Chapter Text
That man is back, the one he caught spying on him as he worked, wearing the same stylish jacket. Only he’s alone this time.
Damian isn’t surprised to see him as he tries to discreetly hide behind one of his display shelves, pretending to inspect the various items Damian has (random things he’s found at yard sales that he’s restored, some with his ‘Primary’ power and others with his own skill), as Damian speaks with a collector about his prized Russian porcelain doll that’s been damaged. But he didn’t really expect him to show up a day after...whatever happened between them.
He has a much cooler head now that he’s taken a little time to go over it. He closed his shop early yesterday, after they left, and opened later than usual today. He made sure to call his father as soon as he locked up, so that he’d bring Zemel back to his townhouse. He told his father he had a migraine when the man pressed about the early closure. His father merely nodded sagely and made him some tea, fussing over Damian as if he were a child again and kindly ushering him into bed.
It’s only after he’s finished his first cup of tea, with his father quietly detailing his and Zemel’s walk, that Damian realizes he maintained direct eye contact with Mr. Stylish Jacket and felt and saw absolutely nothing . His cup clattered sharply with the saucer in his hand, startling everyone in the room. Zemel shot up from the foot of the bed, instantly alert. Damian’s father laid a careful hand on his son’s wrist; Damian flinched when he felt the familiar love-concern-unease flow from his father’s fingers and seep into his own flesh. His father didn’t pull away, pressing his lips thin and curling his fingers tighter, as if trying to be brave and show that he’s unafraid of Damian knowing these private emotions.
“It’s fine, Dad. I’m fine.” Damian smiled, lifting his eyes and stopping just shy of meeting his father’s eyes, instead staring at the bridge of his nose. He may take his dark glasses off when around his family (and Dave, sometimes) but that didn’t mean he became careless and always kept his eyes directed elsewhere. “Alright, son.” His father said. He gently took his cup and saucer. “I’ll just put this away. You should get some rest. I’ll stop by sometime tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here,” Damian said, slumping against his pillows. “I won’t open the shop until after lunch.”
“Okay, son. Rest.”
Damian didn’t rest. He stared out his bedroom window and thought about Mr. Stylish Jacket. It’s not the first time he’s encountered someone... odd, like him, where he can’t see anything in their head or feel any sort of emotion sinking into his skin like a poison, no matter how long he stared into their eyes. It was like a blank space in his mind, usually so crowded by someone else’s fears and anxieties, that goes blissfully quiet.
It’s almost unnerving. Being able to simply look at another human being without his dark glasses acting as a buffer; not having to worry he’ll see and know too much is such a foreign concept, he can’t even fathom it.
But people like that...something was off about them. Even if Damian couldn’t unintentionally take a peek at their thoughts or emotions with his “Secondary” power, he could somehow still feel them on an instinctual level. It was the way they carried themselves, he mused. It was like the people around them simply flowed around them, like water cut through by a boulder. And they had this air about them, stagnate and ripe with confusion or misery or simmering rage. Like they were only half a person; an after image, maybe.
Mr. Stylish Jacket didn’t really give Damian that impression. He seemed much more animated and solid than other people he’s encountered like that.
He loiters around Damian’s shop as he speaks with a variety of customers, negotiating prices and scheduling repairs. The strange man meanders from shelf to shelf, touching some things and merely looking at others, as if he were a curious ghost haunting the shop. None of Damian’s regulars acknowledges the man, their eyes passing over him as they make casual small-talk with Damian. Damian frowns, puzzled as the man gives him a cheery wave each time their eyes meet (despite his glasses, the man meets his gaze directly every time).
Eventually there are no more customers to act as Damian’s buffer. The shop falls quiet, with the exception of the low murmuring of the radio by the cash register (always tuned to a local news station), and Damian takes a breath.
“Alright.” He addresses the man, who stood patiently staring at him from a comfortable distance. “Let’s get this over with. What do you want?”
The man tilts his head a little, like a puppy recognizing a human word. Then he gives Damian a shrug, his hands casually pocketed in his jacket.
“How long have you been here, working at this shop I mean.”
Damian expected him to ask about his hands right away. Maybe he wants to ease into their inevitable conversation, so he doesn’t scare Damian off. Damian can work with that.
“Since I was eighteen. I own this place.”
“Did you grow up in this city?”
“...Yes.”
The man took a step closer to the counter. Then another. Cautiously, as though he were approaching a feral dog. Damian tried not to bristle.
“You… Can do things.”
“...Yes.”
“It’s…. Alright, you know.” He said, voice measured and soothing. Damian bristled. “We’re the same. Well, sort of.” The man was stopped at the counter, close enough to touch should either of them reach out for the other. Damian stood his ground, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders.
“And what, exactly, can you do?”
The man grinned. “This.”
He took a step forward and then another, inexplicably, phasing through the counter, until he stood toe-to-toe with Damian - only the top half of his body above his waist line was visible.
Damian stared.
Stared some more.
Continued staring.
“Well,” he sighed. “Want a drink?”
“You’re fucking with me.” Damian took a quick swig of his beer, staring at Ben with a slight grimace. “Superhuman? That I’ll believe, but ghosts? No fucking way.”
“Come on!” Ben, seated on Damian’s work stool, hung his head, hunching his shoulders, in exaggerated exasperation. “You said so yourself you can’t read my mind or whatever.” He flapped his hand. “And you’re a freaking necromancer! What kind of necromancer doesn’t believe in ghosts?”
“First, I don’t read minds, okay? Second, I am not a necromancer. That sounds ridiculous.”
“You literally brought a dead bird back to life, what do you call that?”
“Magic,” Damian quipped.
“Necromancy is magic, smartass.”
“Ah ha!” Damian pointed. “If I were a necromancer, I would’ve known that. Case dismissed.”
Ben snorted, straightening his posture and crossing his arms. Damian had closed shop for the day, relocating them to his backroom to speak more comfortably. The beer he offered to Ben was left untouched on the table, cap politely popped for him. Although, apparently, it was a wasted gesture. After an awkward pause Ben revealed his undead status to Damian. He touched briefly on having powers of his own, when he was alive, and his other siblings with abilities (though he didn’t go into specifics or offer any names beside Klaus - who's the only one who can see him).
Damian had discarded his glasses upon retrieving the beers, seeing no point in wearing them as a buffer since he couldn’t “read” Ben anyway. Ben had stuttered over his words for a moment, stuck-dumb at the way they glowed faintly in the light, clearing his throat with a flush when Damian arched an unimpressed brow.
Naturally, Damian is a private, solitary person. Dave is the only person he’d ever shared his powers with outside his parents. Damian explained his powers in very simplistic terms, not daring to reveal more. There were dark, hidden, things that frightened Damian; he refused to acknowledge them.
The more he and Ben shared with each other, the more surprised Damian became with how at ease Ben made him feel. They traded quips as though they were old friends chatting over brunch.
It was dangerous.
Ben grew serious, thoughtful. “You seriously never considered helping people?”
“I do help people. I fix their shit.”
“You know what I mean.”
Damian shrugged, swallowing the last of his beer before gently tossing it in the bin beside his mini fridge. “Nobody needs me to play hero. I’m just an ordinary guy trying to make ends meet. I’m really nothing special.”
Ben opened his mouth, ready to argue against that assertion, when suddenly his face twisted into something strange. “Something’s wrong.”
“What’d you mean?”
But in a blink of an eye, he was gone.
Damian stared at the empty space Ben had just occupied. "That doesn't prove anything."