Young Writers Society

Damascus stared at Boris solemnly, barely concealing the happy smile that threatened to stretch across his face.

"Bothers." He whispered, giving Boris' hand a single shake before letting it drop.

Barely a moment had passed before he turned to James, a sly grin curling his lips.
"James! C'mon! I'll wash your hands myself, promise!" He spit in his hand anew and waved it at the smaller boy.

Schadel took one look at the interaction occurring between Damascus and James, and promptly spit into her own hand.

Or, at the very least, she tried to. It was a little hard, considering she didn't really have saliva when in her actual body. She had to settle for shooting out a little bit of darkness. Once she did so, she made a beeline for Damascus and stood in front of him with her own hand extended.

Then she spat on her hand again, this time for good measure.

"I'll spit on it!" she said. "I'll be your sister."

Distracted from his goal of getting James to spit-swear, he turned to face John-Watson and grabbed her hand, marveling a little at the texture.

"Yay! Sisters!" He frowned- that didn't quite seem right- he wasn't a girl, after all. "Um... siblings!"

James pursed his lips as he saw spitty hand meet spitty hand. He didn't want them to think he didn't like them, and he didn't want to feel left out... so with much hesitation, he spit the smallest glob of spit on his hand and came over to Damascus with tiny steps.

He held out his hand, timidly turning his gaze away.

Now that she was officially Damascus' sister, she turned her attention to Boris and spat on her hand again. She held it out to him. "Want to be my sibling, too?"

Damascus beamed brightly at James, and didn't bother to re-wet his hand before he reached out his hand and gently grasped the other boy's. He softened his approach a bit, since James seemed to be barely tolerating this,

"It's an honor, James." He said quietly.

Engel went over to Edward. "You alright?"

Edward looked up at Engel, his eyes wide and his skin pale. Despite the seemingly mundane conversations going on around him, he had still remained terrified of now both Damascus and Watson - if that was really her name. He had been so stupid. He should have figured out that something had gone horribly wrong, and he should have realized that Damascus was a demon from those blood red eyes!

"No," he managed to get out, his voice quiet.

"Sure." Boris smiled, spat on his hand, and repeated the ritual with John. Her hand felt odd, which caused him to jitter a little. It didn't feel bad, just a bit tingly.

The pact made, he turned to a still terrified Edward.

"There's no need to be afraid of Damascus or John. Because they're my brother and sister." he asserted.

"And besides, can you really call someone a monster when they're afraid of bears?" he teased, with a grin.

"Hey!" Damascus' face heated with Boris' teasing comment, and he crossed his arms before turning to face the boy. "that's...! You're... just-" he let out a breath, not able to come up with any sort of retort to this.

Finally, he opened his mouth again. "You were afraid of me no more then five minutes ago, so what does that say about you?" At this semblance of a comeback, he stuck out his tongue.

Though a twinge of guilt underlied his frustration over Boris' continued teasing, he also felt a rush of satisfication now that he had finally spoken up.

James wiped his hand on his pants, but he actually did feel alright after shaking hands with Damascus. He'd never had a brother, and he liked the idea of having a bunch of them. They all seemed nice, even if they were all very different.

He tilted his head and stepped a little closer to Damascus.

"It's okay to be afraid sometimes," he assured Edward. "I get scared sometimes! But now we know there's no reason to be! Watson's nice and so is Damascus. And we're brothers and we shook on it! So it's all okay."

Embarrassment flashed across Boris' face for a second, before he replaced it with stubborn denial.

"...You weren't my brother then. And I wasn't scared, so shut up." Boris insisted.

At the mention of their swear, Damascus' resentments faded and he gave a small smile. He had enough sense to know that broadly grinning like he wanted to might be taken the wrong way.

"Okay, sure, you weren't scared." He shrugged, allowing Boris to regain some pride. "that makes me happy. So, later, if this form starts to pinch... would you mind if I changed?"

His eyes widened dramatically, and he leaned forward. "Would you be scared then?"

All of this came out with a teasing tone, though Damascus honestly didn't mean for it to. He really did want reassurance that his true from would be accepted by his new brothers. If any of them were spooked, of course, he had every intention of putting up with uncomfortable forms.

He was not going to let naive little Damascus think he could be scared of him, no matter how frightening his true demonic form was.

"Of course not. You do whatever you want. I don't mind at all." affirmed Boris, with only a light hint of protest.

"I know they're scary," Engel says, sitting down next to Edward. "But I know humans who were scarier."