✡︎【 @luciferaeon 】✡︎
Damian’s gold eye flickered in the low light, catching a shard of reflection before it dimmed again, shadows near his boots curling in a restless hush.
“Why?” he asked first, voice quiet, rough, layered with a tired edge that almost sounded amused. “You planning a vacation?”
He exhaled through his nose, claws flexing once before retracting as he rubbed a thumb over a crack on the table’s edge, the black veins on his wrist pulsing faintly.
“It’s not fire and brimstone,” Damian finally said, gaze drifting away, jaw clenching as if tasting something bitter. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”
His gold eye slid back to meet theirs, a flicker of something — grief, anger, something older than either — behind the glow.
“It’s cold, mostly,” he continued, voice softening as the words tumbled out. “Cold and loud, and the shadows move wrong, like they’re waiting for you to slip. Sometimes it’s quiet, but not the good kind — the kind that presses against your teeth, waiting to see if you’ll scream.”
“It’s a memory you can’t crawl out of,” Damian said, blinking once, slowly. “The worst thing you’ve done, on loop, until it’s the only thing you are.”
“So, no,” he murmured, leaning back, eyes half-lidded, “it’s not like the Bible says” Damian paused, letting the silence hang before finishing, voice a rasp:
“It’s worse. Because sometimes, it feels like home.”