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"Dear, you're hurting him."
"how do you expect him to feel about his mother when you play dressup?"
"Why do you place a such a curse in our blood?"
"Dehlia, your son needs his MOTHER."
He was sick of it. Ever since his son came into the world, the words, the punches to his soul, the cuts, the scratches, the pain, had gotten so much worse. The minute he had found out he was carrying a new life, shocingly, he was HAPPY. This is a soul, a new one, one who never needs to know about my dead self, Damien had thought.
Boy was he wrong.
The second Lucien had been born, up until now, people just made it harder for the boy to learn of his father. Everytime Lucien called him dad, Damien's parents had reprimanded him, and corrected him. Everytime Lucien tried to say Damien's new name, people hd acted as if he was talking to an imaginary friend, then laughed when he had said he had just called for his dad, and corrected that his name was Michael, not Damien.
He had so often wanted to just take Lucien away, run away from his family, and let Lucien be happy with his dad, Damien, and not what these people made him think. But it had been too late. Lucien already called him 'mom' accidentally, then quickly correcting himself. Damien had tried his best to help Lucien get those imprints off of him, and help him go back to thinking of his dad as who Damien felt he was. But people chastised him for trying.
Once when Lucien had attempted to get Damien's attention, and he had been distracted, and the three-year old had called "mom" three times, until he finally said "dad" and Damien had realized he was the one called for, his mother had called him abusive. Threatened to take Lucien away from him. It had just been a mistake on Damien's part to forget he wasn't "dad", but "mom".
He had hugged Lucien so tight that night, terrified that if he went to sleep, Lucien wuld be gone the next morning. He stayed up the entire night, cradling a sleeping toddler, and had passed out mid-afternoon, But luckily Mary had been there, and made sure no one had taken Lucien away while he slept.
It was another two years, and Lucien turning five years old, that things were starting to be better. When they finally moved out of Damien's parent's place, and to their own, with Mary, to Maple bay. Damien had cried, as he had kept looking over to the small child who was looking out the car, giggling at all the sights. Lucien wuld be okay here. He knew it. He'd get to call him whatever he wanted.
A couple months later, Damien was relaxing in his lounge, reading, so engrossed in the book, he hadn't even heard Lucien walk in.
"... Mom?"
No response. Damien was so in the book he didn't notice the figure drawing closer, begging him for attention. Lucien tried again.
"Moooom...?"
Another flip of the page, Damien could hear something, but it was like a whisper.
"Dad!"
Damien's brown eyes widened as he snapped the book shut, finally looking over at Lucien's equally brown eyes, his face into a frown, as Damien felt his chest tighten. Had he ignored him by mistake again?
"Ah, Lucien, dear, I-- I didn't hear you, did you need something...?"
He felt his heart break when Lucien just sighed and shook his head. Maybe his mother had been right, he was abusive, to ignore Lucien's first call juste because it had been to implemented into his own head that he wasn't "mom".
"It's fine, dad." Lucien just turned around and headed into the still unfinished kitchen, sitting down at the table, as Damien sighed and followed him. God, he felt like a monster. He IGNORED his own child's cry for help. Or whatever kind of cry it was, he had wanted his attention, and he had ignored it. what kind of father-- no, PARENT, did that?
"Lucien, I-- I'm so sorry I did that, baby..." Damien tried, and sat down opposite of him, as the boy sat still on the opposite side of him, drawing something.
"I'm sorry you have to deal with such an awful mother, who ignores you for my own sick pleasure of being who I'm not, of-- of not being your mother Dehlia.."
"Damien."
"I-- what?" Damien blinked when he heard his name coming out of Lucien's mouth, but it didnt even seen like the boy had stopped drawing for a second, his eye still on the pen and paper.
"Your name isn't Dehlia, DAD. it's Damien." Lucien simply spoke,still not looking up from the paper, as his father just stared at him, lips curling into a smile.
Lucien wasn't lost. Lucien wasn't like them. He knew his dad, he knew who he was.
"Yes... yes it is."
Lucien pushed his paper arpund to show Damien, and Damien smiled. It was a drawing on him and Lucien, outside the new house, and Mary a bit to the side and her fiance, Joseph.
"I spelled it right, right?"
Damien gave a laugh. So THAT was what he wanted. He reached for one of the crayons on the table, a red, and wrote his name, Damien.
"It's spelled with the A first, then the E, love... Demian is almost correct though."