully in playing with kinetic sand, kept tidy in a large, plastic tub.
Dee, on the other hand, was drawing beside him, leaning towards him in a complete disregard for personal space despite sitting in her own seat. A prism of coloured pencils, markers, and crayons were spread across the table and floor amidst a flurry of paper. Dee was currently drawing an interesting rendition of “Super Damien” with thick markers.
“Is that a stretchy neck or do I just have a very long neck?” Damien asked, indicating the parallel lines that connected his head to his shoulders, spanning almost the length of the page.
“It’s a supersize neck,” she responded, changing colours so she could draw the mop of hair on top of his head. Grey, apparently.
“Cool. What’s my superpower then?”
“You spit acid like a llama!” she shouted, drawing said acid in enthusiastic lines with a bright green pen. Damien laughed.
“Awesome,” he said, grabbing one of the pencils and sketching a llama with freckles and his grey eyes, spitting balls of acid-green
. “Llamalastic!” he wrote in dripping letters over the drawing. Dee’s hand suddenly slapped beside his page and he looked over to see her staring at the picture with wide eyes.
“Llam…lastic,” she whispered, turning her big eyes on him. “Can I have it?” she asked. Damien laughed.
“Course. It’s for you,” he said, and Dee beamed.
“Can you, can you draw me another one?” she asked.
“Who should we draw next?” he asked. Dee hummed, brows furrowing in deep contemplation.
“Yo! What are you little cretins up to?” Koko said, flopping down beside them before Dee could answer.
“Hakan!” Dee decided.
The three of them degenerated into drawing a picture of a half wolf, half T-rex Hakan. He became a furry monster with a comically large head and small teeth and arms. Koko ended up drawing a bloody corpse at his feet with tiny bite-chunks taken out of it. Lallo abandoned his sand, crawling onto Damien’s lap as they all giggled over the drawing.
“And what’s going on here?” Mia’s voice suddenly joined their laughter. They turned towards her as she peered over them with an amused look on her face.
“Blooooood!” Dee shouted.
“Koko, I’m guessing the dead body is your doing?” Mia said ruefully, although she was still smiling. Koko blinked up at her mom innocently.
“No idea what you’re talking about, Mom,” she said, turning the drawing over. “Think you’re having a psychotic break,” she grinned. Mia rolled her eyes.
“Another one! Just had one the other day when all the Snickers went missing and you smelt like chocolate.”
“Dunno what you’re talking about; I’m allergic to chocolate.”
“Well, I’m very sorry I wasn’t informed of your death then, seeing as it’s forty percent of your diet,” Mia replied. “Now, come on, all of you. Dinnertime. Don’t forget to wash your hands!”
Dinnertime was always perfect because Damien never felt like a guest with them. He went downstairs and put the bars of bread to toast for a few minutes in the oven before helping to set the table. There was a particular spoon that they all liked, being slightly deeper, and Hakan yanked it out of his hands as Damien tried to put it on his own placemat.
“Hey!” Damien protested.
“Too slow!” Hakan laughed, poking Damien in the ribs. Damien gasped suddenly, doubling over where Hakan’s fingers had dug into him. Hakan’s smile dropped immediately, his eyes widening.
“Crap, Damien, are you—”
“Too slow!” Damien crowed as he slipped the spoon out of Hakan’s slack fingers. “Can’t believe you fell for that! Sucka!” he laughed.
Hakan scowled, grabbing at Damien before he could escape. Damien squawked as Hakan put him in a headlock.
“Who’s the sucker now?” Hakan smirked.
“I’ve got a perfect aim at something you don’t want me aiming for, Hakan!” Damien shouted. Hakan froze and then let him go, jumping away in alarm. Damien grinned. Koko laughed.
“And the winner is…!” she said, grabbing Damien’s wrist and pulling his arm over his head like a wrestling champion. They both made crowd-roaring sounds. Hakan rolled his eyes.
“Whatever.”
Dinner was the usual ordered chaos. Food was consumed at an unholy pace. Damien forgot about everything else.
After everybody except the twins had all helped tidy and wash up, Damien knelt beside Dee.
“How about we give Hakan his drawing?” he whispered. Dee nodded vigorously. They grabbed the drawing from her room and found Hakan in his, already turned towards the doorway as they walked in.
“Present!” Dee exclaimed, running towards him and scrambling up his legs. Hakan hoisted her up and sat down. He took the paper when she settled, peering over her head at it.
“What the…” he laughed, looking up at Damien, who grinned.
“It was a collaboration, plus Koko,” Damien said. Hakan looked back down at the drawing, clearly marked with HAKAN! at the top.
“What a beautiful rendition of me,” he snorted, but his smile was wide.
Damien closed the door after her when Dee perked up suddenly, as if hearing something, and then leaping off Hakan’s lap and out of the room. As soon as the door closed, the noise from outside was muffled into silence. Hakan had very logically explained that a family of werewolves living in a house without soundproofing was like humans living in a house with glass walls. Damien had shuddered at the very idea.
Damien flopped onto the bed with a sigh. He stared blankly at the ceiling as he let the day sink into him. Felt the exhaustion deeply, like a weight. Felt the fullness of the meal, the contentment of the company. Felt the omnipresent apprehension like a leaky faucet in his head, the tap, tap, tapping of it.
“You okay?” Hakan asked, quiet like he got sometimes. Damien turned his head to see Hakan standing by the bed, a copy of Descender in his hands. Damien smiled and scooted over. Hakan settled on his front beside Damien, facing the pillows.
For the last few weeks, they had been reading the Descender series together, following TIM-21, a robot boy who wakes up after being decommissioned to find a universe that has turned on androids, and him in particular. Despite the sprawling scope of the sci-fi adventure, Damien couldn’t help but love it for its soft colours, its heart-breaking moments, TIM-21’s quest for family, for origin.
Damien and Hakan had developed a rhythm when reading together, learning how to interpret the signs that the other was ready for the flip of a page. Damien revelled in the shared enjoyment of reading with Hakan. He loved the moments when they would become enraptured in a single double-page spread, the soft noises they would both let out in the twists and punches the story delivered, the feeling of Hakan’s werewolf warmth pressed against his side. It reminded him of the joy, the connection he used to feel with his mom when they pseudo-researched together, like a bright thread was woven between the two of them.
The sadness it caused was one of the sweetest emotions Damien had ever felt.
“Did you check that webcomic I suggested last week?” Damien asked, turning onto his front but not propping himself up on his forearms as Hakan was.
“Oh, yeah! The part with the weird worm in the party hat!”
“Oh my God, I know. So gross. And cool.”
“Love it. Even if the authors think Walk Like an Egyptian by The Bangles is the best song of the eighties,” Hakan said.
“I know! The best song of the eighties is clearly a tie between Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson and Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order.”
“Uh, no,” Hakan scoffed. Damien lifted himself on his forearms, rolling his eyes at Hakan.
“Oh my God. Let me guess. Your favourite song of the eighties is Stripped by Depeche Mode.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Hakan grumped.
“Or, no wait, it’s So Lonely by The Police. No! It’s The Cure, isn’t it? Oh God, you like The Cure.”
“There’s nothing wrong with The Cure!”
“You are such a drama queen!”
“Me? Says the one who likes Bizarre Love Triangle!”
“Uh, ’cause it’s an awesome song! Every time I think of you, I get shot through with a bolt of blue…” Damien sang. Hakan snorted through a smile.
“The best song of the eighties, for your information and education, Damien, is I Wanna Be Adored by The Stone Ro—”
“Drama. Queen.”
“Brat.”
“Dork.”
Hakan shoved Damien playfully. “How do you even know anything about eighties music?” Hakan asked. Damien averted his eyes, watching his fingers trace a pattern on the deep green comforter on Hakan’s bed.
“My dad used to really like that kind of music,” he said, soft like a secret. He felt Hakan press his shoulder to his slightly. “In summer, he would barbecue sometimes and he always put on the same playlist.…I remember once, he left the chicken out on the grill too long and a stray cat came and took a piece aw
ay…I laughed so hard. He screamed like a girl…” Damien said.
Very suddenly, he was close to tears. It was a pressure everywhere, deep in his head and pushing outwards. He hid his face against the bed, smelling Hakan all over as he took a deep, shaking breath. He let it out as he felt Hakan’s hand softly in his hair.
Hakan settled down beside him. They lay there. Hakan’s hand remained a steady warmth on his neck. Damien let it anchor him until he no longer felt adrift. He let the memories wash over him, swell after swell after swell, leaving that familiar, salty exhaustion behind. His ribs relaxed. His breath evened.
“So—”
“If you apologize for being upset about your parents dying, I’m gonna punch you,” Hakan said. Damien laughed wetly, turning his head to look at Hakan, inches away.
“Real sensitive,” Damien said. There was a pause as they looked at each other, neither electricity or pressure between them. Just calm.
“Thanks for telling me,” Hakan whispered, his voice an echo of the intimacy ringing within that moment. Damien smiled, shaking his head slightly. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling soft, raw.
When they broke the moment to continue with Descender, they remained pressed together, only warmth joining them.
**********
A month and a half after the first dinner together, Mia called him into the library when he’d finished his homework.
“I want you to meet someone,” she said. Damien followed her, ignoring the trepidation in his bones.
He’d never been inside the library before. There was a couch below a wide window that let the twilight in and comfortable-looking armchairs around the room, the walls predictably lined with bookshelves. As Damien stepped fully inside, he saw that one of the chairs was occupied by a short, plump woman with the same Native American complexion as Mia.
In This Iron Ground (Natural Magic) Page 5
