Chapter Text
The Devil
Suren had known it was coming. Well, suspected at the very least. Knowing the future with any certainty is difficult even for a master diviner, and he was embarrassingly anemic in those arts. That wasn't entirely his fault, he'd wanted to learn but…nevermind, it's not important.
Suren wasn't stupid, so of course he did his best not to get attached: He was very careful not to use wording that would imply anything he touched was his, he refused to match the tepid, awkward attempts of affection from the master of the house in any sort of kind. He tried not to speak when he could get away with it, and was brief and vague when he couldn't.
Suren didn't like that experience. Damian seemed irritated with him, likely for a perceived lack of gratitude. Fortunately though, he did not strike him again: Maya had practically threatened Damian into apologizing for the first one (likely another reason Damian was irritated with him) and between the apology and harassment he seemed to decide that further violence was unwise. That and well…Suren could feel the excitement that radiated from somewhere deep in Damian's chest whenever they looked at each other. The…the hope for connection or something like that. Touching Damian’s soul had been costly for Suren, in that he knew more than he wanted to, and more than Damian would ever allow him to know willingly. Honestly Suren was also hopeful and excited, and he knew he couldn't keep it out of his eyes, which was another reason he avoided being present.
He had, however, crushed enough hope underfoot to know that there were limits to such an emotion, such a vibrational power. He knew the will wasn't there to support it, he knew it wouldn't be enough to stop what was coming, and so he refused to trick himself into believing that they could like him. That it would ever be okay to let him stay.
It was two weeks into his tenuous hosting. A Monday. And on that Monday Suren sensed her approach: The Witch. The High Priestess of Order. It would be days before she arrived, before she even decided she would. But Zatanna Zatara--Sorceress Supreme, Blood of Atlantis--was of consequence, and hers could be felt from all directions.
That was how they were going to do it.
That was how they were going to get rid of him.
He had five days. Five days to hold onto the happiest moment of his life. He was certain things were only going to get worse, things tended to for creatures who were born to die and did not.
So with a quiet sigh and a bit of a nod, he decided that perhaps he'd let himself pretend. Just for a little while.
“Darga, what are you doing?” Damian deadpanned, looking over the corner of his bed and down at where Suren had been sitting on the floor.
Moping. “Mediating.”
Damian squinted at him. “I mean fine, whatever.” He crawled back towards the center of his bed where Suren couldn't see him.
Suren could feel his disappointment. Taste it almost. You'd likely think it would be bitter, but really it was more of a sour tang.
He bit his lip.
“Damian.” He said, far too quietly to be proud of.
Damian’s face peeked over the side of the bed again, this time he looked somewhat surprised and curious. “What?”
Suren met his gaze and held it for a breath, before looking down at his hands.
“...Play a game with me?”
The Chariot
Maya brushed some hair behind her ear while she walked, listening intently to the old man as he spoke.
“...In all honesty, Ms. Ducard, I’m still taken by the fact that Damian has managed to befriend not just you, but young Suren as well. He’s certainly beginning to have a better track record of that sort of reversal of animosity than his father.” Alfred’s accent managed to convey an amount of sass that she still found impressive, specifically when speaking about Damian’s dad.
Maya snorted. “I believe that, yeah. I think it only works because we’re all trying to be…something new.”
Alfred nodded. “That does make it easier. Master Bruce tends to miss that window, I’m afraid. Speaking of windows of opportunity, has Oracle been able to be helpful with the search for your mother?”
“She says she has some leads, maybe she does, she’s got a terrifying reputation among the types that don’t want her to find them. But uh…I dunno, honestly I think she’s just trying to keep me in Gotham.”
Alfred didn’t respond immediately, which made Maya fairly confident she was onto something. “Why do you think that?”
“Easier to keep an eye on me here on the pessimistic side of it, on the optimistic she probably hopes I’ll stick around for Damian.”
“You don’t intend to?”
“I intend to keep an eye on him, but not from this close. Like, listen I care about the little guy, but I just decided that there are things I want to do for myself. I can’t set down roots just yet. I’d take him with me if I could though.”
“I’m impressed and mildly disturbed that someone as young as you is a solo traveler.”
Maya smirked. “It’s always funny when people think they have a shot at getting one over on me.”
Alfred shrugged. “Everyone is caught at a loss eventually.”
“Eh. I’m not everyone.”
The Death
Damian rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Darga why the hell do you only know Shatranj? You weren’t born that long ago, Chess in its modern form mostly existed by the time you were spawned, Shatranj was already wildly antiquated–”
Suren huffed and crossed his arms. “Perhaps my parents appreciated the classics, not every family was led by a man with no care for the old traditions.”
Damian squinted. “Of my grandfather’s many horrible ideas, learning to read was not one of them.”
“I can read!”
“Oh?”
Suren grit his teeth. “In a few languages! One must be able to commune with prospective conquests! I clearly speak English even, and that wasn’t popular back then, how dare–”
Damian giggled. “Clearly they had not invented humor yet.”
Suren’s face pinched and colored and Damian laughed harder. “P-perhaps you are simply not funny!”
“You think I’m hilarious.”
“I do not!”
“You’re obsessed with me.”
“Be silent!”
Damian grinned. “Truly, whatever would Suren do without the guidance and wit of–”
“Maya is here.”
Damian’s eyes widened, but he quickly recovered. “I know.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did. I summoned her.”
“But you didn’t know she was here right now!”
“I did.”
“Liar.”
“There are ways to be perceptive without cheating with magic!”
“That’s like saying that you’re cheating by being small and weak so enemy combatants don’t prioritize you, you cannot help being pathetic any more than I can–ahh!” Damian jumped over the gameboard and pinned Suren against the floor. “Get off of me!”
“‘Small?!’ ‘Weak!?’ ‘Pathetic?!’ You are so fortunate that I have recently agreed to not–ahh!”
Suren reversed the pin, and Damian scrambled to figure out a way to claim he was using magic instead of admitting that Suren was actually significantly stronger than him.
“Yes! Weak and small!” Suren teased. Damian didn’t like that Suren chose this point to smile, despite Damian having prompted him to experience positive feelings throughout the entire conversation! Traitor! Of course Darga would only rejoice in his demise–
Suren rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic!”
“...What?”
“I have no interest in destroying you, I thought we were playing–”
Damian felt like he was missing something. “Wh…I didn’t say anything about–”
Their heads snapped over to look at Damian’s bedroom door as it opened. Maya poked her head in, blinking a few times as she took in the scene. “Oh. Wow. Having fun?”
Damian practically threw Suren off of him and popped up to his feet, brushed his shirt flat and cleared his throat. “Darga has no sense of boundaries–”
“What? You jumped on me!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Al Ghul duplicity–”
“What was that?”
Maya sighed and closed the door behind her. “Well I’m glad you two are getting along. We still going to visit the friend that Damian has who supposedly doesn’t live in Canada?”
“Colin is real! I showed you a picture!”
“Where is Canada?”
“That could have been an actor from Newsies for all I know.”
Damian pouted. “I mention liking Newsies ONCE–”
Suren was desperately trying to keep up. “What is a ‘Newsie?’”
Maya opened her mouth, but Damian quickly moved to cut her off.
“Okay! Yes, we’re still going to see Colin. I told him we’d be by in an hour, so we should start getting ready. Darga, you may want to bathe.” Damian grinned at the offended look Suren gave him, until he turned back to Maya and saw how she was squinting at him.
“...What?”
The Hermit
Colin hadn't really loved the past year and a half. His best friend had straight up gotten murdered, like actually murdered, and that was bad. He'd known kids that he'd later found dead, that wasn't new, not that he was okay with that either. But he…Damian was special to him, and maybe he didn't realize how special Damian was until he was dead, but then he did, and he got sad as fuck about it.
The grief of Damian being gone completely overshadowed the shock and anxiety around realizing that he liked Damian more than he figured, that he was maybe a little fruity. Again, Colin was mostly busy being sad as fuck. He took it out on a lot of bad dudes, maybe broke a few more shoulders than was strictly necessary.
But then one day Damian was back. He was just…back. He was standing in front of Colin’s little garage, looking annoyed and awkward and maybe a little sad and then he didn't even yell when Colin picked him up into a hug and started crying, which was the part that really freaked Colin out, and he didn't know what to say or what to ask or if he should tell Damian he thought his eyes were pretty…
So he didn't, he just put him back on the ground and they both pretended his face wasn’t gross and red and he let Damian say what he'd wanted to say.
And then things got really crazy, something happened to his dad, Commissioner Gordon got a mech suit, there was a Robin themed gang, freaky zombie guys dressed like owls–Christ, what? Damian left town for a while cause he said he needed to fix things, whatever that meant, then he came back, then he was gone–
Now he was back again, and this time wanted Colin to meet his new friends, which was probably good, Damian needed friends, and that meant he still liked Colin enough to introduce them to him. But what if it was just a courtesy thing? What if Damian was bored of him and moving on and didn't want to be friends with the weird kid with the gross powers that spent too much time thinking about how nice it felt when they'd hugged and their chests were pressed together and he could feel how tiny Damian really was, and his strong heartbeat, and how nice it felt when Damian leaned into the hug and their cheeks brushed against each other and stuck a little bit because of the tears–
Colin didn't want Damian to get rid of him, especially before he figured out what he wanted to say.
But he had no idea how to get Damian to want to keep him, to convince Damian to let him stay.
So when he heard the luxury engine pull up a little down the street, he didn't have much of a plan.
He just straightened himself up with a sigh and a quiet nod, and decided that he was going to pretend to be normal, just for a little while.
The Devil
Suren didn't like cars. Or trucks. Vans, SUVs–he was not a fan of motor vehicles. They were loud and smelled terrible and he could feel the substances they produced choking the life out of everything nearby. But there was nothing he could do but sit quietly and wait to be free from the vehicle that Damian's manservant was using to deliver them to the ‘Newsie.’
They kept trying to get his attention, Maya and Damian. To get him to notice something or to laugh. Well, that was mostly Maya, Damian was trying to antagonize him again. He'd been so excited to wrestle earlier and was still a bit riled up. He likely wasn't even aware that was what he wanted. Suren was aware that he enjoyed it, that he craved that sort of physical contact. He and Damian had precious few strategies for receiving affection, but unlike Damian, Suren was willing to accept the reality of those cravings. He was trying to enjoy the time he had left with them, and desperately wanted to engage, but just…could not. He realized that perhaps some of his devotion to appearing neutral and stoic was rooted in a certain anxiety that he’d never known before he started mingling with people not of his clan.
He didn't at that moment have the will to push past it, and would have remained silent if Damian had not gotten impatient with being ignored, and reached over and poked Suren's left side, which he'd foolishly left unprotected in his musing. His moping. The noise he released caused the entire car to plunge into silence. Maya looked pleasantly stunned, while Damian almost seemed embarrassed with the reddish tinge of his cheeks. He certainly felt embarrassed, but Suren couldn't understand why, he was not the one who'd just made the ridiculous avian noise.
Maya finally broke the silence. “Okay, that was cute.”
Suren knew that ‘cute’ was a compliment, but it didn't feel like one in context.
Damian’s embarrassment gave away to a look of purest evil, and he reached out to touch Suren again. Suren was paying attention this time and batted his hand away.
“Why so testy, Darga?”
“Why are you touching me?”
“I didn't touch you.”
“Damian–”
“I poked you. Very different reality.”
Suren bared his teeth. “You try my patience.”
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do, bite me?”
“If I must!”
“Had no idea you were a cannibal.”
“Bold to suggest you are a human being.”
“Oh that's rich coming from you.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“I have eyes, you have claws. Plus I've seen you without a shirt.”
Suren suddenly felt his cheeks heat up.
“Wait, what?” Maya interjected. “What's going under Suren's shirt?”
“Nothing!”
“Classic occult stuff, weird markings, ritual scars–”
“Damian!” Suren winced when he heard the pleading edge to his voice. Shameful.
But effective it seemed, because Damian did actually stop. He cleared his throat instead. “Uh, anyway, if I'd realized Suren here had such weak ribs, I imagine I'd have defeated him even more quickly.”
“There is nothing weak about my ribs!”
“You yelped in pain and I barely touched you.”
Suren rolled his eyes. “I was not in pain–”
“Well then, what–” Damian’s eyes sparkled with recognition. “...Oh, I see.”
Suren sighed. “Maya, please protect me from further humiliation.”
Damian scoffed. “You act like she is your mother–”
“My mother died long before I was taken to the crypt. I have not expected her comfort in a very long time.”
The rest of the ride was…quieter.
The Death
Damian was aware that he'd messed up. He didn't even need Maya to glare at him for him to realize that he'd prodded Suren a little too hard at the wrong spot. Not literally, he didn't think the tickling was the problem. He'd probably circle back to that, that was a thing he was aware that children did sometimes instead of hurting each other, perhaps it was a viable strategy for connection.
No he meant…everything else. Him and his big mouth. He'd thought that Drake's propensity for sticking his foot in his–no, his entire leg down his throat was embarrassing, but maybe he was becoming a bit more sympathetic to that flaw. Though Drake did have less of an excuse, he grew up in a culture of polite lies, he should really have been better at them.
Anyway he spent the short remainder of the ride trying to figure out a strategy to repair the tone of the afternoon. Truly, he was probably overthinking it, Colin would likely be capable of doing that all himself. He was far more warm than Damian figured he could ever be. It was useful to keep around. If he were to be honest with himself, he missed Colin’s grounded positivity. He was not going to be honest with himself of course, but that’s what he would have realized if he was.
When they got out of the car, Damian awkwardly waited for Maya and Suren to join him on the sidewalk, instead of just walking to Colin’s garage and letting them catch up as he normally would. They’d never appreciate his consideration, no one ever did, but it was something. He and Suren made eye contact, and the other boy curled his lips oddly. Damian rolled the dice and assumed it was a constipated attempt at a shy smile.
He refused to dwell on that, and bobbed his head to gesture for them to follow him.
The Chariot
Maya was really hoping Damian and Suren could hold it together. They needed to be friends, frankly. That much was obvious to literally anyone but them. Sure, she understood the game, the bit, the type of situation they were in, but even she didn’t have a nearly 1-to-1 parallel life experience. Truly, they were each other's best shot at finding a friend who just got them, and all they had to do was not maul each other.
So far she gave them a C+ grade: Teeth were bared, humanity was questioned, but no one was injured. They even managed to walk the block from the car to the garage without incident. It was open when they got there, and there was a boy inside, leaning against a worn but well-loved trike. It was actually a little jarring to see something approaching a regular boy after her more recent social pickups. You had to know a little bit about psychology and reading people and C-PTSD to begin to grasp Damian and Suren (Maya was in retrospect grateful that her dad made her read that stuff, but still felt gross about why he wanted her to), but this Colin kid was just…like it was all right there on his sleeves. Granted, it probably still wasn’t super obvious to an oblivious regular person, but if you paid attention slightly, he radiated nerves. The way he was propped up against the trike to try to look casual, the way he was biting the inside of his cheek really slowly so it would be hard to notice, the smile that alternated between reaching his eyes and not, the way he’d clearly never worn that flannel before and kept fidgeting with it, the way he’d wince just a little when his eyes would flick over to her and he realized that she was still looking him over and wasn’t concerned about him noticing–kid was tightly wound and desperate to seem like he wasn’t.
Plus he was obviously sweet on Damian. It made her a little sad, actually. Partially because Damian didn’t notice and wouldn’t notice unless directly prompted, but even if he did, he was just not mature enough, and Colin wasn’t settled enough for anything even remotely positive to come out of it. She kind of got the sense that Colin knew that too, and maybe that’s why his eyes were a little glossy. Or maybe it was because he was clocking how much more similar Suren was to Damian than he was, and in the process of shredding his hopes and dreams.
Colin cleared his throat and Maya decided to lock back into the conversation.
“...Yeah so uh, really cool to meet you guys.” He offered, like he was apologizing for talking uninterrupted for the 30 seconds that he did.
Suren smiled gratefully. “You as well. I have not seen many people with hair so vibrant in my travels, it is quite beautiful.”
Damian groaned and Colin’s eyes widened a hair before he caught it and flattened his expression again. He couldn’t help the blush, but frankly he already looked flushed enough as a baseline that Suren probably didn’t notice.
“Oh, ha, uh, thanks. Actually I usually hear a lot of jokes about it, you know, not having a soul and stuff, which maybe stings a little from the other Catholic kids, but–”
“You have a soul! I can see it, It’s actually a little larger than usual.” Suren offered, visibly excited to be helpful.
Colin sputtered and Damian jumped in, though it was unclear if it was to save either of them or to make it worse.
“Yes, Darga is a witch like I mentioned, he says odd things all the time, best to not dwell on–”
“There is nothing odd about acknowledging someone’s immortal soul!”
“Come on, even I know how bizarre that sounds.”
“He brought souls up, clearly he was concerned!”
“He was attempting to make a joke about the ethnic discrimination he faces for being so pale–”
“I’m not that pale!”
“Did you put on sunscreen this morning?”
Colin crossed his arms. “Everyone should! Anyone can get skin cancer, are you telling me you didn’t put on any?”
Damian scoffed. “And why would I do that?”
“You think I don’t know how much time you spend on your skin?”
Damian actually looked self-concious for a moment. “Wh–I don’t–”
“I’ve been in your bathroom, I’ve seen how many different types of lotion you own.”
Suren frowned. “...Wait, those…I assumed that you purchased them in bulk, you use more than one product regularly?”
Damian growled, visibly blushing at this point. “Not all of us are inclined to bathe in dust–”
“How dare you!”
“Damian, you realize if I said that it would be suuuper duper racist–”
“Yes well the ethnic downsides cut both ways sometimes–”
"Okay!" Maya decided she probably needed to jump in before someone got thrown through a wall, set on fire or stabbed.
To their credit, and her mild concern at the role she was taking on, they all stopped and pivoted to look at her, and all three looked relieved that she’d interrupted them.
“Damian, you had something you wanted to say, right?”
He cringed with embarrassment like he was hoping she wouldn’t bring it up, but covered it by sucking his teeth and looking away.
“Ah, yes well. Wilkes…seeing as you do not have summer classes…it has been suggested to me that I invite you to spend the rest of the week to ‘hang out.’”
Colin squeaked. “...Uh. I mean. Really?”
Damian nodded, still not looking directly at him. “Yes, yes, It has suddenly been decided that it is worthwhile to invest in developing a social circle, and I am at the mercy of my living situation for this moment.”
Maya was impressed that Colin seemed to be able to completely ignore the bluster and just smiled. “Okay, I mean. I’d have to talk to the sisters–Alfred already did that, didn’t he.”
Damian nodded. “It was…more efficient that way.”
Maya smirked as they seemed to even out a little bit, but then noticed Suren’s look of mild concern. That one she couldn’t read as well, but she figured he was nervous about spending so much time with someone new?
She hoped that was all it was.
The Devil
Suren was horrified. He’d barely been able to manage dealing with Damian and not causing another blood feud, but at least he knew enough about Damian’s state to avoid the obvious danger zones, but Colin was so conflicted in every way imaginable. He’d immolated people who did not experience as much casual terror as Colin did, and the reasons were so numerous and mixed that Suren frankly was not sure what to watch out for, and he was not convinced that Damian could keep the peace.
Worse still, he found that he was rather fond of Colin.
And Colin was rather fond of Damian.
And Damian had no idea.
And Colin was under the impression that Suren was also fond of Damian.
Which he was, but not in the way that Colin was concerned about.
…Well, that’s what he’d convinced himself of at the time.
In any case he was certain that nothing good could come of this arrangement.
But they were already getting rid of him. So let calamity approach.
What was there to lose?