[closed] tale as old as time

[neverbatman]

[After their near disaster of a gala, Damian knew he had to make it up to Midii. Christmas was the best possible way to make it up, he figured. Gifts were a normal part of the holiday season, and he'd gone out of his way to shower his friends with material goods, whether they wanted it or not.

Some of his friends had resigned themselves to the inevitable and asked for reasonable gifts - Jai, for example, got season tickets for the local basketball team, and Iris got one of those fancy Fitbits that could (reasonably) calculate a speedster's rate.

Midii, though, needed something better. After much deliberation and arguing with a local calligrapher + screen printer, Damian ordered two things: one, for Midii to come meet him on the second floor of a coffee shop that his family owned, and two, a set of custom-printed Arabic calligraphy t-shirts. Nothing religious, for the Muslims who might cry cultural appropriation, but cultural sayings & shapes.

He's not expecting her super early, but he's looking a little nervous as he stares down at the gift bag he'd wrapped the latter in. Just once, he wishes the coffee shop could sell boosts of confidence with their lattes. He'd buy their entire stock out.]

Comments

[neverbatman]

[Once he can hear the roar of the fire - a good sign, considering how unfamiliar he is with this one - he lets out a sigh of relief and joins her.

His tolerance for the cold is less than hers, which may be why he pulls out a fuzzy white blanket. (His own, rather than something that would stay in this space forever.)]

It's a good kind of predictable. [He says, pulling the blanket around him like he's a Damian burrito.] It's the legitimate mysteries you've gotta watch out for.

[uneforgettable]

[She was in such a good mood, she didn't even bother commenting on the blanket. Something that, in the past, she might have teased him about. The fact that she actually had a higher tolerance for something than he did.]

[Everybody gets one, it seemed.]

[But that afternoon...she simply leaned into the Damian burrito and held out the book for him to see. Flipping to the list of chapters, which gave a pretty decent indication of what they were in for.]

Unless they're in stories.

Then they're mostly harmless.

[neverbatman]

[He hums thoughtfully, like he's making a life or death decision rather than a judgment about a book he's barely read.]

True. They can't always come right out of the page.

[Though he's sure some supervillain has tried, knowing the world they lived in.]

You gonna start from the beginning?

[uneforgettable]

[At that, she purposely turned her head to give him a direct is that a rhetorical question? look.]

Would you rather I start at the end so you know what happens first?

[neverbatman]

Hindsight's always 20/20. If you start at the end, you get a clearer picture.

[His smile's too big for him to play that seriously, like he actually reads books backwards. Most of the time, he's a stickler for going in order - there's a rhyme and a reason and a time and a place.

Except now, he has no time or place or rhyme or any of that, because he's exactly where he wants to be.]

[uneforgettable]

[She could often read him like a book, and right then, he was so loud he might as well have been an audio tape.]

Get used to living in suspense, then, because we're starting from Chapter 1. The beginning of Chapter 1.

[Suffer.]

[neverbatman]

Tt.

[His ensuing groan might've been heard by the very barista that's delivering their drinks. Might've, because that would also require Damian admitting that he made that almost inhuman noise that universally meant 'I'm suffering so much right now.'

Except he's not, because he's right where he wants to be.]