Clothed in our grief

Chapter Eight teen

So many things are unraveling all at once. So many different begins of the butterfly effect, and all of them begin with the same root.

You, or something close to you.

At this very moment, Damian is walking into the Bookstore. Red ring in his black wool jacket pocket  with the black leather stripe along his shoulders across his chest. Narrowed yet relaxed eyes while they scan the warm room. The bell above his head ringing, signalling your attention. His right arm against the glass, holding the door open while he looks all the way across the room covered in book cases and those cases are stacked and filled to the top with books.

His eyes landing on your figure all the way across, talking to a customer. A classmate he recognizes, Jaime Reyes. He's smiling, and he looks to your face and sees that you're smiling back at him. You don't have an apron on, and there's no line at the glass counter. which lets him know your shift is probably on a break right now. He's seen you around school with Jaime, usually the two of you just pass each other in halls/ He had no idea that the two of you were really friends. Damian obviously doesn't know you too much on a personal level, but he knows who you hang out with seeing as you've invited him to hang out with them on multiple occasions. He's only agreed twice. Maps was someone he considered someone he could tolerate, sometimes. Translation? She's his friend too. Olive is calm to be around, but Damian's aware that her mother is an inmate at Arkham Asylum. If Olive even knew that Damian was Robin, or or someone who worked even relatively close to Batman? She'd drop him in a second flat, and make an enemy out of him no doubt.

He doesn't know you on a personal level very much. Only knows that you may be getting a brother or sister sometime soon, that the Bookstore is a family business, other things that friends should know about each other, favorite colors, animals, stuff like that. He knows you have a stepfather, but doesn't know much about your real father. Hell, Damian doesn't even know if he's alive or not. He isn't aware that your father walked out on you and your mother when you were five, and definitely doesn't know that you're a Constantine.

Since he doesn't know you on a personal level all that well, it's confusing him why it bothers him to see you laugh at someone else's jokes like that. Smile so genuinely and close your eyes while doing so because whatever Jaime must have said really made your day just a bit brighter. Doesn't know why it bothers him when you go to cover your mouth straight after you noticed you've been laughing, and this action is out of embarrassment. He doesn't know why this bothers him, why he wants to just go over there and move your hand back down onto the table and away from your lips. All with an annoyed expression, no doubt. As if asking why you even bothered? Isn't the point of smiling and laughing at something someone says just to let them know that what they said had a positive impact on another person?

While Damian stands there with the Bookstore door open, eyes relaxing and loosening on you. That solemn look on his face isn't going anywhere anytime soon, he doesn't look upset or distraught. His face is just relaxed and he seems serious. But part of it is loosened to a point where it's showing his confusion for himself, not even knowing what he's feeling or understanding it right now.

While Damian stands there, contemplating what you are to him, someone is digging their body out of their grave.

With a grudge for John Constantine.

A grudge to fill an entire ocean of blood. Constantine blood. This rage and anger of nothing but revenge is seething through their entire body whlie their fingers push and spread the dirt away, broken nails and fingertips after getting through the wood on their coffin. The makeshift coffin that was never even purchased legally, and was made out of something John came up with in a matter of ten minutes.