Damianya one shots ❤️

Prince (too perfect) Charming and his 'goblin'

This is another one of those drafts that I forgot to publish :)

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Chapter 1: The Prince from Afar

Anya had always known Damian Desmond was perfect.

It wasn't just the way he spoke—with calculated grace, every word measured yet effortless. Or the crispness of his uniform, always spotless, always impeccable. It was everything. The way teachers praised him without hesitation, how his classmates respected him and sometimes even envied him. Yet, no matter the attention, he never seemed smug or arrogant. Just... composed. Unshakable. Like he was carved from something steady and sure.

And he was her boyfriend.

Sometimes, Anya couldn't help but wonder how someone like Damian ended up with someone like her—messy, loud, impulsive. She knew she wasn't exactly the picture of elegance. She tripped over her own words, doodled across the margins of her homework, and more than once left the house with mismatched socks. But Damian looked at her like she was something rare, something unexpected. That look—the way his eyes softened just for her—meant more than she could ever explain.

Still, lately, she'd been watching him more closely.

From across the classroom, she caught tiny glimpses of the cracks beneath the surface. A clenched jaw barely held in check. A deep sigh that slipped out when no one was looking. Fingers that tensed just before he answered a question. Small, fleeting fractures in the flawless mask he wore.

It wasn't much. Not the kind of thing most people noticed.

But to Anya, who had always relied on reading people like open books, it was everything.

And it made her wonder—was he really okay?

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Chapter 2: The Cracks Beneath the Crown

At lunch, Anya slid onto the bench beside Damian, the familiar scrape of the seat somehow louder in the noisy cafeteria. Becky sat across the table, animatedly rambling about the latest school gossip—her voice a constant buzz that filled the space. But Anya's attention kept drifting away, pulled instead toward Damian.

He was quiet today, nodding along politely but clearly somewhere else entirely. His fork moved slowly, poking at the food more out of habit than hunger. The sandwich on his plate looked almost untouched.

He laughed when expected—an automatic response to Becky's punchlines—and smiled when needed, but his eyes never quite joined in. They flickered, distant, like a storm behind glass.

It wasn't the first time she'd noticed this. There were moments scattered through weeks and months—Damian zoning out during assemblies, his gaze lingering out windows a beat too long, his fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose when he thought no one was watching.

He didn't confide in anyone.

Not even her.

That night, Anya lay awake in bed, the room dark and quiet except for the faint hum of the city beyond her window. She rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow as her thoughts spun in circles. How do you help someone who doesn't ask for it? How do you reach someone who's been trained, maybe even wired, not to need anyone?

She thought of all the times Damian put others' needs before his own—always the reliable one, the steady one. Times he held back, swallowed down his own worries instead of sharing them.