( open )

[imaginate]

Characters: Kyle & you unfortunate souls.
Date: During the mis-spell event.
Location: Everywhere.
Situation: Kyle is seven and the most powerful weapon in the universe still answers to him. Watch out, world.
Warnings/Rating: None that I can think of.
Notes: [Action] or prose all good. If the starters don't work, feel free to tag with your own.

Comments

[demon_brat]

Well, maybe he is better used to candy, but... not liking it too much.

After he stows the rest of the ice-cream in the fridge, he leans a hip against the counter by Kyle's knees.

"Aside from reaching items you had placed where they used to be convenient, and attention span, are you experiencing any other problems?"

It's been enough time that Kyle might have run into anything else majorly wrong, right?

[imaginate]

Kyle chews slowly, mulling over the question. 'Nuh-uh. My ring can fix everything else.'

A pause.

'I'm surprised it's even working. It shouldn't be, not for a kid.'

[demon_brat]

Damian... looks over, his eyebrows raised.

"In the Dreaming, you gave me a ring, anyway."

True, Kyle is younger than Damian was at the time, but...

[imaginate]

Rolling his eyes, 'It was my brain dummy, obviously it'd work for you. Rings are finicky business!'

[demon_brat]

Damian's eyes still narrow at him.

"And it is your brain that knows that the ring should not work for a child."

Logic, Damian is way too nitpicky about it.

[imaginate]

Too cheerfully, 'It's my will that can convince my brain otherwise.'

Duh.

[demon_brat]

"Then how do you know you are experiencing reality and not what you wish it to be?"

He waves a hand. "Not right now. Generally."

Awkward of leading this conversation with a seven-year-old? Not at all. It is still adult Kyle, inside.

[imaginate]

Kyle gives Damian a hard look. 'I'm seven now. I'm excused from philosophical discussions.'

Twenty-six on the inside? Try not. He's been shrunk and he's going to take every advantage of it.

[demon_brat]

Damian gives him an even harder one. He is not at all, ever, fond of avoiding important things.

But at least he doesn't say the single word he's thinking, instead settling on, "that is untrue."

[imaginate]

Had he said it - called Kyle a coward - it was perhaps the single word that could inflame him to being angry with Damian.

But it wasn't fully formed, Kyle would've seen it in the frown, the set of Damian's shoulders. So he just continues eating. 'How so?'

[demon_brat]

Maybe a part of Damian is at least aware that it isn't quite true. But he does lash out when he is unhappy, and uncharitable thoughts like that are just it.

Instead, he gives Kyle a look.

"We are the same, inside. Our bodies' ages have changed, but not our actual ages."

So, 'I'm seven' is untruth.

[imaginate]

Kyle returns it.

Grumpily, 'I can't believe you just missed the opportunity to tell me how immature I am.'

[demon_brat]

...

"I did not think it necessary to reiterate the obvious."

Oddly, that sounds like some of the tension has gotten diffused, evaporated in the air around them.

[imaginate]

Kyle returns to his ice cream, taking a napkin from the counter and cleaning his fingers where he accidentally stuck them in it. He maintained that Damian had a strange sense of humour, but when evoked, it always seemed to make him relax somewhat, and fall into an easy, comfortable pattern.

[demon_brat]

Damian does have a strange sense of humor. But it's a sign that he's not completely stuck in horror and bad past and potential future.

For now, he watches the boy, sampling his own ice cream slowly. In a little bit, he adds, with some surprise, "you are all right with being changed, this way."

Yeah, no, some things simply don't compute, for Damian. How is it possible to be okay with it?

[imaginate]

'Not completely,' he admits. 'I'd rather... be me. You know. Taller.' He gestures, exasperated (and a brief expression of fear crosses his face: what if this takes too long to fix and I'm stuck like this?). 'Compared to the other stuff that happened? I think I'm okay.'

And, as always, this is hardly the worst I've faced.

[demon_brat]

Damian lets out a familiar huff. That does not mean you should sit down and accept it!

But he focuses into his ice-cream, stabbing at the last small lump with his spoon.

"I am not."

If only he knows how much more 'not' he'll get.

[imaginate]

He stops swinging his legs and looks at Damian, mildly reproachful. 'I'm not accepting anything,' he says, his voice quavering. 'I'm just - trying to be calm. Zatanna's already gonna fix it, so why don't we just. Wait until she does?'

[demon_brat]

Bitterness comes out way more effectively, when he's an adult.

"You trust her far too much. At least when Kane turned that boy into a hamster, she somewhat knew what she was doing. This is worse."

Nope. Not good with his body being played with, and never will be.

[imaginate]

He narrows his eyes. 'People make mistakes,' he says, coldly. 'I never said you had be okay with it... but you gonna judge them for every single one?'

[demon_brat]

"When they have this much power--" over me "-- and use it irresponsibly? Yes. I am."

And if this is not irresponsible? Yeah, somebody needs to check their definitions.

[imaginate]

He agrees it's irresponsible, and that's what shuts him up for a while. But he trusts Zatanna, and more so, she was a kid who messed up, which strikes too close to home, for him.

'Five Hail Marys and an act of contrition?' he offers, slightly bitter.

[demon_brat]

And whatever trust Damian had in Zatanna - at least this one - just got shot to hell.

"I have no idea what that even means."

And is too angry to logic it out. But, not Christian or raised in a country with strong Catholic-based traditions, remember?

[imaginate]

'When I used to get into trouble, Ma made me go for confession.'

He rarely speaks of his childhood. It's just something to be put away, a book that's been read once and simply kept on the shelf because the owner's too sentimental to sell it.

'You'd say what you did wrong, and then you'd get a list of things to do that'd make up for it.'

He swings his feet lazily, staring at them as he speaks. He's not consciously aware of how much that simple concept influences his own attitude towards mistakes, and redemption.

[demon_brat]

Something in the little-boy voice, now not very little-boy in tone, pulls Damian out of the anger, and he listens, carefully, mouth pressed in a line but eyes no longer flashing.

And his voice is - calmer.

"That sounds very... easy."

He doesn't feel like expanding what making mistakes meant for him. Pain, usually. If he made a big one, it would mean death. He didn't grow up with leniency in any way that signified.

And he did hear the bitterness when talking about it moments ago.

Nothing is ever as easy as it sounds.