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His father’s study has always been… sterile.
Most home offices are warm. Inviting. Oakwood shelves stacked with velvet-covered books, perhaps an olive green carpet covering the dark hardwood floor while ruby curtains are cracked open across large windows to let golden sunlight peek through.
Most offices.
But not his father’s.
Donovan Desmond’s study is empty but for a mahogany desk and matching chair. The drawers, Damian knows, are locked or empty, the top of the desk itself always bare unless his father is present, for Donovan doesn’t believe in the “security risk” of keeping important paperwork easily accessible, even for his own purposes. There are no shelves, no books, no windows, any entering figure environed only by plain wooden walls. The floor is pale limestone, a stark contrast to the rich, reddish color of the desk.
Yet the all-consuming void that masks itself as a study always reveals its true nature upon entry. And without fail, it does the same now.
Damian’s shoes, tap tap tap. Footsteps echoing across the white tile.
He’d left Anya in one of the Desmond Manor’s many drawing rooms, pressing a quick kiss to the top of her head when a servant summoned him to see his father and promising the conversation shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes. Now, however, standing in this abyss, his father’s eyes trained upon him absently (like a man ignoring a fly’s low buzz) yet precisely (like a hunter finding its desired prey), Damian’s stomach sinks with the ever-looming anxiety that he will never be allowed to return to her.
But such is a father’s love, right? Unrelenting, unrepentant, inescapable?
“Damian.” His father gestures toward a plain wooden chair before him, one Damian suspects was brought into this pathetic excuse of a study for the express purpose of disallowing any attempt from Damian to stand over his father.
(As if he would—could—ever do such.)
Damian obeys the unspoken command, slowly crossing the room (tap, tap, tap, a tinny echo) and taking the seat across from his father.
“You wanted to see me,” he manages to say, manages to stop his voice from wavering. (Why, why is it that every time he stands—sits, exists—before his father, he becomes the helpless child he once was and has always been and has never stopped being?)
“Yes.” Donovan’s response is clipped, to the point. As ever. “It’s about Miss Forger.”
Damian tenses. “What… What about her?”
The look his father casts upon him is cold, disdainful, piercing Damian like a stake. “You may think me to be a fool like yourself, Damian, but I assure you—I am not.”
Nausea rolls like a rocking boat amidst a growing tempest in the pit of Damian’s stomach. “I would never think that, sir.”
His father doesn’t deign the denial with a response. “To the matter of Miss Forger.” He leans back in his seat. “She is a vampire, of course.”
Damian freezes.
No.
Impossible.
How could—shit, of course his father knows, how could Damian have ever thought he could keep this secret—wait, no, no, what’s going to happen to Anya—fuck—what should he do—say—lie?—feign oblivious—choose oblivion?—
“Or perhaps not a vampire,” his father continues, ignoring—or maybe just disregarding—the discomfort, panic, horror Damian is confident his face fails to mask. “‘Failed experiment’ might be more accurate. An experiment that, I’m afraid, is nearing its end.”
Damian pales. “I’m… sorry?”
“Make no mistake, Damian. It has been quite fascinating—if not intellectually fruitful—to witness your and your coterie’s interactions with Miss Forger over the last twelve years. The amount of blood required for her daily sustenance, the… resourceful, though never clever, means of handling her sunlight sensitivity. The great lengths you, your peers, her parents went to keep this secret.” A distorted imitation of a smile tugs at Donovan’s lips, present for but a second before it disappears. “Quiet as it’s kept… But, unsurprisingly, not quiet enough.”
Damian swallows, his throat closing in on itself. Responding seems impossible, because he knows, he knows that Anya is in real, present danger like never before, he knows there is nothing he can say that will convince his father from this path, and still, and still—
“What do you want?” He licks his lips, cracked and dry. “From her?”
His father hums. “Yes, I suppose I did misspeak earlier. Miss Forger’s experiment is not nearing its end. It might be better described as newly beginning.” His eyes lock with Damian’s, hard and unfeeling. “She shall be returned to her original caretakers. Time will tell if they can make a success out of her current failed state.”
“You can’t do that!” Damian says, voice pitching, cracking, and he jumps to his feet with the protest. To challenge his father is dangerous, to display emotion is even more so, but—it’s Anya. “You can’t do that. I—” His voice falters. His hands curl into fists at his side. “No. I won’t let you.”
Donovan raises a brow. “You cannot prevent what has already commenced.”
Bile rises in the back of Damian’s throat. “You’re lying.”
His father sighs, weighted with disappointment. “You have always cared too much, Damian. About truth and lies. About fortune and misfortune. About family… and friends.” Donovan stands, too. “Understand this: what matters is not what Subject 007 means to you, or to herself. What matters is what she can do for the world.”
He moves from around the desk, slowly closing the distance between himself and Damian (because Damian can’t move, can’t back away, can’t escape can never escape—). “Near immortality. Immunity to dozens of known diseases, hundreds of untold more. The future of mankind might as well be the progeny of her potential.”
Donovan looms over Damian, now, his face a calculated calm while his eyes faintly—almost imperceptibly—sparkle with something like vindictive glee. “Through her, we may never again be a society that knows death. Loss. Pain.”
“But—”
Donovan’s gaze hardens. “You do not understand. As expected.” He sighs, taking a step back from Damian. “I should not have dared to hope otherwise. You have always been the lesser child.” His eyes flick over Damian’s cowering, quivering form. “Not that you need my reminder.”
Damian tries to quell his shaking shoulders. He fails. So he tries to appeal to logic, in whatever fucked up way his father defines it, instead. “Father, you can’t insist on—on sacrificing one person in the hopes it will better the future of many. An experiment founded on fantasy is not science but folly.”
(He has to get out of here. Has to get back to Anya. Have they gotten to her already? Whoever “they” is? Masked men with weapons—fire, stakes, worse—already stolen her from the manor? Anya is strong, he knows this, but his father is stronger, he’s always been, or maybe Damian has just always been weaker—)
“You needn’t refer to that husk as a person, Damian,” his father says, voice dripping with disgust and dismissal. “A tool, perhaps. A means to an end. But no longer a person.” His gaze glosses over Damian, dull, careless. “Surely you have understood that much all along, have you not?”
No. No. Anya isn’t—she’s not—
“Don’t you dare talk about her like that,” Damian chokes out, then his stomach heaves and he’s on his knees, throwing up over his father’s shoes.
Donovan stares down at him, unblinking. “How predictable, Damian.” He shakes his head, not quite regretful. “It is unfortunate that I have already misspoken twice today. You are not lesser.” He squats down, grabbing Damian’s chin and yanking it upwards, forcing Damian to meet his eyes. “You do not deserve to see the future I will create. It is a sincere shame I cannot be sorry for that.”
He shoves Damian away, Damian’s head snapping sideways and hitting the tile floor with a thud that echoes through this abyssal space. Liquid, hot and wet trickles down his forehead, and from the smell of copper that’s filling his nose it can only be blood.
Blood. His blood.
Anya. His Anya.
He has to get to Anya.
Damian tries to push, propel, crawl back to his feet, but the world promptly spins and sends him tumbling back to his knees. His ears are ringing, a high-pitched whine worse than a shrieking mosquito, and in the midst of the screeching constancy—
A creak?
The world still swimming, Damian manages to turn toward the study door, where a sole figure stands in the threshold.
Their clothes are in tatters, bits of black fabric falling from torn sleeves and exposing pale limbs. Crimson pools around their feet, dripping from their hands—no, from their chest—no, from higher, higher, higher—and the guttural growl that emerges sends a chill (a shiver, a thrill, a rush) racing down Damian’s spine. Recognition is instantaneous, maybe less than—
“Anya”—he tries to stand, nauseous but conscious, and somehow succeeds—“Anya, please, wait, be careful—!”
Anya hisses, at him or at his father Damian cannot tell even as his sight at last begins to stabilize. Her green eyes gleam, almost aglow in the dim light of the room, and she bares her fangs—dripping with hot blood, more distended than Damian has ever witnessed.
When he glances back at his father, Damian catches a glimpse of an emotion he didn’t know his father was capable of wearing: fear.
No. More than.
Pure, unadulterated terror.
Anya springs forward, sprints across the room, and with alarming—electrifying—dexterity leaps over Donovan’s desk from where he moved behind to grab him by the collar and slam him against the nearest wall.
“You,” she spits, flecks of blood scattering across Donovan’s pale face, “bastard.” She reaches up, grabs Donovan’s hair, and yanks his head violently to the side. “He’s mine.”
Whether irony or karma Damian doesn’t know, but when Anya sinks her fangs into his father’s neck, the reality remains that Donovan utters not a word. His mouth opens and closes, soundless, nothing but a gasp escaping as Anya snarls, the noise wet and grotesque. Her jaw seems to stretch, distort, expanding beyond mere exsanguination to utterly consume the shell—the husk—his father is rapidly becoming.
With a final, vile gulp, throat pulsating, Anya swallows the last of Donovan’s blood. When she tosses his limp corpse away, chunks of flesh remain caught in her mouth, and pieces of skin and muscle slowly slide down her fangs before landing with a sickening squelch on the scarlet-spattered tile.
Next thing Damian knows, he’s on his knees once more, and seconds later Anya has wrapped her arms around him and cradles his head beneath her chin.
“Damian,” she whispers, the sound still kin to a hiss. “It’s alright, it’s alright.”
Shoulders shuddering, Damian wraps his arms around her in turn. “Anya—”
“Hey,” and now her voice is a croon, a lull and a lure, hypnotic in its warmth. “He’s never going to hurt you again.” Her hold on him tightens, briefly, momentarily. One hand reaches upward to wipe the blood still dripping from somewhere on his head. “No one will. Not while I’m here.”
(It’s Anya. She’s here. Of course she is. She’s his—everything.)
Damian feels her kiss the top of his hair, slowly moving down to kiss his forehead, and he can’t stop a whimper from escaping as he feels her fangs graze his skin.
A pause.
“Mm,” Anya hums. “Too bad your father was so filling,” and then Damian cups his hand around the back of her neck before he pulls her down into a fierce kiss.
Anya’s fangs pierce his lips, not enough to draw blood but with enough pressure that Damian knows she has not yet fully retracted them and yet still Damian can taste copper. Maybe his father’s, maybe his own, he can’t be sure, and he soon wonders if this kiss is anti-Oedipal but—when Anya slips her tongue into his mouth—sooner decides that he doesn’t give a damn. Both of Anya’s palms move to hold his face while he tangles his free hand in her hair, trying to pull her closer, closer, as if there were a way he might come to share more than just his blood (his life, his love) with her—
She pulls back, only to lean forward and press their foreheads together. “Wait. Tell me. Tell me.” Her voice thick with desperation, Anya runs a thumb across his cheek. “You’re okay, right?”
Damian imitates her motion, cupping her own bloodied face in his palms. “I should be asking you. I don’t—I don’t know what you heard, but—” He shakes his head. “My father’s wrong, Anya. You’re not—You’re not some monster. You’re just you, you’ve always been you—”
Anya silences him with another intense, though briefer, kiss. “I don’t give a shit what Donovan Desmond thinks—thought—about me,” she murmurs as she pulls away. Green eyes, ablaze like Greek fire, meet brown. “But he shouldn’t have dared to insult you. Anyone, anyone who hurts you…” Anya’s voice drops to a growl. “They don’t deserve to see another day.”
(She’s going to kill him. She’s going to be the death of him. She’s going to be the unlife of him. And Damian is okay with that, so okay with that—)
Damian pulls down the collar of his shirt, exposing his neck. “Bite me,” he says, and it’s a plea, a beg, a need from her, only her— “I’m yours.”
Anya’s lips part. The tips of white fangs, still slick with blood, are just barely visible within the cavernous shadows of her mouth. “Yes. Yes, you are.”