Chapter Text
After last night’s snowstorm, making your way to school would have been a struggle. Unfortunately, despite the schoolchildren’s wishes, it only provided a normal amount of snow and ice to the streets of the city.
However, now in the early Friday afternoon, it has started snowing again. Damien sits in his math class, groans upon glancing out the window.
Unlike the typical classmate at his school, Damien was dreading the day ending. He has been tasked with cleaning his apartment since his parents were out for the week. He wanted to protest it, but he knew better than to debate with his parents.
He averts his attention from the window to his desk, and stares at the piece of paper in front of him. He had finished ten minutes ago, however his math teacher was fairly strict and would not allow him to look at his phone.
This didn’t stop some of his peers, but with midterms closing in, a teacher’s chance at a power trip should be kept at a minimum.
So he returns to watching the street below. The height was pretty mundane, since he is on the second floor after all.
However, he still finds himself thinking about the risk of a fall. It might not kill someone, but it’d still hurt to fall that far.
The thought keeps him deeply entranced until he hears the school bell ring, courtesy of the intercom. He picks up his backpack and the math worksheet, and moves his way up to the front of the classroom.
He turns the worksheet over to his teacher, not daring to look her in the eye as he does so. As he pivots to leave the classroom the teacher stops the person behind him from leaving. He scurries out of there before she can find a reason to keep him in the classroom as well.
Stumbling his way into the hallway, he makes eye contact with his two best friends, Fred and Brightly. Quickly, he makes his way over to them.
He can hear the conversation that the two are sharing as he walks up to them.
“Have you heard what I’ve been talking about for the past five months?” Brightly asks Fred, rather accusingly, “Not to mention how long I saved up for this concert.”
“Alright, but maybe work is hard because I have a boss who hates me!” Fred responds, attempting to guilt her into retracting her words.
Unfortunately for him, she quickly retorts with “Maybe your boss wouldn’t hate you if you didn’t spend your whole shift talking to your friends .”
“Ouch, okay!” He says, slightly offended, while proceeding to turn his attention to Damien, who is laughing at the encounter, “What about you then? Are you willing to make my job a little less miserable tonight?”
Damien ceases his laughter, but continues to smile as he speaks, “My parents are out of the country because of my mom’s work. If I don’t clean the house tonight I’m afraid they’ll ground me for longer than I’ll live!”
“Don’t you have an entire weekend?” Brightly cuts in.
“You have not seen my place in a while” Damien combats the question, “plus I’ve been putting it off all week.. ”
It was a slight lie, his parents wouldn’t allow living in complete filth. It is simply because he believes that Fred will be fired from his job if Damien shows up during his hours again.
“Why are your parents gone, again?” Fred asks Damien.
“Mom’s away on a business trip in France, but they’re using it as an excuse for a vacation.” Damien says indifferently.
“Bet you wish you were on that trip too,” Fred retorts, despite Damien’s apathetic tone.
“Last time I really pushed for anything with my parents was when I went on Total Drama, I'm not taking any chances,” He speaks, in a manner in which his friends are able to know his next words will be, “Do you know how hard it was to convince them of that? I had to make—“
Brightly quickly cuts him off, “Isn’t that your English class?”
Damien quickly brings his attention to where they were. As soon as he realizes, he turns to look around and sees his friends walking away quickly, cutting his rant short.
Unamused, he steps into his English class. From the agenda that he could see, it wasn’t anything that sounded all too interesting. He sighs as he sits in his chair, unable to choose between wanting school to end quicker or slower.
English class was fairly easy for Damien, at least when it came to the analysis parts . He was always so used to being cautious of everything, and it translated well into finding the deeper meaning of things, somehow .
However judging by the ‘Reading with class’ written in dry erase marker on the whiteboard, it seemed today wouldn’t be all that interesting.
His eyes are drawn to the outside once more as he lets his mind wander. What would make tonight more fun?
Sure, he could take Fred up on his offer to visit him at work, but Damien has done that many times. He couldn’t join Brightly at her concert, the tickets were too expensive, not to mention the venue was sold out.
Would he even have time to do anything? He did have to clean the entire house after all, but there’s still Saturday..
“—Damien,” The teacher’s voice causes Damien to perk up.
He doesn’t catch what the teacher says but he understands what he wasn’t paying attention to. He rushes to open his book before he realizes he doesn’t have a clue what he’s supposed to be reading.
“Where are we?” He asks as a couple of snickers emerge from around the room.
The teacher narrows their eyes before responding, “Page 46.”
He quickly flips to the page, ignoring the gaze of his peers. Damien finishes the passage, and vows silently to pay attention for the rest of class.
That of which proves hard to do. Time may fly by when you’re having fun, but it’s the same case when boredom is approaching.
Eventually, the final bell approaches. Despite Damien’s apprehension, it’s time to head home.
Equipped with car keys in his hand, Damien heads out into the hallway, incredibly unprepared. He seemed to forget that maneuvering through the hallways is significantly more difficult on Friday afternoon.
Damien reluctantly shoves the car keys back into his pocket as he realizes he’s stuck in a crowd. He estimates it’ll be at least a couple of minutes until he’ll be out of there.
Around three minutes later, he finally reaches the front doors, and a wave of frost almost slaps him in the face. But, that was to be expected.
Damien walks to his car carefully, aware of where he’s stepping, almost forgetting to pay attention to what’s directly in front of him.
He lifts up his head just in time to see someone slamming on the breaks of their car, stopping inches away from his face. He darts his eyes to the person driving, furrowing his eyebrows as his mouth drops open.
The window from the driver’s seat rolls down, and a man pops his head out and gives a simple, “Sorry!”
Damien remains frozen for another half-second before continuing walking and finally reaches the car.
Damien would’ve continued to mope about his responsibilities had it not been for the previous interaction. As he drives the car home, he is extremely cautious about pedestrians, lest the roles reverse themselves.
Thankfully, no such situation occurs. Damien steps out of the car, and makes his way upstairs. He keeps his caution around the stairwell’s landing, noticing the ice coating the metal platform.
Damien takes a brief moment to put his stuff down once he’s made his way inside. Almost instantly he begins to organize the living room, albeit begrudgingly, however he gets the work done.
About halfway through cleaning the second bathroom, the boredom catches up to him. No matter how much he would resent himself tomorrow, he has to stop in order to maintain his brain’s usefulness.
But, Damien hit a dead end when figuring out what he would do instead. If he just watched TV or did anything on his phone, he would have a hard time stopping himself. Even then, what he needs is something to distract himself, not entertainment.
The only solution he can think of is something he isn’t keen on doing, but visiting your friend at work can be fun, despite how close to unemployment they are.
However, he is halfway out the door when he picks up his phone and notices two messages from Fred.
Boss told me to stay home bc of the weather
He said it didnt matter if I showed up or not lol
Although the second message got a slight chuckle out of him, it made his plan now not possible.
However, now that he was outside, he felt like going for a walk. It isn’t in his nature to go on a walk on a whim like this, but today he just felt like seeing the city.
He has been to the city during sunset many times throughout his life, but never is it any less special, especially during snowfall.
Although he is enjoying himself, it does little to distract from the cold that comes from the wintertime. His mind quickly darts from places he can go inside to warm himself up.
Upon letting his mind wander around the area, Damien spots a familiar face. One that he hadn’t seen in some months. One that he has a seemingly overwhelming urge to talk to again, it doesn’t make much sense to him but he obliges with the thought.
Damien quickly changes course to greet the person, having to cross the street to do so. Unfortunately, he quickly loses sight of them while crossing the street.
But Damien soon deserts the idea once he realized that he had lost track of the person. He turns around to walk back home, when someone briskly moves past him.
As he turns his head back around, he realizes who it is.
“Priya?”
The young girl abruptly stops, her face concerned for the half-second it takes for her to look at Damien. Her face quickly softens into one of somewhat confusion before she responds.
“Damien?” Priya returns the favor, “What brings you to the city?”
Damien chuckles at the question, “I live here! In the city , I mean.”
Priya seems embarrassed of the question she asked, her speech reflecting it when she speaks, “Right! Sorry.. I, uh, I forgot.”
“It’s fine ,” Damien notices her hand on the door handle of a hotel’s front door. He had known the place to be fancy, so he spoke pretty excitedly, “is this where you’re staying?”
“Well.. where I’m trying to stay” she sighs before continuing, “I’ve been having no luck finding a place for the night.”
Slightly taken aback by this, Damien attempts to steer her in the right direction, “I mean, a lot of places downtown are booked up at night. My family stops by sometimes, they have to book in advance if they want to get a room downtown.”
It seems to do little else than demotivate her. Priya sighs and rests her back against the building behind them
“Well, you can look at places around that aren’t booked on your phone..” Damien begins to speak again, but it seems she is lost in her thoughts.
Damien takes this time to think for a second. Why is she going door-to-door looking at hotels? The simplest answer he could come up with is that she just needed a place to stay.
Priya suddenly perks up, and he uses this opportunity to offer up a suggestion.
“I mean, if you want, you could stay at my place?” The end of his sentence twists into uncertainty.
The suggestion catches her off guard. Damien watches in silence as her face contorts into many different emotions, no doubt weighing her options. He considers asking her several questions, but she doesn’t seem like she’s exactly in the mood to stand around.
He regrets his feeble suggestion the longer the silence stretches. Priya has reason to be here, no matter how much he wants her to say yes, whatever reason that may be, he knows it’s a shot in the dark.
Damien, noticing the sky getting darker, makes one last attempt at communication, “I mean, you know you don’t have to, but it might save you some time..?”
“I’d really appreciate that..” Priya responds.
“Cool! Great! My place isn’t too far away, you can just follow me!” Damien says, before the impact of his words dawn on him.
He was doing this completely on a whim, he wasn’t supposed to be doing anything but cleaning today, but he invited someone to sleep over for the night. Really, not just someone but Priya, a girl he hasn’t talked to in months. It’s different that it’s specifically her, somehow. He is in for something when his parents come home.
“So.. I guess I don’t know much about what you do..” Priya abruptly speaks, grabbing Damien’s attention.
“What I do?” Damien replies, puzzled by the question.
“You know, what you do for fun! I don’t think..” Priya explains, stopping herself after a memory pops into her head, “Well maybe I just forgot about the wizard stuff. I mean Zee did mention that during the second season, right? You’re some sort of wizard.. guy? ”
Damien looks away, flustered, “It’s a game.. I don’t actually think I’m a wizard ..”
“Oh, that’s D&D, right?”
“Yeah that’s it,” Damien replies, still shaking off his embarrassment.
The conversation continues as the pair make their way out of the frigid city. The conversation is relatively unremarkable, but the embarrassment takes a while to ring out of Damien’s mind. There’s still a hint of it once they reach his apartment.
It’s only when they reach the apartment that Priya finally puts down her belongings in a huff.
“My apartment is on the third floor,” as casually as he can, Damien offers Priya some help, “do you.. need help? With your stuff..?”
Damien points at a backpack Priya is carrying as he talks. Much to his dismay, she kindly declines his offer, “Nope! I can handle it!”
Many worries and questions swell in his mind, but he shoves it out of the forefront of his mind. He knows she’s strong, she can handle it.
But, that’s not the only worry in his mind. Still, he chases the thought away, following behind Priya as the two make their way up the stairs.
As they near the top, a memory sparks back into his mind, the ice on the entryway . Despite putting his concern aside, he finds himself stopping and warning her.
“I’m pretty sure there’s ice right there!” He blurts out, the tailend of his sentence riddled with heavy concern, “ please watch your step..!”
“So.. like I’ve been doing this entire time?” Priya giggles as she responds.
“Oh. Yeah.. yeah..! ” Damien lets out a light sigh, continuing to trudge up the stairs until he makes it to the door.
Reaching inside his pocket, Damien grabs his keys, metal made cold from the weather and inserts one of them into the doorknob. He attempts to turn the key, but it doesn’t budge from its position.
He attempts to turn the key again, but the result is the same. Damien switches to a different key, and gives another attempt, but it doesn’t fit properly in the keyhole.
He uses every other key in frenzied attempts but the result is always the same. He made his way back to the original key. He decides to give one last attempt. He inserts the key, and uses force to turn it left.
The lock clicks.
But as soon as it does, there’s a snap. Damien loses his balance, key ring still in hand.
Priya rushes to his side, but before she can ask him any questions, he asks one himself.
“Is the key still in the door ?” He tries his best not to sound desperate, but the fact of the matter is that is exactly how he is feeling.
Priya stands up and twists open the door, allowing Damien to sigh in relief. She turns around and offers her hand out to Damien.
“Thanks..” Damien replies, attempting his best to sound like he didn’t just humiliate himself. It feels worse that she has witnessed this mishap, as if she’d hate him for this specific failure. Despite the fact he knows she wouldn’t, he can’t help the feeling.
He follows Priya in the door, stopping to rip out the other half of the key from the doorknob, and brings it inside, setting it down on the kitchen counter. He finds himself stuck staring at it, imagining what might have happened if the door didn’t unlock.
“Guess I bent it a little too much..” Damien mutters, noticing that Priya is standing right beside him, “but I’ve got spares. We should probably figure out where you’re going to sleep tonight.”
Priya wanders around the apartment, stopping right outside the first door she sees. Damien’s eyes widen as he realizes she’s right outside his door. He rushes right beside her, in an attempt to stop her from entering.
“Hey, hey! That’s my room . It, uh, wasn’t exactly expecting any visitors today..” He tells her, attempting to keep it vague enough.
It truthfully wasn’t as bad as he is making it seem, but he wants to come across a certain way in front of Priya, more impressive in a way.
She looks around the rest of his place, but she catches his drift, “Well, the rest of the apartment looks clean ..”
“My parents expect me to and I am not going to argue with them!” Damien chuckles.
It appears Priya doesn’t find it that funny, the look on her face being distraught at the mention of his parents. She remains lost in thought, her face still fixed the same as her eyes dart around her surroundings.
Soon enough, her face is plastered with a different expression, “Alright then! Any other rooms? ”
“Well, nothing too exciting, two bathrooms.. Oh!” an idea sparks itself in Damien’s mind at this moment, “My parent’s room! You can sleep in my parent’s room! Well, tonight at least.”
“Oh I really shouldn’t ..” The distraught look makes its return to her face, “your parents will probably get mad I’m here in the first place! If I sleep in their bed I can only imagine how mad they’ll-”
“Don’t worry I can clean the room.. again. ” Damien responds, trying his hardest to hide the last part of the sentence, “it’s fine! ”
“Okay, okay, isn’t there somewhere else I can sleep?” Priya asks, with a sense of urgency in her voice, “Like, uh, your couch! That could work!”
Damien is dumbfounded by her request, but obliges, “I mean, it’s not as nice as my parent’s room, but I guess it could work.”
“It’s okay, it’s fine.. ” Priya starts her sentence, her voice quivering, “I’m just going to be in your bathroom okay?”
Damien hears the door to the bathroom shut, before it opens again. Priya pops her head outside for a brief second, “Oh, right, thank you!” She says, entering the bathroom once again.
Damien blinks in disbelief, finally allowing himself to have visible concern. Something is clearly going on with her, but he has no clue what is wrong, or how to figure out.
Five minutes pass by, it’s not a worrying amount of time, but Damien can’t help but let his thoughts spiral.
Why did she take a trip to the city without a place to stay for the night?
That was the first question he asked himself, with a few others following right behind.
Her parents planned out her entire life.. So where are her parents? If they let her go here alone, why didn’t she have a room? Surely they would have prepared for that.
None of his questions lead to any answers, he’d have to ask her, and he isn’t sure if he’d do that. There is only one thing he knows for certain.
Something is wrong, and I don’t know how to figure out what that is.
The more minutes that go by, the more concerned Damien is getting. He doesn’t know if he should check on her, but the time wasn’t helping his anxiety.
Despite his concerns, he decides to not check up on her and just sits down.
Ten more minutes pass, he hears a shuffle in the bathroom, so he knows she’s still here. Still, he waits.
About three minutes later, Damien hears the squeak of the bathroom door, accompanied by Priya’s footsteps.
As soon as she steps out, Damien notices her face. Her face had her hair clinging to it, damp with water. Her eyes were a little bloodshot and puffy as she averted his gaze.
“You okay?” He asks, hoping that she’d let him know what’s wrong.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” She responds, her voice a little nasally as she does so.
“Well, you were in the bathroom for a while..” As soon as he speaks, a wave of panic hits Priya.
“I didn’t ruin anything in there, I swear !” She says frantically, the panic reaching her voice.
“I didn’t think you did..” Damien sighs before continuing. “Look, you don’t have to tell me anything but that makes me more concerned.”
“I just..” Priya starts, stumbling over her words, “Can I just go to bed?”
Damien sighs again, and nods, his mind racing with thoughts. Still, he decides to say nothing and grab her some blankets and a sheet for the couch.
“I’m going to get some pillows, if you need anything else please let me know.” Damien tells her as he hands the things over.
He debates questioning her further as he grabs two pillows from the closet in his parent’s room. However, the only reasonable conclusion he can come to is that if anything she is safer in his place than anywhere else.
He hands over the pillows, and makes his way to his room without speaking a word to her. She can keep her secrets, is it really that big of a deal?
It is , but pressuring her to tell him really isn’t something he wants to do, she’s clearly already going through something , whatever that may be.
He sits down on his bed, and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He considers texting his friends what was going on, but stops himself.
They are Total Drama fans, and she’s not in the right mindset right now. If they know she’s here.. things could get worse. She might actually hate him if he does that.
So instead, he opted to organize his room a little more, sure it’s late at night, but he really can’t stop thinking about what’s going on with Priya. More than anything right now he just wants to understand her, and comfort her by any means she desires.
This goes on for quite some time, because he’s staying up pretty late, he realizes that he is hungry. He figures with the time, Priya is probably asleep right now.
He opens the door to his room, slowly letting it creep open before he steps out of his room. He doesn’t dare turn on a light, instead choosing to guide himself to the fridge door.
He opens it, and the light spills out into the rest of the tiled floor, before he notices something behind him. He slowly turns his head, realizing that someone is, in fact, there. He shrieks in response, closing the door behind him.
“I did not notice you!” Damien says, before he asks something, “Why are you on the floor?”
The silence from Priya’s end is deafening, she simply only stands up, and heads back in the direction of the couch.
“Wait, please, listen,” Damien says, not even trying to hide his desperation this time around, “I don’t mean to pry, but I can tell something’s going on, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Priya stops, tightly gripping her arm, shaking as she turns around. FInally, she speaks, voice quivering.
“I didn’t exactly.. plan out this little trip of mine all the way through. I-” She stops herself, jerking her arms parallel to her body and curling her fingers in towards her palms.
“No, I didn’t plan this out at all. Everything that has ever happened in my life was planned. All I ever wanted to do was make the decision, even if it was a bad one.” She releases all tension in her hands, letting herself cry, “I needed a change, I needed to get far away from home.”
So it did have something to do with her parents . Damien looks at her with sympathy, but it seems like she’s deep in thought.
“I decided to be spontaneous once , I thought it wouldn’t hurt,” Priya breaks the short-lived silence “I’m scared, but for the first time I’m scared and unprepared.”
“Well, I know how that feels.” Damien says, it seems to set Priya off.
“Right, right.. That’s another thing,” Priya sighs before she prepares her apology, ‘I’m really freaking out right now and that’s making me act incredibly inconsiderate right now--”
“Woah, I wouldn’t say that ,” Damien stops her before she can continue, “You’re upset, I don’t expect you to be thinking all that much about me right now.”
“No, no it’s not just you .. I also..” Priya doesn’t end her sentence. She merely stops and fidgets her fingers.
Damien is unsure of the whole picture, but what he does know is what she needs right now isn’t questions.
He puts his arm over her shoulder in a half embrace, not daring to say anything for now. Priya leans into him, and it brings out a slight smile on her face. It brings his face into a warmth of nerves, but he tries his best to not reflect it in his voice.
“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” Damien reassures her, “but, I think we should get to bed.”
Priya turns her head to look off at something behind them before speaking.
“I wish I could.”
Damien thinks for half a second before he risks saying what’s on his mind, “You mean to tell me, you’ve been through whatever things you’ve been through today, and you can’t sleep?”
Upon seeing her face, Damien believes he’s screwed up. He said he didn’t mean to pry but by saying what he did, he was doing exactly that. He removes his arm from her shoulder, giving her space.
Something traumatic may have happened to her today and she might feel like I am rushing to hear everything. I should’ve kept my mouth–
His thoughts are interrupted by Priya’s laugh, puzzled, Damien looks back at her, unaware of just what she may be thinking.
“Are you okay?” He asks.
“You’re right!” She continues to laugh despite speaking, “I’ve done so many things today for the first time, and I can’t do the one thing everyone needs to do everyday?”
“Okay, well insomnia is a thing a large portion of the population suffers with!” He responds, attempting his best to match her tone.
Priya’s voice picks up a hint of cockiness, “Oh I’d know about not getting enough sleep Damien!”
“ Really? ” Damien continues to copy her tone, “Because I thought that you’d be all about getting a healthy amount of sleep!”
“Who’s to say I don’t know about both? ” she retorts, starting up her laughter again.
“Alright, alright, I get it. You know everything there is to know about sleep,” He starts up before he hits her with another question, “so, why can’t you sleep?”
The mood in the room shifts within the few seconds that Priya doesn’t respond. If Damien didn’t mess up before, he sure believes he did now.
“I’m just thinking I guess,” she says, frowning, “maybe a little too much.”
Damien places his hand back on her shoulder, and tries to reassure her, “I know close to nothing about what you’re going through, but I don’t think anyone would blame you if you chose to forget about it for the sake of rest.”
“You don’t think?” She questions his wording.
“Well, I can’t be a hundred percent sure, you know how I am .” He tries to explain himself.
“I trust you enough to stay in your house, I’ll trust in your uncertainties, too.” She responds to him.
Damien can’t help but grin at her words, “Come on, let’s go to bed then. You can think about whatever you want to think about tomorrow.”
Priya nods, and the two go their separate directions.
Damien slips back into his room, carefully closing the door shut behind him and makes his way to his bed. With the moment lingering within his mind, It’s only around ten minutes before he realizes he never did grab something to eat.
He searches around his room to see if he has anything stashed anywhere, but to no avail. He carefully sneaks out to actually grab something, not daring to wake Priya up. He grabs a bag that he cannot read the label of, and glances at the couch.
Priya is sleeping soundly, and he lets relief wash over him. There’s a big comfort within him knowing that Priya will be alright for a little while, all because of him.
A small, near impossible thought pops into his mind, setting his heart aflutter.
Maybe, one day, she’ll do the same for me.
It’s a little stupid, but something about the thought endears him to Priya, just a little bit more.