#hee-hoo

When you thought about it, you were the living embodiment of Task Rabbit, and you didn’t know how to feel about that.

For the last six months, you’d been running errands for the various residents of the manor, ranging from delivering packages to reminding them where they were supposed to be. You couldn’t exactly call it ‘working’ for them, because that would have implied you were getting paid, but you supposed the reward for your service was a rent-free room on the first floor.

You had a thing about heights now.

That brought you to the other reason you were still there, though. Your life had quickly become a tangle of unanswerable questions and questionable answers, only muddied further by the growth of your relationships with the people you currently lived with. One moment, you were using your hard-earned college degree to sweep floors in a local café, and then the next, you were face to face with one man who had killed you and another who had stolen your body because – oh, yeah – reincarnation was a thing, apparently, and you used to be the district attorney in the 1920s, because, of course, why didn’t you assume that before—

Despite all the time that had passed between that revelation and now, that subject still touched a nerve.

You supposed you would get over it quicker had you not chose to interact with one of those men on a day-to-day basis. A wound never quite healed if you kept picking at it, and you voluntarily dug your fingers in every time that you made your way up the stairs from the foyer to the second-floor hallway.

You slid your hand up the banister alongside you, remembering to lift your hand when you got to the sixth step to avoid the splinter that stuck out like a threat. You made a mental note to sand that down later as you stepped onto the rug. There were a number of residents who had a flair for the dramatic, and using the banister as an express route to the first floor was not below any of them. Considering the message that you were on your way to deliver, it was an accident waiting to happen.

Shoes planting themselves outside his office, you lifted your hand to knock on Dark’s door. Any interaction that didn’t begin with that courtesy was off to a bad start automatically – read: anytime that Wilford appeared in the study – and you didn’t want to get him anymore annoyed than he was going to be. 

Or than he already was; the seconds ticked by, each one dragging you further into concern. Ordinarily, having a small delay was to be expected, but Dark was anything but ordinary, and those seconds meant a lot.

That was why, when the creaking bit away at the silent hallway, your first words were a refrain. “I can come back later if you’re busy.”

It didn’t take more than a second for Dark to respond, “No, it’s quite alright.”

For someone so cold and single-minded, he had never been able to shirk the manners that had been imparted onto him. You knew he had never been taught them directly, but some influence from the facets of his mind was inescapable. As such, he was going to let you in, and the only thing that changed was how far he glanced down the hallway before he closed the door behind you.

Once to the left, once to the right – repeated twice more.

You marched into the study swiftly, every part of you becoming painted with an inky blackness the moment you crossed the threshold. It was like there was a physical barrier between the hallway and the room, as though the door were still firmly locked shut with barely a slit at the bottom to let the air flow. Sometimes, you wondered if it were magic or just for dramatic effect.

Knowing the man behind you, it was probably both, but you weren’t about to have a conversation in the cave from The Descent, so you gripped the closest swath of fabric and tugged it to the side. Rays of sunlight poured in, finally letting you see your own hands and those of Dark as he pulled his chair out from under the desk.

They were always so gray. It was the first thing you had noticed about him when you met, just how surprisingly monochrome he was because it wasn’t just his hands, no, it was him. He was completely devoid of color, every pigment taken up by the waves of red and blue that surrounded him. Even his clothes were one spectrum of white and black, from his shoes to his suit to his glasses that he adjusted when he was situated between the arms of the chair.

“Thank you,” he muttered, making himself comfortable again, “I never noticed how dark it is in here.”

You decided to keep your grin at the irony to yourself, and, instead, you deigned to sit in the other chair that had been moved to the middle of the room. It was a plush, leather thing – more an obstacle than a piece of furniture – that someone had taken it from the library the first time Dark had called for a one-on-one meeting. It had taken up residency in the study after that, and you often found yourself using it for general relaxation whenever the rest of the manor got too loud.

But now was no time to be yearning for a nap. You had important business to tend to, even if you had to fight back a grimace at the mere texture of the manila envelope in your hands. In a last-ditch attempt to seem confident, you balanced it on the edge of the wooden surface while plastering a small grin over your lips.

“Now,” you sighed, “do you want the good news or the bad news?”

“Neither would be preferable, but I’ll hear the worst first.”

A pessimist at heart was Dark, but he was smart enough to hear both sides of the story before acting. No matter how much he tried to demonstrate himself as a force not to be messed with, creeping into loose-cannon territory was below him, and there was a measurable pattern to the punishments that he doled out for each transgression. According to what you’d seen, there was a good chance he’d let the offenders off with just a warning.

With a cautious tone, you said, “We lost Hee-Hoo again.” And when the corners of his mouth tilted into a frown and his fingers wrapped against the arms of the chair, you rushed to amend, “But it wasn’t the Jims’ fault this time.”

“So somebody else let him out?”

You grimaced, knowing exactly the words that he wanted to hear and that he would indeed hear if you told him the truth. You didn’t have a lot of ways out from this problem; if you stayed silent, a single house meeting would make everyone responsible, but if you ratted the resident out, you had very few methods of saving their hide. Even before you made a decision, you had to contend with Dark’s piercing gaze he knew damn well you couldn’t refuse.

The words came rushing out of your mouth before you had a second to comprehend them. “I left the gate open last time I went to check on the squirrels. I thought I closed it behind me, but I didn’t, so Hee-Hoo managed to get out.”

Dark didn’t have to say that he didn’t believe you, and you silently berated the hold-over impulses from the district attorney. You had the speed, but you didn’t have the logic.

“Bing didn’t mean to—”

He cut you off with a stern and blunt, “Bing.”

“He didn’t mean to. And he’s trying to find him right now.”

A quirked eyebrow and a slow blink.

“Google’s with him.”

At that, Dark leaned back in his chair – the material dipped ever-so-slightly behind him – and his shoulders visibly dropped in relief. Bing, alone, wandering the city in search of a wild animal was not the most comforting image, you would admit. Having someone to guide him, and to make sure he didn’t short-circuit in a fountain, gave him understandable hope that he would come back safe.

“Good,” Dark said, removing his glasses, as though getting a headache would supersede any from the stress of the residents. “At least Google will be able to bail him out if he gets into any trouble.”

“What, you think a naked caveman running through the city center will draw attention?”

The room stayed just as silent, but his hands moved quickly to drag across his face, shielding the glint of mirth you knew had grown in his eyes, like the first star in the night sky. Of course, he was much too busy being dramatic and broody to outwardly laugh at your joke – perish the thought that he experienced emotions.

Still, you ducked your head slightly to peek under Dark’s hand. “Do you want to hear the good news?” you asked teasingly.

He nodded as he ran that same hand through the curls of his hair.

“Wilford’s late-night show got approved.”

“And that is the good news?”

“Yes, it is—” You levelled him with a certain look of expectancy, “—Would you rather he try to interview Murdock again?”

You, Dark, and everyone else in the manor remembered the last time those two were in the same room. It wasn’t a shock when they pranced off to compare favorite weaponry – you, for one, had heard the merits of knives over guns too many times to count – but it was certainly a concern when the lovesick schoolgirl joined in with them, and then, suddenly, everyone was too afraid to sleep at night. 

The only ones who actually got any sleep for the next few days were the Jims because they slept in shifts.

With that thought in mind, you said, “It’d do him good to interact with the general public for once.”

“The general public is what I’m worried for.”

The second that his hand met the surface of the desk, you reached over and laid your own over the top. He was as cold as he had been the day you met, but the pressure was more than enough to make up for it. It had Dark looking directly at you, not hiding from the comfort you were trying to provide or pushing back against it. It was just you and him together in that study.

“Hey, as long as he’s happy, right?” you muttered.

Despite not needing to, Dark took a breath in and then let it out, before he responded in kind. “As long as he’s happy.”

“And he’s talking about joining the war!”

“It’s for a good cause, isn’t it?”

With one set of fingers curled around your own mug of tea, you gently guided Damien’s into his hands, making sure it was secure before you let go. The ceramic wasn’t too hot, but it was better safe than sorry, especially when the little loveseat was vulnerable to staining. Now that you thought about it, maybe eggshell wasn’t the best color to go for when half of your nights ended with your drunken stumbling with a bottle of beer hoisted high.

Although, you supposed that the little pockmarks of soaked in alcohol served to tell the story of your college career.

You covered some of them up as you dropped onto the cushion beside Damien.

“Well, of course, but couldn’t he choose something less suicidal?”

You shrugged as you took a sip from your mug. “Then he wouldn’t be Will.”

In the corner of your eye, you saw him inaudibly tut at your suggestion, but his avoiding eye contact told you everything that you needed to know – that he knew you were right.

But there were still some things that supported his argument, mostly the emotional side that you never liked to disagree with. William had been Damien’s friend since they could conceptualize friendship, and to hear that he was going off to take blind shots against other soldiers? He was bound to be upset. The most you could do was try and get him to see the positives of the situation, however hard you had to search through the blood and gore of the last three years.

“Besides,” you started with a knock to his shoulder, “it can’t last forever, and when it does end, he’ll be back home, and you won’t have to worry about him.”

“I think I’m going to worry about him until the day I die.”

His head flopped against the channel back of the couch, and you joined him when you sensed there was going to be no more talking for the moment. It was a quant silence that enveloped the pair of you, as if a bubble had formed to protect you from the outside world, but that left you to the mercy of your internal troubles.

You didn’t know it, but, for Damien, that included you – or, rather, your safety. Whether or not William skipped off with a gun in hand, war was coming. It had come for Europe, and an ocean wouldn’t stop its slow but deliberate march forward. You wouldn’t be on the frontlines, neither of you would, but there would be damage back home, and he didn’t want you to get caught in it. He didn’t want to lose someone else to the war.

He didn’t want to lose you.

Your thigh tapped against his own.

“What’s on your mind, huh?” you asked. You had been watching him from the side, saw that he was thinking about something and that the conclusion he came to was not a happy one.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Come on, there’s something bugging you.”

Damien sighed. It was just his luck to fall for someone with the stubbornness of a mule welded to the ground.

Although he opened his mouth to explain, only the vaguest of noises came out when he turned to look at you. You were smiling. Damien was wondering if you would make it through the war, and there you were, with a lopsided grin that barely showed a tooth peeking out from the edge. What was more, you were planted firmly against the crook of the loveseat, in the process of pulling a leg up to sit more comfortably. You weren’t moving, come hell or high waters.

Maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to worry about you if you were with him.

He grabbed your ankle and tugged you down so that you slid awkwardly against the arm. Your squawk of dismay was only met with a quiet, “Nothing.” And if you had any ideas about asking anymore questions, they were trampled by the lazy play fight you would be caught in for the next ten minutes.

Back then, everything was different – everyone was different. The man who ran off to the trenches was more William than Wilford, and most of the lucid time you spent with Damien was helping him up onto a keg or down from a hangover. The only thing that didn’t really change was the frequency with which you found yourself pouring over documents with the man in front of you. Your identities might have been molded by experience, but your pastimes were not.

And that gave you pause.

Absentmindedly, you squeezed Dark’s hand tighter, having wrapped your fingers around his palm sometime in your memories.

“Y’know, you could take a break.”

“A break?” The bleakness of his tone only made you want to push harder.

“Not a long one. Just…” you trailed off into a sigh. You didn’t remember a day that he spent outside of the manor, and you were well aware of the years between your presence – even getting into the hallway was a miracle. “You need to get out of here at some point. It’s not healthy to stay cooped up in your office for days on end.”

You leaned forward despite the look he sent you. You were well aware that he wasn’t human.

“You still take on stress like everyone else does,” you said, “and, right now, you’ve taken on too much.”

In a fraction of a second, Dark’s eyes shot away from you, and, although they returned soon enough, he was too slow for you not to notice. He was cracking, and that was just what you needed to see.

He reached for the files that you had placed down earlier as he muttered, “It won’t kill me.”

He was an inch away from getting it, too, when you pressed your spare hand down on the top, securing it firmly against the desk and receiving a huff from him for it. 

“It’ll make you miserable, though. If you keep going like this, you’ll just keep breaking down until you don’t have a choice.”

Dark worked like a machine. As efficient, constant, downright surgical as he might have been, he also required upkeep. At the start, he was a chainsaw of a man, teeth bared at every little thing, whether he would bite into the soft remnants of a garden or the debris of a wrought iron fence. However, as he started to get worn down, rust invading his muscles and atrophying his veins, he remolded himself into a clock. The hands would go around and around and around, spinning endlessly in a routine of management. Not a second early and not a second late, lest everything fall apart. But that wasn’t the problem, no, it was that the rust was never removed, and it spread just like before. At this point, where the ticking was a distant whisper and the numbers were half-scrubbed off, there was very little of him left.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what was keeping him going on like that.

“They’ll be okay.” It was an undebatable statement that had Dark looking from the office door back to you.

“What makes you think that? Weren’t you telling me about our escapee not thirty seconds ago?” Still, he let the file go and dropped back into his chair. “If no one’s here to look after them, they’ll burn down the manor or die trying.”

You knew Dark was – collectively – over one hundred years old, but the air of tire had never been so strong. It was no longer a case of wanting him to take a break, shoddy personal opinion, it was now a need. He was so clearly on the cusp of toppling over the edge that you resolved to take drastic action, which just so happened to be utilizing one of the district attorney’s old tactics.

“Don’t you trust me?”

Emotional blackmail.

There was a stab of guilt in your chest that you ushered away as he leapt to say, “Of course I do.”

You chose not to say anything else, wary of pulling at his heart strings too much. He was smart, he’d figure it out – and he did, but he was also smart enough to protest, despite the warping of the bi-colored waves around him.

“You can’t keep them in line all by yourself.”

“Hey, you said you trust me.”

“I do trust you. Them, not so much.”

The rhythm of your fingers tapped on the file produced a dozen small thumps. There was little evidence to combat that, and Dark was gradually regaining control of the red and blue lines. He didn’t have the upper hand yet, but if you waited any longer, you’d surely lose your advantage.

“What if I make them all promise to behave?”

A light scoff. “I’d applaud you,” Dark replied with an underlying amusement. “It’d be the first thing they have ever agreed on since two of them were put under the same roof.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” was your offering. While you didn’t expect it to have much of an effect, the combined weight of your promise and stubbornness appeared to give you the break in his wall that you needed.

Meanwhile, Dark was trying not to let anything give. It wasn’t that he had lied; he did trust you, that wasn’t the issue at hand. He had seen what happened when someone tried to wrangle the residents of the manor – he was the unliving consequences of that – and he would do anything possible or impossible to make sure you didn’t fall victim to that same fate. What you were suggesting was just a small break, but if he gave an inch, you would take a mile, and then he’d be sent on day, week, month-long vacations with nothing to do except watch you bow under the weight, and then he’d be in your place, begging you to take some time off, and then you’d refuse because you felt like you were saving him from the work, and then you’d bow deeper and deeper and deeper until you broke, and then—

And then what was he supposed with the shattered pieces of you?

What was he supposed to do without you?

That explanation wasn’t going to fly with you, so, instead, he simply said, “I don’t want you wasting your time on this.”

“It’s not a waste.” Your assertion came with a confidence Dark could never hope to match, and he followed your eyes as you rose to your feet, that surefire smile playing on your lips.

“Give me twenty-four hours, and I swear, I’ll have their agreements, signed and dated.”

It was your final bid. If this didn’t work, basically telling him that you were going to do this, then you would leave the issue alone. For today, at least. Maybe until dinner. Probably just an hour or two.

Oh, who were you kidding? You would wait outside his office and tackle him the moment he opened the door.

But fortunately, Dark sat up straighter in his chair and sent you a weary look that nearly had you bouncing up and down on your feet.

Before he even opened your mouth, you knew you had won.

“Do you really want to?”

“Yes.”

“And can I change your mind?”

“Nope.”

He gestured to the door with one hand and used the other to give yours one last gentle squeeze.

“Good luck, dear.”

In every other room of the manor, there were cameras. Theoretically, it was for safety. Practically, it was to fuel Google’s megalomania. The line that had been drawn was laid at the threshold of Dark’s office, and that meant it was just the two of you who were privy to the look you shared. It was something more than intimate, it was an undeniable and unbreakable confirmation of belief in one another – that you would get those signatures, and that Dark would follow through with the break.

The corners of Dark’s mouth tilted upwards ever so slightly, propping up his cheeks and returning the twinkle to his eye. You responded in kind, a slight chuckle and a playful wink, before you opened the door and ventured out with a plan of attack.

While that moment stayed contained in the office, your giddy sprint down the hallway was not as protected, but you were too hyped up on adrenaline to care about who saw you.

The energy you wore like a second skin was unexpected, but the stubbornness was no surprise to Dark. Even though you were in a new body, had lived years of a double life that you didn’t know was a double life, that was a trait that stuck to you. It wasn’t a bad thing. In some ways, it was a survival tactic because, as nice as some of the residents of the manor were, nearly all of them had a tendency to push boundaries. Sticking up for yourself and your ideas let you keep your head above water.

It wasn’t too often that it was used against him, though. Only you and Wilford were able to get that far without being thrown through the nearest window. Both of you were a soft spot, but you were one he deigned to keep hidden. You were open with everyone, and you did your best to get along with them. Wil was too erratic for people to get close to, but you?

Unless there was evidence to suggest otherwise, you helped. 

You always had.

As soon as class ended, students ran for the doors like bats out of hell, or, more accurately, like a flood because it was incredibly easy to get swept up in it and pushed to the other side of campus before you could escape the stream. Even the professor tended to duck out in the chaos of it all. It was much easier to just wait the extra few minutes before it was relatively calm again, so that left you, Damien, and a handful of other classmates milling around the room.

As you shoved out your chair from your desk, you made idle chat with your friend about upcoming assignments and visits back home for the holidays. You knew Damien wasn’t excited to return to the white-knuckled grip of his parents, so you tried to keep the positive in his mind – it didn’t have to just be networking and arguments, it could be seeing his sister and relaxing after months of college stress. He tended to lament the fact that you would be staying after you said these things, but a pat on the back and a shared cup of tea never failed to make him smile.

In that moment, you were debating a complete reconstruction of your organizer when a voice broke through the mumble of the classroom.

“Oi, Whitacre!”

You stuffed a sheet into your bag – adding another reason to reorganize to the list – as Damien whirled around to see who had spoken.

It came from one of the boys in the middle of the room. A clump had formed around a table, all of them old-money and none of them with respect for the tables they were sitting on. They still acted like teenagers, and it made you grimace when you thought about them in the legal profession or in any sense at all.

Damien had no such qualms. He called back in a less abrasive tone, “Do you need something, Jameson?”

“Wanted to know if you’re coming tonight!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at you. You shrugged and collected your papers. No matter your reputation as a live wire, you didn’t like to frequent wherever Thomas Jameson went. You were on opposite sides of the university by design, and you wanted to keep it that way.

With no option, he asked, “Where?”

“Bunker’s place, a party. His father’s out and his sister won’t tell.” Although he trailed off into a laugh, the man beside him, the aforementioned George Bunker, attempted to shove his friend off the table. He wobbled, shot him a dirty look, and then returned his attention to Damien, who, ever the Victorian gentleman, sent back a small smile.

“Thanks for the invitation, but we’ve got things to do tonight.”

“Come on, it’s only one night. There aren’t a lot of chances to let loose like this.”

In the background, you heard another conflict between Bunker and Jameson – which ended in the thud of someone falling off a chair – but you didn’t pay any mind to it. Instead, you glanced towards your own friend, whose expression told you everything you needed to know, if his body language wasn’t already screaming it. The slight twitch of his fingers on the desk, the sliver of his lip that had been pulled into his mouth to be worried by his teeth, the practically invisible raise of his shoulders. 

“I have plans with my friend already.”

“Just blow them off, Whitacre, they won’t care.”

“I think they will, Jameson,” you piped up, though you didn’t bother to connect the dots for him.

His head lolled backwards, and he spoke to the ceiling with the whining of a toddler, “I wasn’t talking to you, was I?”

Your mouth opened to snap back as soon as he started, but Damien laid a hand on your shoulder, an old grounding method from your first term, before saying, “We have exams to study for.”

“The next one’s in two weeks, you’re not going to lose your perfect grades over one bash.”

Why was he trying so hard? Was it a power play or just him being a jerk for the fun of it? It was certainly getting on your nerves, but the thing that got to you most was the sight of Damien beside you. His hand carded through his hair, and his eyes flickered to the sides of the room, to the door, to you, and back to the door like butterflies in a jar – Jameson was a kid shaking it for his own amusement.

After the fact, you realized it would have been wiser to just take Damien by the hand and leave. It would have been easier, too, because the boys would have moved on to some new sadistic entertainment by the time you saw each other again. However, it would have been less satisfying, and the absolute disgust on Jameson’s face when you stormed up to him and poked him in the chest was gold.

“If he says he doesn’t want to go, he doesn’t want to go.”

His mouth curled into a sneer. “Didn’t you hear me when I said I wasn’t talking to you?”

“Didn’t you hear him when he said he doesn’t want to go?”

You didn’t know how many times you had to say it to get it through his thick skull, but you would write it on paper and stick it to his forehead if he would finally understand.

But that would have been too simple; he leaned around you to make eye contact with Damien again, saying, “Look, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to—”

“Which he doesn’t.”

“But wouldn’t it be nice to hang out with someone else for a change?”

You turned on your heel to see Damien getting closer, and now that everyone still in the classroom was looking towards this spectacle, you imagined you were supposed to feel worried. He was slipping between the desks, intently marching towards you and the group, a plan in his mind that he was going to go through with. Yes, you should have felt worried that he would choose them over you.

But he was content with what he had. He locked eyes with you instead of the boy behind you. He grabbed your hand.

“No.” His voice was so blunt that you stifled a laugh. “I’m happy with my friend.”

And just like that, Damien guided you back to your table, picked up both of your bags, and then headed for the door, barely giving you long enough to make a face at Jameson before you were out into the hallway.

In a burst of energy, you let loose all the chuckles you had stuffed down your throat. You started alone but soon you coaxed your companion into a fit. The noise danced down the corridor like a spring breeze, but you leaned your head against his shoulder to calm yourself down when you reached the more populated section.

“I love you, Damien.”

“I love you, too, dear.”

While both of you picked up on each other’s darkening, the color too vivid to be blamed on the laughter, and the tiny grins that were only ever the product of combined nerves and excitement – neither of you were able to say for certain what kind of love that was, for fear of being wrong or for fear of simply saying it aloud.

Still, you both seemed to decide that this moment, as you stumbled over each other out the building and onto the main center of the campus, was enough for now.

Having such a variety of characters living in the manor meant your days were full of entertainment and excitement and adventure and all manner of other good feelings. But, damn it, did they have to be so widespread?

You had started your search for signatures around when everyone would be waking up. Most of them weren’t cosmic deities or cthulu-esque monsters, which meant a knock at their bedroom door when the clock struck eight was the easiest way to find them – and that had indeed worked for a handful of the residents. Hell, Eric had even offered to help you out, but you waved him off in favor of letting the poor guy get some more sleep.

The problems you faced fell into two categories. Either the person you were looking for had apparently disappeared completely off the map, or they realized that the contract you had drafted was suspiciously lacking compensation. It was easy to figure out who was who.

That meant, as you practically collapsed against the backdoor with scratches and grass stains, it was almost seven o’clock at night. Illinois had been the trickiest to track down, not because you didn’t know where he was but because figuring out how caving gear worked was the world’s most boring hassle. Luckily, there weren’t many requests you were following through with, but you knew the hardest part would be dealing with Wilford’s nitpicking as you polished his guns, if you were able to hear him over the sound of Yancy’s tap-dancing for a week straight.

But it was all going to be worth it in the end. The only ones left on your list were the ones that had started this whole ordeal. Google, Bing and Hee-Hoo were on their way back to the manor, and you had finished up in time to wait for them with the most stereotypical-disappointed-parent face you could muster. They were signing that contract the moment they stepped through the door. While you didn’t think Hee-Hoo had a signature – or was able to write or even knew his own name – you were going to make him. Somehow.

You didn’t get long to think about how you were going to do that before a pair of figures were fighting their ways through the darkness. They were still caked in darkness as they got closer, until they were marching up the cobblestone path to the door.

You slid it open for them, receiving a barely noticeable nod from Google, but it was when Bing shut it behind him that you peered out into the night again.

“Where’s Hee-Hoo?” you asked, suspicions rising. If they didn’t find him, they were going to deal with a lot more than just your contract.

However, Bing just wiped his shoes off on the mat and replied, “Don’t worry ‘bout it, dude. We sent him to get cleaned up with the hose.”

Slowly, you blinked, turning back to him. “We have so many bathrooms.”

“You do not want him in the house.”

“…Okay.”

You weren’t going to argue about it. You’d had too much running about for one day that getting into a fight would surely send you over the edge. That, and you still needed them to make their promises.

You caught them as they both started in the direction of the door, producing the paper from its plastic wallet alongside a pen. You might have died, but you still valued an unfolded sheet.

“I need you two to sign this.”

With one hand, Bing took the contract from you, while he used the other to remove his sunglasses. Why he wore them at night, you didn’t know, but it only mattered to you that he slid them over his shirt before he started reading.

“’Any persons’ – that’s not right—”

“’Any persons to be present in the mansion on April twelfth,” Google said, peering over Bing’s shoulder with the most inconvenienced expression he was programmed with, “are to sign on their individual dotted lines, pledging to conduct themselves in an appropriate manner from zero hundred hours to twenty-four hundred hours.’”

“I was getting there!”

Bing’s protest went ignored as Google read on, “’Appropriate manner is defined as causing no destruction or harm of person or property, nor causing any sound above fifty-five decibels, including gunshots, shouting, or any attempt at cooking.’”

As expected, both of them looked at you like you were insane. You would admit that you went slightly overboard on the terms, but precautions had to be made. You only got one shot at this; if Dark left for a break and then came back to an empty patch of land where there should have been a building, he would never step foot outside again. It had to be exact, with no room for loopholes.

“What’s it for, anyway?” Bing asked.

“Dark needs a break, and he’s only going to take one if you all promise to stay in line, so I really, really need you to sign this.” Your explanation finished with a pleading expression. Although they were androids, they had been programmed with emotions – even if one of them only had the ability to feel annoyed with your puppy-dog eyes.

Bing didn’t seem to show much resistance, but he did take the opportunity to probe, “Why does he need a break?”

“Have you looked at him?”

This time, Google cut in. “Dark is an entity beyond human comprehension.” Obviously, only when it was time to poke some holes into your logic did he decide to speak up. “He has looked the same as he has for his entire existence.”

“No, he hasn’t,” you asserted as a headache crept up on you. “He hasn’t been out of his office in days, he doesn’t even show up to the house meetings, he doesn’t talk to anyone unless they go to him, he—”

Was wearing his glasses more often to fend off the eye strain, he only noticed how dark his office was when you opened the curtains, he hadn’t touched a book in months, he had once asked for the worst combination of Advil and Tylenol you had heard of in your life that he swore was for an experiment but you knew it was because his hand was cramping from writing so much – his neck unconsciously twisted, his lips were bitten in the corners, and his eyes weren’t just black, they were dull, like someone had sanded down his irises. 

“—he’s tired.”

A second ticked by on the clock.

“Alright then.”

Before you realized that he had said anything, Bing took the pen from your hand, clicked the top, and scribbled a vague drawing of a skateboard on the dotted line next to his name. When he finished off a wheel with a flourish, he tossed the pen back and slapped the contract onto Google’s chest.

And then he was walking out of the room, spots of mud that he had failed to get rid of trailing after him. With a peace sign thrown over his shoulder, he called out, “See ya later, dudes.”

While he rounded the corner and disappeared into the body of the manor, you were left with Google.

All you could say was a simple, “Please.”

However, you should have known by then that, if given the opportunity, Google would go back to his power-hungry programming – and hell if this wasn’t the goldest of golden opportunities.

“Who will be in charge while you are gone?”

His tone didn’t give anything anyway – not that you needed it to – but you pulled back in surprise at his suggestion.

“Oh, I’m not taking a break, this is just for Dark.”

“Do you want him to actually relax?”

“Of course.”

“Go with him.”

You opened your mouth to argue. Your entire proposition to Dark had relied on you being there to take care of the manor. Going back on that would let him go back on his promise as a whole, and that wasn’t an option. You also weren’t the one who needed some time off. You ran errands. You kept the residents from being at each other’s throats every second of every day. You did not try to protect the entire manor while tracking down who you were defending it from. You did not spend every waking moment in a cramped room with no sunlight and no socialization, working through the massive pile of lawsuits from misadventures. Dark needed a break. You didn’t.

And yet you closed your mouth because there was a simple way out of this. After all, if you could trust people on their word and integrity you would not have spent the last eleven hours chasing them through caves and sacrificing your future energy for a little inked line.

So, you held the pen out and said a blunt, “Fine.”

Before he took it, though, he stopped to look you in the eyes. Despite his deadpan expression, there was an aura of smugness that permeated the air. “And my question?”

“You can be in charge, but just for that day.” What did you care? You weren’t going to honor this promise, so he could have the plastic keys to the kingdom.

“This is satisfactory.”

You didn’t think he would notice if you were a little casual, too wrapped up in his pride and too busy signing the contract that supposedly gave him the power-trip he wanted.

He handed it back with a barely contained smirk, the lights in his eyes whirling with anticipation. You took it gladly. Just one more to go, you were almost done, so close to freedom you could taste it.

You nodded at the android, too excited for words, and leaped to the backdoor and shoved it open, ready to search for that caveman. 

In your haste, you left the door open, but that only meant you were able to yell a quick, “You’re not getting admin privileges!” before you got too far.

You didn’t hear Google’s reply, but you definitely felt his anger burning into your back.

The evening was always the most flexible in regard to the activity of the manor; some days, everyone would be too tired out to get up to any real mischief, but others would see the residents bouncing off and through the walls. There was something more about tonight, though, a certain expectation that hovered in the air like fog over a lake. It hid reality. Of course, you could assume that everything was tranquil and still from the undisturbed layer, but it was never a certainty.

Dark supposed it was because he was waiting. The manor tended to reflect his emotions the most, the people and the place equally, and he caught himself glancing towards the office’s door more than usual – and this time, it wasn’t out of apprehension of another fight breaking out or the old ceiling crashing down. It was, rather, an anticipation that gripped his unbeating heart and squeezed the few drops of blood left into his dusty veins.

A knock at the door practically crushed it into a mess. He’d fix it eventually, remold it like he always did for the next time you paid him a visit.

He moved quickly to the door and pulled it open even quicker. You were there, as he expected, with that damn grin and a prideful twinkle in your eye and that contract you had made clenched between your hands.

Silently, trying to fight back his own smile, he stepped to the side and gestured for you to enter. You followed his order, he followed you, and then he was sitting at his desk again with you standing in front of him, triumphant and gorgeous.

Even with the strange spots of dust and water that hadn’t been there the last time he had seen you.

You didn’t explain, despite his raised eyebrow, and simply slapped the paper down onto the wooden surface. Dark adjusted his glasses to peruse the signatures, skimming them but not doubting the authenticity. You had said you’d get all of the residents to sign it, and there was never a time you failed to deliver.

You watched his eyes trail down the page, saw his lips slightly tilt up at the corners when he got to the bottom, heard his scoff at the messy dirt thumbprint you had improved for the caveman. The sound was almost silent but nonetheless amused, so you didn’t worry when he put the sheet down and peeled off his glasses entirely. Instead, you beamed at him, absolutely ecstatic.

“You got them all.” It was a statement that you relished. If you were feeling confident, you might have said there was a tone of reverence.

“Yep, every single one.”

“And they really all agreed?”

Your prepared response died on your tongue. You didn’t want to mention the huge amount of favors you owed, or the hell the manor would be put through in the coming weeks, so you just said, “I got the signatures.”

Dark stared at you.

You felt sweat pool at the back of your neck and blood rush to your face.

He continued to stare at you.

But then he nodded and pushed his chair back from the desk. “Alright.”

Your feet melded to the floorboards at that one word, and, for a moment, you wondered if you had been actually remade as a robot because you felt like you were short-circuiting.

You barely managed to get out, “Alright?”

Poise radiated from Dark as he crossed one leg over the other, seeming to look straight into your soul with not so much as a care that you were so shocked.

“Alright,” he repeated, placing an elbow on the armrest, “I will take a break.”

That was easy. Well, obviously the lead-up had been torture and offering the idea in the first place was a stress-test, but this little moment? It was too straightforward. Everything about Dark had told you he would resist a little more than that, if only to set an example to the other residents, but there he was, ready and willing to go through with your plan.

Seconds ticked by on the clock.

Realizing he was waiting for you to say something, you shoved the sentence out of your mouth as if it would kill you to keep it in any longer. “Great, great, I can, uh, find a nice café locally or I can ask Wilford to take you if there’s somewhere you have in mind—”

You stopped short as soon as Dark cut you off, saying, “As long as you accompany me.”

There it was. The resistance. The search for an advantage. The addendum to the original idea that gave him more of what he wanted, that was what you expected from Dark, and it gave you comfort to know you hadn’t gotten him wrong. He was an opportunist at heart – not that it was a bad thing, you liked a good deal, too – and it was familiar for him to stay true to his nature.

Only after the thought calmed your heart rate down did you acknowledge what he had actually asked for, at which point the heat of the Earth’s core flooded back along the bridge of your nose. After all, you’d never gone out with Dark as a group, much less one-on-one, and you didn’t see any reason he would ask you specifically that didn’t have consequences of one sort or another.

As a last-ditch attempt to save face, you asked, “Google didn’t put you up to this, did he?”

“No, he did not.”

“Right, okay—” Your arms dropped uselessly to your sides, “—so why?”

How he managed to look you in the face as he spoke was beyond you. How he managed to say anything at all in such a controlled voice made you jealous. “I would feel more comfortable with you at my side.” He was blunt but not rude – hell, the tone was so gentle that you became suspicious.

“Then who’s going to, well, babysit?”

That suspicion grew tenfold for other reasons as Dark paused for a millisecond too long. It didn’t help that he averted his gaze over your shoulder before it returned with a cracked in his coolness.

Now was your turn to stare him down and his turn to crumble.

“Google did talk to me,” he admitted slowly, “and he would be willing to take on the duties for the day.”

“Did you…?” you trailed off, making a vague gesture with your hand.

“I did not give him admit privileges.” ‘No, he wasn’t stupid’ was the unspoken comment there. “If anything does go awry, he can contact me, but everyone has signed this contract, so that would be extremely likely.”

An unspoken comment that you didn’t pick up on was the general consensus that whoever disturbed them would be absent from house meetings for the foreseeable future. While Dark wasn’t a loose cannon, pre-meditated murder was just as painful as voluntary manslaughter, and it was an experience too familiar for many of them. The punishment fit the crime.

You would have likely been more jittery if you knew that thought was jumping through the minds of the residents, but you were blissfully ignorant, so you just stumbled through saying, “Great, yeah, that sounds great, I just have to figure out where to go.”

“You mentioned a café?”

An awkward chuckle forced its way out of your throat. You were starting to have doubts about everything – the carefully selected spot for relaxation was gradually degrading in your opinion. “Yeah, it’s on the outskirts of town, opens at six and closes at eleven, only one barista, serves coffee so black you might as well be eating the beans. It’s normally dead on a Thursday.”

It was adorable when you resorted to your roots, laying out the evidence and letting him be judge, jury and executioner. You somehow managed to break through the barriers he thought would have stopped him from feeling anything like this; air invigorated his discarded lungs, his stomach flipped in each direction almost methodically, and he could have sworn his skin got warmer, as though an early sun laid itself on the surface.

Dark leaned forward and placed his head on layered hands. “You know me so well.”

“It’s- I’m just doing my job.”

“This is more than your job.”

You watched, frozen where you stood, as he rose from his seat and glided over to you. Once a ghost haunting the same room for decades, he was now a man, solidifying more and more every step he took towards you. He stopped when he was a foot away.

The eye-contact returned, and the breath was knocked out of both of you.

“Thank you,” he whispered – did he whisper – softly – or was he talking normally, and you were losing yourself in the proximity?

You didn’t expect him to lean closer or take your hand in his or have the effect that he did on you with not much more than his simple being there.

However, when you caught sight of the spark in his eyes, the burst of sincerity and a slight awkwardness, you did expect the buzz in your skin where he placed a soft kiss. The electricity seemed to transfer between you, lighting up your skin enough to rival Times Square, before it dissipated through to the rest of your face. 

Between your last life and this one, you weren’t sure you had ever been treated with such gentleness. Maybe it was a shift in the power dynamic – you were human but Dark was notably different – or maybe it was just the consequences of taking such a risk, which, really, wasn’t a risk because both of you knew your reaction.

Almost silently, you breathed, “No problem.”

When he pulled back, you almost missed him, but you were comforted by a moment of understanding; Dark was watching you with that glimmer of openness. Calmness. If you wanted to, you could copy him, and, if you wanted to, you could take a bigger not-risk. Doing neither was fine, doing both was welcome.

So, you opened your mouth to say something, your hand still held securely in Dark’s, with a helpfully clear mental image of what his break would look like.

Until the mood was shattered by a crash, yell, and yet another crash from downstairs. The noise practically shook the foundations of the manor, reminding you just where you were. You were still in the depths of the woods, and the thought of getting peace was growing more and more attractive every second.

You shared a look with Dark. It was anyone’s guess as to who caused the mess, but both of you knew who was going to clean it up.