Personal Hell

Envy.

Spiders that formed from the darkest corners of the mind crawled into cool fingertips, to skitter beneath the tightly drawn flesh, rough and scarred from a world too cruel. A gleam danced in a pair of eyes that had become shaded with repressed emotions, dangerous and boiling. A kettle on the stove, steam rising to curl against the ceiling above, drowning the body in waves of angry heat.

Black and blue prints across his wrists, hidden beneath the small cuffs of his shirt, tinged with pain. But he kept watching. The lilac orbs flirted with the surface of the world beneath wispy silver lashes, the emotionless gaze piercing into the world around him with the sharp edge of a blade to watch the scene before him. Tiny knees pulled up to coil against his chest, while trembling arms rose to wrap around them.

He couldn't look away if he wanted to.

"Such a sweet little girl." The adults praised, their cooing faces filling the observer with disgust.

Amelia smiled up at them, a warm blush on her cheeks as she laughed in a musical jingle in response to their compliment.

Immediately, they became taken with her. Damon's lips pulled down into a scowl.

Again, he hadn't even been given a chance. He could see it in the way their hands became ruffled into the girl's bright straw red hair, they had already picked her. The kettle shouted in warning, and Damon tried to sink into the background, clutching his favorite tattered book in a desperate attempt to dwindle the growing hurt inside his frame. He brought the book to his face, staring at the words printed in the pages, to try and drown out the world around him. The bruise on his back throbbed in pain, a memory of a bookshelf stabbing into the flesh flashing in his mind. Little teeth flashing in the lamplights above as they laughed at him. He focused harder on his book.

"And who are you?"

The inquiry made Damon drop the book away from his face a bit, revealing himself to glance up at the pair that had just got done interacting with his only friend in this god forsaken place.

To anyone else, the question wouldn't have been the least bit offensive. What with the soft spoken manner it was pronounced between smiling lips, the way the adults kneeled down to approach him, open warmth basking their forms. One of the adults who had glistening brown locks that curled outward to splay across her shoulders, reached out to pat his head. She looked normal enough. Sweet, too. But Damon saw through it—it was without a doubt, there…in the shadows of her bright emerald gaze…The true reason they had approached him.

Nothing more than…

"Don't pity me." Damon's harsh voice ripped out, a shocked gasp leaving the woman's lips as her hand fell backward at the impact of a much smaller hand hitting it, the white headed boy's arm outstretched to the side. "I don't need it."

After the shock settled within the woman, she stuttered out an apology, her eyes wide and brewing with confusion. A fabricated defense.

"Save it." Damon growled, unbothered by how upset the young woman was.

The man next to the woman looked appalled, his hand snapping up to cut through the air. "Why you little brat!"

"Wait, stop! D-Don't hurt him!"

The hand became arrested in midair, locks of dusty red reaching out to block the strike, then floating back down to cover a tiny back and drape over the two thin arms splayed out to the sides. Amelia stood unyielding between Damon and the man. Thick tears threatening to roll past the protection of her lashes, but she held her ground on two slightly quivering feet.

Damon stared at her, eyes blank of emotion.

Pride.

He didn't need her protection…

The boy unfurled from his make shift ball, tiny pale feet sinking into the plush carpet of the room, the cover of the book hitting the floor with an audible thump. Then two pairs of five fingers curled over pink clad shoulders, gently pushing the fragile body aside. Smaller than his own, more innocent. Less bruised.

"Damon?" Amelia questioned in shock, her vision suddenly obscured by the boy's back, his uniquely white strands shining like an angel's. She stood behind him, too stunned to comprehend why he had shoved her behind him. He was the one in danger, not her!

"This doesn't concern you." Damon bit out, using his form to shield Amelia’s from the man's ever growing rage. From where he stood, he could see the man's wife—assuming they were married—tugging at his arm, pleading with him to just leave already. But the ticked off man was still shaking with anger, and the shaking grew more apparent with every minute Damon held his stare. He didn't think the guy would strike Amelia, but he couldn't be too sure. He knew how people could be. He knew things she couldn't possibly understand. These people had no right trying to adopt any kids at all.

What a joke.

He would never need such an ignorant girl's protection.

A gasp cut through his thoughts, and then a sharp pain invaded his face. Blinking in muted surprise as his head whipped to the side, Damon blinked again when his cheek began to burn, the taste of something metallic coating the inside of his lip. A numbing pain spread along the taste.

"Apologize to my wife right now!"

The man demanded, his hand still in the air from when he had struck the boy in the face.

Ah, so that was it…

He hit me.

Sliding out his tongue to lap up the blood that had beaded down his chin, Damon narrowed his stare into a challenging glower, his fingers curling into a fist.

"I said apologize!"

Damon's pallid mouth curled into an even tighter scowl, “no.” And that was the fuse which ignited the bomb.

Suddenly Damon's head was snapping every which way, blow after blow, raining down on his already crippled form. The once moon kissed flesh now an angry red. Damon never uttered a sound, refusing to show any weakness while gritting his teeth, trying to not be thrown like a rag doll. He wouldn't back down; he didn't know how. He wasn’t weak.

"Stop it!" Amelia screamed, running forward to get between the fists and her precious friend, but when a fist came flying at her face, she squeezed her eyes shut in fear, her feet getting tangled in her dress, and she went tumbling forward.

The commotion growing in volume as other kids ran from the room, screaming to go get an adult.

Damon shot out his hand, jerking her out of harm's way, falling on top of her. Something akin to a boot crashed into the back of his head, and blotches of pain sparkled in his vision.

"What is the meaning of this!?"

The blows ceased to exist, and strong hands curved around his and Amelia's forms, tucking them away in a warm embrace that left his mind in a puddle of confusion. Tilting up his head, the young boy blinked in shock to see sandy blonde hair and cinnamon eyes staring down at him kindly from a pair of thick rimmed glasses. "Caretaker?" Both he and Amelia said it at the same time, one full of relief, the other surprise.

"I can explain…" The man went to walk forward, but James pinned the male where he stood with a glare that Damon didn't know he was capable of.

Tightening his arms around his bruised and battered children, the normally cheery caretaker became the definition of authority, "Leave this orphanage and don’t dare to set foot here again, or I will press charges and ensure you won’t be able to walk again."

The minute the couple was gone, with spare cusses being tossed their way and the wife hiding her head in shame, James set them down. His eyes full of sorrow and regret. The social worker who had approved them would be more than informed of her misjudgment later that night, as well as a call to the appropriate authorities.  

"Are you two alright?"

Amelia sniffled, and nodded her head. But right after her innocent confusion came through; tremors became alive in her shoulders as a sob cracked through her throat. "Why did he do that? They were so nice…they didn't need to go so far. Why did they hit him?"

If only she knew that it was always the kindest people who hit the hardest. Damon looked down, finding the floor to be a very vexing sight. If James noticed from the corner of his eyes, he didn't comment.

James instead wrapped his precious girl into a hug, trying to comfort the child with soft whispers of reassurance.

Damon instantly felt colder. The whispers in the room getting under his skin as he subtly glanced away.

"I'm going to go get cleaned up." Damon said after a moment, turning on his heel to stalk up the stairs to his room. Hollow and bleeding with each step he took, his touch ghosting over the sleek, polished railing.

"Ah, before you go, I need you to know that when dinner's over, I'd like to see you in my office, Mr. Salvati."

Damon paused before nodding and retreating into his room.

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Ten minutes after dinner had drawn to a close, Damon stood patiently outside the chairman's office door, the after taste of the porridge they were given for supper lingering on his taste buds. No sooner than he arrived did the Chairman appear as well. With the usual friendly greeting sounding from the adult in the duo, they headed inside, the chairman grabbing a coffee and Damon taking a seat before the actual discussion began.

James was the one to start. "At the rate you're going you are never going to get adopted, Damon."

Nails dug into the fleshy pad of his palm, and Damon glared at the blond. "That's fine with me. I didn’t ask to be here."

James rubbed his temples, letting his glasses slide down the length of his nose. "Don't you want a family?" James asked in honest concern.

Damon tensed at the question, a sharp sting of pain that was impossible to ignore jostling his heart. Vulnerability and hurt making his fists loosen at his sides. But other than that, he provided the question no answer. His shoulders losing height when he decided to sink into his chair.

"You need to give people a chance. I know it must be hard after seeing your family die in that horrible accident, but in the end, it'll do you good."

I do, they don't give me a chance! Damon screamed in his head, but on the outside, he just scoffed, looking to the side. "Can I go?"

There was a moment of silence before the man in his mid-thirties nodded solemnly, and the young youth instantly straightened from his chair, his bangs drifting down to hide his eyes. Then he opened the door, and stepped into the barren hall, but not before a thought crossed his shattered mind, rejection coursing in his blood the longer he stood there.

It was muted in the hall as all the other kids ran around downstairs, giggling amongst themselves.

He felt unbearably strange. And as Damon took a look at his too pale feet, glimpsed the tips of white hair through his just as white lashes, he felt so different from everyone around him.

"Salvati…?" James called in concern.

"I'll be dead before I get adopted." Damon uttered in a whisper, the venom soaking in his words injecting into the air. Cold fingers pulled the office door shut on the sound of James’s voice calling for him to wait, and he headed towards the gardens in an urgent pace. He needed to escape. Just for a bit.

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       The smell of the rain from earlier that day swept into his nose the minute he reached the outdoors.

Sitting on a bench amidst the flowers in the garden, Damon gently laid his throbbing skull against the back of a stone bench, staring up at the night sky above him. Watching in the silence as a blanket of stars seemed to move across the world above him, each ball of gas twinkling like sparkles spread across the campus of the earth. The inky black paint of the night nothing compared to the bright brilliance the stars offered.

For a moment, he was at peace.

Until he reached up, holding his own hand over the sea of darkness above.

It was a comparison that could be likened to him and Amelia.

If Amelia was the stars, Damon was the background of deep inky black. The part people feared at night. While she was by his side, he knew he would never be an option. To be honest, a part of him resented her for that. In the first days of him living in Plain’s Brook Orphanage, if someone would have told him that any part of him—even the smallest part—could harbor ill feelings towards Amelia, he would've bet his soul away that they were wrong. But now…

He was tainted, he lacked the innocence, the naivety that the other kids had. Something Amelia had in large quantities. He had lost his appeal the minute he saw red coat the walls of his home, black smoke pouring out from his parent’s doorway. And he knew, deep down, he would be left to rot here, to blend into the cream colored walls of the orphanage. The beginning to the end of his life.

No one wanted something broken; something bent and twisted.

Not even Holy Water could help him now.

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That was how James had found him, the lonely child, just a mere twelve years old, curled up on the stone bench, fast asleep. A hint of tear tracks still present on his face in the chilled night. With a heavy heart, he kneeled beside the boy he couldn't seem to reach, and brushed a few stray strands of silver away from his slumbering features. When he was like this, it was hard to imagine that the boy had lost everything.

Letting out a sigh, James lifted the boy into his arms, setting off to his room to tuck him in bed. A protective feeling welling in his chest while he glanced at the watching moon,

"Please…someone help this child."