A Pound of Flesh

Author's Notes: A quick (ish) update! We're starting to enter the point of the story where I already have a lot written. So expect quicker updates. For more on updates, check the author's notes at the end of the chapter.

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Chapter Eight: An Interlude with Damien King

Damien left his flat Monday morning in a good mood. He whistled to himself slightly, a tune from a song he’d heard when he’d been dancing with Jane Saturday night. He smiled as he thought of her sprawled naked across his white shag rug. She’d looked positively delicious.

With a bit of a hop in his step, he turned the corner and headed down the street toward the bus stop. He paused a moment at the bookstore, waiting for the shop keep Alison to turn around and see him staring at her. She did, after a long moment, and jumped slightly in surprise. She waved at him in greeting, and he returned her wave with a smile before continuing on his way.

He crossed the street, lost in his own world. He looked for his mate Tom, who was waiting for him, leaning casually in the alcove of his building. Tom fell in step next to him, and as they made their way to the bus stop, they talked easily.

“Speaking of ladies,” Tom said once they’d reached the bus stop.

Damien shot Tom a warning look. “No,” he told him firmly. Damien was not the sort to kiss and tell. It wasn’t respectful.

Tom looked put out. “I want to know how it went with Jane!” he protested.

“It went well.” Damien tried to unsuccessfully smother a smirk as he thought of Jane dancing at the pub. “And that’s all I’m saying.”

Clearly disappointed, Tom heaved a sigh. “You’re no fun.”

“Exactly, but neither are you,” Damien reminded him lightly, “and that’s why we’re friends.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tom said brightly. In the moment of quiet, Tom’s head swiveled like an owl’s head on his neck, and he stiffened slightly, signifying he’d spotted fresh blood. He nudged Damien and leaned in to whisper, “Hot blonde over by the window.”

Damien craned his head to see, but a group of fat tourists were clumped together in his way. The bus pulled up at that moment, and he and Tom climbed aboard, moving to their customary seats in the back.

The bus ride was uncomfortable, and hot, and Damien didn’t try to talk to Tom much. Talking on buses always felt terribly awkward; everyone around could listen in on the conversation.

He was relieved when the bus pulled up to their stop, and they jumped off the bus, heading for the Ashworth building, just down the block. Tom kept up a steady stream mumbling as he recited the Chemistry notes in his hands, and Damien steered him around trees, lamp posts and people he might otherwise have run into. They were running a bit late, actually, and Tom’s last minute revision certainly wasn’t making their trip any quicker.

“Get a move on, would you?” Damien groused, yanking Tom away from the bench he was about to trip over. Tom looked up, startled, and Damien shook his head. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

Tom, looking slightly green at that prospect, stored his notes and lengthened his strides until Damien was nearly jogging to keep up. In record time, they made it up to the classroom, where they settled themselves at the work table they always used.

Chemistry was one of Damien’s favorite classes. It was true that some of the principles of the science gave him troubles, but when it came to measuring and mixing ingredients, he was in his element. When he was carefully measuring this element or that out into a beaker, he felt like he had been doing it all his life. Tom, on the other hand, was swearing slightly under his breath, his hands shaking slightly as he tipped one liquid into another. Working next to Tom was not without its risks.

When class was over, he and Tom parted ways. Tom only had the one class on Mondays, the berk, while Damien still had Psychology class to contend with. Out of all of his subjects he was studying, Psychology was his least favorite. It reminded him too much of his sessions with Dr. Thomas.

Without Tom’s constant chatter, Damien focused more on his surroundings, and maybe that was the reason he suddenly felt odd, as though someone’s gaze was boring into his back, between his shoulder blades.

Damien couldn’t help it; he glanced over his shoulder as he paused outside his Psychology class. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but he sensed – or rather he felt – that someone was watching him, perhaps even following. He’d always been rather good at intuiting things like that, but as he didn’t see anyone looking his way except for the pretty blonde behind him who gave him a ghost of a smile, he turned and headed into the classroom.

As always, the classroom was boiling hot. Before he took his seat, Damien stripped off his button-down and hung it over his chair. He pretended not to notice the two older women sitting behind him raking their eyes over his body, and he sat down, flexing his arms slightly in the process. He was used to women ogling him as he took off his clothes, the fact that it was in a school classroom made no difference. Damien hid his smile behind his hand.

If nothing else, at least, stripping made him feel powerful. For the brief time he was up there onstage using his body, he was in control.

As Damien waited for the class to begin, he leaned over and reached into his bag for his day planner. He flipped it open and unfolded the piece of paper wedged between last Monday and Tuesday. He read Jane’s phone number, written precisely in her tidy handwriting. He closed his eyes, reciting it to himself from memory. She had seemed reluctant to give it to him when he’d asked for it, but as he’d just been a giant git to her less than an hour before, he didn’t hold it against her. She was a smart girl, a careful girl. He liked that. She also had a wild, careless side to her. He liked that too.

The memory of her sitting outside the café in Soho, telling him he didn’t need to defend that there’d been girls before her still bothered him. It had been vitally important to him that she understood he wasn’t normally such a jerk, and all she’d wanted to do was accept it as a fact of life and forget about it.

Though, she’d seemed like she’d moved on from it Saturday night. Damien smiled to himself as he thought about her dancing to the music with such abandon. Jane was sexy because she didn’t realize how sexy she was. Granted, her hair was out of control and she wasn’t a conventional beauty, but Damien liked that too. He liked her out-of-control hair because it meant she didn’t care what other people thought of her. He imagined that it felt rather freeing. And he liked that she had unconventional prettiness: large, dark brown eyes, a dusting of faint freckles across her nose, her wild hair, and a chin that seemed slightly too small for her face. She was unique, yet familiar.

And it was that sense of familiarity that had drawn him to her in the first place. He’d seen her at the front of the stage, her eyes wide with surprise and interest, and he’d felt a jolt race down his spine. He’d decided then that he needed to meet her before she had a chance to slip out of his life again, so as soon as his act was over, he’d run backstage and pointed her out to one of the security guards.

Damien’s musings were interrupted when the professor strode into the room, pausing to shut the door again as it fell open behind him. Damien folded up the scrap of paper with Jane’s number and placed it between that day and the next, vowing to call her that night.

***

The feeling of being watched persisted as he made his way to lunch at Malone’s, though he resisted the paranoid urge to look over his shoulder again. He walked into the familiar fish place, spotting Tom already sitting at their favorite table by the window, where Tom could gawk at the women that walked by.

Damien ordered his food quickly, and brought it over to the table, where Tom was already into his second fish sandwich. The feeling of being watched returned full force once he was seated, and he swallowed heavily. He was so distracted that Tom had to repeat himself more than once.

“Jesus, Damien, where’s your head?” Tom asked after the third time he had to repeat something.

“Sorry,” Damien said, looking up from his half-eaten platter of fish and chips.

“Thinking of your new bird?” Tom asked around a mouthful of fish. Damien wrinkled his nose at Tom’s non-existent manners. A truer friend didn’t exist, but he was loud, boisterous, and uncouth. But he accepted Damien without question, was never bothered when Damien reverted back to git-mode – instead telling him to pull his head out of his arse, and never made Damien feel like an idiot when he stumbled across something he didn’t know how to do, or might have known at one point, but had forgotten during the Great Memory Wipe of ’98, as Tom called it.

Tom still didn’t know what he really did for a living. Once, Damien had told him he worked in a club, and Tom had assumed that meant he was a bartender, and Damien didn’t bother to correct him, or anyone else who assumed the same thing.

He’d met Tom when he’d decided he’d had enough of being stupid, and had enrolled in classes for his GCSEs. Tom had been in a few of his classes. Just a year older than Damien, he’d been heavy into drugs a few years prior, and having just recently cleaned up his act, decided going for his GSCEs would go a long way for getting his father off his back. At Damien’s prodding, he’d gone on to A-levels, too.

Tom looked at him expectantly, and Damien answered, “No.” He took a sip of his soda and leaned closer to Tom. “Just… d’you ever get the feeling that you’re being watched?”

“Why, is someone looking at me?”

Damien guffawed as Tom made a show of looking around suspiciously. “Git,” he snorted, and Tom grinned.

“Feel like someone’s been watching you?” Tom asked, reaching for some of the salty chips on his plate.

“All day long,” Damien exhaled gustily. “It’s wearing at my nerves a bit.”

With a devious grin that Damien had come to associate with trouble, Tom stood abruptly, his chair falling backward. Damien blinked in disbelief.

“Say,” Tom said loudly, drawing attention of all the diners surrounding them in the small fish restaurant. Damien sank down in his seat. “If there’s anyone here making googly eyes at my mate Damien here, would you bugger off already? Thanks.” Tom retrieved his chair and calmly sat down to his meal once more.

“I hate you,” Damien said through clenched teeth, now aware of multiple sets of eyes observing him.

“I know, you love me,” Tom replied cheerfully before taking a large bite of his fish sandwich.

After finishing his lunch, Damien beat a hasty retreat back to his flat, where he felt truly alone for the first time since he’d left his flat that morning. Breathing a sigh of relief, he kicked off his sandals and sank his toes into his shag rug.

His flat was hot in spite of the open windows, and he shot a contemptuous glare at his broken AC unit. Dearborn said there would be someone coming to repair it soon, but soon to the landlord could very well mean Halloween.

Damien switched on the oscillating fan he’d picked up from a shop around the corner, and flopped down on his sofa, letting the breeze cool his sweaty skin. He closed his eyes and sank down into the soft cushions, turning his face against the back of the sofa and inhaling deeply. It still smelled like Jane.

He remembered he meant to call her and reached for the phone on the table behind the sofa, but he caught a glimpse of his watch and paused, thinking. It was likely too early for Jane to be home from work. He reckoned she probably worked a regular work day, as she’d said she was coming straight from work the last time she’d been to the club. But perhaps she had Mondays off? After a lengthy debate, he replaced the phone, deciding he would call her before he left for work.

For the next two hours, he worked diligently on his Psychology assignment, only pausing to talk to Tom briefly when he called to discuss their plans for Saturday, which Damien had off, something that only happened once in a blue moon. He’d rather spend the evening taking Jane on a nice date, but she’d told him that her friend’s wedding was on Saturday, so spending the night with the guys was a good alternative. And out of all his friends, he had the best flat, which meant that the gatherings always happened at his place.

After he hung up with Tom, he glanced at his watch and dialed Jane’s number. He held his breath as the phone rang before her answering machine picked up, and he left her a brief message. Then he hopped into the shower for a quick scrub, dressed in a light t-shirt and jeans, and headed off to work.

***

When Damien left his flat Tuesday morning, he was in a foul mood. The previous night at the club, a girl he’d invited back to his dressing room one time several months ago made an unwelcome appearance. He couldn’t even remember her name, anymore. But there she was, waiting for him at the back door to the club, dressed provocatively and quite insistent that Damien invite her backstage again.

Damien refused at once, thinking of Jane. The girl narrowed her eyes in a calculated way that struck him as familiar, but not in the good way he associated with his books, or with Jane. Without a word, the girl turned on her heel and stalked away, and after watching her disappear around the corner, Draco pressed the intercom button to be allowed entrance. As he pulled the door firmly shut behind him, he figured he probably hadn’t seen the last of the girl.

He was right, of course. She was seated at a table right down in front of the stage, her eyes frosty as she watched him perform his first act. Ducking offstage after the lights went out, Damien jumped into his black trousers and pointed the girl out to security backstage. The man in black grimly promised to keep an eye out for her, and Damien nodded once before retreating to his dressing room, where his Psychology homework awaited him.

It wasn’t until his last performance several hours later that she final acted. Damien made the mistake of getting too close to her side of the stage. One moment she was holding a plastic wine glass, filled to the brim with blood red wine, and the next, she was hurtling the glass at him.

“Ponce!” she screamed as Damien scrambled to his feet, wincing and trying to wipe the wine out of his eyes. The stage went dark abruptly as security descended on the woman. The other women in the club, whipped into a frenzy at this point in the night, began to boo. Damien fled the stage, still partially dressed.

“Fucking, buggering cunt!” Damien snarled as he pulled on his black trousers over his thong. “Bleeding, sodding Mudblood!” he spat, peering between the curtains to see security forcibly dragging the woman away. His fingertips tingled painfully, as though the blood pounding through his veins couldn’t be contained.

A hand on his shoulder made him jump, and he whirled, reaching into his trouser pocket for… nothing. He blinked, feeling slightly lost. His eyes focused on Marlon, one of the stage personnel. He was holding a towel out to him. Shaking so hard his teeth chattered, Damien accepted it, noting it was warm and damp. He wiped his face quickly, trying to rid himself of the sticky liquid on his face.

“Impressive,” Marlon said, stepping back.

“What’s that?” Damien asked, still feeling off kilter. A memory danced at the edge of his consciousness, tantalizingly close but just out of reach.

“Your language,” Marlon answered, nodding in approval. “I’ve never even heard of a Mudblood.”

Damien was alert at once, his eyes boring into the dim outline of Marlon’s head. “A what?”

Marlon shook his head then, giving Damien a slight push toward the dressing rooms. “Don’t ask me, King. You said it.”

Still rattled from the encounter, Damien was relieved when he reached the safety of his flat, with all of its familiar, comforting things. He saw the light flashing on his phone and he went at once to play back his messages.

With a frown, he headed for the shower. Jane had not called back.

So it was with his foul, dark mood firmly in place that Damien made his way to his two classes of the day. He found himself completely unable to pay any attention to the professors. He searched his few years of memories, so clear and vivid, for any indication of where he’d picked up the odd slur that had left his mouth the previous night.

Mudblood, he thought, sounded like something dirty and foul, possibly impure. The girl from the night before was wretchedly foul, so he supposed it applied. Perhaps he’d made it up on the spot.

Unable to come up with an answer, he instead thought about the tingling of his fingers and his reaction when Marlon had touched him. It was as though he was reaching for a weapon that should have been in his pocket, and he could remember at least half a dozen other times when he’d made the same empty reach. He knew – he just knew – it had to be a throwback from his life before. It was the same way he knew, somehow, impossibly, he was living in a world where he didn’t belong.

Still feeling disturbed, Damien returned to his flat after his classes were through for the day, hoping perhaps Jane would have called. But she hadn’t.

Nor did she call Wednesday or Thursday.

***

Thursday night, upon stumbling into his flat piss drunk, Damien checked for new messages. Too drunk and annoyed to know better, he picked up the phone and dialed the number he could probably recite in his sleep by now.

Jane answered on the third ring. “Hello?” she said, sounding groggy. Torn between the desire to hang up on her and the need to hear her voice, Damien paused, his mouth too dry to work properly. “Hello?” she repeated, sounding slightly annoyed.

“Hi,” Damien managed. “It’s me.”

“Draco?”

He almost dropped the phone. The name sounded so right; it clicked into place and for a moment he knew – he just knew – that he was about to remember everything.

And then it passed.

“What?” he stammered.

There was a pause, and then she answered, sounding much more awake, “Damien. Sorry, I’m half-asleep. I must have been dreaming.”

“Oh,” he replied, his head throbbing slightly.

“What time is it?” Jane asked, her voice muffled.

Damien glanced at the clock sitting on one of his shelves and saw it was just gone past half one in the morning.

“Late,” he mumbled evasively.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine. You didn’t call me back,” he said, unable to help the accusatory tone that crept into his voice.

“I’m sorry about that. I’ve been busy.” She cleared her throat. “My friends are getting married Saturday, remember?”

“Don’t they have a phone?” Damien asked petulantly.

Her voice sounded surprised. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” he denied quickly, stumbling slightly as he kicked off his sandals.

“Right,” Jane replied, sounding like she didn’t really believe him. “Do you mind if I call you back in the morning and we can talk then?”

“Promise?” he asked, annoyed by the vulnerability in his voice.

She sounded slightly amused when she answered. That, or annoyed. “I promise,” she told him.

“Not too early, though,” Damien added, thinking of the hangover he was likely to have in the morning.

“No,” she agreed. “What time, then?”

“After ten,” he supplied, stifling a sudden yawn.

“Alright, I’ll talk to you then.” She sounded weary. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” he answered, waiting for her to hang up before he pushed the off button on his phone and dropped it back to the table. He flopped back on the sofa, and was asleep in moments.

***

The first thing Damien was aware of was the phone was ringing. The second thing he realized was that his neck hurt from sleeping on the sofa. Groping for the phone, he shook his head. He couldn’t really remember anything from last night. He wasn’t even sure how he’d made it home.

“Hello?” he answered, his garbled voice sounding as though he’d been gargling cotton balls.

“Good morning, Sunshine.” It was Tom.

Damien swore slightly, though he noted sleepily that he recognized every word he said. No foreign slurs today.

“You sound like hell,” Tom observed, sounding cheery. “What did you get up to last night?”

“Drank too much,” Damien answered sullenly, feeling his head start to pound. He glanced at the clock, seeing it was just past ten, and yawned. “Mate, lemme call you back after I shower and feel more human.”

Tom laughed, and making an obscene gesture Tom wouldn’t see over the phone, Damien hung up. With a groan, he rolled off the sofa and trudged into his bathroom, peeling away his sweaty, smoky smelling clothing. Even the water hurt his head today, and he grimaced, scrubbing his face quickly and shampooing his head as lightly as he could. By the end of the shower, he was feeling slightly more alive, and he went to put on fresh clothing. When he went back into the main room, he saw the message light blinking and pressed it automatically.

“Hi, Damien, it’s Jane. Sorry I missed you, and I hope you feel alright today. You can try calling me later if you like, but I probably won’t be home. Take care.”

Damien swore again, annoyed that he’d missed Jane finally calling back. It was odd that she hoped he was feeling alright; he couldn’t imagine what would give her the impression that he wasn’t feeling well. A sudden horrible suspicion gripped him, and he pressed the redial button on his phone.

On the fourth ring, the answering machine picked up, and Jane’s cheery voice instructed him to leave a message at the beep. Damien groaned and hung up quickly.

He was never going to be able to look at her straight in the face again. He wondered what he’d said. “I’m such a sodding git,” he said out loud, flopping down on the sofa once more. He pulled a pillow over his head and decided he was never leaving his flat again.

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Author's Notes: Well that was something a little different, wasn't it? What do you think: should there be one or two more from Draco's point of view? For future information regarding updates, check out my yahoo group, the link to which can be found in my user profile.