"Really, you should stop." Maria confronted, "You could get cancer."
"I know, I know..." Damian placed the cigarette to his lips after successfully lighting it, "I'll stop before graduation, okay?"
"You should stop now. Period."
Damian blinked, amused and surprised at his girlfriend's sudden demand. Well, not sudden. She'd complained every once in a while, but never seriously before now.
"I will. Soon."
Maria sighed, her arms crossed, as if protecting herself, as she turned back to the window.
~.~
Maria and Damian's first meeting was a... was a learning experience.
“Bro’, are you hom—”
“Yo!” an unfamiliar male teenager helloed, holding up a lighter and a cigarette
“…”
“ :) ”
“…”
“Yes?” the stranger (Damian) asked again
“Excuse me, but uh, can you please pass me the house-phone right next to you?”
The teen did as he was asked, being careful not to blow smoke directly into her (Maria’s) face as he took a nice long drag.
Maria quietly took off her backpack while dialing some number.
She looked back at Damian, who just stared at her contently, as she pressed the phone to her ear as she listened to it ring.
“…”
“ :) ”
“…Hello, 911? Yes, I’d like to report an intruder.”
Because Maria learned to get to know her brother's friends (well, actually, they were just partners in a Science Project and her brother had just left really quick to get some supplies at Staples) and Damian learned that he should introduce himself-- BEFORE someone calls the cops.
~.~
Maria had always been known as the girl who was good with kids. No, GREAT with them. She baby-sat at least 3 times a week, not including Friday nights and weekends.
Damian liked to think that kids loved him too.
Because he hated them, which was they had runny-noses, temper tantrums, could be unbelievably annoying and loud, and they caused trouble for him.
And because he hated them... Well, he assumed that attracted the children to him.
"DAMN IT! HEY, YOU SNOT-NOSED BRAT, PUT DOWN THE KNIFE! IT'S NOT A TOY!"
"Damian! Don't cuss in front of the children!"
"Well I'm SORRY, but THIS ONE-"
"Geri."
"IS HOLDING A FRIGGIN' BUTCHER'S KNIFE!"
"Damian. You do realize that it's a TOY knife, right?"
"..."
Maria laughed gently as she lifted up this baby, uh... If memory served, her name was after a flower (Rose? Daisy? Lily? Something like that), "I'll take your silence as a no."
She carried the baby with a towel draped over her shoulder as she made her way to Obi-Wan-Coby and Geri the Ripper, giving him a kiss on the cheek before suspiciously curling her nose.
"Damian... were you smoking?"
"I can't help it! These bratty kids you're baby-sitting are driving me up the wall!"
"Damian! If you smoke around children for too long, they might get second-hand smoke!"
Maybe it was because of the twins, Coby and Geri, yelling their heads off as they "battled". Maybe it was thee baby decided to cry for no apparent reason. The TV might have been too loud as it played the Power Rangers theme song. Or maybe it was the fact that his cigarettes weren't strong enough.
"SO?!"
"S-SO?!" Maria yelled, shocked, "Second-hand smoke will hurt their lungs, make them cough a lot, and it’ll be dangerous for them to be around anyone who smokes cigarettes! They could DIE from it!"
"I don't like these kids anyway! It'll be a GOOD thing if they all dropped DEAD!" he yelled back, feverishly trying to light his new cigarette, which Maria rudely plucked from his mouth
"Damian, you're being a jerk!"
He knew that.
But he wasn't going to admit it any time soon.
"I'm going out for a smoke!" he yelled loudly as he slammed the door behind him, muffling the noise from inside
He took out his iPod and put in the earphones, blasting some screamo genre because it matched his mood. Though, then his iPod decided to act up on him again (He kept telling anyone that would listen that he was SO due for a new one from his parents) and wouldn't respond to his touch, instead, it played songs all its own.
His drags became slower, and shorter, as the breaking-down iPod decided to go into the file listed "Maria's Picks", one being "Talking to the Moon" by Bruno Mars, making him smile as he remembered that ridiculous night...
~.~
"Come on, Damian! It’ll be fun!" Maria laughed, pulling him along
"But I don't WANNA'." He whined comically as he stared at the nearby bar where tonight was "Karaoke Night"
"PLEEEEEAAAAASE~"
His eye twitched. She knew. She knew that he could never resist that innocent wounded puppy-like look on her face.
D*mn it.
He gave a defeated sigh, "...Fine."
Maria comically threw her arms in a V for Victory shape, "Yay~"
Throwing her arms around him, she squealed, "Thank you so much, Damian!"
He knew the real reason why she wanted this.
Tomorrow was the night of that play she had been given a role in, and her late father used to take her out to Karaoke Night here to calm her nerves. This was one of her first plays without her dad to help her out, and she needed Damian now.
So he took a deep breath, shook off the useless ash still on his cigarette, and walked in after her, the door having a small bell ringing in announcement.
In less then 3 hours, in a little-known bar known as "Sam's Place" with less then 15 people, Damian was called up to participate.
He nervously, and off-key, sang the lyrics read on the TV, embarrassing himself immensely...
But then he saw Maria's wide smile and he relaxed, singing more smoothly (though still off-key) to the music.
"At night when the stars light up my room; I sit by myself, talking to the Moon. Tryin’ to get to you… In hopes you're on the other side, talking to me too. Or am I a fool who sits alone talking to the moon…?"
~.~
The iPod finally listens to his one command as he continues walking around, "Play on Loop".
"I didn't know you downloaded this..." Damian chuckled as he watched the screen, reading the title of the song he had sung what seemed to be forever ago...
Time went slow as he came back to the Harrison's home, where Maria was forced to watch over those bothersome children.
At hearing the ear-splitting cry of Flower-Baby, Damian ran inside the house.
He didn't really care about the baby, but Maria was probably pulling her hair out by now...
He opened the door, the cigarette having fallen out in his brief run.
"Damian!"
He smiled.
~.~
11:23 PM.
The parents had said 10 at the latest, but then the traffic got really bad, and at least they had the decency to call and ask for a bit of over-time.
Seeing as that Maria had never been a night-person in the first place, Damian chuckled when he came into the living room to find her sleeping on the couch.
He bent down to her level, placing a blanket that had been draped over the couch onto her.
He took his new unlit cigarette out of his mouth, brushing aside Maria's banes as he kissed her forehead.
Damian had been in the process of trying to light the cigarette ("Stupid lighter, I probably need some more fluid...") of his cigarette, absent-mindedly thinking back to Maria's urges to get off cigarettes, and her rant about second-hand smoke. Just because he was bored and that cute weather-girl on Channel 8 was off-air right now (Personally, he thought Maria was cuter, but still). He thought back to the problems of hurting the kids and people around him just by smoking. What was it Maria had said...?
Uh, lung damage, cancer, and coughin--
Damian froze when he heard Maria cough gently before whimpering, as if it had hurt.
"...Oh god no." Damian whispered as both the unlit cigarette and empty lighter clattered loudly onto the floor.