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theknightmarket · 7 months

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"What do you get out of this?"

In which Dark finally reunites with his victim in the mirror. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - AO3 TW: cursing Pages: 27 - Words: 11,500

[Requests: OPEN]

As it often was, the manor was silent. The staircases lost their breath long ago, the floorboards coped with the expected and constant weight, and the doors fell into disuse to the point that they faded into the walls. Altogether, even the rats were too spooked to enter those abandoned hallways, for fear of exciting ghosts or ghouls from the mist. Nothing went in, nothing went out.

And that was just how Dark liked it. Society had moved too fast for him, leaving him in the dust as some poetic punishment. Some part of him had always been alone, another part abandoned, and the last part dictated by it. He didn’t want any part in a thing that would only work against him, so he was content to stay in the confines of the manor, not that leaving it was ever an option. If he could, he would have by now; he would have escaped and found some quiet shelter where the memories of his actions couldn’t haunt him.

From time to time, he would be reminded of the events all those years ago by three simple things. Or, rather, people. The first of which was anything but simple – Wilford ‘Motherloving’ Warfstache had not visited the manor in quite a while, instead, roaming both space and time, looking for his next interviewee. Dark had heard about a robot he constructed, or stole, that he used to get his next, for lack of a better term, victims. He knew of one person that had already perished from the faulty wiring, and he was not planning to be his next, the fact that he couldn’t die notwithstanding.

The second was someone less dramatic. In fact, despite him definitely being around, Dark never saw hide nor hair of him. Benjamin was an elusive creature, skulking around the corridors and making noise in the kitchen at the most random of times. When he had first arrived, he went about making meals and snacks for the ‘new masters’, but what with Wilford never being there and Dark not needing to eat, his habits were just that: habits. The faint smell of baking cookies was ever-present though, which made a venture by the kitchen a pleasant treat on a hard day.

And, as he passed that room, it was indeed needed.

Because, for the third and final reminder, not only memories lurked around the corners, but consequences, too. Cruel, despairing consequences that almost had Dark turning tail and rushing back to his office. His still heart was in his throat as he moved through a hallway, unnecessary breath quickened when he glided under an arch, and, when he stepped foot into the foyer, he felt as though he would pass out then and there.

At the side of the entrance, as it always had been, was a mirror, one that he had never touched or looked at in the last hundred years. Just the thought of it made the room seem colder, if it were possible, because one thing was undeniable; this one was his fault. He had trapped a dear friend in perpetual darkness for nearly a century, acted as though he had no knowledge they still existed, and went about his business.

He wondered if you could ever forgive him.

Although he would never know if he didn’t do the one thing that struck fear into his heart like lightning igniting the ground. He would have to talk to you. That was, if you even wanted to talk to him, because – despite Dark’s lacking social skills – he knew that conversations had to be a two-way street, and he wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to cross that line.

But first things first.

Heaving a dramatic breath was harder than the 12 labors of Hercules, but Dark managed it anyway, if only to get over the first hurdle, and carefully brought his fist to the corner of the mirror. If this went well, he could finally get that nagging part of him to quieten down.

One knock was easy. Simple. Almost instinctual. The second was much less so. The brief pause between sounds was empty of condemnation or acceptance, but the quietness that followed his next knock was damn-near painful. Was he doing something wrong? Had he already messed everything up?

He supposed he did that when he locked you in the mirror in the first place.

“Hello?” he spoke numbly. Some part of him wanted you to come right out and yell at him, curse him, do whatever just to show that you were open to confronting him. Another part perished the thought. It couldn’t bare you emerging from the darkness with unquenchable wrath towards him, a thirst for vengeance that he couldn’t manipulate his way out of – so give him the calm you, the one that would listen to him when he apologized, probably scold him some, and then let your relationship build back up again. Notably, that was the part of him that reminded him of what had happened every time he crossed the foyer. And then there was the smallest section of his heart, nestled at the very bottom and buried beneath years of guilt and denial… that didn’t want you to appear at all.

But that would negate his reason for being there in the first place, and fleeing with his tail between his legs was not Dark’s forté. So, crossing his arms over his chest and digging his heels into the floorboards, he stood his ground.

“Hello?” he repeated, confidence creeping steadily into his tone. “We need to talk.”

Technically, that was a lie. You didn’t need to talk, nothing bad would happen to you if you didn’t show up, but there had been a steadily creeping feeling of distress for Dark that urged him to take some action. Obviously, you wouldn’t be doing much initiating from behind the glass, so that left him standing before you. Hopeful, hesitant, alone.

“I have matters to discuss with you.” He reasoned to himself that he could communicate, if not as a friend, then as a business partner. The cold logistics were his strong suit, after all, and it negated the risk of developing an emotional attachment. It did mean ignoring a large part of him – the part of him that wanted to make that connection – but it was better than the alternative.

However, as he waited, it became apparent that he didn’t have to worry about that struggle. You weren’t going to appear, it seemed, the seconds ticking by on the grandfather clock behind him. The damned thing taunted him, and he was sick of it as soon as he noticed. If you didn’t want to talk in that moment, fine, but you wouldn’t be getting away with the silent treatment that easy.

Besides, it wasn’t as though he had gone into this interaction with any kind of plan, and that was what he was good at, planning. So, the only reason why this hadn’t worked first try was because he hadn’t thought it out well enough. Tomorrow, then, you would talk, he would make sure of it. He couldn’t fail twice in a row?

He failed twice in a row. The next day, after Dark had knocked again at the wooden edge of the mirror, watched the glass in the frame shiver ever so slightly, you didn’t appear. You denied giving him even the slightest hint of recognition.

“We need to talk,” he insisted, acutely aware that he was repeating words from before, but what else could he say? He wasn’t one for patience, and you would find him dead thrice over before he begged. No, you would have to take what he gave you, accept that he wasn’t going to throw himself before you in desperation.

It didn’t make this any easier on him, though. The seconds that shuffled past him felt like wading through mud. They grated on his nerves, pulled at his skin, his hand leapt to his jacket to fiddle with the edges. Normally, it was enough to ground him and keep him from acting out, but, as before, Dark was not one for patience.

“I don’t know why you’re acting like this,” he started, relatively soft in comparison to what he could be, “but we don’t have time for it. I don’t have time for it.”

He understood that creating false urgency was somewhat backhanded, but he really did have to speak with you. Perhaps overexaggerating the situation, if it was needed, was something he was prepared to do.

He pressed on, “I came here to talk to you and that is exactly what I’ll be doing. You’re not going to get me to stop just because you’re acting like a child—” nothing, “—because you are! You are a child, and, right now, you are not helping anyone by staying silent.” Still nothing.

The air around him flexed and popped as Dark grew more and more agitated. Red and blue bent around each other like oil in water, droplets and sparks and smoke that curled over his shadows. He was racked with indecision, the three parts of him threatening to tear him apart, drawn and quartered, just to have their own way. He hated not being able to make up his mind, because that left him not entirely focused on the thing in front of him. In such an important moment, he had to be, lest he say some undesirable things.

“What are you doing?” As such, it was unfortunate that he was indeed undecided, “Are- are you throwing a tantrum in there, are you sulking? I don’t understand why you won’t talk to me!” A crack spiderwebbed itself in Dark’s little bubble. The sound of a sharp fracture echoed through the manor’s halls. Despite Dark straightening his back, dropping his shoulders, adjusting his grip on his suit jacket, the crack remained. “Okay,” he huffed, “I accept that I’ve made mistakes, but they weren’t horrible. This was for the best, and, frankly, I believe you’re being selfish. Three lives are more important than one, and, yes, I admit that our method was… backhanded, but that doesn’t give you the right to ignore me for it.”

He gave it ten seconds before squinting his eyes. Goading hadn’t worked, pseudo-apologies be damned, what else was he supposed to do? He refused to stoop so low as to concede his wrongdoings, far more there were in your opinion, leaving him with nothing. He stared at himself through the glass, clear as day, practically crystal.

“Fine. Act like that,” Dark muttered, “You’re the one who’s trapped, not me.”

A beat passed. The glass didn’t change. Just plain indifference.

“Oh, be quiet.” With that spat towards the mirror, he turned on his heel and marched back to his office.

Four times. Four times. When the clock struck nine for the past four nights, Dark would make his way towards the mirror in the foyer, disregard anyone and anything in his path, and knock on the wood, never to receive an answer. Four times over.

And it wasn’t as though it was getting any easier to wait; self-restraint was being exercised more than patience, because it was all he could do to keep himself from shattering the glass even more than it already was. The other mirrors were not as safe. Those in the bathrooms, library, and two of the bedrooms fell victim to Dark’s frustration, leaving messes of shards and splinters where they used to hang. They were disposable, your mirror was not, nor the one that met his eyes across his office. It was cleaner, less fancy that the one in the foyer, and he found it the only one that he could handle being in the presence of, and the only one that could handle being in his presence.

Although, one living being did manage to hold his own in the same room.

“Oh, Dark! I’ve been looking for you.”

Wilford had been flitting in and out of the manor recently, more rapidly than before but just as unreliable. Dark didn’t know what he wanted, but he wasn’t going to waste time asking him outright. The man could straddle a fence all he liked, he had more important things – not that they were working out any better.

But now that Wilford was confronting him directly, he didn’t have a choice in talking to him. If only you saw it the same way…

“I’m where I’ve been for the past century, Wilford,” Dark responded, eyes not moving from the documents in front of him.

“Hmm—” he pulled himself onto the desk, “—Is that so?”

He didn’t bother to hide his sigh as he dragged his glare up to his friend’s face. The look on his face spoke more words than he could be bothered to say. Confusion, annoyance, a general ‘get on with it before I kick you out’ sort of tone.

Wilford was unaffected. “Well,” he drawled with that unpinpointable accent, “I’m just saying that there’s been a few times I’ve popped in when you haven’t been here.” His hands darted for the pen stand on the desk. “Though, the mirror was definitely a surprise.”

Damn it. If there was one thing that Wilford and Dark had in common, it was a certain omniscience for things in the manor. Whether he had actively seen his attempts to talk to you didn’t matter, he would know either way, like a nosy child. He was quickly growing tired of childish antics, but that could have just been the permanent mood for the week.

The weariness not only had Dark pushing his chair away from the desk to swing one leg over another, but it also halted his reaction time, if only for a millisecond – unfortunately for him, that was all the time Wil needed to notice.

“What were you doing, anyway? You haven’t spoken to our friend in the entire time we’ve been here, and you weren’t there to worry about your appearance.”

His permanent sugar-coated smile turned sour, the edges pulling taught and his teeth sharpening. The knowledge of everything and everyone in the building doubled into annoyance at not knowing a secret. Wilford liked to be in on the joke.

Dark wouldn’t let him in that easy, not when his attempts had gone wrong every time. “We were only,” he paused, “talking.”

“You certainly were!” Wil’s chortle came out boisterous, clashing with the shadows of the room. “I can’t say the same about them, now, can I?”

Dark never liked giving in to his more dramatic urges, but rolling his eyes at his friend’s antics was the very furthest he would go. Always turning things into a joke, stripping them of severity and seriousness. Sometimes, on the very oddest of occasions, he could understand it. He’d seen his mental break when he stole your body, and he had accepted his denial for the next month or so, but there was a point when things had to matter. Getting you to talk to him mattered.

Wilford looked over his shoulder at the mirror. His smile barely softened as he raised one hand to send you a wave. You hadn’t fully appeared, you never did in Dark’s office, but there was the faint outline of some shape that hinted you were at the very least listening in. Of course, you didn’t say anything back. Wil thought you were both similar in some respects - for instance, you were both as stubborn as a mule. You’d decided to look into the office, so you were interested in what was going on, and Dark’s last week of trying to talk to you proved his persistence. Another thing you shared was a hatred for Mark – and, no, he wasn’t going to censor that man’s name in his own train of thought, he was a big boy – so if you both agreed to work together, Dark might actually make some headway in his search for the criminal. You could finally put that combined pig-headedness to good use.

“I’m trying to get them to respond, but they steadfastly refuse to.” Dark’s fluid complaint had Wil swinging his head back to him.

“I can’t say I blame them.”

Alarm shot over one’s face while the other looked pleasantly calm. Siding with someone you refused to even look at him was a surprise, but it shouldn’t have been so shocking; the manic time-traveler was the definition of a wildcard, he always had been.

As he spoke, Wil snatched a pile of papers from a semi-open drawer to rifle through. “From what I’ve heard,” he began, “you were being quite rude last time. Calling them a child, really, what did you expect?”

“I was expecting some kind of answer.”

“Ah, so you were goading a response out of them. Not at all releasing any pent-up aggression, eh?”

Dark didn’t like this. He didn’t like the sudden turn of the tables. Wilford had gone from the eaves-dropping child to the parent giving their own a scolding. He didn’t like the loss of control he had over the situation. But what he disliked the most was the idea that he was lying about his intentions. Too many people had been accusing him of that, neither straightforward, and it was becoming an unfavorable pattern to him.

“I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Wilford.”

“Oh, but I’m not insinuating anything! I’m only suggesting that this was not the most effective way of getting them to talk. If you wanted them to play nice, you’d better do so yourself.”

“I am playing nice.”

The words came out with his namesake in mind, a volume walking the line between a growl and a yell. His ashen knuckles became as white as snow against the edge of the desk, Wil was surprised he couldn’t see inactive veins underneath his skin. Although he didn’t meet his eyes, they were sure to be glaring daggers at whatever he was looking at. None of this worried him. Noisy neighbors, stray dogs, the occasional estate agent who thought this looked an easy sell – they all were topics of Dark’s anger. This, though, was something a little different.

The blue and red that echoed around him fought against itself in a desperate attempt to both stay close to Dark and throw distance between the colors. The dangerous aura of power surrounding him was getter less and less stable with each passing day, and he had some theories on what could be causing it – undoubtably, it was you, that much was obvious. However, he didn’t know whether it was him going near you or staying away that created this unpredictability. What he did know was that he would have to sort it out soon, or risk something happening that was out of his control.

The least he could do for now was rein himself in, so, almost begrudgingly, Dark straightened out the lapels of his jacket and contained himself to his chair. Wilford watched him all the while, not scared, but with a knowing look on his face that made Dark want to kick him out of the manor entirely.

“I’ll try again in the morning. Now, I have business to attend to, and I would appreciate no distractions.” The excuse was not subtle, but it worked in getting Wil to slide off the desk and ready himself to leave to whatever time period tickled his fancy. Dark, meanwhile, immediately dropped his gaze to the paper in front of him, not sparing him a second glance.

Wil called as he began to strut out, cheery as if nothing had happened, “And don’t forget your manners, Dark!”

He merely huffed in response. Pale acknowledgment he was known to give even in times of calm, though, a thing he lacked now was attentiveness. He directed all of his focus to ignoring Wil, meaning he also ignored his next words sent towards the mirror.

“The same goes for you, old friend. It’d be nice if we all got along,” he spoke. Both his tone and expression were imploring, something you had not seen for a good while. Hell, any emotion beyond crazed carelessness was a rarity, so it would be a lie to say you were going to disregard the change in behavior that easy.

You don’t say anything when Wil passed by, nor when he lets the office door fall closed. Normally, you would leave the second he did; you weren’t a fan of being in the same room as Dark for longer than entertained you, and, without someone who knew you were there, it became boring. Why this day was any different, you didn’t know, but your subconscious urged you to stay behind. Watch.

You nearly laughed at yourself, even though it would give your position away. You yourself were practically a subconscious, a physical body long gone thanks to the very person in front of you. You couldn’t interact with the world outside the mirrors, you couldn’t leave the manor, you couldn’t do anything, that was his fault.

The very faint lines of a figure dispersed like a cigarette’s smoke as you left the room, a single thought that sent you fleeing.

Why did it feel like you were trying to convince yourself?

Nine o’clock. Wilford had tried to get him to come earlier, but a routine had been established, and Dark, although he would never admit it, did find himself using the time to mentally prepare himself. That, and his space-faring friend had only appeared ten minutes before to see the interaction through.

Speaking of which, that very man was standing a few feet away from him in the kitchen’s archway, an encouraging and pleading grin marring his face. He hadn’t asked why it was so important to him that you get along, his sudden interest seeming suspicious, but he wasn’t about to try and get an answer out of two stubborn mules.

His fist met the wooden frame three times. His feet shifted on the floorboards. He waited with bated breath.

“I would appreciate if we could have a civil conversation.”

One, two, three.

“I’m sorry, but my mommy told me not to talk to strangers.”

It had been such a long time since he had heard your voice that Dark flinched at the sound of it. It was bitter and hostile and mocking and a part of him damn near blushed. He quickly shut it down with a swallow and grab of his lapel, but, for a brief second, he couldn’t deny that he was happy. You showed up. Progress.

But the look on your face didn’t suggest there was going to be much more. It was his job to fix that, and, from Wilford clearing his throat somewhere behind him, he was going to have to do that without getting into an argument.

Dark thought for a moment. Just like before, it was difficult not having his full attention on something. He couldn’t lose this opportunity to talk to you, but it would help to collect himself. The best he could do that was by talking slowly and clearly, and under no circumstances could he lose his temper.

“I apologize for calling you a child. I had planned to talk to you, and it,” he sighed, closing his eyes, “annoyed me that I couldn’t do that.”

Good news: you were still there when he opened them again. Bad news: you looked expectant at best, still pissed at worst.

“And what else?”

Dark squinted, back tracking the lecture he had given you and your history together. “I apologize for calling you selfish.”

“And what else?”

The corners of his lips tugged downwards harshly into a frown, the most he could do while he resisted rolling his eyes, but he managed to choke out, “What else? I apologize for everything I said last time I spoke to you.”

He wouldn’t deny that he felt smug. It wasn’t a look he liked for himself, but it was a good feeling. Knowing that you had outsmarted someone was enjoyable, and that someone being a person you’d recently got into a disagreement with was even better.

He did not feel smug when you repeated for the final time, “And what else?”

In fact, he spluttered, a fish pulled out of water. What else could there possibly be? He hadn’t spoken to you for nearly a century, he can’t have done anything to insult you without ever interacting with you, could he? Or were you trying to outsmart him back? That sounded like you, you were the district attorney, after all. You were probably hoping he would admit to something that you didn’t know he did. Well, he wouldn’t play your game.

“What else is there?” Dark asked, staring you dead in the eyes.

You stared back.

There was something about the mirror that made it impossible to look at you. Every second, the image of you was switching out between your hazy form and his own face. Both equally ashen, both equally annoyed, both equally inhuman. In one hundred years, the pair of you had gone from friends sharing a cup of coffee, talking over that one unenviable case, to bulls waiting to see who would make the first move. Neither dared move, not for fear, but for displaying weakness.

Your pupils were the first to shift. While the rest of you remained stock-still, they dragged up and down his body. From the face to the suit to the legs, it was almost as though you were cataloguing everything that he had changed from what you used to look like – until you brought your eyes back up to his.

“Well, thank you for apologizing for that.”

That sentence had his shoulders relaxing somewhat. You had taken his olive branch, it was the second step in constructing a partnership that would, hopefully, turn out to be mutually beneficial to you both. Dark could move in the manor, sure, but you had the void, a place where he spent a lot of his time. Maybe he left some clues, or even a body—

“I don’t forgive you.”

You snapped the olive branch between your cold hands.

“What?” Dark hissed, practically outraged, “I’ve already apologized for everything I did, what else is there?”

A strange sort of enragement flashed over your eyes at his words. You kept your cool, but there was no doubt that, had you the option, you would have strangled him. Although he didn’t know what he’d done this time, the snarl beginning to curl over your mouth and the flexing of your hands gave more than a hint. When you moved them to gesture wildly around the void, Dark thought you were going to give it a try anyhow.

It didn’t make him think any deeper about it though, him simply answering to your silent point, “I’ve covered that.”

You let your arms drop to your sides. “Yeah, and then you had to apologize for it, so you obviously didn’t do a good job.”

What was meant to be a helpful little chat, maybe that would grow into something else, was rapidly collapsing in on itself. A snake eating its own tail to satiate its hunger. Except, this time, it satiated nothing, save for the want to have the last word in an argument. Both of you suffered from that fatal flaw. Stubbornness ran like a virus through inmoving veins, without mercy or pity. Maybe if it had been only one of you, you could have gotten along, but that was not the case.

“I’ll reiterate, then,” Dark began as he straightened himself out, “Mark stole Damien’s body and one entity of this house commandeered Celine’s. That left three spirits wandering the void: Damien, Celine, and the remaining entity. Are you keeping up with me?” He needed to slow down. “Good. Now, and I feel the need to emphasize this, it was coincidence that your body was left unoccupied when you were shot. We didn’t plan for that.” He really needed to slow down. “We didn’t plan for any of this, but it’s what happened, and we took it in stride. The next course of events is simple. We appeared to you, you agreed to let us occupy your body, and so we did.” Pump the brakes, pull the plug, slow the roll. “Don’t talk because I know what you’re going to say. Two spirits in one body is pushing it, three is dangerous, but four? It’d be a waste of a perfectly good host; it would self-destruct as soon as the brain caught up.” Stop talking! “So, I’ll ask again. What else is there?”

Had he been alive, Dark’s heart would have been beating so hard that you might have been able to see it through his suit. Of course, he wasn’t alive, and neither were you, so he wouldn’t have been able to see yours trying to force its way out of your ribcage, either. If there ever were a chance that you would feel sympathy for this man, he had wiped it out just like that. His little monologue might have felt nice at the time, but you promised that you would make him regret it. Talking to you like a child, who did he think he was?

“For someone so high and mighty, you sure are dumb,” you spat back. Explaining it in a more courteous sense had crossed your mind, but it was stamped out.

An annoyed “What?” was the only response you received.

“Do you think that I’m mad at you for stealing my body?”

“I wouldn’t call it stealing, but yes, I do.”

You scoffed. All that preaching and he wasn’t even right on what you were pissed at. “I don’t care that you, fine, inhabited my body without me—” Even giving that little leeway was painful to you, but you struggled through it, “—I’m mad that you left me in here.”

That gave Dark pause, something that no one had been able to do for quite a while. Sure, they could get him to quiet down, mostly through annoyance in Wilford’s case, but it was an achievement to get him to stand and contemplate someone’s words, genuinely. He didn’t understand what you meant entirely.

“I couldn’t do anything else,” he settled for saying.

“Of course, you could.” Your voice had fallen quiet. Where that had been fire and fury and blinding stubbornness, you seemed to have slipped into a smaller volume. Simple. If he didn’t know you any better – and after such a time, there was a chance he didn’t know you at all, anymore –, he might have said there was a hint of pleading.

“Like what, for example?”

“You could have spoken to me, you- you could have stopped to look at me, for once!” You were rearing up again, the collapse of the walls hadn’t lasted very long, making Dark wish he hadn’t asked for that example after all. But even though you were on the offensive again, once the dam had broken there was going to be no fixing it. Going without anyone to talk to for so long completely disregarded all of your social skills, and, apparently, keeping your emotions and real opinions to yourself were some of those skills. “It’s been terrifying being trapped in this mirror, alone, in the dark, without anything to do but think. The number of times I’ve had to recount the night we died or else I’d do insane is too high for me to count.”

If you lost track of the events, you might end up wrongly forgiving some people and wrongly villainizing others.

Despite you showing a bit of weakness in admitting you were scared, Dark was not an emotional man. Hell, the only person he’d spoken to was an insane murderer, so give him some slack if he didn’t pick up on every feeling you showed. Thinking back on it, he would have accepted some of the blame instead of shifting it to others with a snarky, “I’m not the only one here, I hope you know.”

You bit back, “Wilford and Benjamin, how could I forget? Except Wilford actually has gone insane from denial, and Benjamin has said one thing to me since I’ve been in here, and it was an insult to my clothes. Neither of them is around enough to talk to anyway.” The last bit you muttered quieter to yourself, but it didn’t slip past Dark.

“How would I be any better?”

“Oh, cut the self-loathing. It’s not a good look on you, and it’s pissing me off.” He had half the mind to ask what didn’t piss you off at this point – decorative language that you’d picked up from real estate agents notwithstanding – but he held his tongue. “I thought we were in the same situation, victims of Mark, together. Apparently, we’re not.”

And, with a shift of your attention to the edge of the mirror, you followed it up with, “You’re less like me and more like Mark.”

That set Dark’s red and blue waves alight like a rabid flame doused in gasoline. The crack from before splintered itself along his frame even more so, sending high-pitched squeals into the air. All parts of him were having different reactions, from outraged to regretful to accepting, leaving the final physical output a frigid glare. Your own eyes flitted around him, watching the energy strike out of control, and, for a brief moment, you wished you had stayed silent.

It was an odd feeling to see someone you once considered a friend – whom you knew fully well wasn’t that same friend – respond in such a way. The visage that used to belong to Damien sent your subconscious wanting to comfort him, but, the logical part of your brain knew he wasn’t the same. Trying to be kind to him now would be fruitless, and an insult to your past together.

You let yourself sigh the smallest breath that you could when he managed to corral himself. The waves of light returned to the surface of his skin. He blinked.

“I suppose a century is bound to do some damage—”

“A fucking century!?”

That was the last straw for you.

“You’ve been avoiding me for a century!?”

You knew that you couldn��t force your way out of the mirror, but this delightful news threw all reasoning out of the window. The glass barely flexed with your shoulder pressing against it, nor the fist you chucked, or even launching a foot into it. With no clue, no night-day cycle, no nothing, you had no way to tell how long you’d been abandoned for. Only your shattered view to the outside world helped, and even then, nothing in the manor would change for you to tell how much time had passed. A vague internal clock was no help either, leaving you to a guessing game. A month, a year, maybe a decade or so.

Instead, a goddamn century had passed with barely a word from this man who stood in front of you, wearing your friend’s skin and using your bones.

“I’m sorry.”

Pitiful. An entity with so much power that some part of him could help bring someone back from the dead.

“You’re a coward, Dark.”

He was starting to dislike how he looked – not for any insecurities, but because whenever he was looking at it, it only meant that you were not there. His reflection tried to goad some spat out of him, but the only thing there was an emptiness that was quickly spreading to consume all the anger and resentment that had been there before. The voice that had originally urged him to talk to you was silenced, sure, but he didn’t feel any better. He felt worse if that were possible.

A whistle broke the silence behind him.

“That was quite the fit you two had.”

Wilford stepped beside Dark, both gazing at the mirror, and just the mirror gazed back. It felt wrong.

“Do you understand what I said before?” He punctuated his question with a twist of his heel.

“Oh, but you got an answer out of them this time,” Wil slapped a hand onto his shoulder, “that’s progress, friend!”

“Progress is arguing to the point of storming off, then?”

Walking away from the mirror felt, to Dark, too much like giving up. Having indeed received some kind of response, regardless of whether it was positive or negative, just made it more of a failure to leave without succeeding. At least when you hadn’t appeared entirely, he could blame it on you not wanting to talk – this time, though, you were there, and you had spoken, and, because of something he did, you left.

Approaching the staircase closest to his office, he fought back the thought.

“Progress is getting a verbal response,” Wil called after him, rushing to catch up, “and you can make more if you so choose, which I highly implore you to do.”

With a huff, Dark caught hold of the banister. “Why don’t you try? They might be more susceptible.”

Wil practically chased him up to the landing, refusing to let him go and sulk in his office that easy. “I spoke to them within the first year. The only thing stopping them from coming out to play more often is you.”

Having just rounded the corner and with his hand hovering over the doorknob, Dark found himself wishing that he were ever-so-slightly quicker. Maybe if he had skipped the last step, not paused at the bottom, or simply sprinted for his door – maybe he wouldn’t have had to hear that. Wil’s tone may have been sugary and light, but he wasn’t dumb. Saying such a thing had him struggling to maintain a cool exterior. Was what he did really that much of a problem? He assumed that your outburst had come from him finally showing to you, but had you gone so long without any interaction?

He twisted the handle.

“Does it matter that much to you?”

“Of course! The manor could use a little activity, I’d say,” Wilford spoke as though he’d already won the battle, and, as Dark stepped over the threshold, he had.

A brief pause, in which he looked around his bleak office – the desk, the bookshelf, the mirror – and then he answered, “Alright. I’ll try once more tomorrow.”

Wil practically erupted into fireworks. He clapped his hands together, spun around on the heel of his shoe, and announced, “Splendid! It’s a date!”

He was gone a second later, leaving Dark to himself. The minimal amount of light that had breached the room was dispelled with a closing of the door. He had a lot of work to do, but, for once, it had nothing to do with tracking down Mark or keeping the authorities away from the manor. No, because this time, it employed the quant, little library that Celine had made for herself when she lived in the place. With no one having gone in or out in the past century, there wasn’t even dust along the shelves, nor disrepair of the books. Everything would be pristine, just how she left it. And, matched with the knowledge of where everything was, Dark knew that this would be a piece of cake. His plan would go off without a hitch.

Although, that had been his belief when he had prepared to confront you, and look how that had turned out.

Surrounded by darkness, listening to darkness, seeing darkness, you had a lot of time to think. For most people, the ennui of an eternity might soften them up, or make them think differently. Not you. In fact, you were certain in any and all of the convictions you had at the very moment of your death. Resentment built up under the surface of your skin like rot, and, without the ability to leave the void, you were never given a chance to clear yourself of it.

There were the odd opinions that barely hardened, but there was also a good amount of them that solidified into steel. Kings of them all were the reasons you were trapped in the mirror in the first place. Though, as said before, you didn’t begrudge Dark for keeping you there, only that he ignored you.

Mark, on the other hand, you would gladly beat with a stick the second you saw him, or even your bare hands if you lacked anything else. The thought of touching him made you grimace, but you would struggle through it, if only to see that monster of a man dead at your feet as he should have been years ago.

That was the worst thing about the void, beating out the loneliness and the silence, was the fact that – if you were to look at a very specific place, your head placed just so and tilted within a fraction of a degree, you could see the familiar and infuriating face of one man. He was still dressed in a satin robe, splayed on the ground, arms held out like a false idol.

Mark’s body had long since gone cold, abandoned just as you were, to the place in the mirror. When he had taken Damien’s body, he’d left his behind, a literal shell of a man. You would see it sometimes when you moved your head quickly. A flash, a strike of lighting. It was still there to this day, but you’d never gotten the bravery to get any closer to it. It wasn’t as though you could trip over it, so why bother?

Between reliving the memories of your demise and thinking of how much you hated those two figures, you wondered if this was a punishment. The body was placed there to remind you of your loneliness, while the mirror taunted you with a glimpse of freedom that you would never reach. It gave you the only sense of direction in the void; a roughly 3 by 2-meter screen with decorated edges that just hung there. You had once tried to knock it down, but that just served to dent the corner.

You had… mixed feelings about the window. On one hand, it let some light in. It let you see your hands, your torso, the body at the edge of your vision, your legs. You could appreciate that part. And, although not overly effectively, it gave you a sense of self. You existed, you were present in time and space, you hadn’t just disappeared, as much as you were otherwise convinced – which led you to the other hand; it mocked you. Constantly. You could see out, people could see in, but it was rare that you acknowledged one another. Wilford waved at you a few times, and Benjamin had insulted the outfit that you’d died in. The one to give you the most attention overall was Dark.

Your head snapped to the mirror.

Dark.

He said he would try again tomorrow, didn’t he? Was it tomorrow yet? You weren’t good at keeping track of time, it seemed, but the draining and filling of the light outside that you, for once, stayed awake long enough to notice, gave you some indication. Shadows danced from the windows, the rise of a sun, and the fall of a moon. A day had passed, it had to. Timing always got finicky after six o’clock, when you couldn’t discern when it was getting brighter or if clouds were just passing through. Just to be sure, you decided to watch the screen for a bit longer. He normally appeared when it was darker – you sometimes laughed to yourself about that kind of thematic symbolism – but maybe today would be different.

The next minutes were not different, which was to be expected, so you sat yourself down for a little longer. The next hours were not different, but you had waited a century, you could wait some more. The rest of that day was not different, though you could assume that he was just busy – stuck in that suit all day, talking of nothing but paperwork, he had to be busy.

But the day after that was not different, either, nor was the next. Flittering between the few remaining mirrors didn’t help, because, for once, Dark was not in his office. He had to be somewhere that you couldn’t access, and, for a moment, you wondered if this was his plan. Questions about his real intentions stuck into your mind like darts on a board; had he meant to trick you, had he wanted you to get your hopes up? The idea that it was all for fun briefly topped your theories, but it couldn’t be right. You didn’t think that fun was a part of Dark’s vocabulary, regardless of the nature of it, so you knocked it down to the bottom of the possibilities.

However, after yet another fall and rise of the sun, you stood before the screen of the void. A prisoner staring out at the world through their iron bars. Only one notion remained, a small, simple notion that you had harbored since the beginning.

He was a liar. He was a coward and a liar, and he never cared about you, not one bit. Everything was fake, he wasn’t sorry about anything he said, and he didn’t care about you being alone. He threw people to the wayside the second they weren’t useful anymore, and whatever he needed you for had solved itself, so there you go! Brushed to the side like an inconvenient pile of trash, because he was Dark, and that was what Dark did. A selfish, lying coward, he was worse than Mark—!

You lifted your foot. Glass littered the ground. You didn’t hear the mirror smash, and yet, the evidence was there. A slice of the screen carved out hastily and let fall to the floor of the void. The space it had occupied before was now empty upon you putting your hand through it.

“Huh,” you muttered to yourself. You still weren’t full comfortable with the sound of your own voice. Too scratchy from disuse.

The couple of shards of glass that were somewhat intact on the floor reflected something back at you as you moved. Carefully, you crouched down to cradle one, and then promptly fell backwards.

You couldn’t remember what you looked like when you were alive. When you thought of yourself, all you could see in your mind’s eye was a blank slate of a face and a line downwards, like a stick-figure. Staring into the thing in your hand, you questioned again if this were a punishment.

Smoke. Smoke in the vague shape of a person. That was all you could see, and, no matter how you tilted or twisted the glass, that was all it would show. The billows of gas threw themselves around over one another, cascading down along the side of a face and then shoulders, like waterfalls creating a path with no end. A misty hand brought to your face conflicted with the image. It felt like there was something solid there, your hands felt solid, as well. You didn’t know what to trust, but that was the same age-old story, wasn’t it?

The tears looked like smoke, too.

Nine o’clock. The day had passed painfully quickly. Normally, that would be a godsend, but it only reminded you of the hiatus when things actually happened. Not anymore. It changed very quickly back to what it had been before, like your mind was trained to accept abandonment.

You weren’t mad anymore. At least, you didn’t think you were. The office had gone uninhabited for the past four days, so you didn’t have anything to direct your anger towards. It was more as though you were frozen, back to spectating the manor through a sheen of frosted glass with your legs crossed. You’d give anything to feel the snow again, or any change in temperature at all. The void was completely neutral – maybe 15 degrees if you paid close attention. It didn’t matter to you anymore.

You were drifting. Your train of thought kept straying from the subject, and reliving the memories gave you no satisfaction, no sadness, no fear. Frozen. To the point that you barely registered that someone was standing in front of the mirror.

You wouldn’t admit that you clambered to your feet, nor that you jogged closer to the mirror to strengthen your image. Did you look like smoke to him, too? You shook your head, that didn’t matter. Attention roving his body, you inspected Dark for any sign of what had taken his time up so much. You got your answer quickly when your gaze landed on two books, one in each of his hands, though only the right was open. The other’s cover, meanwhile, was exposed to you. ‘The Lady in the Lake’ it read, in a striking, slightly yellowed font. On a positive note, you felt some sort of coherent emotion stirring within you. The bad news on that front was that it was anger that was returning. Had Dark ignored you, again, for a fiction book?

“Hello to you, too?” you risked speaking. No reaction to you; instead, he began muttering something that you couldn’t make out, not for lack of trying. You suddenly found a blockage between the words he was saying and your brain, as though he were speaking complete gibberish with English intonation. You struggled to rationalize anything until a mass of gray and red and blue flocked to the fiction book. A smoky substance danced around the cover, under and over Dark’s hand, like a swarm of flies. It wasn’t long before they drifted to the ceiling, leaving an empty space behind.

And then something in the void changed. For once, something new was added, and it was right at your feet. You weren’t going to question what his book did – you were trapped inside a mirror, after all, less explainable things had happened. You damn-near cried again when your hand brushed the paperback while your heart went while in your chest. Had you been able to, you would have lunged at Dark to hug him, but you couldn’t – for one, the mirror, obviously, but you were still somewhat annoyed with him. You schooled your expression as best you could from awed to simply appreciative.

Dark, meanwhile, didn’t bother trying to hide his smugness.

Tentatively, you drag your attention away from the gift and ask, “What is this?”

“A book.”

Your chest instinctively cramped with a bark of laughter. Short, solid, and, to someone on the other side of the mirror, sweet. A grin spread over your lips with such a reaction that you hadn’t felt in years. That someone preferred this look to your spiteful sarcasm.

You looked down again, finger spreading across the indented title, and then your eyebrows furrowed. You didn’t want to break this already brief moment, but you just had to know…

“What do you get out of this?”

Dark’s shoulders set straighter. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t sound defensive, just confused, which helped to settle your concerns, but it wasn’t enough. So, you prodded, “What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything.”

The conversation may have been over, but the interaction was not. Dark stood there with his hands now clasped behind him and his book resting on the side table. A subtle smirk played on his mouth, though it didn’t exude the sadism you’d come to expect from it. This time, it just looked natural. He stayed unmoving as you looked him up and down, once, twice, before you let your own shoulders sag. Your posture bent and your eyebrows flattened.

This was all reversed when Dark whirled on his heel and started to walk.

“Where are you going?” Keeping your voice stable took all the energy in the world from you.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” was the answer you received, alongside his disappearing steps as he took himself away from the foyer.

You didn’t like that. It left a foul taste in your mouth – not for him leaving, but for the way that you felt about it. It stirred something in your gut and squeezed your heart with a vengeful vice grip. The next few minutes that Dark was away you spent arguing with yourself.

One side of you reminded you of how things had been for the past hundred years; you hated that man because he left you alone, he trapped you in this mirror, he stole your body. Without him, you would be dead and buried, allowed to rest, finally. And, with him, you were here. An endless void, eternally missing and ignored by the world. You should hate him.

But the other side of you pointed out that you should hate him. But you didn’t. Dark had apologized, he’d given you a book, he was trying to atone for the pain he had caused you. Why go to all the trouble of ignoring him when he could be your only viable interaction? You were here to stay, so it would be a waste to disregard him that easily. Besides, you had another person to be mad at, one that was more deserving than someone who was also a victim of his actions.

Weighing the options, you asked yourself if this was what Dark went through every time that he tried to make a decision. If it were true, well, you should have been grateful that he’d agreed on talking to you. It was difficult, and your conclusion definitely upset some part of your brain, but that didn’t stop you from making it concrete in your mind.

That you would give Dark some time.

Your body jolted in alarm at the knock that broke you free from your thoughts, but the shock was quickly remedied when you focused on the return of Dark at the front of your mirror. Likewise, he was brought to the front of your mind, and the choice to trust him was left to settle.

“You’re back,” you stated.

“No need to look so surprised.”

Your eyes searched him efficiently as he situated himself. Though, it didn’t take long for you to see what was different. The most glaring thing was that he had retrieved both a chair and a new book from who knows where. He laid the seat surprisingly gently on the planked floor but did not actually sit just yet. Instead, he stayed standing, almost awkwardly, as if waiting for permission.

A curious look you sent him bid him explain. “I thought we could read.” He cleared his throat, barely met your eyes. “Spend some time together. I think it would go better than talking, given our record.”

Huh. You hadn’t expected that. You appreciated the book, you really did, but offering to read withyou? Briefly, you wondered if Dark had been replaced in the time he’d been away, it would explain all the weird personality shifts, but you weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

As you flopped to the ground, one leg crossed over the other, you hissed at the part of your mind that whispered that you should. It took you all of one minute to get it to quiet down, and, from that second on, you were engrossed in the book that you and Dark now shared.

Nothing amazing happened during that first session. You read, he read, he asked what you thought, you told him it was good, and then you both parted ways. Such a pace was set for the next few nights. Nine o’clock became a very cherished time, not that either of you entirely noticed it. On your part, you didn’t even notice any of the times of day. Dawn, noon, evening – those were what you measured the passing of time by; now that you had a reason to do it down to the day, you paid more attention. Dark, meanwhile, had made it a habit to leave his office at 8:50, make it down in five minutes, and always be slightly early for the meeting. Maybe it was residual mannerisms from the 1920s, or maybe you were both still warming up to each other, but you didn’t start before nine.

It was the fifth night that a little thing changed. A subtle volta in a poem that you would only understand if you looked hard enough, and, by now, it was definite that Dark was. He’d read this book before, he knew what was before, what was happening, and what was to come. He enjoyed rereading things in his free time for just that reason, but this was a new experience that added something else to the matter; you. Being aware of the plot meant that he could spare some of his attention to send your way. That attention was used to watch the corners of your mouth crease at a part you enjoyed, to watch the flickering light in your eyes flare when there was a twist, to watch your nose scrunch if you took in new information. Pride coursed through his abandoned veins whenever you expressed any kind of emotion, but it was what you said after finishing the most recent chapter that made him react differently.

“I don’t like Eddie.”

Dark paused, a thumb brushing against the corner of a page. “Me neither.”

And that was it. That was all that was said before you drifted back into a white noise of flipping paper and shuffling. You continued to read, but Dark was caught at the start of the next chapter. His hand hovered over the edge of the pages, he willed it to move, but it steadfastly remained there. He tried to at least skim the ink printed words, nothing stuck, and his pupils ran in circles around the irises.

You had agreed on something – together. Feelings about one person were the same. You matched.

For the first time in a hundred years, Dark was hopeful.

It took a month for something substantial to happen again, not that Dark was complaining. He rather enjoyed having someone to talk to that wasn’t insane or his employee. He rather enjoyed talking to you, whether it was about the book or something interesting that had happened outside the mirror. It gave him a grim joy to see those sparks fly in your eyes when he mentioned how an aspiring real estate agent had tried to evaluate the place. You liked hearing about people the most, but they were few and far between. Most of the time, you settled for listening to him about the family of raccoons that lived in the wine cellar that Dark refused to touch. It got you laughing, and that was good enough for him.

You had just wrapped up the third to last chapter of ‘The Lady in the Lake’, the theories you muttered under your breath as Dark marked down the page number had him chuckling to himself as he drew his chair back to the wall. It was originally from the library, but there wasn’t much point in dragging it up and down the stairs whenever the clock struck nine.

After placing the book on the arm of the chair – thankfully wide enough that it wouldn’t topple off the side – he reeled back the eternal business at the back of his mind to the forefront. Something had gone wrong with his latest research, meaning he had to start again from photo-evidence. He didn’t like doing it, but he took it upon himself as a duty to the manor, to himself, to… you. If he knew where he was, he could protect the things he cared about. It didn’t help when he had to do it all over, but it was undoubtably better than giving up. He had made it this far, after all.

However, the second that he was angled away from the mirror, your voice punctured the finality of the moment.

“Hey, Dark?”

He turned again with a curious hum.

You were standing, as you always were after you finished for the night, but your hands were held cautiously together in front of you. Your pupils flitted about in your eyes, avoiding him, his now-concerned stare. You took in a breath and then made two, simple statements. “I just wanted to thank you, for the book and for spending time with me—” you briefly looked him in the face, as if to gauge his reaction, “—and I’m, uh, well, I’m sorry, for being so cold to you when you first spoke to me.”

His concern melted into understanding. “You had your reasons.”

“And so did you,” you rushed to continue, “and, and I ignored them because I was angry. A hundred years passed for both of us, I can’t think that it didn’t have some of the same effects on you as it did me. I assumed that you were just being petty when you didn’t come and see me, but… you weren’t, and I’m sorry for treating you like you were.”

“I’m sorry for leaving you alone.”

The apologetic intent hung in the air between you for the next few seconds. Your eyes met, Dark willed the sincerity to cross between the glass, and it seemed like it did when you risked a tentative smile. He gladly returned it.

You offered half-joking and half-genuine, “A truce?”

“If this last month hasn’t been a truce, I’m eager to see how you act when there is one.”

“Oh, be quiet.”

Another agreement, even lighter than before. Dark couldn’t help but feel giddy, a jolt of adrenaline running through him. If his veins weren’t so vacant, a blush might have revealed more than he wanted to in such a peaceful time. Luckily for him, the fear of that escaped him, but, unluckily, it was because he wondered something else.

This sounded an awful lot like a goodbye.

“Is everything alright?”

Despite the grin that had grown on your lips, you cocked your head to the side in confusion. “Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

Another pause.

“No reason.” Dark shifted an inch forward, like it would help him see past a disguise. It didn’t do anything, save give you a chance to poke fun at him.

“Well, go on, then,” you gestured behind him, “go commit tax fraud or whatever it is you do in your study.”

Ah, much better. The feeling lifted from him as fast as it had come.

“I’ll have you know that my paperwork is entirely sound and legal.”

“Hmm, keep telling the IRS that, you might just get away with it.” Your amused laugh faded into the void with your body, leaving the clean reflection of Dark himself behind. He was still smiling as he pushed a curl of his hair away from his eyes, an image he hadn’t seen in a good while. When you weren’t present, the mirror looked just that. A mirror. Nothing special about it, just a slab of glass in a frame. Not that it wasn’t, and he hated to say it, a very pretty mirror. Ornate, he would say. The glass, not as much, but the wooden border was. Nonsensical designs carved into the flesh of an oak tree, swirls and sparks and curves reaching around it like a snake. Whoever had been commissioned this had put in enough effort that it looked impossible to recreate.

Dark brought a finger up to trail one of the indentations. A gorgeous cage for a gorgeous bird.

Oh.

He wasn’t sure if anyone had ever run in the halls of the manor, but he had already broken three norms, what was one more?

The manor hadn’t heard the rapid click of shoes for quite some time; leisurely walks or a slightly rushed jog, sure, but downright running through those halls was near impossible. Dark had done so on his way up to the library, and he was now doing it again to go back to the mirror. It had taken him fourteen hours, two glasses of wine, and reluctantly recruiting Wilford to find what he was looking for, but they were sacrifices he was willing to make. Even if it didn’t work, it was a step in the right direction.

Maybe he was acting irrationally, and maybe he should have spent some more time making sure this had a sliver of a chance of working, however, he didn’t care. Cautiousness be damned, this could help you, and he was willing to do whatever it took to do that – he made sure that he sped up his pace so that he wouldn’t have to ponder the implications behind that. Rounding the banister, hope overtook him and propelled him forward away from certain important conclusions.

“Darling, I have great news!” Skipping past that one, too. “Now, I know we’re not scheduled to meet until this evening, but this is more important.” He was too busy dodging the archway to the foyer to think about that, either.

He practically skidded to a stop in front of the mirror, only able to stabilise himself with one hand against it. The other was occupied by a book, but not one of fiction this time. No, Celine had left this one on a different bookshelf, the top section, at the edge of it. It seemed to thrum with energy in his hand, power growing underneath the leather binding the closer that he brought it to your prison.

When he had properly calmed himself down – or, as calm as he could get when excitement lived in his heart – he knocked once, and then twice, and a third time when he couldn’t resist another. Nothing happened at first, but that was to be expected. It was barely midday, and an enthusiastic Dark was not a common sight. You were right to give showing yourself to him a little thought.

“Darl—” he caught his word before it could throw itself out of his mouth. Clearing his throat, he fixed his slip-up. “Old friend?”

An unabashed grin spilled across his lips when he saw the faint sign of smoke rising from the void. It was sometimes hard to make it out against the background, he thought that he was getting better, anyhow. Though, it would do him some good to practice if he couldn’t make you out after a few seconds.

He stepped forward to look closer. If he’d taken his glasses down, it might have been easier, but it wasn’t supposed to be this much of a struggle to see you. The smoke had all evaporated now and yet he couldn’t see anything.

All it took was another inch forward, the smallest step, for him to see what had happened; all it took was a second for him to get angry.

You hadn’t appeared, but something else had. ‘The Lady in the Lake’ was laid out on the ground of the void, the title almost blazing with light on the inside cover of the book. A sombre idea that you were trying to give it back without confronting him crossed his mind, though it didn’t stick with the knowledge that you wouldn’t be so cowardly. Instead, it was pure rage that took its place at the sight of the next page over. Where it had used to be blank, slightly stained with the effects of time, it now had a hideous, taunting, crimson name besmirching it.

Mark’s signature.

Anyone else might have acted poorly, impulsively, and dangerously. Dark was not anyone. He didn’t act poorly as he inspected the view of the mirror for any more clues of what had happened, he didn’t act impulsively as he stalked from the foyer to his office – but, oh, did he plan to act dangerously.

The wooden handle of a desk drawer splintered with his white-knuckled grip. He drew it open with trained coolness. Slowly, painfully slowly, he retrieved the map and rolled it out on the surface. The edge that he pulled his hand from was marked by a slit.

He was going to be dangerous, but he wasn’t going to be stupid. Not again. He had thought it a mistake. The hotel a few streets away from the manor wasn’t the place Mark would associate himself with. It barely passed the mantle of motel, let alone the fancy, ivy tower places he frequented. Knowing he wouldn’t be caught dead in such a place had him brushing the destination off as a fault in his research. Dark was a fool to believe he knew the man that made façades and disguises his life’s work.

But that didn’t matter anymore. Whether he truly understood him or not, it didn’t matter to him, because he did know one thing.

One hundred years was far too long, and he was going to make it up to you, even if he had to slit Mark’s throat himself.

[Being peer pressured into writing a multi-chapter shot is for the weak. And I, am very weak]

#theknightmarket #fanfiction #markiplier egos #writing #markiplier #markiplier egos x reader #one shots #x reader #actor mark #darkiplier x reader #darkiplier #da #district attorney #darkiplier x da #no kisses #we die like real men #mirror mirror

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theknightmarket · 5 months

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“Oh, please, save me.”

In which Dark finds his partner. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - AO3 TW: cursing, possibly abusive relationship, violence, destruction of property Pages: 23 – Words: 9,500

[Requests: OPEN]

Sometimes, when you sat in the corner of a coffee shop, with the smell of brewed hot drinks and sweet pastries, watching average people going about their extraordinary lives, you felt like it was exactly where you were meant to be. The sun was shining through the windows, forcing a grin onto your face that wouldn’t be out of place on Christmas morning. It really was amazing, and you always wondered how it was that you got here. You hadn’t completed some amazing feat of bravery or kindness – at least, not that you were aware – nor did you go through an overly traumatic experience. Nothing that had happened before you entered the café warranted a life like this. And yet, there you sat, cradling a porcelain mug that the baristas reserved just for you, not a care in the world.

You caressed the pattern on the surface lightly. A yellow canary. The outline was strong, but the features had faded with age. You took a sip.

Technically, you were supposed to be running an errand for a friend, but he could stand to be without his awkwardly complicated mocha drink order for a little while longer. He was going to be a drama queen about it, though it wasn’t as though he had ever taken a break from it.

You laughed to yourself into your mug. Knowing him, he’d gasp in offence and go on some rant about how he was allowed to be dramatic. He was an actor, after all, and actors had special privileges. You were only getting his coffee because he had his three actual assistants touching up his costume and makeup and charging him for the gas was out of the question. The privilege in question was that he had an extra hand without having to pay you – but the drawback was that you had taken your sweet time. You took one last sip of the coffee, cast one last look over the café, and left one last dollar in the tip jar. It was his fault for giving you fifty in cash without asking for change.

The baristas all waved as you pushed open the door, the jingle of the bell coaxing you out gently. It was just as warm outside as inside, so you were happy to take a stroll down the street at a leisurely pace. The studio was a block or two away, and it was such a nice day. It’d be a shame to waste it all in a stuffy room with blocky cameras and fluorescent lights, how your friend was sure to try and spend it. He took his work too seriously, sometimes, so it was your self-appointed duty to get him out and about.

When you pushed through the doors of the studio, after bypassing the security guard who only needed to give you a solemn nod to let you pass, it was easy to find his dressing room. The projected voice overwhelming the others could only be prescribed to him, and you knew this place like the back of your hand, even though you’d only been here for two weeks at most. The only thing that made it more obvious where he was situated was the shiny, red and gold star on the door, which you pushed open with the brightest smile you could muster.

The scene that greeted you was exactly as you expected; a wary assistant holding his costume’s jacket and shirt, another standing off to the side with a comb and hairspray, a third glancing in your direction as if they wanted to make a run for it, and, at the epicenter of it all, your best friend.

“Lay off them, Mark, they’re just trying to do their jobs.”

Two of the assistants looked at you like you were an angel descended from heaven, but the former was too afraid to take their eyes off Mark. You might’ve taken offence to that, but, given that he was staring straight back at them, it was granted.

“Yeah,” he muttered, “and they’re failing miserably at them.”

A deep breath in and then a deep breath out, before he physically shifted so that his body was pointed towards you, able to inspect you and the gift you came bearing. A second passed by, but he deemed it acceptable, apparently, because he waved off the assistants with the simple flourish of his wrist. They scurried past you one by one until it was just you and Mark in his dressing room, the door having been shoved closed behind the final person out.

You were always grateful that you weren’t on the receiving end of his wrath. Instead, you were an exception to the outside forces that ticked him off. His snarl perked up into a smirk, his shoulders relaxed, and he tossed his head back for relief. “Took you long enough,” he spoke, a jovial tone clear in his words.

You rolled your eyes back and pulled out the stool from the vanity. “Don’t be rude, I could have taken longer if I wanted to.” You handed him the coffee as you sat yourself down. It wasn’t as nice an environment as the café had been, but it had Mark, and that was good enough for you.

His retort of, “I wouldn’t have let you back in,” was swiftly met with a doubtful look of your own. A week or two ago, you had, in fact, taken longer, by an hour, and he’d let you into his dressing room with nothing but a scoff.

“So, how’d the scene go?” Your eyes scanned the surface for a script, but you only found the title page in a scrunched-up ball.

“Ugh, terrible.” You could have figured that one out yourself. “You would think that after a month on set, people would know their lines, but apparently, I’m the only one here who gives a damn.”

The urge to shoot a glance back at the closed door was too difficult to ignore, even though the voices rising from the main studio hall told you nobody was around to hear. “I thought you liked Joan,” you said, bringing your eyes back to Mark.

“You have no clue who I like.”

“You like me.”

“Not by choice.”

His expression of distaste was a poor disguise for the amusement underneath. If he wanted to, he could have hidden it, but you were glad he didn’t. You enjoyed his small grins, no matter how much he pushed them back. You sent him your own smug smile in return. Settling into this dynamic had been difficult, what with Mark’s tendency to act in his personal life as well as his working hours and your lacking in social experience, but you got past that obstacle. It was a damn good thing you did, too, because, otherwise, you would have nowhere to go. Not a roof over your head, or food in your stomach, or anything – it was embarrassing to admit how much you relied on your friend, but he had always assured you that it was fine. You made a promise to yourself that you would get on your own two feet by the end of the summer, and you still planned to stick to it. Moments like these only made you appreciate what you had right now more. All of it because of him.

Mark took a sip of his coffee and then set it down on the surface closest to him. Your pupils dashed to his hand and followed it as he brought it back to his lap. He rested leisurely in his chair – the kind that you always saw in movies, with the black fabric and embroidered names – like a roman emperor. He had the looks for it, and the braggadocio to boot.

He hummed as his eyes flitted over your face. It took a second before he spoke, “I wanted to talk to you about something. A little proposition I have for you.”

Your eyebrows raised on instinct and your shoulders tensed. Without knowing where he was going with it, or why you were reacting in that way, you figured you’d take the safest option of joking, “Oh, Mark, I’m flattered, but…”

The star-like spark in his irises glinted. “Funny—”

“Oh, uh, sir?”

Both of you immediately looked to the door, which had been pushed open ever-so carefully that it made no sound at all. The assistant had been the one to break the moment, headset strapped and ready and hands curled around the edge of the wall.

“What?” Mark snapped.

They cleared their throat. “You’re, um, on in two.”

With a roll of his eyes, he barely nodded in their direction, letting them scamper back down the corridor to the main set. You didn’t mind the intrusion, it was their job, but your friend’s demeanor had dropped severely from an entertained air to a begrudging one. His head lolled back, he didn’t notice you were getting up from your chair.

“As I was saying,” he tried to say, but you stopped him.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready or something?” His eyes met yours. Annoyed. Stubborn. Bordering on threatening. “As I was saying, I need you to accompany me somewhere tonight.”

A habit of his you hated. He tended to not address your points when he wanted to make one of his own, especially if you were trying to counter it, but you had learned to live with it; you had learned to bite back.

“You know I don’t like those connection-things you tell me about.”

There was a second of stillness, in which nobody spoke or moved. Mark stayed laid back in his chair, your arms were crossed, neither of you wanted to back down. Over something so small a matter, you wondered why he wouldn’t at least acknowledge he should be preparing.

But this was Mark you were talking to, so, instead, his expression that looked to be carved from marble shifted into a grin, as if he knew something you didn’t. Another habit you weren’t fond of, though you would take it over the unsettling snarl he had nearly slipped into.

“No, no, you never did,” he said, a hand coming up to card through his hair. “But it’s not one of those.”

That put you somewhat at ease. You dropped your arms, replaced one on your hips and the other reaching for Mark’s empty coffee cup. The attempt was blocked by Mark getting up from his seat and brushing himself off. In fact, your whole presence was blocked when he crossed the room to the door. Manicured nails tapped along the handle as he twisted on one heel.

“I think this will be much more fun.”

The expression he wore could only be described as devilish. A smirk thrown over his shoulder with reckless abandon, one that had your heart speed up with… something that you never remembered experiencing before. Adrenaline filled your veins, it told you to stop him, take those few strides across the floor to him.

“Mark, you actually have to tell me what we’re doing if you want me to agree.” Your last-ditch effort to keep him in the dressing room failed. He’d opened the door and disappeared to the set before you could get a step closer. “Or, not,” you muttered to no one.

A deep sigh was your only comfort. Yeah, he was a prick. But he was your prick, so you could say that without repercussions. You supposed he deserved to be able to be a little bit selfish, given your history. He was tentative about the accident during your first interactions, but now? Now, he was ready to use it as fodder, and you were ready to throw some right back at him given the chance. He would say that he was the one to comfort you in the hospital bed, and you would say that you were the only one who’d put up with him for more than a month. It was never all that serious, neither of you got offended and neither of you ever left. You, unfortunately, shared commitment to the ‘bit’, and you didn’t think that would ever change. Not so long as you were with Mark and that wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

The library didn’t last long. Dark wasn’t proud of it, but this was not something he’d experienced before. This scenario was new, and it was bad, and it was terrifying. Expelling any and all negative emotion into the surroundings was a far better alternative to imploding like a submarine at too deep a depth, even if he had to sacrifice some of the rooms in the process. The waves of energy disregarded sentimentality or significance, leaving him in the rubble of the books and shelves that had practically disintegrated in just a touch.

The rest of the manor hadn’t faired any better. The only thing that he had made sure to steer clear of was his office, but that led to the bedrooms, bathrooms, and, of course, the library falling to him. He’d edged around the kitchen for Benjamin’s sake, though that didn’t stop the marble counter tops cracking under the pressure, and Wilford had long ago abandoned attachments to the building. Everything else he might have wanted to keep safe was kept stashed in one of his desk drawers, ready for when he had calmed down enough to get close to them.

It had been three months already.

Luckily – or unluckily, Dark hadn’t made up his mind yet – Wilford had taken to peeking in on him whenever he stormed through a new room. He called it gauging his state, Dark called it poking his nose in other people’s business, but he didn’t have a way to stop him.

A knock on the door.

Go figure.

It opened lazily, ignorant or uncaring of the splinters hanging off the top corners, to reveal just the man taking a confident step into the library. His boot met the remains of a book, to which he looked down in curiosity. It was nothing important, but he picked it up, dusted off the last remnants of a leather binding, and placed it on the closest surface. He disregarded the fact that the surface was a collapsed bookcase.

“Hello, friend.” His jovial tone never ceased to amaze Dark. “Just checking in—”

But now was no time to be amazed. “Get out.”

Wil’s mustache twitched with the edge of his mouth. He didn’t enjoy seeing the man he’d known for over a century in such a situation. Against his extravagance and eccentricities, he had a heart, and it broke with the sight of Dark amongst the wreckage of a place some of him had once treasured. He wondered if he still felt the same way.

“Now, now,” he tried a tentative approach, “no need to be so brash.”

“Get out or I will stuff and mount your head like one of your trophies.”

It hadn’t worked before, and it didn’t work this time. His stockpile of tactics was running thin, the months having drawn on and on in some kind of Sisyphean nightmare worse than the time before. It wasn’t exactly difficult to figure out what had changed, what had been lost, and especially to whom. Maybe if you had left on your own, Dark would have been more approachable, but it just had to be the devil he hated that took you. When Wil had found out, he was surprised that the front doors hadn’t been blown off the manor and his friend right through them. It was better to get out his aggravation now than in the modern world, he must’ve admitted, but he wasn’t keen on all the wreckage he was beginning to trip over.

Alas, his methods were ignored, so Wilford took that single step back out the door. “You don’t have to be so crude, either.”

Dark didn’t say anything else as Wil left. The only reaction he had was the adjustment of his tie, pulling it up to his collar and then some. Spasms of red and blue light flexed out from him like an octopus’ tendrils. They lashed out at the carnage and blew over the last things that tried to stand without a care. He glanced down at the scraps of paper that laid torn in a pile, none legible anymore. The waves reminded him too much of earthquakes.

One pulse, then a pause, and then another pulse, then a longer pause. Rinse and repeat.

Not earthquakes. There was a pattern, but it wasn’t on a binary step, and calling them earthquakes was too kind because they could be expected, they were inevitable and just showed the passing of time as continents far greater than him pushed against one another.

Instead, Dark brought a cold hand up to his left breast pocket.

Pulse, short pause, pulse, long pause.

Ten minutes passed with the man standing in the centre of destruction. He remained as still as a soldier called to attention, his hand exactly where he had placed it, but he struggled to remain in the present. Half of him wanted to draw him into a pit of tar-like despair, the other half willed him to look around. Dark wasn’t certain who was on which side of the conflict, but one of them was torn like him. Neither part won him over until he picked up on a small detail.

The breaks between the cycles of waves were growing thicker. They took up just a second but fell into three, which became five and, later, nine. By the time five more minutes had gone by, he didn’t know whether they were still going on.

Good. It was about time that he sobered up. He couldn’t do anything in that kind of state, and the months he’d already spent in that way were counter intuitive. He was of no help to himself or you, and, with that thought in mind, Dark pulled at the lapels of his jacket and marched himself out the door.

The corridors had sustained much the same abuse as the separate rooms. One of the support beams was two inches away from turning to a stalagmite, and a section of the banister had been cleanly tone off. The rubble sat at the bottom of the stairwell, kicked off to the corner in the foyer, where Dark had only crossed through once. He only managed to tear his eyes away from it when a wall came between him.

Dark’s office hadn’t changed one bit since he had left it. The curtains were still drawn, the haphazardly strewn papers were still haphazardly strewn, the surfaces were still completely clear because nobody had been in there for dust to settle. It was, at once, comforting and unnerving. But none of that mattered right now, there were more pressing matters at hand with the ability to walk into the room without sending everything crashing into the ground.

Namely, the book that was kept in his desk.

It was one of a few that sat in the top left-hand drawer, protected and safe, which he coaxed gently open after stopping in front it. Nestled beside the deed to the manor and a decorated hand mirror was the very thing he was looking for. His pale hand wrapped around the edge, but he couldn’t help the frigid shock that coursed through him, forcing him to hesitate for just a second.

If he moved it, he would see your book. He had to move it, he had to, it would only take the smallest movement, he could close the drawer immediately after, slam it shut if he had to, if he would use his goddamn hand. His teeth grated together – a steel trap that would have to be wedged open with a crowbar.

As soon as the leather shifted off of the book below, Dark ripped it from the container and shoved the drawer shut with the palm of his other hand. The ice left his veins, and he laid his prize out on the wood, surprised that the sight of this had less of an effect than the potential of the other. Maybe it was the fact that it meant he could finally get the ball rolling that urged the adrenaline to overtake the cold. His hand flipped through the pages – he was sure that was the reason.

The most unfortunate aspect of his plans was that the easier ones required him being able to leave the manor. Invisible prison bars that blocked his escape were the only things stopping him from enacting any revenge as soon as the thought struck him. Smart choice on Mark’s part, but he would rather lose everything that commend him, so he ignored the thought and skimmed the text.

It was old, as to be expected from something procured more than a hundred years ago and published even further past that, but the most important words were still readable. Between splatters of time and stain, the instructions for the breakdown of a barrier were set in the paper. They practically shimmered in Dark’s eyes as though the ink were still wet. Some simple incantation, a few symbols, and a handful of materials were the only things needed for this to go off without a hitch.

But then he read the last item on the list, his teeth gritting together uncomfortably. Three times it had come down to him, and three times he had screwed it up for Dark. The entity had played his part, but the actor, because of course it was Mark, had ignored the call every time. He pranced off into whatever other role caught his fancy; the first time was Damien’s body and a literal interpretation when he stole it, the second when he stole you from the mirror, and the third being now, stealing the retribution Dark so desperately wanted by withholding his blood. It would have been easier had he been occupying the shell that remained in the void when he put up the barrier, or even if he waltzed into the manor and offered himself up. Being generous wasn’t in his DNA, but for once, could he fulfil that benevolence he pretended to have?

Dark was seconds away from returning the book to the drawer – or, with a sidelong glance at the window, return it to the rest of the trees – all of his hopes dashed, when the sound of the front door echoed up through the manor. He stopped everything, shutting his body off like the flick of a machine’s switch, and just listened. The clogging wonder of if you would be proud of him was brushed off to make space for a checklist.

No shaky knock: not a salesman. No unnecessary keys: not an estate agent. No frivolous yelling: not Wilford, not that he entered through the door anyway. Without Benjamin ever leaving the place and a stray group of teens having been scared away a couple of months ago, it could only mean that this was someone new. Two someones in fact, if the mismatched footsteps walking in the foyer were anything to go by. Nobody dangerous, they weren’t bothering to be sly, and they didn’t have a goal in mind. The pair moved around generally, sticking to the foyer where Dark knew there was nothing of importance anymore. One was more hesitant than the other, pauses between the clicks of their heels never the same. The other took five steps forward, stopped, and stayed there as Dark thought about what to do with them.

Would you be proud? He had restrained himself, sure, but he could have more patience. Would you want him to even deal with them in the first place, or would you rather him let them do as they please as long as they didn’t affect him? It was difficult to know exactly your reaction, and, although it didn’t matter because you weren’t there to judge him, there was a part of him that believed it did. He knew what part that was and the worst part about it was that he didn’t ignore it. He couldn’t, not anymore, not since Dark’s own feelings as a complete being started aligning more with that side of him. The devastatingly emotional part, a bleeding heart that had him setting himself up in his desk chair instead of scaring the hell out of those intruders.

And it wasn’t as though he were stuck with no choice. The rest of the arcane book was available, there must have been something else in it that could help him. He just had to look for it. Surely, you would prefer the kinder option based on your living career choice. Besides, what damage could a few children looking for some amusement do?

“Are you sure about this, Mark?”

The soft clatter of the old door behind you forewarned the danger of the place, and just one glance around the room told you how close it was to falling apart. The support beams were fractured, cracks lined the walls as though a mad demolitionist had tossed a mallet around, and the rubble of wood you caught sight of at the other end of the foyer didn’t do it any favors. Despite this, you were more concerned about the mental state of your friend than his future physical state.

But, as always, your concern didn’t make him falter. Mark’s strut into the centre of the room sent the clicks of his heels throughout the building, scaring away rats and birds that had made their homes in the foundation. His arms spread wide and a grin of his face, he looked like he was planning to embrace an old friend.

“Of course, I am,” he responded, confident. He had hand-picked this place after all, and he wouldn’t bring you somewhere he wasn’t sure would deal you no harm. You trusted him enough to follow him into a collapsing cave if he promised it wouldn’t fall – and this place was no different.

A speck of dust floated through the air in front of you.

No different at all.

With his feet planted where he stood, Mark spun 360 degrees to get a good view of the place. “Now,” he said, stopping at staring into the kitchen, “I think we should do one of those camp overnight things.”

You grazed a hand along the wallpaper. A strip peeled off under your nails. “Any particular reason?”

“The studio’s thinking of branching out into shows, and my agent thought it’d be better to stay with them than go lone wolf.”

“I thought you didn’t like shows.”

Mark shrugged, his non-answer somewhat annoying but still common. It didn’t bother you as much as it did before, exposure therapy was a hell of a thing, until it got to the point that it could be considered… endearing? Not that you did, of course, but some people had tastes like that.

You didn’t think much of it, not only because of its frequency, but because you were more interested in the thing that your hand met as you dragged it further. The tips of your fingers first caught on the edge, which you tried to skim over, but then you recognised the wood and then the glass, and then you were crying.

Crying?

You were crying. Plain and simple, and utterly confusing. Your eyebrows furrowed as unbidden as the tears that streamed over your cheeks. And this wasn’t just a few, but a whole stream that took you three wipes of your sleeves to calm it all down. You just couldn’t understand why you were crying, you only knew that you were. The cold of the mirror’s surface that sent chills up through your bones wasn’t enough to give you frost-bite, and the sound of your nails against it didn’t pierce your eardrums. You barely registered it as you withdrew your arm into yourself, ignoring how it was a similar sensation to forcing two magnets apart.

You didn’t think that Mark would have noticed had you not laughed anxiously to yourself. Were you panicking? Was this a defense mechanism for some unknown danger that your mind refused to reveal to you? You didn’t know, and you didn’t like not knowing.

“Are you okay?”

Pricks of a warmth much kinder than the mirror – and yet somehow had you tensing up – sparked at the crook of your elbow. In your peripheral, your friend appeared, a concerned expression overtaking the nonchalance he had sported earlier.

“Yeah,” you chuckled. It was a poor attempt at gaining some control, the tears were still coming full force, but you hoped the display would appear funnier than the worrying scene you presented. “I mean, I don’t know why…” All you could do was let out another little laugh.

Whatever social cue you had put out, Mark responded by guiding you by the elbow towards the kitchen. He didn’t stray from his course, didn’t let you go, until he’d sat you down in a barstool at the island and looked around.

The stool nearly toppled over as you shifted your weight, and it forced you to stabilize yourself with both your hands against the countertop. Blinking was the only way to get the water out of the corners of your eyes, so you spent the seconds rapidly switching between sight and blindness. Mark’s figure fluttered about like a stop-motion video – one moment he stood next to you, the next he was by the towel rack, he returned to your side at the third blink with a square of cloth held out precariously.

He drew closer, that towel nearly half an inch from your face, and you braced for impact. That had been a ‘thing’ for you. An obstacle if you wanted to call it that. You didn’t have a positive relationship with touch, while Mark practically draped himself over you at every chance. A shoulder tap here, a hand caress there, but you set boundaries when it got too much for you. Most of the other problems you get over, this was where you stood your ground, and you hadn’t the faintest clue why. You’d just hated it.

That impact came seconds later. Luckily for you, probably due to having gone unused for years, the towel was fluffy and light and felt comfortable against your eyelids. The streaks of moisture were cleared up nicely, to the point that you held back from taking the fabric and stowing it away in a pocket.

“Don’t want to ruin your charming face,” came Mark’s muttering. He tilted his head to the side when he deemed himself done, and a curl of his hair fell over his forehead, one that you, in return, swiped away.

“Okay?” you chuckled.

You didn’t know whether to classify the moment as awkward or tender, but the smile Mark flashed and the continued laughter you sent back was enough for you to label it the latter.

Had you listened slightly closer, focused less on the texture of the cloth, laughed quieter, you might have heard the vague tapping of a dress shoe on the tiled floor. Benjamin was angry enough that he could only keep his physical form invisible to the sudden guests, but the sounds and the temperature were slipping through his fingers. As he passed behind your back, he saw you shiver, though he paid no mind to it, gunning for the sink imbedded in a nearby countertop.

Benjamin didn’t mind the people who came in and out of the manor. The agents and random groups of teenagers weren’t things he concerned himself with – as long as they didn’t touch the kitchen. The chef wasn’t there to keep people out, so he took it upon himself to maintain that specific room. Not to mention that, recently, it was the only room that he could maintain. He had yet to thank Dark for only splitting some of the countertop. All the destruction everywhere else, he couldn’t help with so much in an incorporeal form, but a sink faucet? He could expend some energy to nudge it a bit.

Had you stayed away from the kitchen, he wouldn’t be risking the quality of the tiling. It wasn’t anything personal; and had either you or Mark arrived some years earlier, he might have been more lenient, but the affection towards his old master had faded, and you still had terrible fashion sense.

The butler was trotting out of the room by the time that you stopped your conversation. People were boisterous these days, but it was a miracle that you hadn’t noticed the steady rush of water just steps away from you. And Mark had been staring right at it! Or, the in that direction at least, Benjamin didn’t know if his staring accounted for anything outside of your face. Either way, it really wasn’t his fault that the sink was now overflowing, nor that you realized it when you put your feet onto the ground, expecting a stable surface, and were met with the squelch of your soles.

You let out a curse when your senses reconciled with your logic, quickly lunging from your seat to the faucet. This wasn’t your house, you couldn’t mess it up now. Hands met metal, you pushed it shut, you refrained from breathing in case it set something off. Mark’s eyebrows furrowed, unseen by you, until his hand was laid over your wrist, still placed on the sink.

You shrugged. “Faulty plumbing?”

He seemed to ignore what you said as he tugged you from the kitchen and towards the living room. His expression didn’t change, and you didn’t know what to say to make it better, so you let yourself fall into step just behind him. If he wanted to shoot in this place, it made sense for him to be disconcerted by the issue, but he didn’t look it. Not all the way, as if there were something about it that would make sense, if only he had the last piece of the puzzle. Speeding up enough to be next to him, you offered a smile. Although he lagged for a second, he returned it with a signature smirk.

“Oh, I do love this room.”

After crossing into the carpeted space, Mark practically melted into a relaxed state that almost made you jealous. As though his body had become fluid, he collapsed onto a chaise longue like a true Hollywood star. You went down next to him but managed to stay upright against the leather arm.

“Yeah?” A quick glance around gave you an opinion very fast. “The taxidermy isn’t putting you off any?” That wasn’t to say you were against the practice, but twelve mounted heads all staring into your soul with their glass eyes and judgmental lack of a body wasn’t your favorite décor. The ones that were face down into the carpet were a gift, but whatever had put them in such a position was also likely to have been the one to smash in a window and topple the coffee table. A graveyard of books bulldozed off the shelves decorated the place, each one accompanied by a figurine or statue, even a painting or two swiped off the wallpaper.

Mark huffed. He casually propped his legs on your lap as he said, “I think everything else makes up for it.” That didn’t stop him from shooting the biggest one, a bison head in the centre of the opposite wall, a mean-spirited glare. On his part, the rest of the room wasn’t that bad; everything was surprisingly clear of dust, from the looming bookcase in one of the corners to the fireplace lingering with a few logs of wood still inside. “Cozy, wouldn’t you say?”

You couldn’t help yourself from looking at your dearest, closest, cherished friend with the most suspicious gawk you could muster. Cozy? The room had a stuffed lynx on a shelf, and he called it cozy. You would love to see what he thought was creepy, but, knowing Mark, it would be somewhere that just had one floor. But this should have been too much for him, right?

“For you, sure.”

Your uneasy tone must have given him the oh-so-difficult-to-gather impression that you didn’t believe him, and he said as such. “You don’t agree.”

“Well, it’s not cottage living, is it?”

The pressure of Mark’s legs lifted from your lap, and you watched as he waltzed to the fireplace, struck a match, and set the mouth ablaze. The heat instantly invaded the room, coaxing you unknowingly closer. You shifted so that you leaned more onto the arm of the couch while he settled again next to you.

Briefly, you turned your head to him. “Are you allowed to do that?”

“Of course, dear, there isn’t much I’m not allowed to do here.”

With the seating more comfortable than the stool in the kitchen, it was far easier to fall into conversation. It was mostly concerning the show Mark had been talking about, how everything would fit together and how they would shoot it, but it dipped into different topics as well. Threading between those were your own thoughts about it all, and by it all, you meant the atmosphere. You couldn’t deny that it was off-putting, but you also couldn’t pin exactly why. This was your first time here, the only pre-conceived notions you had were that old manors might break some safety regulations – none of which had appeared so far, so what was it? The plumbing was just annoying, the décor wasn’t overly terrible, what was the problem? You wanted to understand it, and you wanted it gone, and it was killing you that neither of those had happened yet.

You were nearly crushed by the chandelier.

In the span of five seconds, you shoved Mark to the side and pushed yourself off the couch with your legs. The crunch of the furniture’s wooden legs breaking sent your heart into a wild stammer, but, god, the sound before that. It couldn’t have been the chain – you nearly died – your heart skipped a beat and merged three into one – you couldn’t breathe – you nearly died – the carpet molded around you – friction burn on your arm – left arm – where was Mark – the chain broke – you nearly died.

You couldn’t tell whether you were alive or not, your mind flickered between the two states, and Mark watched you all the while. Lucky for him, you had pushed him to the side of the couch that didn’t have an arm, letting him fall off it before it was decimated by the chandelier. Without any damage done to him, he was free to look around the room.

You were splayed out in front of the remains of the couch, staring straight up at the ceiling. The chain within your field of vision didn’t look as though it had been smashed in with a blunt object at the end of the metal strands, but it wasn’t damaged past that. Something small had hit it, and, when he brought his eyes down to the chandelier, he saw exactly what it was.

The glint of the bullet was difficult to make out amongst the actual chandelier, but Mark fished it out and brought it closer to inspect.

Bastard.

Wherever that adulterer was now, he had been in the room, he had tried to kill the both of you. He didn’t think he had such a bad opinion of you, but collateral damage was always a possibility, and he wouldn’t put it past the maniac to harm you in the process of getting to him. The destruction of the original room, he could look past that, but going this far really showed the depths the man had fallen to.

Mark pocketed the bullet as he rose to his feet, dusting himself off with the other hand; he wouldn’t want you to worry, not any more than you were at the prospect of dying. You would need some comfort, and he could give it to you. He knew just the place to do it.

The image of your friend’s face – alive, he hadn’t been crushed – drifted into view. A meek chuckle forced itself out of your throat, cut off by a cough. This place was horrible. You wanted to leave. Your legs wouldn’t let you, no matter how much you willed them to. Your body was nearly pulverized and yet it refused to leave the place that you had almost died in, again!

Again?

The overflowing sink hadn’t been that dangerous. Again?

“Come on—” Mark gripped your hand, “—I know somewhere nice—” he lugged you to your feet, “—and quiet for you to recover in.”

You stumbled forward, unsure on your feet as you were in your mind. Sprinting to the car would have been the smartest move, but you found yourself trailing after Mark, one hand in his and the other rubbing against your eyes. You’d been in that manor for barely an hour, you didn’t know if you could handle another five minutes, let alone enough time to relax again. But your conscious pushed against slowing down. If you stopped moving, you might spiral again, so you followed through with your paces. One foot in front of the other. Back to the foyer, up the stairs, onto the landing.

That was where your feet decided to plant themselves. Of course, when you’d accepted that you were going where Mark was, your body decided to change its mind, and, yes, you weren’t too dizzy to miss the irony in that. Despite that, it was your body, and you were going to go along with whatever it wanted to do.

“I, uh, I’ll be right back,” you said, not moving.

“Where are you going?” Mark’s grip on your hand seemed to tighten as he stepped back closer to you.

You took your own step back. “Bathroom, I think? I just need…” you trailed off, the small amount of focus left to spare in your brain being used to look down the hallway.

Although he followed your gaze, swallowed, let his smile drop, he nodded and gestured with the hand that he let go from yours. “Third door on your left, darling.”

In any other situation, somewhere on his own turf, Mark would have made sure you were okay before anything else important happened. He would have offered you a glass of water and sat you down so you wouldn’t keel over. He would have sat next to you and talked to you to make sure you stayed conscious. You were obviously shaken, and he felt concern for you – but this was more than important. The ensuing moments were the very culmination of the last three months, the last century! If he let something get in the way now, all that time would be wasted, and he would be starting from square one. And Mark refused to build himself up from the bottom again.

Dazed, you stumbled down the corridor and to the bathroom.

Going in alone just gave him more time to prepare.

Of course, Dark had chosen that old office for his base of operations. Everywhere else was destroyed, as though it had been rented out for one of those rage room activities, so it made sense for him to make a haven out of business. And what business was that? Why, chasing Mark down, of course! He felt a flame of pride jolt inside him. All that damage, just for him. It made him feel so special.

And the look on three men’s faces was enough to make him laugh in vanity.

“What a lovely family reunion.”

If only he had a camera, Mark would have cherished the picture for as long as he lived; Dark was in the centre of the room, a chair pulled up to the window, which he sat lordly in, tilted barely towards his desk. One leg was crossed over the other, he wore a perfect suit. From the name to the fashion, he was a pale – oh, he made himself laugh – imitation of the actor. The sight of Mark had yet to register in his mind, but the two on either side of him certainly showed their thoughts. Benjamin seemed surprised. Not angry, not sad, just surprised. He had always liked his employee. Benjamin had been barely 25 years old when he was hired as a butler, but he was good at it. He didn’t hold the sink incident against him. However, the pink-mustached, candy-coated cuck, there was a special place in hell reserved just for him. Whether he was alive or dead didn’t matter, his mind was clearly in purgatory, and Mark relished in that. He was getting what he deserved.

He stepped closer, putting the three immediately on guard. He grinned a shark-like grin.

“Benjamin, William, Damien, Celine… if only the chef and groundskeeper were still around.” The door drifted closed. “We’d have a full set.”

The air flexed around him, the feeling of oil on water, and the look of it too. Red and blue rings waved away into the walls when Dark stood, slowly, carefully. Mark had intentionally left you out, and he was smart enough to realise that. He was also smart enough to realise that killing him now wouldn’t do him any good, or maybe that was just Damien restraining Celine while the entity watched on.

He was still moving too fast. “Now, slow down there, cowboy. I think you and I need to have a little chat.” Wilford’s eyes were feral. “Privately.”

Benjamin disappeared in the blink of an eye, not that anyone risked being blinded for even a millisecond, leaving Wilford and Dark behind. The latter kept his cool. The former didn’t want to take the chance.

“Like hell I’d leave you—”

“Wilford, leave.”

Two missed opportunities in the span of ten minutes. Mark settled for ingraining the look of shock and betrayal into his brain.

The cotton-candy nut case inched closer to Dark. “I know, I know, ‘practice what you preach’, but you can’t be serious.”

Without looking away from Mark, his only response was, “I can handle this.”

Wilford wasn’t Mark’s main target but having him forced to leave the room was undeniably satisfying. He even had to walk right past him to get to the door! He had half the mind to grab him and taunt him some more, but he could do that later. Right now, he was supposed to be mocking the scary dog still standing by the window. He didn’t know how much time he had before you got back from the bathroom, he had to make this count.

The moment that the wood stopped the funeral bells behind him, Dark spoke. Sharply, simply.

“You have five seconds to talk, before I rip your throat out.”

“I have your precious bird.”

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Mark’s smug smirk swallowed the bottom half of his face.

Dark couldn’t let it show how much it affected him. Obviously, Mark had you. It had been signed, clear as day, over the title page of your book, the contract to your soul now owned by the devil before him. But the confirmation from between his own teeth? He wanted to break the promise he had made before, wreck the entire room, bury Mark twelve feet underground just to make sure he wouldn’t come back up when it rained. He wanted to cry, too. He didn’t know if his tear ducts still worked, but he was on the edge of finding out. He wanted to go find you and collapse into your arms, because you would be safe with him, he would protect you.

He couldn’t do any of that.

“What do you want, Mark?”

Dark didn’t allow himself to startle as Mark started to move. Casually, he strolled towards the desk and leaned against it, crossing one ankle over the other. “Oh, I don’t want anything. Why would I? No, I’m, well, I’m flaunting.” That unsufferable chuckle echoed throughout the manor. “Don’t look so surprised. I’m not here to gain anything, and you have nothing else worth taking. I just wanted to see the horrified look on your face as I do to you exactly what was done to me all those years ago.”

Mark was an actor – he could pretend to be some way when he was really the other, lie and cheat to get his way on and off stage. But he could also be painfully honest. This was one of those times, and Dark could feel the venom coursing through empty veins. He had so much to gain by tracking Mark down, and Mark had revealed himself on a whim, for petty gloating.

The arcane book stashed in the desk asked for the monster’s blood for Dark to go free, but he would gladly take his entire body. Use the bones as toothpicks, feed the flesh to wild coyotes, take his tea from his skull like cheap chinaware.

You wouldn’t be proud.

He collected his thoughts, pulled his hands together in front of him. “It has been a century.” At least he had a logical motive, revenge for three deaths, that could keep him going for years.

Mark hummed. “It has, hasn’t it? But does that really matter? It didn’t seem important to you when you left your prisoner in the mirror for 100 years. Consider it saving a neglected dog from an abusive owner.”

“Saving!?”

The mirror on one wall shook in its frame, bordering on cracking, just a touch would cause it to shatter so easily. The waves of energy shot out once, twice, three times in quick succession – the legs of the desk dropped splinters onto the floorboards and the curtains tore at the seams. The last feat of his reaction was to blow the bulb in the desk lamp, but Mark didn’t shift. Only his facial expression grew evermore smug as he tutted quietly.

“What else would it be?”

“Kidnapping.

“You misunderstand. They came with me willingly.”

No. No, no, no. You wouldn’t. You didn’t. Mark was a liar, he had to remember that. Even if it made sense – which it didn’t – you wouldn’t just leave without saying anything. He thought you’d gotten better, that he’d gotten better. In the early days, sure, he wouldn’t put it past you, but… your relationship had changed. Dark cared about you, he didn’t readily show it, but he did. You knew that, didn’t you? You had to know that.

Dark cast his eyes to the door. “As though I would believe you.”

“100 years, Dark,” Mark cooed. “Normally, I would suggest their opinions of me softened, but we both know that’s not true.” The click of his shoes warned of his coming closer. “They despised me even as they shook my hand and said ‘oh, please, save me’, because they didn’t have anyone else to help them.”

“You’re a liar, you always have been.” Dark couldn’t meet his eyes, but he was sure that, if he looked up the inch it took, he would see the horizontal pupils of a goat, or maybe a snake. Whatever struck his fancy; he’d be the devil either way.

“Is that so?”

It was a challenge. Dark didn’t say anything in response, so Mark took it as the go ahead.

Lightly, he called out, “Oh, pet?”

What? Dark was stunned. You were nearby? Near enough to hear him?

“Yeah?” Your voice.

And you weren’t angry, or scared, or even hesitant when you spoke to this man. You sounded completely normal. Just a person talking to a friend.

Mark stared straight at the ghost in front of him.

“Do you trust me?”

Your footsteps drew closer. They made actual sounds as you walked, not the silence that the mirror offered. You were alive. Corporeal. More than Dark himself. And Mark had asked you a question, one that he found himself pleading for a very specific answer to.

A small laugh. In better circumstances, he would be throwing that door open and running to you, even if you were a foot from opening the door, as you sounded. This was not the time, though, and, instead, he was forced to listen to your response.

“Of course, I do, Mark. Why would you ask that?”

Dark froze. His legs didn’t buckle, and his expression didn’t change. Everything just stopped. He couldn’t be angry with you. So why wasn’t he angry at Mark any more than he was before? It felt as though Damien and Celine had been pushed to the back, the ancient entity bringing him to a husk, his mind straying into the void – how it was before everything had happened. Before the dinner party, before Mark, before you. It all stood still.

Dark caught a glimpse of the monster’s grin, and a calculating, frigid violence overtook him.

He slammed Mark into the opposite wall. The crack of something rang out like a twig splitting in two. His fist drawn back, he threw it into his jaw, blood pooled in the corner of his mouth. Another punch that tossed his head sideways. He was pressed up against the mirror, the lower parts were falling out of the casing from Mark’s impact. Good. Hopefully they cut him some on the way down. Dark couldn’t think as he pushed Mark towards the door. His mind clouded, his body moved on its own, a dangerous puppet poised to kick the other man through the wood – before it opened and the two spilled into the hallway.

Focus. He had to ignore you. The clouds began to part but he forced them together again. If he got distracted, he would lose. Dark pushed his target against the wall, ready to shift him barely to the left over the railing.

Meanwhile, you, too, had one thing on your mind. That you had to think fast. No time to consider why this was happening, or who this was, or why he looked somewhat like your friend beside you. The friend that was getting the shit beat out of him.

Ignoring the frantic questions whirring in your brain, you did the one thing that Dark wished you wouldn’t do.

You grabbed his lapels, slammed him back into the plaster, and forced him to look at you.

And there was not an ounce of recognition in your eyes. The pleading look Dark sent you, asking you to just try and remember him because Mark must had done something to make you forget, was lost on you. Your mouth was pulled back in a snarl, vindictive, threatening. Whether you looked like an enraged bull or a bunny, it wouldn’t have mattered. It would have had the same effect.

Dark lost all breath as he looked at you. That speck of flame was still present, how it was when you were in the mirror, the sheen of sweat from fear or the quick movements. He hadn’t seen you this angry since he first talked to you, those many months ago. Yet, the one thought that stopped him from doing anything else was that if he were to lean forward a centimeter, barely, his lips would meet yours, he would be able to embrace you like he’d wanted to do since he realized you were out of the glass prison. He would be able to feel your body on his in a way that didn’t stretch the fabric of his suit.

“I don’t know who you are—” oh, but you did, “—or what the hell you think you’re doing—” trying to save you, “—but you touch my friend again—” he wasn’t your friend, “—and it won’t matter anymore. Do I make myself clear?”

“Do you not… please,” Dark knew it was fruitless to say anything, but he couldn’t help but beg, appeal to the smallest aspect of you that might have recognised him.

“I said, do I make myself clear.”

Not even the waves of energy made themselves known. Any other danger, the lingering impression of Mark, they went on a rampage, but he couldn’t fight you. He just couldn’t.

“You do.”

Your hands withdrew from his lapels. He didn’t bother adjusting them again but chose to watch you as you collected Mark from his witness stand against the other wall. Blood seeped into his collar from an upturned mouth. Dark wished he’d done more, wished he’d took the leap of faith and threw him over the railing. It would have been poetic, but it wouldn’t have been real.

There was no point in lingering on what could have been. They didn’t matter anymore. What did matter, though, were the specks of blood from Mark’s busted lip and jaw that coated his knuckles. It was the least he could do for going through so much trouble.

Numbly, Dark pushed the door to his office open again, making sure to use the unbloodied hand for everything. He used it to close it behind him, to pull the drawer’s handle, to retrieve Celine’s old book. Flipping to the appropriate page, he skimmed the rest of the method.

You weren’t safe with Mark. That much was obvious. You never had been. With everything else set in motion, he was at least glad that you could defend yourself. The only thing he wanted now was to be there to see it. He hoped you would grant him the luxury.

[You guys got what you wanted - and let me tell you, thank you so much for supporting this, it's a treat to write something like this (even if I have to take breaks from how much some characters piss me off). This is not the end, by the way! This was actually meant to be longer, since I'm only 7/18 pages into the script, and I'm also planning to do another, more fluffy part after I finish the next. I don't think I've written anything that couldn't be classified as angst so far, so, hopefully, that will be the comfort to this hurt/comfort fic. Again, thanks for enjoying, and I hope you look forward to the next parts!]

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