Jon sighed, deciding he’d tell him. He could always use the stone to wipe Damian’s memories if he really had to. He followed him up a grand staircase and then up another.
“I have the whole floor to myself,” explained Damian, showing Jon into a spacious sitting room that couldn’t have been far off the size of the floor plan of Jon’s house. “Gets kinda lonely, especially with my folks gone so often.”
“What about friends?” asked Jon “Doesn’t your parents being gone a lot mean you can have friends over a lot?”
Damian gave a sad laugh. “What friends? So many people at school treat me like dirt, and those that don’t are indifferent at best.”
“Why don’t you hang out with the Goths?” asked Jon “They only really have contempt for the jocks and preps and other popular kids, not others.”
Damian chuckled and shook his head. “I’m emo, not goth; they’re different things.”
“Still...”
Damian shrugged. “Maybe I’d get on with them, but I’d still just feel awkward and a hanger on. As for others...I don’t want to drag nice guys like you and your girlfriend down with me; socialising with me at school would be social suicide.”
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” replied Jon shaking his head. He paused then added “Girlfriend?”
“Yeah, that Karyn chick. Umm, she is okay with what we’re going to do right?”
“Err, she’s just a friend.”
“Really? But everyone at school thinks you two are doing it; I may not interact with the other students much, but being ignored means I overhear things.”
Jon was stunned, but managed to reply “Umm, those are just rumours. She’s my BFF, always has been.”
“Oh, okay.” Damian seemed to perk up a bit at that. “Umm, so how do we start?”
Jon swallowed, moment of truth time. “Erm, maybe just for today I could wear a collar and we see how things go?”
“Do you have one?” asked Damian, scratching his chin “Think I may have a fashion accessory one somewhere but haven’t worn it for a year or two.”
“I umm, I do have one,” replied Jon, routing through his bag. He pulled out the collar and the box containing the stone and set them on the coffee table, taking a seat on the sofa. “This’ll sound weird, but this magically appeared in my room yesterday and after we talked the tag had this on it,”
Damian picked up the collar and read the tag. “Magic? You’re confusing emos and goths again,” he chuckled.
Jon took a deep breath and opened the box. “Magic is real, observe.” He took out the stone and said “I wish the shirt I’m wearing was blue.” Damian leapt out of his seat as Jon’s shirt changed from red to blue.
“Holy crap.”
“Yeah, but there’s a drawback. Watch. I wish my shirt was green.” Nothing happened.
“I-it didn’t work?”
“New wishes cant contradict older ones. They can modify them, but not contradict. Like so; I wish my shirt was darker blue.” The shirt darkened from cobalt to navy.
“How does this tie into the collar?”
“I wished for something interesting and that appeared. After we talked the tag changed itself to have your name on it.”
“Creepy. Cool, but creepy.”
“Yeah.”
“So do you still want to wear this? Are you sure it’s not cursed or something.”
Jon shrugged. “I wished for interesting and this’ll be interesting, so...”
Damian swallowed and held out the collar.
“Could...could you put it on me?” blushed Jon, “If we’re doing this then maybe we should start right. If you’re my ‘master’ while that’s on, maybe it’d be nice for you to be the one to put it on me?”
Damian smiled and sat next to him. He reached up, placing the leather band around Jon’s neck and buckling it up, pulling it tight, but not too tight. Nervously he reached up and patted Jon on the head a coupe times.
“Woof,” giggled Jon, liking it a lot for some reason.
“What now? If we’re taking this slowly, how far do we go this first time?”
