Chapter 20: So He Actually Has A Soul?
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I shot upright so fast I almost fell off the couch altogether, my hand flying to my chest as my heart raced, my eyes wide open.
Damien.
He appeared out of nowhere like some sort of ghost, standing a few feet away like a very expensive, very unimpressed ghost who had decided this was the moment to reveal himself.
He looked unfazed. No surprise, no apology for scaring the shit out of me. Just that same expression of curiosity.
Which was new.
If I’m being honest, it was more unsettling than his usual indifference, because that was something I knew how to catalog and file away. This? This was an expression I didn’t have a category for yet.
"You’ll ruin your back if you sleep here," he said, tilting his head slightly, scanning me like he was assessing a situation rather than a person, running an internal calculation I wasn’t part of.
I blinked at him, once.
Then again, more slowly, because I needed a moment to process that he had just said something that wasn’t a rule, a correction, or a one-word dismissal.
"...What?" I replied. Eloquent, right? A real demonstration of my communication skills.
Don’t judge me, it had been a long while since I last spoke to him!
He didn’t repeat himself, that wasn’t a service he provided. He just continued looking at me, steady and patient like someone accustomed to waiting for others to catch up.
I frowned a bit, running a hand through my hair while I processed this. He was not only speaking to me without a violation of rules as a prompt, but he was also and let’s be careful with this word, expressing what sounded kind of like concern.
"It’s...uh, it’s not a big deal," I finally said, my voice still rough from the pull of sleep. "I’ve slept in worse places. I’ve slept in spots that would make this couch feel like a five-star hotel. The couch and I will be just fine."
That much was true.
He didn’t respond right away, and I was almost convinced the conversation was over and I could go back to my horizontal state when he stepped a little closer, his posture still relaxed, but his expression doing that thing it sometimes does where it looked like it was working through something.
"Why do you want to sleep here?" he asked.
The question threw me off guard. Not because it was hard to answer, it was basically because I’m tired and the couch was right there and sometimes a person just needs a change of scenery without needing to explain themselves — but because it felt like the kind of question that stemmed from actual curiosity, rather than calculation.
I hadn’t prepared for that. My whole plan revolved around him not being curious about me. This was definitely a deviation from the game plan.
I stared at him for a moment, recalibrating.
"Why do you care?" I retorted, thinking deflecting with a question was a solid conversational maneuver.
Seemed like a fair response, he didn’t answer.
Of course he didn’t, directly answering questions was apparently not in his skill set, which, fine. We could just be two people answering questions with questions and getting nowhere.
Instead, he just kept looking at me, and I can’t quite explain it, but something about the way he did so pulled me into awareness of several things all at once.
How I was sitting: Slightly sideways and not really dignified.
How my clothes must look after a full day of flower arrangements, hospital hallways, and instant noodles.
The fact that I was sprawled across his very pricey-looking couch like I belonged there when, by all reasonable measures... I absolutely did not.
I shifted a bit, clearing my throat as I looked away, thinking whatever that eye contact had done to my composure, the best course of action was to end it.
There was a pause. Quiet, but with something beneath the surface.
Then, something soft hit me square in the face.
"Oof!" I jumped again, instinctively catching whatever it was as it fell into my lap, my brain always lagging behind in these interactions with Damien.
A blanket, I stared at it, absorbing its weight across my hands, noticing how it felt different from anything in my own meager collection. Then I looked back up.
He was already turning away, casually slipping his hands into his pockets as if he had done something totally unremarkable and saw no reason to linger. No explanation. No acknowledgment that anything had shifted even slightly.
Like it hadn’t meant anything, like he threw blankets at people all the time, like it was just another Tuesday.
I frowned slightly, looking back down at the blanket, turning it over in my hands as if I were examining something entirely foreign.
It wasn’t cheap... that was immediately clear. The fabric was soft in the way of things that cost more than they should, thick and substantial, the kind that made your hands feel cared for. When I lifted it a little, I caught a scent, clean, warm, and oddly familiar in a way I identified a moment later and then decided not to ponder too deeply.
It smelled like him. And mot in a weird way, don’t get me wrong!
Who doesn’t smell their roommates blankets, amirite?
Just in the way of something that had been his for some time, quietly carrying that fact without fanfare.
I glanced back up. He was retreating back to his room, back to whatever corner of the apartment he occupied when he wasn’t being perplexing to me in the living room. Shoulders relaxed and pace unhurried, like whatever had just happened was already behind him, filed under resolved.
"...Okay," I muttered to myself, blinking once at the spot where he had stood as if it might provide some insight he hadn’t shared. "Sure. That’s just... okay."
Slowly, I settled back against the couch, pulling the blanket over myself almost instinctively, the warmth settling around me in a way my tired body recognized before my brain could catch on.
For a moment, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling again.
Thinking about it. Because that... that series of events, was new. That was different. The first time in a week that Damien had done something that wasn’t cold, dismissive, or strictly rule-based the first crack in his carefully crafted wall of indifference he had maintained since I showed up.
It hadn’t been warm, exactly. It wasn’t heartwarming friend material. There were no speeches, no softening of expression, no admissions of anything.
But it hadn’t been nothing, either.
And somehow, and this was the thought that might keep me up at night, which felt unfair given I lay on a very comfy couch with a very nice blanket... it was more confusing than anything else he’d done up to this point. Nothing I could categorize. Nothing to file away and forget about.
I let out a slow exhale, shifting slightly under the blanket as my eyes drifted closed again, exhaustion finally making its case now that I had something soft to sink into and my brain had something genuinely baffling to mull over, instead of the usual low-grade existential fatigue.
"First he gives me rules," I whispered to the ceiling, my voice barely a murmur, quiet enough for me alone. "Then he gives me blankets so I wouldn’t be uncomfortable."
A small, helpless laugh escaped me before I could decide if it was genuinely funny or not.
"Make up your mind, man," I muttered.
The ceiling offered no response.The silence settled back around me again, but it felt different in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Lighter, maybe, or just less pointed, like the air in a room alters after something happens, even if it’s something small.
Or maybe I was just tired enough that my perception had softened at the edges.
Either way, as sleep finally started to bring me under, slow and inevitable, one thought surfaced just long enough to latch on before everything went quiet.
If breaking the rules was the only time he talked to me, and he apparently threw blankets at people when he was feeling something close to human—
𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞
Then maybe, just maybe—
I should start breaking them more often.
I smiled, a terrible plan...but I didn’t care anymore. I was tired of him pretending I didn’t exist.
I decided that I was going to annoy him, get right under his skin...until he broke and he had no choice but, to pay attention to me.
Let the games begin.
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𝔞𝔲𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔯’𝔰 𝔯𝔞𝔪𝔟𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰
what oliver thinks he’s going to do: arrgh! I hate him so much, I’m going to make his life hell for looking down on me!😡
Vs.
what oliver’s actually doing: I hate you... but look at me. React to me. Notice me🥺