Re: Quiet Home: Damian & Misha
"I will not be bored out," Damian told Misha with immutable resolve, as if, had he occupied some portion of Misha's parietal or occipital lobe, he would have—and could have—refused to be evicted. He reached forward on an inch's incline to push the boy's long-fingered hand from its pantomime by his eye. It was a firm gesture. "I am here."
The conversation, if it could be called such, however, was ended when the two of them stood and moved, the angel's gauzy blue gaze hitched over Damian's shoulder now and again. Though he had assumed they were going somewhere more discreet, Misha led them to a corner in that spacious, but loud room, and then the boy pressed back to the wall and seemed to sag. Damian stood as if his spine was a steel rod, and he was before the boy, looking at him in the safety of that corner. Their hands were still snagged together. Damian waited for Misha to look at him, but it was a slow process.
The words 'foster daddy' had only just registered when Damian was approached by a nurse. He had heard her coming on soft-soled shoes and he turned toward her with a hawk's glare and told her no. Simply that. He then turned back to Misha to catch him having a somber conversation with a real tenant of his parietal and occipital lobe. It was not the interaction itself—the fact that it occurred—that concerned Damian especially. (Sedatives did that, on occasion. As did cocktails of pharmaceuticals abused.) It was the unnatural deference, the wash of low lashes on wan cheeks, and the atypical costiveness of speech.
"Misha." Had he said his name aloud before, before the boy? Damian could not recall. But, his tone now was authoritative, if lacking in coldness. He obscured his own concern behind an imperious expression. "Would you like to come to my house?" If he had to, he turned Misha's face toward him. He took a step closer, so as to be able to speak quietly. It was the most patience and tenderness Damian had likely shown in his life to any (near-)human. "Do you know what you have been given or by whom? I will not tell any others what you tell me."