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Reme (Twitter, rus)

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Mitaka (Youtube, rus)

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ClassicHero

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SanyaChous

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Damon had been quiet and withdrawn, and I might have taken it personally if it weren’t for the fact that I was getting used to reading his moods by now. I could see just by looking at him, this wasn’t about me. He was off in the past, lost in the minefields of memory.

So I waited. Nothing a little patience and time couldn’t cure, right?

Except that it had been days, and he was still just as distant. Long enough to make me worry. And I only know two ways to handle that feeling. One is distraction while I ignored what was bothering me entirely, and the other is in your face confrontation. Either way, it meant action, not just sitting around biting my nails like a little girl.

I had my speech all ready. I’d practiced it in my head. Okay, not every word because that took too long. But I knew how I was going to start, and kind of the general gist of where I wanted to try to steer the conversation to keep it from running off the rails.

Determined to tackle whatever this was head on, I took a deep breath and I stepped into the room where he was standing at the window in silhouette. Crossing my arms over my chest, I opened my mouth to speak when I spied the things he’d left lying out on the bed. Letters, journals, photographs, all yellowing and slightly curled at the corners. It wasn’t like him to make a mess. I’d been right about his fixation on the past. His mind was clearly wandering back over things he’d done and said, people he’d lost, regrets.

One of those photos there was a polaroid of me, aged seven, holding newborn baby Sammy, and Mom grinning in her hospital bed. Unable to resist, I picked it up and bit my lip as I examined it more carefully. Dad was in the background, so that meant Damon had been the one to take the picture. That was such an important moment. Why didn’t I remember knowing him? I had /very/ clear memories of that day, and Damon had no place in them at all.

And then it hit me. There was only one reason I couldn’t remember someone who had clearly been an integral part of my life. He’d purposely removed himself from my memory. Silently, I looked up at him with a narrowed gaze as he stood stared out the window into the middle distance.

Why would he do that?

And having done it, why the visual confession now?

Perhaps it had something to do with this promise he said he’d made to my dad. A promise that was about me. A promise to what...take care of me? Protect me?

How was removing himself from my life protecting me?

He wasn’t just confessing by leaving these things out. He was giving me proof of something. Something he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud. Or maybe he just thought I wouldn’t believe him without seeing the evidence with my own eyes.

“Damon…” I breathed his name in an undertone, so quietly that most other people wouldn’t have heard it at all. But he wasn’t most people, was he?

Though he didn’t make a sound, I could almost hear his thoughts screaming from across the room, begging me to look at the things he’d left out for me and not force him to verbalize his explanation. Was it painful to him? Was that the reason? Or was he ashamed? Maybe both?

Pressing my lips together, forehead furrowed, I looked down again at the things he’d left spread out, placed meticulously. He wanted me to know he’d done it on purpose or he wouldn’t still be standing there as though he were carved in marble, waiting for my reaction.

“All right,” I whispered. “I get it. We’ll do it your way.”

Filling my lungs with air as though preparing for a plunge, I then let it out again through pursed lips. If I was going to do this, he was going to know how hard this was for me as well. I leaned over and picked up the journal opening it to find the year “1983” written inside the front cover. Well, how’s that for a gut punch? The year Mom died. Guess that’s what I get for being curiosity's kitten. I sat heavily on the bed, took one more deep breath, then dived in.

It was weird, reading over the way he talked about my parents, and even my grandparents. He’d known my family for a long way back, and he knew the demon had haunted us down the generations.Yet when it came to the moment when Mom was killed, he hadn’t been there. Why?

But I knew the answer to that. The name was written on the envelopes that lay still sealed on the bed. Garrett. He’d been with Garrett. Was that the broken promise he’d referred to? Surely he couldn’t blame himself for that. No one could have predicted when the demon would resurface. And anyway, this was half a lifetime ago. Why had he still not read the letters?

The answer had to be in the journals. So I kept reading, poring over the entries for clues. I skimmed over his entries that dealt with his past relationship. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but it just felt like an invasion of privacy. I know he was leaving it there for me to see, but I put myself in this guy Garrett’s shoes, and whatever it was that had gone wrong between them, he hadn’t given permission to have his secrets exposed. I paid attention to the important bits, events and places and dates that overlapped with my family somehow, but those things that were just about the two of them, I glossed over out of respect for whatever they’d had together. It was past and none of my business, so far as I could tell.

Then I got to the entries at Christmas time that year, and I saw how they connected. Both letters were from this time, and it was clear from the journal that the two of them had been having problems. Was this how it ended? Is that what Damon wanted me to know?

I looked up to see him still standing there, still and silent, as if he were holding his breath until I finished finding whatever it was that had him so rattled. He hadn’t moved. He was only waiting, mind a million miles away.

I knew where I would find it.

Looking back down, I turned the page and found myself smack dab in the middle of an account of my dad and Bill Harvelle, who just happened to pick Damon up when the car he was driving broke down. But if my life had taught me anything, it was that there are no coincidences when it comes to my family. No doubt, Dad had been looking for Damon, though clearly not hunting. So what did he want?

Werewolves? No. That was a sideline from the real thing they were hunting.

It was old Yellow Eyes. Of course it was.

Fresh on the heels of Mom’s death, Dad was obsessed with tracking down the thing that had killed her. I remember what he’d been like then. Despite being so young, I remember because I’d suddenly had responsibility for Sammy thrust on me.

I remembered this Christmas, in fact. I’d been left behind in a cheap motel with Sammy and told to guard him while Dad was gone. He’d left me alone for days, giving me money enough to buy formula for Sammy and burgers and fries and Coke from the vending machines for myself. He’d promised me pie when he got back. Told me to keep the door locked until he came with the secret knock. I’d waited, changing Sammy’s diapers and feeding him every time he cried, hoping Santa would come and bring him back to us for the holiday, but when the morning came and it was just like any other day, I’d realized how foolish I was to hope for it. Mom was gone. Our house was gone. And there was never going to be a visit from Santa again. My childhood was over. That was how I’d remembered that Christmas. Dad had never told me why he wasn’t there. He’d simply showed up again sometime before New Years with some Hot Wheels cars for me and a whole cherry pie he let me eat by myself.

What I saw was enough to shock me to the core. He’d coerced Damon into calling up a crossroads demon. I had enough experience with those to know how they can twist the truth to manipulate people into making deals. Damon’s record of what the demon had said to him was shocking when I saw it mention me. A promise to Dad that had something to do with me, protecting me. Break it...how? Had he already done so? He’d mentioned a broken promise before. Was it the same one?

Then the demon mentioned Antonio. I’d seen that name before but had skimmed over that as well, assuming that it was also in the past and not any of my business. But the demon left no doubt of the nature of their relationship. If Antonio was somehow damned for what the two of them had done together, then so was I. But I didn’t believe in that. The way we touched each other felt like something both sacred and profane, but I didn’t think God had any interest in punishing people for love. Especially after...well...I just didn’t.

I read back over the account again, trying to puzzle out what it meant and figure out truth from lies.

That’s when I saw that the demon mentioned Damon’s ex, Garrett too. His soldier. I glanced over at the two unopened letters, the dates of which matched the entry dates in the journal exactly. Had the demon been telling the truth? Had Garrett had an affair? Had he ever loved Damon at all? Was the vampire he’d spent so many years with a liar? Only one way to know, and clearly Damon had never tried to find out.

Picking up the letters, I set the journal aside and looked up at my lover across the room.

“Crossroads demons lie and twist the truth, you know.” My voice sounded harsh and abnormally loud after my long silence. “They prey on your weaknesses. Your fears. You know, nothing that demon said was maybe true at all. At the very least, it might have given half truths, letting you assume the rest. Don’t you think it’s time you opened these letters? He wrote them to you. After living with him for...what...how long was it? Don’t you think you owe him that? I mean, hey, maybe the guy was a complete asshole. I don’t know him, but that’s been thirty five years almost. Give him the benefit of the doubt.”