In this house we big preesh

He supposed this place was beautiful. Objectively.

It was picture-perfect, as the saying went, as though plucked from the hallways of the Louvre. Swaying willow branches trailed into the river – lily-pads floating just on the surface – a silver shine that stretched to the sea. The garden was overgrown, just the same as the rest of the manor. Nobody took an interest in caring for the scenery, much less the general sense of nature. One would be hard pressed to find a green thumb in the house of maniacs and manipulators, though it had never been easy.

But it was a distant sort of beautiful. It surrounded him, but it was always just out of reach, and he was sure that, if he were to reach out, it would back away. A painting in more than just aesthetic. His hand would find the rough cotton, the bumps and the ridges, instead of water. Even the wooden railing was untrustworthy beneath his skin.

It was rare to find Dark there, standing on the bridge. Bridges were, after all, a means of getting from one side of a river to the other, they weren’t designed for internal debates. Brooding, as some had called it before. According to some, the sight was too good for that. Some went so far as to say he was spoiling it.

He couldn’t disagree, and he wondered what you, the poor soul who was stumbling upon this view, would think.

Dark stayed with his focus cast over the river, though he had to fight for it. Every rustle of grass and tap of stone teased his attention as you made your way closer. It was all overgrown, so no matter how silent you were in the house, you were going to be caught outside. Not that it had been a problem recently because you weren’t home.

Dark pulled at the edge of his suit’s jacket.

You weren’t in the manor. You had been off galivanting through the streets of the modern world for a month or two. A lot had changed in the decades of your imprisonment, and it was shifting even more every second. You didn’t like being left behind, and as soon as your feet touched solid ground, you had been out of the house like a bullet shot from a gun. You had barely stayed still long enough for the unsubstantial conversation he had forced you into.

It had been awkward and stilted and wrong, and there had been no time afterwards to make up for it.

Until tonight, it seemed. You settled, leaning on the railing, next to him. Not a painting, but a ghost. A living memory of the dead. Dark wasn’t in a position to pass judgement about that, considering only you had the decency to be the same person. He merely assumed his shape. There was very little left of the man. Very little, but that wasn’t nothing.

That was why it was so hard to stand next to you, acting as if this had been an accident, as if you knew nothing about one another, as if you were both alone save for the glistening stars reflected by the river. Had he needed to breath, Dark would have surely been struggling for air. Drowning, if he wanted to keep with the metaphor, which he did because thinking up new analogies for the situation distracted him from the ache nestled within his heart.

It was romantic – from an outside perspective. The scene tailor made for two, but those present were not the two it was made for. It was a hundred years too late for the emotion it stirred. The winking of distant lights and the gentle hum of meandering water were a shame to waste. All the obstacles between the two of you were not to be solved by a single moment on a bridge.

In the spirit of courtesy, Dark offered a blunt, “Hello.”

He didn’t expect anything to come from it. There was a chance you wouldn’t answer, and a greater chance that you would leave.

However, just like always, you surprised him.

“Aren’t the lotus flowers kind of cliché?” you asked.

No accusations or demands. He tore his eyes away from the empty space right in front of him and levelled you with a confused look. His furrowed brow matched your crow’s feet. 

And then the strangest thing happened. A small smile fissured across his face when you threw out another tease, something about his own ambiance matching that of the weeping willow. You continued with jokes that he wasn’t listening to, not out of malice but surprise. He registered nothing but your voice. Bright yet calm, like moonlight, quiet laughter following the comment. It was the first time he, as his current self, had heard it.

The discomfort was slowly being bled out of the air with each second. Dark could feel it leaving, and so could you. In all your travels, from Boise to Bangkok, there were few places to stop and just be. It was in the name; travelling meant movement meant inconsistency meant the thrum of adrenaline in once-cobwebbed veins. Peaceful moments were impossible to find, and that was what you had wanted. You’d gone in search of adventure and life, you found it, and now you were back home.

You had never anticipated finding Dark on the bridge, in the same spot as Damien had once stood. From the back against the swirling sky, they almost looked the same, which was not a shock. It had taken some effort to reconcile the knowledge that he was never coming back with the sight of Dark. 

He could have stood to wear something different, you thought, but he was different enough as a person that it didn’t matter. Besides the waves of light flexing away from gray skin, he had this air of elegance that opposed Damien’s domesticity. The explicit stubbornness and single-minded tendencies were not faults as much as they were features of his personality. How he used them was the important part.

The thing to strike you with their difference was his reaction to your final remark. You hadn’t put much thought into it, too concerned with keeping up the pace, but you should have. Any reservations came late, however, as the words tumbled from your lips.

“I’m surprised it’s all standing. I thought his family would have destroyed it after they first caught us out here.”

And then you slammed your mouth shut, as if you could reverse time if you did it hard enough. With your jaw soldered together, you were forced to listen to Dark’s silence. Whose family you were talking about wasn’t a mystery, and you wondered hopelessly if it were a sensitive subject for him.

“You don’t have to worry about that now—” He turned ever so slightly, the glint of a smile creeping along his face, “—you’re not the type for me.”

It was Dark’s turn to freeze up, horror at his carelessness bashing his heart against his ribcage. Drowning didn’t seem so bad in the face of your heightened eyebrows. A quick jump over the railing, splashes knocking the lily-pads, and he’d be down in the water. It was probably too shallow, he would have to kneel—

You laughed. His attention snapped to you and your grin.

“Really?” you huffed, too lighthearted for what he said to you, and yet it was enough to entice him into more jokes. Him. Dark. Joking.

He sighed, wistful and dramatic. “What a waste of a lovely night.”

“You say there’s nothing between us, well, let’s make something clear.” You flipped around so your back pressed into the wood. Your hands were spread wide so that one crept close enough for him to touch if only he tried.

But you pushed away before he could do anything – not that he had been thinking about it in the first place.

“I think I’ll be the one to make that call,” you said over your shoulder. Despite the odd angle, your smile was still clearly visible, and he waved away the implications to focus on that brightness.

“I know you look so adorable in your polyester suit—”

“It’s wool.”

“You’re right, I’d never fall for you at all.”

At the other side of the bridge – having danced along its width to the tune of water and wind – you searched the manor’s windows. Most of them were pitch black, a few speckled with the light of candles and lamps, but altogether a rare period of calm.

You muttered, “And maybe this appeals to someone not legally dead.” The words were soft enough that Dark doubted they were for him, but you wiped away the idea when you glanced back at him again. “Or to anyone who feels there’s some possibility of romance.”

You had a habit of that; whatever powers of manipulation your life had granted you followed you through to the present, where you were able to whisk away his theories with a simple word or a look or a second in your presence.

Dark watched you take a step forward, both completely helpless at your voice and unwillingly to resist it. 

“But I’m frankly feeling nothing,” you said, halfway towards him.

“Is that so?”

“Or it could be less than nothing.” Just a few feet away.

“Good to know.”

Face to face, there was an understanding between you. Dark saw the bend of your lip where you bit in an attempt to not smile. You saw the set of his jaw as he tried to maintain his tall, dark and handsome façade. Both of you saw each other failing because the understanding was not the truth of your words but the irony in them.

Nevertheless, Dark asked, “So you agree?”

“That’s right.”

You slid back into your original shape at a point less than a foot away from him, and he was struck by the urge to grasp your hand. The missed opportunity – opportunity? – from earlier reared its head again, but that was a step too far to be passed off as adherence to the bit. Maybe another time, another joke, another shared moment beneath the stars that you and Dark were inspecting absentmindedly. For now, you had this, and you were both content. 

“What a waste of a lovely night.”

The manor itself looked like any other house that belonged to a millionaire socialite. The driveway that meandered up the hill was only marred by your fresh tire tracks in the gravel, and the pristine courtyard looked as though it had barely finished being implemented. The single thing that gave away someone actually living there was the lights shining from the windows out into the darkness. It was also the only reason you knew where you were going; the moon was mostly covered by the clouds, but it was as though a barrier prevented any light from puncturing the sense of unease that swirled around the place.

You were no stranger to homes like this. Although, you were no friend to them either, and that left you reigning in your grimace as you cut the ignition and opened the door of your car. Nighttime air flooded in, assuming the shape you’d left behind, and you stopped just long enough for some of the other cop cars to park up beside yours. Normally, for a crime like this, the Los Angeles police department would spare one or two officers and a detective to bring up the rear, but this time was different, and the reason why was no secret. A famous actor was dead.

Mark I. Plier was dead.

And you and the rest of the people who accompanied you had been shipped off to find out why.

You marched to the front door while everyone else got themselves ready with their equipment. It didn’t take more than a second for the door to open once you’d knocked, but that was to be expected. Most people were on edge with a dead body in the same building as them, and the man who stood before you exemplified that perfectly.

“Please, come in, detective,” he said with a shaking voice, and he stood to the side to allow you in.

Shooting a glance around the foyer, you asked, “And you are?”

The room was spacious, wide enough for your team to file in with room to spare, presumably expensive, and held little clue as to what else was hidden in the manor. It was much like the courtyard, with all its fanciful decorations and statues that made you instantly dislike anyone you encountered – their house filled with chintz, undoubtably like the owner. 

“Benjamin Blackadder, detective, I was the one to—” The man coughed and looked away from you, “—I called it in.”

You redirected your attention to him in turn. Of course, a millionaire manor would be incomplete without a dutiful butler, because what self-respecting aristocrat could function otherwise. But you supposed you were being spiteful. The aristocrat was dead, and his employee had found the body. Sometimes you forgot that sensitivity was part of the job.

“Alright, Mr. Blackadder, can you direct me to him?”

“Of course, detective.”

He kept saying your title as though you were going to forget who you were, but you kept your mouth shut. With a nod of his head, he set off towards one of the staircases – because there were multiple staircases that you could see from where you were standing and you wanted to scoff at that but, again, sensitivity – and you made a motion for the rest of the team to stay behind and look around. Nothing could be ruled out yet, so getting as big a picture as possible early on was top priority, second only to actually seeing the body, of course. That was where you were headed, trailing behind Benjamin and trying to keep your mind off the frivolous décor scattered around.

On the first step, you prompted him, “Can you describe the events leading up to finding him?”

“Yes, well.” Although his sentence was barely begun, he trailed off, as if caught up in the memory. You didn’t push him, not yet. He seemed the fragile sort, and it wouldn’t do to lose your only witness this early on. He managed to pick himself back up after a second, saying, “The Master has not been well for the last few months. He hasn’t been eating, taking care of himself… I don’t think he’s been sleeping, but he’s locked himself in his bedroom for so long that I wouldn’t know for certain.”

“When was the last time you saw him in person?”

He paused at the turn of the stairs. “That would be… three days ago, detective.”

“Thank you. Please, continue.”

He walked as he talked, which was your favorite kind of talking. “I was understandably concerned this morning when I went to bring him some kind of breakfast – he never eats it, but I still take it to him, on the off chance that he is hungry, I wouldn’t want the only time he is willing to eat be the one time I don’t come, you see, and then he would stop eating indefinitely—”

You cut him off with a sharp, “Mr. Blackadder.” You might have been gentler, should have been gentler, but he looked like he was going to pass out if you didn’t stop him.

He looked bashfully to the ground. “Yes, detective, I apologize.”

It was at that moment that you reached the landing. The hallway itself was paved with a red carpet down the center, gold trimmed and clean. At certain points before the turning, you noticed tables with the same kind of flower set upon them. You passed them by, the bunched up, purple and pink petals that looked too big to fit comfortably into their vases, and you motioned for Benjamin to continue.

“I knocked on his bedroom door to let him know that I was there. I received no answer, like normal. However, this time, I noticed that the door had some give, and I was able to open it.” He took a deep breath in and then pushed it out again. “The second I saw him, I ran to the phone and, ah, you are aware of the rest.”

He was right, you did know the rest. It had been you he had called in a frantic state. He hadn’t introduced himself and the most you got out of him was the address before he hastily hung up, but that was enough for you to get to where you needed to be.

“Did you do anything after calling the police?”

“No, detective.”

With that, he stopped at a door a few rooms away from the next staircase. From his wide-eyed staring, you guessed that the body was inside and felt pity well up in your gut. He didn’t need to be there for the examination, and, from the paleness of his skin, it was probably better for his health that he wasn’t.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Blackadder. Please, go back to the front room. My team will ask you more questions if you are able to answer them, and I’ll begin the investigation.”

He left with a mutter of, “Of course, detective.” He kept his gaze directed steadfastly away from the room as he scuttled back to where you had come from, which left you alone, standing with your fingers wrapped around the brass handle.

You pushed it open with a huff. You never liked dealing with witnesses, especially when they were close to the victim. Whenever you were able, you tried to pass that duty over to another officer, even though you knew that it was part of your job to console people who were affected by the case. If you weren’t so good at the rest of your duties, you were sure you would have been written up by then, or worse.

Resolving to get this over and done with, you stepped into the room and were immediately greeted by the welcoming sight of a dead body face up on the sheets, stabbed directly through the heart with a steak knife, blood pooling around the midsection into the cloth below. 

At least identifying the cause of death wouldn’t be an issue. Sometimes Mark wondered if the void was a real place, or whether it was just where his mind put him while he dealt with his business, like a dream state or a fantasy world that he conjured up to process the fact that he was dead. Maybe it was some form of a purgatory, the storage for souls before they were drafted into whatever afterlife they deserved. Maybe that was all there was once the heart stopped beating and the lungs stopped breathing.

On any other occasion, the philosophical dilemmas stopped there, and he attended to the real reason he was there in the first place – obviously, he hadn’t plunged metal into his chest because a black box was the best environment for coming up with inane theories. However, despite him having been there for an hour or so already, everything was just the same as when he had appeared there.

Bleak and pointless.

“Hello?” he called out into the darkness. He was completely alone, not even an echo acting as company.

His eyebrows furrowed, and his mouth twisted itself into a frown.

“The one time I don’t want to be here, and you’ve decided to keep me, have you?”

Again, no response.

Mark wasn’t a man known for his patience. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Anyone who had ever worked with him before had tales to tell of his arguments over scripts or costumes, and none of them recalled his inevitable, victorious, painstakingly smug smirk with affection. Trying to wait him out was like waiting for a river to change its direction – time consuming and utterly pointless. He acted much the same in this situation, but the only difference was that he was getting no reaction, and it was getting on his nerves.

“I can’t exactly fulfil our deal if I’m stuck here, now, can I?”

Mark felt his heart beat once in his chest, and then beat a second time. There was no clock in the void, just the vague feeling of something passing, whether it was time or air, he didn’t know, but he felt it sifting through his fingers. He couldn’t catch it, hold it still so that he could examine it, and that left him in the dark.

He didn’t like it.

“Fine, fine,” he spat, spite overtaking any idea of being nice to the thing that was keeping him there, “be that way. Throw a tantrum because of one little fight.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he glanced around. He’d never had to wait so long before. He didn’t know what else to do to pass the possibly-not-time, and boredom was something he couldn’t abide. Unconsciously, his fingers started tapping against the fabric of his robe, but not even the soft patter comforted him. 

“What a creative punishment.”

His final words drifting out into the darkness, he took one step, sighed, and then kept on walking, one foot at a time without a destination more complicated than ‘forward’.

As mentioned before, there was no clock in the void – no way to accurately measure the time, or how much of it Mark lost in his wanderings. Eventually, it became automatic, and everything moved much faster, and yet nothing changed. The river wasn’t changing, no matter how long he sat by it, and the darkness stayed as out of reach as it had been the first time he had found himself there. 

But hadn’t he been looking for that? A break. Just a break. From the stress of everything he had gained – and then, when he lost it all, from the strain of its absence. It was constant fear and confusion, and he had searched for a brief respite. An escape from life. And he had found it, hadn’t it? It wasn’t what he thought it would be, but he had found it and gorged himself on the peace and quiet.

He hadn’t asked for the loneliness.

Normally, it wasn’t so lonely in the void. It wasn’t human, he didn’t know exactly what it was, but a voice was there to comfort him and ask for his thoughts when no one else did. It wasn’t loud when it spoke to him, it showed up as a simple whisper next to his ear, as if something drawn from inside. It offered him ideas, which sometimes expanded on those he’d already kicked around and sometimes seemed to come from thin air. In times like those, he wondered what its true nature was, though he never got far before he was brought back to the matter at hand. 

He supposed that was why the silence had such an effect on him. The hush of the manor wasn’t so different to the hush of the void. It was carrying over from the life he was trying to take a break from, and, if something so simple as that could leak through, what else could? What demons would he face where he once thought himself safe? The motivations, the actions, the consequences. Nothing that he could fight on his own, and nothing he could flee from.

He'd have no other option.

And he wasn’t prepared to consider it yet.

So, Mark did the thing that he did best.

He served his friends up on a silver platter to the thing, pledging to follow through with the voice’s demands. It didn’t speak to him during that moment – that torturously, devastatingly lonely and long moment – but he knew what it wanted. He wasn’t an idiot, and he wasn’t a stranger to the voice. It had tried to persuade him in the past, it had told him it would be better to have witnesses, but he always pushed it to the side and said he’d consider it. But who was he kidding? The only thing he had to consider was how long he’d try to hold out, and then how long the guilt would last before it turned to determination.

Those beats of regret were getting shorter and shorter. Humanity slipped away from him like the grains of sand in an hourglass. With every hour, he fell deeper and deeper and deeper into the darkness, coating himself with the stuff and clinging to it to blur lines and muddle edges. After long enough, he would forget he was ever above it.

And when the voice finally granted him freedom, took the reins off his bridle, he fell through the floor or shot through the ceiling, returned to the land of the living and that little bit more prepared to do what was necessary in the future – and slightly hazy on what could be deemed ‘necessary’. You’d seen many corpses in your line of work – it was literally in the job description – but you’d never been surprised. The only thing to make you raise an eyebrow had been a semi-failed double-suicide, only because you couldn’t work out the physics of it all. Your tolerance for, for lack of a better term, creepy shit was sky high after spending so long surrounded by dead bodies.

But never had you seen a dead body stop being so dead after all.

With your yelp of, “Oh, fuck off!” came your stumbling backwards, tripping over the edge of the rug, the one stained with the blood of the carcass that was sitting up straight on the bed that he’d died on. You caught yourself before you fell, eyes darting along the moving not-corpse, hands drawing up and away from the sheets, eyes blinking like a deer stepping into the sun for the first time or a man waking up from a hangover.

“Be quiet.” His voice was rough, sandpaper along a wooden board, splinters falling into his throat. Mark, the man whose death you had been sent to investigate, gripped the handle of the steak knife and pulled, sending forth a gush of crimson the same shade as his robe that may or may not have started that color.

Your shock morphed into survival instinct, keeping you rooted to the spot. “The hell do you mean be quiet!?”

“I mean—” His other hand, the one not holding the thing that had been jammed into his heart not three seconds ago, reached up to drag over his eyes, “—your yelling is giving me a headache.”

“You’re dead!”

He looked at you like you were the mad one. You. Not him. Not the animated corpse, who, apparently, thought being dead was overrated. “I’m obviously not.”

Getting over your momentary paralysis, you stormed over to the edge of the bed to grip Mark’s arm. He jutted forward when you tugged it further out, two fingers poised over where his pulse should have been.

Nothing.

“Ah, yes, that.” He wrenched his arm away from you. “It’s nothing.”

You blinked once, twice, a third time, just to make sure this wasn’t a dream you would wake up from in a cold sweat.

“Oh, okay then, I guess I’ll just be on my way.”

Despite your overly sarcastic tone, he didn’t pick up on it, or he was just that nonchalant about the situation you were in. Instead, he got to his feet and started towards you. “Very good, very good,” he muttered as he laid a hand on your shoulder blade to guide you firmly in the direction of the door. “Off you go. Thank you so much for visiting.”

The drip-drip-drip of his blood splattering against the floor made you duck away from him. Mark sent you a disapproving look, like a parent about to reprimand their child for not listening to their sound logic.

“That was sarcastic,” you said.

“Well, you wouldn’t mind explaining why you deserve to be here then?”

You stared at him in disbelief while he circled the walls, peering into closet and drawer alike for something not so bloodstained. He could feel your gaze burning on his back when he turned, and he could see it when he glanced over his shoulder.

You answered, as blunt as you could make your tone, “I’m a detective.”

A sound of victory escaped him as he pulled away from a rack with a robe similar to the one that he currently wore – he had company, albeit unwanted, and getting undressed in front of a stranger was too far, even in this state. He draped it over his arm before spinning on his heel to look at you.

“And that means what to me, exactly?”

“I’m investigating your death.”

How the dead managed to get on your nerves quicker than the living, you had no idea, but maybe Mark was just the exception, some kind of master at pissing people off, especially when he gestured up and down his body.

“I’m not dead.”

“You were.”

He hummed, with such a patronizing tone that you wanted him to go back to the way he was when you met. “Yes, past tense, thank you. I’m not dead anymore.”

“But you were.”

“Not anymore.”

“But you were.”

“Etcetera, etcetera.”

Your muscles tightened and your shoulders raised as he began waltzing towards you, and you moved back to a comfortable distance from where he deposited the robe on his bed, right beside the stain that was infesting deeper into the sheets. You just couldn’t understand how little he cared. That was the worst thing about this; he made it seem like this was completely normal, like he had done this hundreds of times before, like you were the one in the wrong for not adhering to etiquette that you should have known about.

The way that he stared at you like you were a bug he couldn’t be bothered to get rid of pulled your mouth into a grimace. 

“Who called you here?” he asked.

“Your butler, Benjamin Blackadder.”

“Right, well, you can inform him that I am perfectly healthy—” A drop of red ran like a tear from the corner of his mouth, “—and that there is no need to worry about my state.”

Your attention flitted between him wiping that blood away and the saturated spot on his chest. In response, noticing the evidence against his case, Mark stepped closer to you and tried again to escort you to the door at a much faster pace.

“Oh, and also tell him to call for Abe next time. It would make this whole mess easier on me.”

The latter part was said well under his breath, but that wasn’t the part you wanted to focus on anyway. No, you were more interested in his relationship to Abe. You knew who he was, and so you had an inkling as to why he would call on him. A detective like you meant an institution and that meant a formal investigation into his death – exactly what you believed he wanted to avoid – but Abe? He wasn’t a legal detective, he was, in reality, a private investigator, and a P.I like him was very good at keeping his mouth shut and palm open.

You, not so much.

Spinning around and pushing back a smirk at his huff, you responded, “No.”

“No?”

And even slower, this time, “No.”

Mark stopped completely still on the wooden floor so that, for a brief moment, you wondered if he was still breathing, but then his irises trailed up from your legs, to your torso, to your neck, to your face, stopping where you were forced to make eye contact.

“Okay, detective.”

Your heart stuttered in your chest.

“Let’s play a little game, if you’re so intent on staying put.”

He put one foot forward, posed just so, as if he were a statue on the edge of toppling over and crashing onto the ground.

“I give you a scenario, and you tell me what to do. Simple enough.”

Against your better judgement, you nodded, and you immediately regretted it when he shifted his weight onto that foot, closer to breaking apart.

“Perfect.” A cat’s grin spread over his mouth as he spoke, “As you keep telling me, I died. Skin gray, eyes glossy, rigor-mortis might have even set in, lucky me. But here’s the catch; I wake up. Not here, but I do wake up. In a dark place, no walls, no ceiling, no floor. The way I normally get out hasn’t shown up yet.”

The words fell out of his mouth, pulled from a script and dropped carefully, practiced, into the real world. Every sentence came with a step closer to you. Slow. Intentional. Not an inch away from where he meant to land, until you were face to face. His grin felt less like a cat and more like a tiger.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, arms folding behind his back.

The only response you were able to offer, the only one you were able to muster, was a firm, “I don’t understand.” You tried to keep the shakiness out of your voice but found you were only able to share it throughout your entire body.

“Come now, detective,” he purred, “you’re supposed to be good at finding the answer with minimal information.”

“You’re insane.”

“Is that your final answer?”

Half of you wanted to say that it was, but the other half of you was smarter than that, even if it was true. You paused to collect your thoughts, crossing your arms and hoping something would come to you. Riddles had never been your strong suit – especially when it was some pedantic or, worse, philosophical answer – but the look in Mark’s eye, that shimmer of curiosity for your response that swallowed some of the coldness, made you think this was more than a riddle.

So, after taking a deep breath to prepare yourself for the plunge, you said, “You wait.”

It was a test. Mark was testing you. You didn’t know what he had expected, but, apparently, your answer was not satisfactory.

“That’s it?” he scoffed, “I’m supposed to wait?”

“Yep.”

“Until what?”

Another breath. “Until whatever you expect to happen, happens.”

This time, he took a second to dwell on what you’d said. His gaze flickered downwards, searching for something that he didn’t seem to find.

“And what if it doesn’t?”

You were quicker on the draw now, having familiarized yourself with your ideas, and you responded, “You talk.”

“About what?”

“Anything.” You shrugged, and you had to look away from the man in front of you; he looked almost at a loss for words. Maybe you were just bad at explaining, made it sound too simple, but you couldn’t help it. You continued to talk regardless of if it made sense to him. “Helps to stop you going mad from the environment you might be trapped in.”

“And what if it doesn’t?”

“What do you mean?”

“Help.” He was looking at you. You felt it, the crawl of his eyes towards your own. They were the windows to the soul, and you didn’t like the thought of him getting a front row seat to that. There was a foot between you, and you wanted to make it a mile, but your boots weighed you down and kept you under the water.

“What if I go mad?”

“Did you?”

“You tell me.”

Frantic knocking on the door made you flinch – a panic that made you miss Mark doing the same – and it took you a moment to remember where you were. A crime scene, or what used to be one, which technically still was one, that might have continued to be one, depending on what route you wanted to pursue.

“Detective?” The butler’s voice seemed to cut through the tension, giving you ample space to step back from Mark. “Is everything alright?”

He adopted that grin once more; it dove over his mouth like a wave, and he gestured to the door just as fluidly.

You didn’t stop yourself from rolling your eyes. You supposed it was natural for an actor to switch from one persona to the next. He had all but scared the living daylights out of you, intimidated you with a gaping wound in his chest like something crawled out of the grave, but there he was, smug and victorious in the little battle he’d forced you into.

“Do you want to tell him, or should I?”

You stomped over to the door, spite burning your footprints into the planks, and pulled at the handle to reveal Benjamin looking just as fearful as he did the first time you saw him. He was wringing a glove between his hands, the other of the pair sticking out of his pocket. He’d end up losing it like that.

“Everything is fine, Mr. Blackadder,” you said, opening the door wider so that the still-breathing master of the house was visible. “He’s not dead.”

You didn’t think he heard you, more concerned with sliding past you and rushing towards Mark. Not that you really cared. In fact, you preferred it over the dutiful house-servant stereotype he had seemingly perfected, and it allowed you to march out of the bedroom and down the hallway without any of that sappy ‘thank-god-you’re-alive’ nonsense. Normally, that was reserved for hospitals, but this was… a strange situation.

The only duty left on your plate, therefore, was figuring out how to tell your team that the corpse was distinctly no longer a corpse.  Or so you had thought. Upon arriving back at the station that day and informing the chief of police that Mark was alive and well, you oh-so-foolishly assumed that you could bypass the normal procedures. The most you expected to do was catalogue the incident on a sheet that would be stuffed into a file, which would then be stuffed into a cabinet, which would then be stuffed into a section of the archives never to be touched again. You were wrong. And not just a little bit wrong, you were wrong.

It took you two weeks to deal with the paperwork. Fourteen days, because your higher-ups, people who understood how anything worked, knew that a stab to the heart was a pretty surefire way to end up dead. You were sent running in circles, trying to justify what you had seen and what you were trying to tell them. If seeing a man rising from the dead hadn’t pushed you over the edge, convincing other people of it did the trick. 

That led you to where you were now; sitting at your desk, filling out paperwork, and cursing the name of your partner who was probably enjoying his day off on the beach with his family. You spent a lot of time in your office, more than you did at your apartment, but it was slowly morphing into a cage with the key held just out of your reach. 

It might have been bearable alone, and yet fate decided you needed to suffer more because the comments of your colleagues wormed their way into your brain and set up shop there. You’d made a mistake. You! What was the point of holing yourself up at your desk when you weren’t able to tell when someone was dead or not? Every moment you were in the hallway, you were subject to glances ranging from pitying to condescending to absolutely entertained. You’d become the village fool, and each scratch of the pen reminded you of your situation up until the very final flourish of your signature.

You let your chair take your weight, and, even though the wooden skeleton wasn’t the most comfortable thing, a tired form of bliss washed over you. You were done, and you could put the whole thing behind you. Soon, you’d be working on another murder and be able to forget everything. You hoped somebody died soon.

Somewhere, the finger of a monkey’s paw curled, and the shrill squeal of the office’s phone to pierced the silence.

You pushed your hands against your spine to hear it crack before lazily shuffling towards the source of the noise. Bringing the receiver to your ear, you ran your gaze across the skyline of the city between slits of the window’s blinds.

Seconds later, you wondered if the fall would be enough to kill you, or whether it would just be a mild inconvenience like everything else in your life.

Benjamin Blackadder, just the man you didn’t want to hear, filled you in on the situation that seemed painfully familiar to the one you were trying to escape from. He told you Mark was dead, but the idea had you stifling a laugh, not out of any amusement but out of hatred for dramatic irony.

All that escaped you was a groan.

You knew you had to go. He was calling the office phone, after all, so you had a job to do. And who was to say you couldn’t be wrong about this? If he was actually dead – as you hoped, however unsympathetically, he was – then it was just another day at the office, and refusing to attend to the investigation was a crime in and of itself.

Feeling the thud of your head against the wall, you said, “We’ll be right over.”

“Wait!”

Inches away from hanging up, you stopped and drew the receiver close again.

Benjamin hesitated for a second before continuing, “The master requested that I keep all contact with the public to a minimum, so- well, would it trouble you terribly to only bring yourself?”

Not only was he testing your patience, but he was also testing your loyalty to your job. There was no way in hell you would be allowed to go on your own – setting aside the fact that it was against policy, this was also a high-profile case that you were just caught completely screwing up. An actor, ‘dead’ for the second time, was not something to be taken lightly. There were a million and one reasons why you should have rejected the request, called in the rest of the department and issued a formal investigation from the city of Los Angeles.

“Not at all, sir.” 

Except you were also a spiteful bastard, so, with gritted teeth, you pulled the blinds fully shut and snatched your keys off the desk.

“I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

The actual drive only took half an hour, but you arrived exactly when you said you would only because you took the liberty of cursing out various concepts and colleagues for ten minutes. A lot of it was under your breath, a lot of it was directed at Mark, and a lot of it was done on the road outside the manor. If Benjamin wanted you to be happy about doing this, he should have offered to pay you.

Though, you supposed there was only one thing on his mind. Before you were even able to consider knocking, the front door was pulled open, and the butler himself was gesturing you inside.

“Thank you for coming out here so late, detective,” he said. 

You nodded in response, taking a moment to look him over. His speech was much more put together than it had been the last time you had seen him, but, other than that, he appeared very much the same. He was still decked out in his uniform, despite it being nearly eight o’clock at night, and his eyes flitted from you to the grounds to the staircase like a moth caught in a jar.

The door creaked as Benjamin closed it behind you. 

“He’s upstairs.”

You didn’t say anything after that, and, in fact, you didn’t need to; while you started in the direction of Mark’s room, he stayed behind with a firm stare locked onto the darkness outside. You supposed he was making sure you hadn’t brought anyone else with you. The guy seemed really keen on following his master’s orders.

You rolled your eyes at the thought, and, in a few moments of internally mocking the dynamic, you wound up in front of Mark’s door. You didn’t bother knocking, simply pushing the door open and letting it fall shut behind you.

Electric lights bathed the room in a glow too kind for the subject. The room hadn’t changed in the weeks passed, but what was more surprising was the position of Mark’s body, which was no more than a thread’s width away from where you had found him last time. The only difference was that there was no steak knife buried in his chest, though the cause of death wasn’t particularly a mystery. What you initially assumed were makeup stains was, as you realized when you got closer, the smudged remains of berries. Deadly nightshade, adding his dilated pupils into the mix of symptoms and the likelihood of him getting his hands on them.

For a brief moment, you wondered if you had actually been wrong. You wondered if you had been too pessimistic, too hasty in your reluctance. You wondered if Mark was actually dead.

Those thoughts were scrapped the moment focus welled in his eyes and a sharp intake of breath made you step back.

No, you were right. Why did you even bother to doubt yourself?

The second the two of you made eye contact, your annoyance transferred over to him, prompting a deep, world-weary groan. 

“Oh, come on!” he hissed into the air.

You reigned in your own bitterness, instead choosing to settle into the armchair until Benjamin came to collect you. After all, you were tired, and you wanted at least a minute of rest before you were sent back to the station – no doubt to repeat your poor excuse for a Sisyphean punishment and get laughed at by your colleagues again. Oh, you couldn’t wait.

Letting your eyelids drift closed, you listened to the sounds of Mark in the ensuite bathroom. You guessed that he was getting rid of the excess poison in his mouth, but you didn’t know what damage it could cause that was worth than the death he’d already undergone. Maybe it just tasted bad, you didn’t know because you didn’t exactly have a habit of killing yourself for fun. 

You opened one eye to glare at Mark as he emerged from the bathroom.

He was the first to speak, though, tone disgruntled and mouth warped into a grimace.

“You’re not Abe.”

“And I thought I was the detective here.”

“Very funny.”

A smirk dragged itself across your mouth. You thought you were.

The chair was oddly comfortable, pillows fluffed and blanket cushioning your head, and you found yourself nestling further into it while you stared Mark down across from you. He stood by the bed with his arms crossed, the picture of disapproval, but his opinion wasn’t one you valued at this moment.

“Why did you come?” he asked after a – blissful – second of silence.

“Mr. Blackadder called, asked me to check you out again.”

Why he called the police and not a doctor was beyond you. Why he called you in particular was even further beyond you.

“But you knew I was fine.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

He raised an eyebrow at you, a silent prompt for an explanation.

You carded a hand through your hair. What you wouldn’t do for a nap right about now – but, no, you were here, wondering how someone could be so oblivious. “It’s not everyday someone obviously dead just decides not to be dead anymore,” you said with less spite that you wanted to translate.

“Isn’t it?”

The sheets rustled as Mark dropped himself into a sitting position, sudden enough that you barely caught his humorless smile before his back was turned to you.

“No. It isn’t,” you answered. “And I have no idea how you think it’s normal.”

With your comment hanging between you, the weight of your pack of cigarettes dragged your trench coat down, and, to alleviate that, you fished it out of the pocket you’d shoved it in.

You absentmindedly peeled back the cardboard and pulled one of the sticks out as you asked, “How many times so far?”

Despite being a blunt person by nature, it was as though your mouth refused to say the word ‘died’ outright. You barely managed to get the question out at all.

A moment of silence followed, making you wonder if you had gone too far. You had no reason to ask, so he had no reason to answer. It only made sense that he would keep it to yourself and some part of you wished he would, if only to save yourself from facing the truth about his situation.

“Thirty-seven.” Mark’s voice came out completely blank. “Not including tonight.”

Your wolf-whistle was followed by his quiet chuckle.

“Damn.” Any formality was out of the window by that time, and you felt it was the most appropriate reaction available to you. “Who did Benjamin call before?”

“He didn’t call anyone.” He huffed as he spread his hands back across the sheets. “He didn’t notice.”

The cigarette secured between your lips, you stopped with your hand poised to flick the top of your lighter. “Didn’t notice that the body of the master was rotting in his bed?”

A light scoff came out with sourness before he corrected, “I never rotted. My body’s intact, except for all the… leftover marks. I always come back after a few hours.”

“You didn’t before.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Without knowing what to say to that, you simply lit the end of the stick and watched down the bridge of your nose as orange consumed up the white. It was slow, left a trail of ash and glimmering embers in its wake, but it did the job.

Inhale. Exhale.

“I don’t know how you can stomach those.”

Your focus flickered back to Mark, who had twisted his torso around to watch you.

“You choose to kill yourself quickly,” you said, pocketing your lighter, “some people choose to do it slowly. Plus, it takes the edge off.”

And when your entire understanding of life and existence was under threat, you needed it. You needed something to distract you. You needed something that meant you didn’t have to consider the ramifications of reality and could continue on in ignorance like you had been for decades.

Watching you, Mark felt something stir in his heart. It was unfamiliar to him, and he had a hard time giving it a name, but the closest concept he could handle was a strange form of sympathy. He had never planned to share this experience with anyone, much less a stranger who was just doing their job. Roping you into everything was a mistake that he didn’t know how to correct. 

In any other situation, he would have assumed a certain role that he kept just for the people who found out things they shouldn’t have, the one he had almost ran through with you. He would pat their shoulder, talk them down from the edge, and brush them out of his life like dust on the floor – but you were different. Difficult. You weren’t panicking like he had expected you to. Of course, you were dazed, and the calm was no doubt a mask, but there you were, sitting in the chair in his room instead of one in an asylum’s waiting room.

He didn’t know what to do with you.

Mark’s attention floated to the floor, and yours followed in turn.

What were you supposed to do? Mark was going to keep killing himself, Benjamin was going to keep calling, and where did that leave you? Answering those calls? For how long? Until you gave up, quit, snapped, went the same way as Mark without the return ticket?

You opened your mouth to ask, but the thud of a fist against wood broke the silence first.

“Detective,” Benjamin’s voice seeped through the splinters, “have- have you come to a conclusion?”

Your legs felt stiff as you rose from the chair. Mark was facing the direction of the door, but the haziness that blanketed his eyes told you that he was looking anywhere else.

The butler looked just as frantic as before, but your patience had worn thin. A single press and it would cut like piano wire.

You left the door open and leaned against the frame. “You want the cause, the time, or my home number so you can call me the next time this happens at midnight?”

“What?”

Not a second later was Benjamin in the room, yourself having stepped to the side. It wasn’t your place to stop him fussing over Mark, nor was it the funnier option; there wasn’t any evidence that Mark had been dead, so he was quick to dance around him, tugging at his arms to check him over for possible injuries.

“Do you need me to write down Abe’s number again?” Mark asked with the tone of a disapproving parent. 

You laughed under your breath at the irony, taking the cigarette from your lips. A spray of smoke escaped through the gap before you replaced it, stepped out of the room, and let the door fall closed behind you. It wasn’t long until you were stepping through another door, landing you on the steps outside.

The stark contrast between the glamorous manor and the sprawling darkness had you relaxing your shoulders, or maybe that was the nicotine taking effect. Regardless, you felt better. Less stressed. Moon stifled by the clouds, you tried to retrace your steps back to your car. The crunch of the gravel beneath your boots was the only thing that grounded you to reality – the night was completely noiseless, the lights of the manor were fading away, and you were alone.

You stopped at the hood of the car, not getting in quite yet. An inhale of smoke. Exhale.

There wasn’t much you could do. At least, not at that moment.

Embers of light spat out from the end of the cigarette as it hit the concrete, dead on impact, while you slipped into the driver’s seat with a sigh. “You owe me fifteen cents for gas, you know.”

You hadn’t had enough time to get your hopes up before being called back in to the manor. This time, barely a week had passed, and Benjamin hadn’t gotten through all of his speech before you were grabbing your coat and keys and practically throwing yourself into your car. It had been right before you were set to clock out, too, which meant that you felt poking Mark’s cheek an annoying number of times was warranted.

Bruises littered his skin, reddish marks pooling like paint on a palette, with some areas swelled so much so that there might have been broken bones. You had a moment to inspect what was visible before a deep groan flooded out of him. You weren’t certain whether it was pain or annoyance, but you still stepped back to give him space.

“How’d you do this one?” you wondered aloud. The other two methods were easy to guess, but trying to inflict blunt force trauma was difficult without throwing yourself around the room. Mark had ended up where he always did, laid out on the edge of his bed, so either he had flawless aim or there was someone else involved.

He answered your question as he propped himself up, “I hired someone.”

Despite the evidence in front of you, that surprised you, and he appeared to pick up on that.

“I get killed,” he started to explain, “and they get a hefty sum of money and bragging rights that they killed an actor.”

“I think one of those is more persuasive than the other.”

You waited while he rearranged himself. Unlike the last times, the cause of death would heal on its own, no removal of knife or spitting of poison necessary, and that left him sitting in front of you as you stared him down.

Dragging a hand down his face, pulling with it a curl of hair, he muttered, “You didn’t have to come.”

He was right. You didn’t have to. It was pretty obvious by now that dying didn’t mean the same thing to him as it did others, and, as long as he was breathing by the time the sun came up, you’d be off the hook for investigating him. You always complained about it on the way over and felt drained when you stepped back out the front door. Everything pointed to you staying at the office, or, hell, going back to your apartment as you were supposed to do.

And yet, there you were, with your hands hooked into your pockets and a small, spiteful smile on your lips. Some part of you said it was just for Benjamin’s sake, but, while he had genuinely sounded on the brink of a heart-attack on the phone, you knew that wasn’t the biggest reason. Although, you also knew you would never admit the truth.

Instead, you started to stroll back to the armchair you had missed so much, saying, “But I get a hefty pay cheque worth a fifth of my rent and bragging rights that I saw a dead actor.”

You could practically hear Mark roll his eyes, but he still turned to face you once he had adjusted his arm back into its natural position. His silent wince brought you back to the matter at hand.

“So, you’ve been stabbed, poisoned, and beaten to death—” You sunk into the hold of the cushions, “—What’s next on your reverse bucket list?”

“I’m not doing this for fun.”

“Then what are you doing this for?”

He levelled you with a stare. “Personal reasons.”

You got the hint – touchy subject – and you put a hand up in a lazy form of surrender. 

Mark’s gaze drifted to the window next to you, the crimson curtains pulled shut to block out the moonlight. They hadn’t been opened in months, and the windows even longer since, granting the room a claustrophobic touch despite the minimal decoration. Smoke from a week ago still haunted the air.

It all felt like too much of a risk.

“Where’d your hitman run off to?” you asked, beckoning his attention once more.

“You don’t need to arrest him.”

“Well, technically, I do. Attempted murder is still a crime.”

His head lolled back, creaking like the old house itself, before he responded, “He’ll be long gone by now. He knows how to get out of tough situations with the police.”

Your eyebrows raised at that. It was awfully bold to admit that to a detective’s face – but, then again, what were you going to do? Both of you knew you weren’t going to report it, because then you’d have to admit to investigating the last ‘death’ as well. The very concept of drudging up the paperwork and filling out exactly the same things over and over again had given you pause when you’d returned to the office, and a moment’s hesitation was all you needed to forget that duty altogether. Nobody had gone with you, and Benjamin had contacted you directly, so what was the harm in keeping it to yourself? None, or so you’d convinced yourself as you started work on another case.

In theory, you supposed you were meant to be regretting that decision. In practice, you utterly despised paperwork.

You let Mark keep talking without interruption.

“I’ve used him before. The first couple times, I couldn’t stomach slitting my own throat, and I couldn’t tell Benjamin to do it, so I asked around. People thought it was a publicity stunt. It wasn’t, obviously, but it would have been a damn good one.” A dim laugh was quickly smothered by his hand. “Some responded just to see if it were real. The man I have now was one of the only ones to take it seriously.”

“There were others?”

“He’s good at getting out. The others weren’t.”

The business of paid murder wasn’t a forgiving one, as could be expected, and you’d heard of a lot of people willing to endure a lot of pain for not a lot of gain. They were dragged through the station and interrogated until they gave up every bit of information they had on other criminals, which was why it was a shock to hear the ease at which he found these people.

You laid an arm across the side of the chair, getting comfortable in the spot, as you asked, “If you used him at the start, why bring him back now?” 

“I thought going a different way…” he trailed off, his gaze following suit, before he swallowed and finished, “would change things.”

“No luck?”

Mark shrugged lightly, a simple motion that failed to disguise how much he cared. Whatever he tried to make different was important, and, while you wanted to comfort him, you couldn’t help if you didn’t know what it was. He didn’t seem keen to share.

Your eyes followed him as he rose from the edge of the bed and traipsed towards a drink cart that had been stashed against one of the walls. You might have been glad to see a new addition to the room had it not been decorated with bottles of alcohol.

With the whiskey decanter in one hand and a lowball glass in the other, he chuckled lowly. “We all have our vices.”

The packet of cigarettes seemed to get heavier.

But that wasn’t the problem – ignoring someone’s explicit reference to a crime was one thing, but partaking in one yourself? That was dangerous. In the depths of prohibition, getting caught with a drink in hand was the same as a blood-stained knife.

You stared at Mark, doubtful and hesitant, a look that he caught. In the space of a huff from him, he was holding another glass of whiskey, accompanied by ice, and walking in your direction.

Bolder and bolder.

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

That was your policy, wasn’t it? Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Internally cursing yourself, you gripped the whiskey and brought it down to your chest, while Mark settled himself down at the chair near his vanity.

You hadn’t had a sip of alcohol in years, even before the new law was instated. There was something about the loss of control that made you turn up your nose whenever it was offered to you. You didn’t care about understanding the things around you – case in point, you were sitting with a possibly-immortal-possibly-dead actor and knew little more than his name and address – but when it came to yourself, your mind and body, you didn’t like losing that control.

You wondered why you took the whiskey from Mark even as you lifted it to your lips and took a sip. Harsh. Rich. Somewhat smoky. Condensation gathered on the outside of the glass.

“Do you normally drink after you die?”

“No. It makes healing the cuts harder.” The ice chinked as he swirled his lowball in one hand. “The first thirty-seven times were with a knife. The blunt-force trauma means that I don’t have to worry about my blood thinning.”

Back when he had first started, drinking was a habit he found hard to break. There was normally something in his system – wine, whiskey, one of the innumerable other bottles in the cellar – and that led to a messier cleanup than he liked. He had to change that, stop drinking until he was semi-healed, or else he’d get himself found out.

After that first night you were called in, Benjamin had locked away the knife block, so he couldn’t go that route even if he wanted to.

His thoughts flashed to his butler, and his mouth moved faster than his mind could keep up with.

“Benjamin doesn’t know I die.”

A second went by. Mark stared at the wall. You stared at Mark. 

“No?”

“He thinks I get close to the edge but manage to pull through, that, in his panic, he just misses my pulse when he checks and doesn’t realize that I’m still barely alive.” His words were speeding up, some molding together and forcing him to stop to breath. “He called a friend of mine the night you were first called and told him that I’d nearly died but that I would recover.”

“You friend doesn’t know either?” You sat forward in your seat, balancing your forearms on your thighs. The layers of your trench coat dripped down the frame.

“I tried to tell him once. He thought I was making a joke, and a distasteful one at that. I mean, who would believe me?” The fogginess of reminiscing faded as he drew his focus to you. In a more muted voice, he said, “I’m surprised you did.”

The moment was bordering on somber, but you found yourself wanting to bring it back. Talking was nice. The subject was obviously less desirable, but you didn’t want to push him into anything worse than the obvious.

You cracked a smile, meeting his eyes. “Well, you know, when someone comes back to life right in front of you, it takes a lot more effort to convince yourself it’s not real.”

Hoping that the joke didn’t fall flat was the most you could do at that moment, besides taking another sip of the whiskey. You weren’t natural ‘funny’ – most of what garnered a laugh was sarcasm at someone else’s expense – but the second that you see a small grin sketch itself across Mark’s mouth, you feel a hint of pride wash over you.

“So that’s what it is? Effort?” You were used to his bleak tone, even more to his annoyance, but amusement was something you preferred.

“Sure, I mean—” You shifted to sit up straighter, “—I work ten hours a day, more with overtime, I don’t have the time to care about this kind of stuff. You might somehow be immortal, but unless that magic trick is going to put my rent up, I’ll believe whatever you want me to believe.”

“You’re insane.”

This one was a laugh that the two of you shared, filling the air and dancing along the cracks of the plaster and diving into the wooden floorboards. In the dark of the night, it was warm, welcoming, a pleasant interlude to the dismal tragedy you had become involved in – like the clown shoved between Cassio and Desdemona.

Nevertheless, it was but an interlude, and the scene ended with a knock at the door. Perfect timing.

You started to suspect that Benjamin had a timer set to check up on you, but, nevertheless, you threw back the remainder of your whiskey and swept your coat out from under you.

“That’s my cue,” you said. You were tempted to tell him not to do anything stupid again, but you weren’t an idiot. “Same time next week?”

Mark rolled his eyes, putting up an image of being so offended by your comment, but you caught sight of his smile right before Benjamin bounded in, ready and willing to mother-hen him until he was sick of it.

What you did not catch, however, were Mark’s eyes trailing after you as you strode down the hallway, hands in your pockets and boots leaving vague prints on the rug. A poltergeist waltzing through the land of the living, the only evidence ash and the faint smell of smoke.

--- ---

October 12, 10pm

Dear Diary,

My tutor (Mr. Bentley) has told me I have to write a diary to practice my handwriting. He said it would be 'more fun' than other tasks. Because I can talk about myself and my day.

My name is Damien. I am eight years old. I live with my parents and my twin sister Celine in a big house. My father works as a lawyer. I will be a lawyer too when I am grown up. I take lots of classes to make sure I am smart enough to be a lawyer.

Today I woke up and had breakfast and went to school. Then I came home from school. I had a glass of water and then Mr. Bentley arrived to start my tutoring classes. Then I had supper and finished my homework. Then I went to my room before bed to write this diary.

This isn't fun.

I don't want to write a diary. Sorry.

From, Damien.

--- ---

October 13, 11pm

Dear Diary,

I told Mr. Bentley that I didn't want to write a diary. He said I had to if I wanted to have nice handwriting. But then he said that I could write about whatever I wanted instead of what I did for my day. He said it wouldn't be corrected like all my other schoolwork. I didn't have to show him the diary if I didn't want to.

He said that maybe I can find something fun to write about.

I don't know if I do anything fun. I can't think of anything good enough to write about.

Sorry if I never use you again, Diary.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 17, 9pm

Dear Diary,

I saw a man at the bottom of the garden today.

I was sitting in the back parlor with Celine. I wanted to go outside to get some air and take a break from study. It was raining today and Arthur (our butler) said I needed to wait until it was dry.

You are a book and cannot see so I will tell you about the garden. The garden is long and narrow. It has high walls and big bushes beside the walls.. There are steps that go to different higher parts. Arthur said these are 'levels'. The top level is grass. That is where I am allowed to sit if I can go outside. Mark said the garden is too small to run in. But I said this isn't a running garden. It is one for the grown ups to walk in.

But today there was a man standing on the grass near the back. He wore a white suit and his hair was messy. Then he saw me.

I ran to get Celine. But the man was gone by the time we were back at the window. Celine said I was seeing things.

Diary, you are going to help me remember what happened. I know what I saw.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 18, 6am

Dear Diary,

I saw him again!

This time I was in my bedroom! I was getting ready for school and looked out the window. I could see him from upstairs and he was right there at the bottom of the garden! I didn't move this time. I waited. He was looking at something on the ground floor. Then he turned and walked away.

But he walked into the bushes. As I told you in another entry, there is a wall behind the bushes. Is there a secret gate?

Diary, I think we need to look into this after school.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 18, 4pm

Dear Diary,

As soon as I got home I went to the garden. I went up all the steps and looked around. The bush I saw the man walk to is big and I could see a wall behind it. I moved some branches with my hands to look for a gate. I couldn’t find one. The wall is really tall too. I don’t know if any grown up could climb it.

Janet helps with the flowers and she asked me what I was doing. I asked if someone big could climb the wall. She said no. Then she said I might have seen a bird.

Is there a bird that looks like a person?

I should ask Mr. Bentley when he arrives but I don't want him reading you, Diary. Maybe I won't ask.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 18, 10pm

Dear Diary,

I didn't see the man again for the rest of the day. I did not see a big bird. I hope the man is in a house. It's too cold to be outside.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 19, 11pm

Dear Diary,

The man wasn't here today. Maybe he left.

Celine hasn't seen anyone new around the house. But there is a party tomorrow. Maybe the man is a friend of Father's. She said she will help me look at all the guests.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 20, 6pm

Dear Diary,

The man was not at the party. Celine called me stupid. I called her stupid. She pushed me and I kicked her.

We were both sent to bed with no supper.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 21, 7am

Dear Diary,

Father shouted at me today because of yesterday when I woke up. He said I will bring shame to the family if I keep acting out and being rude.

He took away the book I was reading and told me I was not allowed to eat until supper. 

He nearly took you away until I said that this was school work. He sent me into the study and told me to do my weekend homework.

It's not fair. Celine started it and didn't get in trouble…

From, Damien.

---

---

October 21, 12pm

Dear Diary,

I don't feel good. My head feels funny. I stood up to get my history book and I fell. Only that Arthur was beside me I might have hurt myself.

Arthur was angry. I think he was angry that I wasn't working hard enough like Father wants, but he told me to sit outside to get some air.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 21, 2pm

Dear Diary,

The man came into the garden while I was in the garden. I was lying on the grass when I saw someone move behind me.

It was him! The man!

I think he is sick. His skin is grey. Maybe that's why his hair is messy.

I think he was surprised to see me there. I asked him why he was in the garden. He didn't answer and he asked me if I was alright. He knew my name. I never told him my name.

I said I felt a little sick, but I would be better soon because I had homework to finish.

The man sat on the stone step beside me and took a small orange out of his pocket. He peeled it and said I could have it.

How did he get an orange? They are a summer treat.

The man said that I was sick because I was hungry. I forgot I hadn't eaten since the party yesterday. The orange would help me feel a little better. I was told by Arthur never to take things from strangers. The man smiled and said he was a friend.

He did know my name. I said I didn't know his name. But I wanted to be friends. 

He said his name was Dark. I asked why he was called 'Dark' if he had the whitest suit I ever saw.

Dark laughed. He said it's a nickname. That's when someone gives you another name that isn't your name. I asked if it's like how we call William ‘Will’. He said yes.

We talked. He had a really low voice. Sometimes it sounded funny.

He said I'm not a bad son. Brothers and sisters fight. That's what they do. 

I think he wanted to talk more but he saw something in the house and said he had to go. I asked if he would be back. He said he isn’t a bird but it is a secret how he gets into the garden.

He said that he'd be there for me. I would only need to ask for him by name if I didn't see him. I don't know what that means.

He left a few minutes ago and I went inside and I'm trying to write everything before I forget. He was really nice.

The orange is nice too.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 21, 10pm

Dear Diary,

Celine doesn't believe me. She said she saw me in the garden but I was talking to myself. She said Dark was an invisible person and that I was being stupid again.

I pulled her hair and left her room.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 23, 4pm

Dear Diary,

I saw Dark again. 

Mr. Bentley was here today after school so I needed to be fast. I crashed into Celine while running out to the garden.

I gave him this diary and asked him to write something in it so I could prove to Celine that he was real.

He wrote the message that's at the back of this book. There's no way Celine will call me stupid now.

From, Damien.

---

---

[This entry was at the back of the book. As we suspect this is the 'message' mentioned in the previous diary entry, we have elected to include it here.]

October 23rd.

Dear Celine,

I have been told you cannot see me. That's quite alright. Your brother isn't lying when he says that I am here.

Kind regards,

"Dark".

---

---

October 23, 9pm

Dear Diary,

Celine FINALLY said sorry for calling me stupid so many times. She saw me let go of the diary and saw it float in the air. I couldn't show her the message before Mr. Bentley kicked her out before my tutoring class started.

She doesn't know why she can't see him and is angry that Dark is hiding. I don't know why I can see him. 

I said sorry for hitting her and calling her stupid. She accepted the apology and said I needed to help her meet Dark.

I think that is fair. I think Celine will like Dark too.

From, Damien.

---

---

October 25, 11pm

Dear Diary, 

I had too much homework to look for Dark yesterday. I had lots today too. But I could go outside with Celine before it got too cold and dark. 

Dark was surprised to see me and her together. I pointed and told Celine that Dark was right there. She said I was lying. I gave Dark my pencil to hold and she saw it float in the air.

She still can't see him but she could hear him a little better the more we talked. Dark told us that both of us are able to 'see' and ‘hear’ things that others cannot but it takes time to learn how. Celine said it wasn't fair that I could do it without trying. I don't think it isn't fair. Celine can do loads of things better than me and I don't get angry.

Dark asked the two of us to always take care of each other no matter what. No matter if we are happy or angry, we still love each other. He said that's very important.

Celine said that she always looks out for me because she is the big sister. Dark patted the top of her head and said she should keep doing that.

I'm big enough to take care of myself.

We talked for a little while before we had to go back inside. Dark gave me back my pencil and said he won't be able to stay here all the time like he had before. He had something important to do. But he reminded me that I can call on him if I need him.

Mayhaps I will try one day.

From, Damien.

---

---

November 2, 6pm

Dear Diary,

I haven't seen Dark. I called his name and he didn't appear. I hope he is alright.

From, Damien.

---

---

February 3, 1am

Dear Diary,

I didn't do well in my mathematics test. Father was very angry at me. He said that I cannot be a good lawyer if I can't problem-solve fast enough. He said that I was wasting everyone's time and money by not getting the best grades in my tests. He said I was going to have extra mathematics classes on Saturdays until I never do that bad again.

He sent me to bed before supper. I can't sleep.

Celine and Mark have been busy with the school play. William is helping his family after school. I haven't seen Dark.

I wish there was someone I could talk to.

From, Damien.

---

---

6.10am, February 3rd

Dear Damien,

I have finally managed to help you fall asleep. There is not much more I can do to provide you further comfort, but I hope this letter in your journal will suffice.

You are a wonderful, intelligent little boy. I do not think it is reasonable for your father to be disappointed in your grades. I checked the paper that was still on your desk and you only made six mistakes out of fifty: half of them being unanswered questions that you ran out of time for. That is an 88% grade, which is remarkable when you are covering a topic taught to twelve year olds that you are only learning outside of school. 

I am very proud of you, Damien. I know you are capable of so many good things.

You do not deserve to be left up here alone. You should not be allowed to waste your days going from school to tutors to other classes with no time to be yourself. There are so many things in life that aren't judged by how well you perform in a school test or a piano recital. Your life is more important than results.

If I were not restricted by rules that I cannot explain, I would take you and your sister under my wing and bring you somewhere better, where you can play games and see the world beyond carefully curated gardens and stacks of books. Unfortunately… I cannot break these rules. However, it is unjust to simply leave it there.

Though I cannot do what I know is best, I refuse to accept that the 'rules' are more important. I will still find ways to visit you and make sure you are safe. So long as you are still able to see me, I will protect you when I am called upon.

You are much better than what your parents try to tell you, Damien. 

I hear movement in the corridor. I suspect it is Arthur coming to see how you are doing. I will be gone by the time you read this, but know that my absence does not mean a lack of care.

You are loved so much more than I could possibly put into words.

Stay safe.

Warmest regards,

“Read to me, won’t you?”

“Of course, love.”

You’re curled up together with Damien by the window sill, looking over his arm at the book in his hands. It’s a simple mystery novel that he’s been wanting to read, and you went and bought it for him yesterday. When he unwrapped it from the brown paper they decorated it with at the store, you saw as his eyes lit up the genuine excitement he has for a new book. You made him promise to read it to you since you got it for him, and he said he’d do it once the two of you got up to his cabin. 

He has the fire going in the wood stove somewhere behind the chair, and a quilt covering you to protect you from the chill from the window. It’s snowing outside, soft white flecks resting on the ground to create a blanket of silence to the outside world. A record player plays just out of reach, a collection of well used records leaned against it in a haphazard pile.

When they aren’t reading the words on the pages, Damien’s lips are pressed to your temple, just enjoying holding you close like this. It’s rare when the two of you are able to get away for a weekend or so, finding solace in the silence.

“Part of me wishes that we’d get snowed in up here, not have to go back to our boring jobs.”

“I mean… not like anyone would be able to check on us anyways that we wouldn’t want here with us.”

Your hand spiders up his chest, cupping his cheek as you press a kiss under his jaw. Tempting as you always are, he quickly put a bookmark in his place and pulls you further up his chest, taking your lips in his, only parting to speak.

“Mayhaps, but I also want you all to myself.”

“I’m sure William wants no part with either of us, and would happily be a third wheel if he ventured out here.”

“True, that’s what I get for having him for a best friend. Knowing him he’d go out “hunting” so we could get some alone time together.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that. Maybe you’ll finally teach me how to break down an animal.”

He smirks, kissing your nose.

“Another time, darling. I want to treasure this innocence of yours for as long as I can. There’s something inside you that changes when you break down an animal for the first time. I don’t wish to be the reason that twinkle in your eye fades for the last time.”

There’s actual concern in his voice, something underlying his tone, threatening to break. You reach up to hold his face in your hands, rubbing your thumbs against the beard he’s been growing out this winter. He relents into your hands after a few soothing motions, letting out a long, low sigh. His eyes are closed and he looks at peace with you in his lap, holding him close and dear to you. You kiss his nose, grabbing his book and opening it back up to the page you paused at. Damien tries to take it from you, but you pull it away before he can grasp it. 

“Nope, my turn to read. You just listen and sip your tea.’

“Darling, I can read my bo-”

“Damien, you aren’t the only one who wants to see the other happy. Just relax.”

He goes to protest again, chuckling with a shake of his head as he relents. 

——

You rummaged through the cupboard to find some of your favorite snacks but were met with empty space instead. You sighed and shook your head. Your secret stash of snacks has been disappearing at a suspiciously fast pace, so it was safe to assume someone was eating it. But eating all of it without notice? You’d have to have a stern word when you found the culprit. If at all.

This shortage has happened multiple times already. At first, you let it slide, but it was really beginning to get on your nerves. Scratch the beginning. You were mad. You were going to get your snack. Now.

Breathing slowly to clear your head a little, you decided to go for a late-night shopping run while you were at it. After all, there were some other things you wanted to buy, along with the snack. And then you’d catch whoever had been stealing them.

You walked down the corridor and noticed the time on the grandfather clock. You winced. If you wanted to go shopping you needed to get ready and fast.

You grabbed everything without thinking too much about the details. Your phone, purse, and a shopping bag and bolted for the door. You managed to faintly hear something Google was trying to say, but you had no time to listen. Off to the shop it was.

—

By the time you returned, it was pouring. And you hadn't brought an umbrella.

The door opened with a creak, and you stepped in, clothes dripping with water all over the carpet.

Out of the corner of your vision, Google raised an eyebrow before coughing silently: “I did attempt to tell you the forecast was saying it would rain.”

You pushed your wet hair out of your face. “Yeah. I don’t think that'll help now.”

“Well, if you had given me admin privileges, I would have been able to contact you even while you were away—“

You walked away irritated, not bothering to hear his ‘Giving me admin privileges is the solution to all your problems’ speech.

While sprinting to your room, you almost crashed into someone, but you were able to steady yourself and not make his suit wet. Suit. Only one man would wear a suit well into the evening.

Darkiplier eyed your very much drenched form from head to toe. Before you could say anything, he spoke, no visible emotion on his face. “Your clothes are wet.” It sounded as if he was merely making an observation.

A scoff escaped your lips. “Haven’t noticed.”

“Did Google not tell you about the weather?”

He who stayed mostly cooped up in his office most of the time had the audacity to lecture you for going out when it was raining?!

“Well, obviously I didn’t have the time to get an umbrella!” You threw your hands around, irritated, and stormed off into your room.

—

You woke up still tired. Your throat felt dry. You swallowed. Sharp stabbing pain. You groaned and turned around to check the time. You slept for 10 hours?!

The sun was already high in the sky, an unusual sight for an early bird like you. Weird, but you supposed it was better to get started for the day, you said to yourself, trying to sit up. Emphasis on trying.

You clutched the side of your head to dull the throbbing pain that emerged from your movement and flopped back onto your pillow. Well, this was a problem. Everyone would start wondering where you were sooner or later since you routinely woke up first.

The pain was almost enough for you to consider just staying in bed. And yet you couldn’t do that.

You’ve never allowed yourself to rest even while tired or under the weather. The work helped you focus on other things. Without it, your mind started to wander into territories it shouldn’t. Like those recurring dreams of a strange mansion or a poker game with people you didn't recognize… and it was doing it again. Which is exactly why you needed to get back to work.

You weren’t able to attempt to get out of bed again when your door handle swung open violently, almost slamming into the wall. There was almost no time to register the urgent steps stop as Wilford put his hands on your shoulders and began shaking you.

“Oh, my word, we thought you died!”

Wilford was a mess. Eyes shot wide, clothes untucked, hair unkempt, like he was running around and forgot to fix himself up.

“Wilford…” you said lethargically, Wilford’s shaking making your hoarse voice sound even quieter.

“Illinois said he hadn’t seen you at breakfast, so I thought you must have eaten already, but when I went to check, you weren't at your office and you’re always at your office, so we all thought you got kidnapped…” he continued ranting, almost like he was stuck in panic mode with no regards to the fact that you were actually safe and sound in your bed.

“Wilford, I’m fine!” you yelled as loudly as you could muster, which was not much but it seemed to break the loop he was in. He stopped shaking you. “I’m just not feeling well, that’s all…”

“Oh…” he said softly, slowly pulling his arms away.

His eyebrows scrunched up in almost a comical fashion. “You’re sick,” he stated, as if for some sort of confirmation.

“I’m not that sick—”

“But you never get sick.” He shook his head, looking positively baffled.

“Again, I’m not that sick. Just woke up a little later than usual, nothing to be worried about…”

“You are ill?” you heard his voice before you saw him appear. Darkiplier was standing in your doorway. Who knows for how long. His face looked neutral, except for the smallest furrow of his eyebrows.

You sighed, exasperated. This was too much to deal with in your current state. Which was not that bad, mind you. Besides, how and why was Darkiplier even in your room? Wilford, you could understand. You were acquaintances—friends even, but it was different with Darkiplier.

Sure, you had mutual respect, but your relationship had always been on the more formal side, seeing as you were one of the few people he could rely on to complete the tasks you agreed on. But he would have never struck you as a person to be worried about someone’s physical state.

“I am fine. It’s just a cold. Nothing I can’t handle—“

He interrupted you before you could finish your sentence.

“A cold? A cold that leaves you unable to get out of your room until noon? Is just a cold the reason you are left bedridden and shivering despite being underneath a duvet?” He walked until he was near your bed. There was a cold sort of fury hidden behind his eyes.

That irked you. Of course he never cared about your well-being. He only cared about how the search for Mark continued. And no matter who helped him along the way, as long as he got his revenge, nothing else mattered.

You weren’t able to yell, but your gruff voice was teeming with anger. “Well, I’m sorry I had the gall to fall ill. But not all of us have the ability to work for days on end. Some of us are human!”

You hadn’t meant to say that last sentence. Pain flashed in his eyes. You’ve always had a suspicion that he used to be human. At least at some point in time. You got your confirmation now. You would’ve regretted saying it any other time, but not now. Not now when you finally found out the thing he cared about most was your productivity.

“I think you should leave,” you said coldly.

You’ve honestly forgotten Wilford was also in the room as he hasn’t butted into your conversation like he usually did. Darkiplier’s face was stunned, maybe even regretful, but he did nothing, as Wilford took him by the shoulder and led him away from your room.

As they left, you turned to the wall and closed your eyes. Tired from the emotional exchange and your current sickness, slumber soon overtook you.

—

You woke up still tired, your mouth dry as if you hadn’t drank water in forever. Which, you hadn’t. Your stomach ached, but you highly doubted you could muster up enough strength to make yourself something. Another grumble of your stomach convinced you otherwise.

You looked around for a bathrobe to put on over your pajamas when your eyes got caught on your bedside table. There, lay a tray with a plate full of chicken noodle soup along with a spoon.

Did someone…. make you food? You have eaten along with some of them, such as breakfasts with Illinois or Yancy, and sometimes Wilford liked to join you for lunch. Then there were the late dinners in Darkiplier's office. But this? You weren't used to that. You leaned over and put the tray on your lap, careful not to spill anything.

You wondered who would do such a thoughtful thing for you. It looked homemade, so that ruled Yancy out. He approached you a few weeks ago if you could re-teach him some simple recipes since he's been in prison for so long that he's forgotten how to cook.

You were familiar with Illinois’ cooking skills, but you doubted he would find the time to make you soup. He’s always joked that he can’t give anyone special treatment or else they’d fall in love with him.

And Darkiplier… you threw that thought away before you could even start thinking about it properly. As if he’d be all nice to you after treating you no less than an expendable employee.

Wilford, you couldn’t be sure about. You’ve seen him cook occasionally, not soup, but he seemed to have both skill and like you enough to be so considerate.

Satisfied with your thought process, you set to eating the surprisingly still warm soup that you deduced Wilford had made for you.

After about twenty minutes, you already having finished your soup and cuddled up facing the wall to sleep the cold off some more, a quiet click of the door handle filled the silence of your room. Soft tentative steps tapped on the floor, seemingly so as not to wake you up.

You turned around.

“Hey Wil, thanks for the soup…” You trailed off when you realized the one who entered your room was, in fact, not Wilford but a rather startled Darkiplier. You have never seen him with that much exposed emotion. He was frozen reaching for the empty plate, his eyes slightly wide, as if he got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. It, however, didn’t last long. He promptly straightened his back, wiping imaginary dust from his jacket, his expression back to being deadpan as usual.

“Why are you taking that plate?” You eyed him warily. Was he here to chastise you for not working? Or perhaps—

“Because I made the soup. I figured you’d have finished it by now.” He moved to pick the tray up.

“You made the soup? You made me soup?” you blurted out before you could really think about what you were saying.

“You’ve seen me cook,” he said in the most matter-of-fact voice.

“Well, yes, but…” You sat up and tried to gather your thoughts. It all lead down to just one thing. “Why?”

“You are ill. You need rest and warm food. So I made you soup. Is that enough of a reason for you?” There was a hint of humor in his voice, his expression mostly unchanged, except for the faintest sparkle in his eyes.

You were absolutely baffled. He gets angry at you for getting sick and not working and then makes you soup?

He seemed to notice your irritation increasing and opened his mouth to speak. You crossed your arms and leaned on the pillow.

“Listen. I know a plate of soup isn’t enough to make up for what I had said. And I didn’t just make the soup to make amends. I want you to get better. I know what’s done is done but you need to know the truth.” He looked away momentarily as if he had to find strength to continue. “I wasn’t angry with you for not being able to work. I was angry… with myself.”

“What?”

He sighed, looking away.

“What I had said and the way that I had said it was harsh. There is no excuse for it. I was just…” He took a deep breath and shook his head absentmindedly. “I was worried. When you didn't show up in the morning. I thought something had happened. That maybe you had left or perhaps needed some time off. You work too hard all the time. And I did not want to intrude even if I was worried. A part of me was glad you finally decided to take some time for yourself. But when I was passing by and heard Wil say you were ill…” He looked off to the side for a moment.

“I have never seen you ill. Ever. So I said things without thinking them over. And for what it's worth, I am sorry.”

Your eyebrows only scrunched up more. Many emotions of increasingly more confusing variations started bubbling up in your brain. You didn’t say a thing. Just kept looking at him as if that would help you comprehend what exactly he had just said.

He sighed.

“Do with that what you will. But believe me when I say, I am being completely sincere that I truly hope you do get better.” With that, he grabbed the tray with the plate and left your room.

A part of you wanted to say something. To tell him to come back. But you couldn’t will your tongue to move. And not because you were sick.

With a closing of the door, you were left alone once again. This time, with many more things to think about.

—

Evening rolled around faster than you expected it to. You spent most of the time sleeping. You even felt good enough to make some light dinner for yourself. It seemed none of the residents were up to their usual antics of annoying you today. Lovingly, of course, but you had thought when they came to know you weren’t dying, they’d come to visit you. But that didn’t seem to be the case as no-one has been in your room since your… exchange with Darkiplier.

But as all sickness goes, it gets worse in the evening. And so you were lying in your bed, as lethargic as ever, unable to even sleep.

Your door creaked, the sound so quiet you wouldn’t have been able to hear it if you hadn’t been lying in dead silence.

Darkiplier opened the door and looked over into the room. Your eyes met. And even through your hazy state, it felt like you locked eyes just a second too long. Not like any other time.

“I... came to check up on you.” He looked away, cutting the silence.

“That's awfully nice of you.” You weren’t really thinking about what you were saying. It seemed to a side effect of your illness. Or maybe you weren’t so guarded with him anymore.

His eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. It looked oddly adorable.

“Are you feeling alright?”

You didn't know if he meant healthwise or your current state of mind, and you didn’t care.

“Absolutely.”

He walked over closer, right up to your bed. You watched him curiously, a bit more attentive even despite your heavy mood.

“No fever or anything of the sorts?”

You scoffed lightly. “No, nothing of the sort. Really, I’m fine. Never been better. See?”

You moved to sit up when he gently grabbed your shoulders and pushed you back onto the pillow.

Breathing became a foreign concept. Even your sickness existed only in the back of your mind. Your body was faintly pressed against the plush of your pillow, yet everything paled in comparison to all but one sensation.

Him.

So close.

And yet not close enough.

His hands on your shoulders were secure and just a bit insistent. But not necessarily painful.

“Don’t get up, you need to rest,” he said firmly but softly just the same.

Your eyebrows raised. He leaned closer. And closer. You closed your eyes.

The touch of his lips on your forehead was feather light.

After seconds which seemed like hours, he pulled away just a little, deep in thought. “Your forehead isn’t warm so it seems like you really don't have a fever…”

It sounded like an inner monologue or a passing thought, but your brain froze from the moment he kissed your forehead. It was so soft you weren’t sure you weren’t actually having a fever dream. Your eyes moved on their own accord, studying his face. His eyes caught yours. You have never seen him from this close. Your mouth was slightly open as a shallow shaky breath escaped it. It was as if the Earth itself stopped spinning and all you could feel were his eyes. Staring. Pensive. As if he himself was also frozen.

“You… you shouldn’t be so close to me,” you said quietly, almost indiscernibly. Your mouth was dry. A few seconds passed. Silence. Just him and you. And his eyes. Oh, those dark eyes. They went deeper than you thought. Like they were their own little galaxies. Did he even hear what you said? Did he—.

“Why?” His voice was quiet, similarly to yours, with a slight purr that you’d never heard from him. You could feel his chest rise and fall, dangerously close to your own. Your heart was beating so quickly that you wondered if he could feel it. A shiver ran up your spine. Your brain desperately searched for an excuse. But did you really want him to stop?

“I’ll get you sick,” you tried. Oddly enough, you weren’t feeling all that unwell at the moment. You were, however, feeling something else you couldn’t describe. And his closeness only heightened the tingling in your stomach.

“I’m not human. I can’t get sick,” he said without missing a beat, almost matter-of-factly.

Curses, he’s always been good at quick responses. But— Hang on. How would you know such a thing about him? You’ve spent some time together, yes but… Not enough to know an obscure detail like that.

“But you were.” The words left your lips almost by themselves. And yet, something in you knows that it’s the truth. Somehow, someway you feel he used to be something else before this.

His face darkened, his expression shifting to the all too familiar one you knew from working together late into the night.

“I… used to,” he admitted. You had to keep your mouth from falling open. This was the clearest confirmation of their past you’ve gotten out of any of the residents of this mansion. And to get it from Darkiplier first… If anybody told you a few days ago that such a thing would happen, you would’ve laughed straight into their face. But now… Him sharing something vulnerable with you felt strangely familiar. Like it happened before.

“I can see that brilliant mind of yours working. But whatever questions you want to ask, save them. There is time and place for such conversation and this is not it.” This was his way of saying no to talking about this topic. Rather tactfully from how you’ve seen him snap at Google when he is genuinely angry for a sensible reason. There was, however, something in the sentence that you could use to gauge him. You could consider yourself fairly well-versed in a few things in life but for Darkiplier to call you brilliant? And with such casualty. Like he has already said it before. But he hasn’t. There had to be something more behind it.

“’Brilliant mind’?” you repeated his words inquisitively.

His eyebrows furrowed apprehensively and you knew then you struck gold. He pulled back from leaning over you but you followed suit, sitting up on your bed.

“Forget it,” he said, his voice clipped.

“No.” You surprised yourself by how fast you replied. And it seemed to have the same effect on Darkiplier since he didn’t move from the spot. Encouraged by this, you continued: “… No. Why did you say that?”

“I…” There it was—he hesitated. You waited with bated breath for him to reveal whatever it was he kept trying to hide. You knew it was something that weighed heavy on his soul.

“It is none of your concern,” he said after a few tense seconds of your waiting. Ever the diplomat. Was he a politician in his past life or what?

“Considering the fact that you said something about me, I think it very much concerns me.”

“Look, you are ill and there are things that are beyond your understanding—”

“Then tell me something I can know.” That was it. Your last ditch effort to get to know something more. More about this man who went from only a colleague to someone who has actually, and much to your surprise, proved to care for you. As much as a man with seemingly so little external emotion such as Darkiplier was. But only seemingly. You have seen him smile before this even if it was scarce. But now you could finally admit — it did suit him.

Darkiplier looked at you, brows furrowed, seeming almost perplexed. “You truly wish to know more about me?” he asked, to which you nodded quickly before he could change his mind and decide to leave right then and there.

He sighed.

Then begrudgingly sat back down on your bed.

Bingo.

You made yourself more comfortable, propping your back on the wall behind you. It felt like a child getting ready to hear a bedtime story. Darkiplier raised an eyebrow and let out a soft breath through his nose, the corner of his mouth raising almost imperceptibly.

He looked to the side thoughtfully for a few moments before turning back to you.

“I don’t have to breathe.”

Well, that was unexpected. You thought he would talk about his life experiences or the people that he met. Then again, you should have known better than to think he would actually tell you anything about his past or elaborate on the whole “brilliant mind” comment. Nonetheless, this new information was quite intriguing.

“What do you mean you don't have to breathe?”

”It’s… more of a habit than anything physiologically needed.”

“But— your chest raises and falls so regularly...” you said, more musing out loud than actually meaning to share any information.

“Do you watch me?” he asked. If you didn’t know him well, you’d think he’s irritated, his tone slightly accusatory. But when you looked at him, there was that familiar tug of the corner of his lips. He was playing. He didn’t sport that look often but he pulled it off quite well.

Apparently, you had drifted off again because his lopsided smirk had only gotten wider and he was closer than before.

“Do I have the privilege of your presence now?”

He was close. Really close. Like when he kissed your forehead to check for a fever kind of close. Your heartbeat picked up, and you could only hope he couldn't hear it. Heartbeat... does he have one? You must have spoken out loud because a thoughtful look spread across his features.

“I’m not too sure myself. Want to check?”

Did he really mean to say that? You blinked. His expression hasn’t changed. So he did.

You placed your hand on his chest matter-of-factly. That’s all it was. A checkup. You weren’t doing anything weird. It’s not like you felt his dichromatic aura bristle slightly at your touch before returning to a faint buzz, albeit a bit louder than a few moments ago. With him wearing only a dress shirt, you could feel his skin and the lack of a heartbeat.

“You know I’m only letting you feel me up like this because you’re ill.”

“Stop being cheeky.” You clicked your tongue in irritation when he disrupted your concentration. There was a faint huff of laughter before you refocused on what lay beneath your palm.

“There’s nothing,” you said quietly.

“You won’t be able to feel it like this.” And with that, you found your hand pressed even closer to his ribcage, covered by his. You felt his chest rise and fall more deeply, almost like you’d feel a regular person breathe. That’s when you felt it. A faint heartbeat right under your fingertips.

Badump badump

Even with his palm on top of yours being extremely distracting, it was clearly discernible. Orderly. A sign of life where there really wasn’t one.

His hand lifted from yours but you kept it there, utterly entranced by aseathe sensation of his heartbeat. He didn’t comment on it and spoke up, his tone softer than you’ve ever heard him be.

“There has to be oxygen for it to beat strongly. And that happens when I breathe more. Not that I need to per se, it’s more of a habit.”

“How is that even possible? How can you function without air?”

“There are no... rules for the amalgamation that I have become.”

That was one genuine bit of emotion you’ve seen him express. Frustration maybe? You’d have thought Darkiplier had come to terms with what he had turned into but it seems time can’t heal all wounds.

“I have been... this way for a very very long time. And yet I don’t know the constraints of myself.”

You hummed in understanding, mind racing with thoughts of what exactly he can and can’t do, absent-mindedly tracing the buttons of his shirt.

You felt his heart speed up, his chest jerking in as air hit your fingers. Your eyes flicked back up to his face.

Burning heat. Molten lava and blistering cold of his aura. His eyes searched yours for something. You weren’t sure what. Maybe he—The cracking of a mirror...

The intensity of his gaze made your hand twitch back, your whole body freezing up.

After a few seconds, he exhaled and smiled softly, bittersweet yet understanding, tender even — have you ever seen him smiling like that? — and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear.

“Rest. You need it.” He stood up and headed towards the door. Just when he was about to reach the door handle, you called out:

“Dark?”

He turned around, a look akin to hope in his eyes.

“Yes?”

“Will you… make me soup again?”

The tender smile was there again, devoid of all previous bittersweetness.

“Of course. Anytime, darling.”

It was only when he left that you realized, you called him ‘Dark’ instead of Darkiplier. And that Dark apparently resorts to pet names.

——

Fun fact I wanted to write it but could not manage to insert anywhere: Dark was the one who told the others not to disturb the reader :)) Oh and either Wilford or Yancy is stealing your snacks. Which one do you think it is?