Expensive Cat Food (MxMxM)

Part 35

Part 35 (Damian Pov)

After eating the delectable lemon glazed salmon Owen had cooked. Which Damian had devoured within minutes, joined by Nova. He decides he needs to breathe some fresh air. He felt bad about leaving his lovers behind with his sisters. However, Damian must clear his head to think about what he has just been told. Everything seemed to be falling onto his head with crushing weight. He felt so awful for his sisters that they must deal with their mother's antics.

Though it wasn't like he was also clean from her horrible actions, he was homeless, and living on the streets for the past thirteen years mentally damaged him. Plus, fighting to survive every day wasn't something to be pushed to the side. Nevertheless, it seemed like both Bethany and Nova had suffered at our mother's hands. And everyone deals with different states of trauma differently. So Damian couldn't truly feel right to judge his sisters based on their situations. So that was how Damian found himself outside, leaning on the porch railing--breathing in the clear night air, listening to the traffic of the cars and bustling people.

"Would you mind a bit of company at this moment?" Damian glanced over his shoulder, seeing Bethany there, holding herself tightly around her waist, looking nervous about confronting him outside. Damian smiled weakly, swinging his head towards the empty spot beside him. "Honestly, I wouldn't mind having a little company right now. Sometimes my thoughts get a little corrosive."

Bethany slowly strolled up towards the railing. Looking out into the city view, the small balcony gave. Though it wasn't the greatest, Damian found it comforting being surrounded by familiar buildings. "No ill will; however, this is a dreadful view." Damian laughed loudly, finding his sister's serious tone endearing. "So, not everyone can have expensive manors and private gates."

"I'm not requesting much, only a respectable view." Bethany jokingly said, flashing a blinding smile at Damian. He couldn't hold back doing the same and smiled lovingly at his older sister. She had grown so much from the last time he had seen her. They were six years apart, and though she was the third youngest of their siblings, she acted more mature than the rest. When Bethany was younger, she wore her light brown hair in a short, cut bob, ensuring her beach waves stayed neatly behind her ears and never allowing them to stray in front of her gleaming green eyes.

Now crow's feet and wrinkles lay on her delicate skin. Small dark bags hung beneath her eyes. They were showing that sleep had been avoiding his sister. Bethany's precisely created mask laid not on her face. Usually, when they were younger, she went around the house blank as a board--never showing genuine emotion unless locked away privately in her secluded room. She always seemed to carry the burden of the entire family's emotional baggage. She never allowed herself a break or time to worry about her troubles.

And though Damian had been brutally betrayed by his family, that never meant Bethany had never been there for him. Once a fortnight, Bethany would sneak into Damian's far away room to chitchat about his dwindling self-confidence. The horrors that their mother had shown him and the threats laid upon his shoulders. The burdens he's so bared for his family. The struggle of having to fight to succeed in something that was genetically bound to him. Something he couldn't stop even if he wanted to as a child.

Due to this, he appreciated his older sister only barely. But, of course, that didn't stop her snickering rude words whispered behind his back while they were younger to their older sisters. Or the look of pure exasperated glee as their mother forced me out of the house. A small tangible part of Damian now hoped that that was merely an act. Something to hide behind for his mother not to gain suspicious of her.

Because now it seemed as if Damian was seeing a brand new Bethany. One willing to stand for her own choices and do what was right no matter what their dear mother believed. A girl who wanted to do nothing more than to provide her younger sister with a chance to live a life she desired. But she was still shackled by their mother's decisions and unwilling to fight back.

"I want to give you a genuine apology, dear brother." Damian wanted to scoff in her face though a small part of him knew it was coming from somewhere natural deep inside Bethany. "After all this time, all the suffering that none of you had tried to help me with, now you feel sorry. All because we just so happened to cross paths once again." Bethany shrinked away due to the cruelty of his words. They seemed to have stung her soul deep within. Yet, Damien felt relief that his sister felt and showed remorse for her past actions.

"You must understand we were all children at the time. Though I was older and I had more of a mature mindset, none of us were so willing to stand up to our mother. I swore our father tried his hardest. But mother." Bethany paused, refusing to look Damian in the face; she turned away to face the city view. Damian swore he could see tears swelling in her eyes, and her breathing had seemed to hitch. Bethany quickly fluttered her eyelashes, trying to disperse growing tears. "Mother told father that if he wanted to join you in the streets, he was free to go. But that she wouldn't guarantee the safety of the rest of her children."

"Mother threatened you all." Damian was shocked by this confession, though by what Nova had been telling them so far at dinner; he wasn't surprised. His mother was always a wicked woman, set in old-time ways. However, harming her children to gain power over her poor husband. Their loving, doting father would do anything for them. Even after Damian had shifted and was deemed unnecessary to the family, his father always spent time with him. He always smiled at him when he could sneak it in or pass him food whenever his mother had deemed him unworthy of eating supper--so knowing that our mother had held this over their poor father's head crushed Damian's soul.

"Understand that we always thought of you. Though none of us wanted to suffer the consequences of mother's anger if we were ever to find you. Nor even speak about you in public."

"That doesn't stop the hurt. That doesn't make it feel any better to me. It was knowing that I wasn't worth the risk. That it was just better to forget about me, toss me to the side, and never be thought about again." Damian wanted to curl into himself, to run back inside and throw himself into the arms of Kane and Owen. To be smothered and cuddled with love and affection that he knows now he is possible of obtaining. He shouldn't be scared to feel welcomed and cherished by the people around him.

"I understand, and I'm so sorry. If you allow me and Nova more time, we can make it up to you. I want to be your sister, the big sister I never could be for you. And allow Nova to do that as well." She stepped forward, clasping Damian's hands and hers bringing them up to her lips and breathing in a puff of hot breath, warming his slightly freezing fingers. "Allow me to amend for everything I've done."

Damian leans forward, tipping slightly downward, pressing his forehead to his older sisters. Bethany seemed to relish in the contact, and Damian preened happily. "I am willing, only if you allow me the chance to help you too." He could feel Bethany trying to jostle her hands from his. Still, he clenched down tightly, pulling her closer, engulfing her into a tight bear hug, and refusing to let her go even though she slightly struggled in his grasp. "I'm going to be your younger brother again, which means helping you with the current situation you found yourself in. I'm going to help Nova, and I'm going to help you. Don't fight, please." He begged quietly, "Please don't push me away." He whispered into her ear, hoping the city winds didn't whisp away his promise.