Re: Manor: Damian/Misha
[Damian spoke to himself, quietly, in Arabic. The words were ambrosia, attar and rich, but went unshared. His only response to the boy on his bed was another glare, just to show what he thought of that compliment. It was sharp on blue-green eyes, but it did not hold out long. Tempered by need for control and slipping tectonics, Damian almost smiled at the wink, but managed to stop himself and remember his anger. It burned in his belly, Father the accelerant. His mind churned with thoughts I will not share here in entirety. They ranged from Mother, to how he found Father (cold, aloof, lowly), to Aunt (domineering, arrogant), and how absolutely alone he felt in the moment. It was as if he was not in his room at all, but in the dark gut of the night, with nothing beneath him but the coin of floor required. Everything else was cavernous and cold and empty and black, and that fire in the hearth did not warm an inch of him.
He was pitying himself, he realized, and he needed to stop. He clenched his jaw just before lighting the cigarette, and his gaze flicked sideways to Misha as the boy came over, lithe of form. He tried not to appear interested, in words or that form, but he had allowed himself to sink too far in the moment and found it difficult to keep his mask in place. Hours, years he had trained and been trained in how to appear immovable and unreadable, and again, he was a failure. Damian put his hardly-smoked cigarette out on his painting and leaned his hip against the desk as Misha spoke of his own very lacking father.
The small slip of sadness was apparent, however brief or altered it was, and the man looked through the haze of smoke with something akin to sympathy.] You wish that you were. [It was a question, likely, but it came out as a statement.] He came to Repose?
[And, as it was fair, he shared,] Father did not know of my birth until two years ago. I would not call him affectionate either. I am, indeed, beginning to wonder what Mother saw in him that she thought him a suitable progenitor. Once, I had thought my bloodline strong. [Damian opened both of his hands and peered down at them in firelight.] Now I see it is weak. I am weak. [It was an admission he had not intended to make. He let his hands fall back to his sides and lifted his chin.]