Work Text:
Exhaustion is all too familiar to Damian Desmond. Sometimes he believes that he was born tired, the same way some people are born artists or born geniuses. It was his default state, the emotion, the heaviness written into his bones and his flesh.
It started when he was just six years old, saddled with the need to follow in his brother’s footsteps, and then continued carrying that weight till he graduated college. It placed this permanent dent on his shoulders, as he walked everywhere as though there were boulders laying on his back. He was only twenty five now, but his body felt like he was eighty, time withering away his skin.
It’s hard to say that ‘it’s just one of those days’ when this was his fiftieth ‘one of those days’ in a row. Each day seems to be worse than the one before, somehow saddled with more work and more stress as time goes on.
A thousand more proposals had piled on to his desk when he walked into work, and Damian swore he could feel himself physically suffocate at the notion of reading through so many files. It seemed the pile grew on its own every time he cleared one stack.
Still, paper he could deal with. It’s the people that caused the tension headache that practically cracked his head into two.
Mediating between teams, trying to meet with global partners, trying to manage the stupid infighting and politics that seems to permeate the company wore away at his youth. Every conversation was extra weight, extra stress that he didn’t need. Somehow the work never stopped, and well, Damian doesn’t know any other way to exist except to be a workaholic.
Damian wants to say that he gave up on appeasing his father years ago, but wasn’t starting this company another way to prove himself? To prove that he can be something even without his father’s attention and love? Why does he take on more stress, just to keep losing a rigged battle?
It’s because familial approval is a fundamental step in childhood development, his therapist’s voice echoed in his head.
Going to therapy was never his plan, but after a particularly bad panic attack at college, he forced himself into it. Talk therapy was harder work than he expected, trying to pry out memories and trauma that he had buried so deep in his heart that they had calcified into stones. But it was at their suggestion that he reached out to his family once more.
Not his father, but to Demetrius.
It’s hard to mend something that was broken even before he was born, yet he wants to keep trying. They tried counseling, just Demetrius and Damian, the brothers trying to fix what was left of their family.
It was hard to talk openly at first, when every description of Demetrius’ childhood made Damian seeth in anger. Hearing him talk about just how much attention he received as a child opened a wide cavern of jealousy, unable to connect with the person that had everything he wanted as a child.
It took almost a year of storming out or ending sessions early, to realize that too much attention had adverse effects on his brother. It wasn’t their fault that their family was never a family to begin with. They were always set up to fail, with a mother more interested money and a father interested in sowing chaos.
What Damian thought he was missing wasn’t enough to make him whole.
It was certainly a work in progress, the anger in both the Desmond boys always shining through when they were too vulnerable with each other.
You should talk to father, Demetrius said, after one of their weekly meetings. He might be willing to accept you now, especially since he’s grown older.
Damian sighed, not even able to get angry at his suggestion. Demetrius still didn’t understand why, not fully. Why do I have to wait and test the waters? Why do I have to wait until he’s frail and at the edge of death? He wanted to scream and throw a tantrum, but he held himself back.
Why was it too much for him to ask, to be blindly accepted and loved for who he is?
Stop thinking like that, his wife’s fierce voice echoed in his mind on instinct. You deserve to be loved, just like anyone else.
Anya Forger.
No, wait.
Anya Desmond.
Just saying her name makes Damian feel alive, a weight alleviating from his chest. Going home to her was the best part of his life, somehow shedding all that exhaustion off his body as soon as he reached the threshold of their house.
Their house.
A small house literally drawn and planned by the two of them after they got married, placed at a suburb outside of Berlint. Traces of the both of them were placed all across the house, the walls lined with pictures of them throughout high school, college, and their adult lives. Perfectly designed to accommodate them, decorated to match the blend of their tastes.
Of course, the journey to build that home was never easy, Anya and Damian still fighting just like they used to. From the wood of the cabinets to what color backsplashes the kitchen should have, they poured their all into building this house. There wasn’t one part of this house that was untouched by them, in some form or shape, trying to make sure that this becomes the permanent fixture of their fragile lives.
Returning to his sanctuary, his house, his Anya, was what he looked forward to after every meeting. Every mundane activity became special when he was with her. Just the simple act of drinking coffee in the mornings and reading the newspaper before they got ready for work was something that he cherished dearly. The way they knew how each other moved in the kitchen, their every move an intricate dance that no one else knew the steps to.
Studying was something he excelled at and what better to use those skills than to memorize every inch of his wife, use it to simply know her like no other person on this planet. Damian would freely drink up any information that slipped by, keeping it on rotation on his mind until it was etched into his brain cells.
He never had to force himself to talk to her, her keen eyes already knowing what he’s thinking before he could express it. It was a comfort for him, to be able have a conversation without speaking a word to each other. He could tell exactly what she was feeling with a mere furrow of her brow, or a crinkle in her skin, her emotions easy for him to read as a book.
At the very grand age of twenty five, he’d realized he’d be content just to live and raise a family here, something that was bonded through love and emotion rather than obligation and responsibility. Neither of them had traditional childhoods, both of them baring the weight of it, but having each other to rely on it made the weight easier. There was beauty in mundanity, the domestic patterns of a husband and wife that were so used to each other that they had a sixth sense of the other person.
Still, don’t allow the routine to fool you, because it certainly doesn’t fool Damian. Anya always knew how to keep things interesting, how to get him to let loose for a while.
Which is probably why he’s currently hiding behind his own couch, a nerf gun clutched in both of his hands.
“You know, Agent Starlight, it’s unfair that I have to fight against an actual spy,” he yelled out, not daring to peak out of his position behind the couch.
“You know, Agent Moonlight, life isn’t fair,” Anya laughed, and he could hear the slight click of a nerf gun. His back tensed once again, before his eyes shot to the reflective surface of their crockery safe. He could see the blurred pink cloud of hair in the reflection of a particularly shiny plate (thank Aunt Sarah for that wedding gift), and some competitive part of him arose almost involuntarily.
Before he could register the movement, two nerf bullets almost grazed his shoulder, and for a second he shuddered to think about her actual targets. Raised by an assassin and a spy certainly gives you a unique skill set.
“Damn,” Anya cursed under her breath, “You’re not as easy to catch as you used to be.”
He could hear the slight warning taps of her fingers against the wood in morse code (just you wait until i catch you), and he smirked once more before tapping back his own message (come get me, my love).
It wasn’t uncommon to hear the two of them tap out messages to each other across the house. Sometimes it was on the wood of the table or the doors, the slight tinkling of a spoon on the side of a glass, the tapping of their fingers on the other’s skin.
All saying one message.
I love you.
Damian’s mind was so elated, lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t hear the click of the gun, and shot right to his neck.
That’s it.
He abandoned the safe spot that he had acquired, trying to have an offense approach, raising out of his position to aim at her. Anya immediately retaliated, firing rapidly at him, trying to aim for the broadest part of his shoulders.
Her accuracy was surprisingly good (considering it was a nerf gun and not a real gun. he would be dead on the floor before he even got a chance to get up if he was one of her targets.) Luckily, foam bullets are light, and easy to dodge for Damian.
For a long three minutes, all you could hear was the rapid fire shots of the two twenty somethings, trying to get a clear shot at each other. The living room was a massacre of bullets, the small foam pieces littered everywhere across the carpet.
(Damian made sure to hide everything important before they started, considering the last time they played Anya broke a very expensive vase that he was gifted from Demetrius.)
Click. Click.
“I already ran out?”
Damian grinned almost maniacally, suddenly shooting out of his spot behind the couch and breaking into a full sprint to get to her.
“Oh absolutely not!” With a swift swish of her clothes, she whipped around from her spot, her socks sliding across the wooden floor giving her an advantage of speed. She sprinted to the other side of the room, far away from Damian’s grasp, but he just got faster.
“I’ve been waiting for this, you’ve beat me every other time,” Damian huffed out, the feeling of chasing her exhilarating as though they were kindergarteners again.
Finally, they were trapped on either side of the couch, Damian stood on one side while Anya stood guarded on the other. For a couple minutes, the two were frozen in place, both of high alert with a simple twitch of the other’s fingers, Anya’s gaze narrow and focused to meet his calculating gaze.
And then, he lunged to the other side, his hand reaching out to grasp even a sliver of her. She moved out easily, her body ducking underneath his embrace. At the very last ditch attempt, Damian caught the edge of her dress, the only part of her that was available, and yanked. Hard.
She jerked back into him, her legs faltering, and suddenly their balance was off, Damian unable to keep both their weight stable and upright. They crashed onto the couch, the impact from Anya crashing into him threatening to knock the wind out from their stomachs, but all Anya could do was laugh up at him.
Her light pink hair messily scattered across the couch, her chest heaving slightly from the exertion of their little match. But she laughs, startlingly clear and happy, the joy pouring out of her in every way possible.
It was hard not to stare when his wife was like this, even harder not to laugh with her, as Damian studied her with wide eyes. And then he joined her, with a laugh that was only for her ears, deep and ecstatic. He was still hovered over her, trying to take some of his weight off of her, but her hands came to press down on his shoulders, pushing him down onto her.
He allowed his body to go slack against her, ease into the comforting feel of Anya’s body against hers, trying to memorize it with every inch of his skin. His face was buried into the crook of her neck, as he chuckled, his laughter muffled.
It was hard to tell how long their laughter lasted, before Damian moved his head to look at Anya, his chin resting comfortably on her chest. Anya grinned, her hand tucking a strand of his stray hair, before resting comfortably on his cheek.
Slowly her fingers tapped a light rhythm into his skin, and he closed his eyes as he listened to every message. (i’m nothing without you. i love you. thank you for marrying me.)
It was hard not to blush at the onslaught of messages, burying his face back into the crook of her neck, breathing in the sweet flowery smell that was Anya’s signature.
“The moon is nothing without the stars,” he whispered into her skin, as he pressed a soft kiss into her neck, before cuddling into her embrace, feeling boneless.
Damian was born exhausted, but marrying Anya made sure that he would never feel the weight of it ever again.