Page 73 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 9-12
“You’ve built your life on being what they are not,” Richard whispered.
“Yes!” Damian jerked against the bolts of the cross. In every other place, he was a strong man, a large man, even, compared to some. He couldn’t thrash, couldn’t rage, but here it was safe. The bolts clanged, but nothing gave. His arms and legs burned from the tension and the stretch, this struggle he was putting himself through, fighting against a thing he couldn’t escape.
“They…they blamed me. Everything they couldn’t change—they blamed me. I can’t blame them. If I do, then I’m just the same.”
Richard’s frame blanketed him from behind, caging him in. “So close, Pup. You know the truth.”
Knowing the truth and feeling the truth were oceans apart.
“You’re going to suffer for their sins, Pup, as long as you claim them.”
“I could have DONE something.”
Richard stepped back. The cane made a swoosh through the air, lifting the hair on Damian’s arms. In the next flash, it was against his skin, raising fire, once, twice, three times.
Damian screamed. His body thrashed in the restraints. He wasn’t trying to get away anymore; he was overloaded. His nerves had no choice but to shake and thrash through the onslaught.
“Please,” he whispered, his body shuddering, knees buckling.
Richard caught him from behind, saving him from hanging from his wrists. “What are you afraid of, boy?”
“Hate, sir.” Damian sucked in air through a raw throat. “There’s a lake of rage inside me. What if it owns me?”
“Rage is acid, boy. It clarifies, separates, melts. It burns. Choose what it burns.”
Damian squeezed his eyes shut. “What if I am what burns?”
“Even if that is all that is left, you are you. You will still be the man I cherish and respect.”
“How do you know?”
“Because–” Richard’s voice rattled like a husk. Damian pulled, trying to turn to see his sir. Richard reached under his arms and gripped the beams of the cross. “--when they took Collin and Émeric, I was my rage. I was everything that I am without the small limits, the social concerns, the everyday desire to survive. I was all of myself, clean and pure and sure.”
“You rained down death.”
“I loved, Damian.” Richard’s voice cracked.
Tears ran down Damian’s face, not just for himself. “What is about to die?”
“You are the master of yourself, Damian. I’ve seen you become a man who owned himself. So fight yourself. Choose what dies. Choose what deserves to survive.”
Richard stepped away, leaving Damian on the cross. “It doesn’t change a thing to acknowledge it. It only changes you.”
The thump of the flogger against his shoulders made Damian sway on his feet. It barely registered as pain. He was deep inside himself. The strikes on his body beat out a rhythm as he walked the places in his mind down to the dark lake deep inside.
A place as deep and as old as himself. He crouched down by the water and placed his hand in it, watched the water bifurcate over the sides of his palm. It changed color as it fell, red, then blue, then green, then yellow, then finally orange. He stretched out, stirring it up.
Some of it was cold. Some of it was warm. Some streams were so hot they seemed to become steam as they fell.
The pain in his physical self mounted, his limbs tingling with a high that only masterfully built-up stimulation could bring—euphoria at the hand of a lash.
He grunted, twisting and pulling on his restraints, letting himself fight until he found that place he knew he was going.
He was going to drink, here and now, chained down, trusting Richard to tame his beast if it appeared.
He conjured a chalice in his mind. Dipped it into the water. Stared into its surface. Every color of the rainbow swirled there, colors against depths of black.
The pain of the flogger spilled over the edge, driving him to the place where sensation was only pleasure. He floated in a world so suffused with pain that there was none.
