#it's mostly description

Dark’s office was weird. It was an amalgamation – much like himself – of the good and the bad, the victory and the tragedy, the him and the not-him. Nestled in the heart of the manor, it had a territorial advantage, easy access to the void compared to wherever Mark had slunk off to. Though the downside was that it wasn’t exactly his choice; the void was a possessive thing, it wouldn’t let a piece of it leave without putting up a fight. He always lost.

The office’s interior was a different story. It served as a study, as any other did, from where he could launch investigations, keep tabs, maintain a sense of control that always seemed on the edge of shattering. But there were problem pieces, things that caused issues for him and his work, which could be easily remedied by removing them, and yet…

Each photograph stayed behind its fragment of glass. Dark’s limbs froze whenever he tried to take them out of the room. It was as though his body knew the difference between his moods, when simply staring would shift into direct action. They worked against him, locked up, refused to listen to his orders and forced him to surrender.

Today, it was a different kind of surrender. As Dark sat in his chair, its arms pushed right up against the desk so that he was trapped, the frames were laid before him. He didn’t know why he had taken them out of the drawer. Normally, his moments only punished him with one, maybe two if it had been a while. Why his hands saw fit to use all four against him, he didn’t know for certain.

He had his guesses, but you weren’t nearly powerful enough for them to be true.

Dark dropped his head into his hands, but the square outlines burned themselves into his eyelids. The figures danced over the darkness, bursting with energy, with potential, with a sickening influence that he didn’t want to give attention to. Four moments. Four mistakes.

When his hands flexed, fingers dragging painfully into his skin, they were again revealed to him. It was almost instinctual when he picked up the first photograph.

His last fit had left a crack in the glass that he was now drawing a finger over. Graduation. How long ago was that? Over a decade, that was certain, but two, three, four? Had it toppled over the edge of a century yet? He didn’t know. The passage of time was a fickle thing. It flowed between his fingers like the sand in an hourglass, teasing him with a change that he wasn’t allowed to feel.

He remembered the day itself, though. One of many irritating consequences of share a mind with three others. Their memories seeped through the membrane and infected the center. There were certain things that he could glean from the photograph – the sun that beat down on the group was slightly warm for July, the actual hall that had been too clogged with tearful parents to stay in, the effort that it took to get everyone in frame had not been worthwhile – but there was more. There was always more, the memories knocking at the back of his brain incessantly until they broke his brain altogether.

Two perspectives warred for influence. On one end of the battlefield was Celine, armored by experience and wielding a sword of frigid pessimism – she whispered that this was the last moment of freedom. The ability to be reckless would be taken from them not an hour later, when their parents arrived and interrogated them about their future prospects. University was the time for carelessness, and after that was reality. It couldn’t be avoided.

However, Damien – prepared with nothing but a shield and a rucksack of pretty words – said that wasn’t true. There would be moments throughout their lives, just like the one that sat before Dark, of abandon. Expectation could be cast to the side in the late night or the early morning. They would be few and far between, but they would be there. Celine would smile again, invisible elbow shoving into her brother’s side, and Damien would stifle a laugh at Mark trying to herd them all into frame in time.

Though the twins clashed in Dark’s mind, their persuasions fell on deaf ears. The war of attrition would go on for as long as he had the photographs out, and a dull ache in his chest made it impossible to even touch the drawer’s handle. Instead, his eyes scanned along the scene, from Mark, to Celine, to Damien, and then, finally, to you.

He had never seen you without the barrier of glass. He had memories of seeing you from someone else’s eyes, but his eyes – your eyes – had only ever seen the reflection. The skin was Damien’s, and the blood was the entity’s, but the bones were yours. You had once laid claim to the flesh and the organs, everything that wasn’t surface level, and Dark often wondered if you still did.

You hadn’t given him memories, no, you gave him feelings. Nobody fought you for possession of his heart; you were given free rein over it, to pull and squeeze and rip apart until you were satisfied. You never were. He was your plaything. The only question was whether you knew it or not.

At graduation, you had been exhilarated in the worn-out way that only came at the end of a project. The feeling was echoed throughout your career, but the end of your university years was the big one. Sharing it with your friends let you push some of that weariness to the side, if only for a short moment. As long as that grin was on your face, the one that showed the barest glimpse of your teeth at the corner, you were content.

Dark frowned.

He didn’t feel guilty. You had given him permission, you had let him in, there was no reason for him to feel guilty – and, anyway, the feelings were your responsibility. They didn’t come naturally to him, and that meant he could safely disregard them. What good were they to a thing that wasn’t human?

In one swift motion, Dark pulled open the drawer, scooped up the frame, and placed it inside with far more care than he wanted. One down, three to go.

The ache got heavier.

A snarl pulled at Dark’s lips when his eyes landed on the next photograph. This one was undamaged, but the subject matter gave him plenty of cause to throw it out the window. Mark was front and center, wearing a prideful grin and that eyesore of a suit that he wore like a second skin. Vitriol bubbled in Dark’s blood.

But it was his movie that was being celebrated, so, of course, he would be in the picture. If it had been the actor alone, the frame would have been discarded long ago, but the rest of the group featured, too. Damien’s sentimentality saved it from a fate worse than a dusty drawer; his memories were optimistic, claiming the cheers and comradery for a positive perspective. Celine didn’t agree. Her take on the situation saw a man at the start of self-corruption. Mark’s affair with the spotlight began there.

Damien’s memories hadn’t been comprised exclusively of Mark, which likely made it a softer experience. He’d spent his time with a front row seat to William’s joy, who was rarely unleashed from the horrors of war, and was always within arm’s reach of you.

Both Damien’s and your careers had gotten so hectic around that time that this was one of the few moments where you saw one another. You weren’t working in the same county, let alone the same city, which meant quizzing each other while hungover at three in the morning would have to be shelved. Damien spent every second of that after-party with you, constantly throwing glances at his watch, as if watching the hands would freeze them in their places.

Even in the picture, his attention was stolen by the clock; he stared unsubtly at his wrist where it peeked out from around Mark’s neck.

You’d noticed. Of course, you’d noticed because all your excitement and worries were directed towards Damien. They had since you’d walked through the front doors and caught sight of him between Celine and Will. All your fatigue from a grueling case washed away immediately. In the photograph, you were grinning, proximity granting you a drunken carelessness. A viewer would have been none-the-wiser.

However, Dark did know that this was the part of your life when you got tired. It wasn’t the sleep-tired of your university years, when you jumped from class to party to party to class, but the life-tired of someone who had seen criminals go free and victims punished in their stead. 

He might have been concerned that he could categorize your stages by your emotions, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care that exhaustion made a nest within your heart – and, if he did care, it was only because you had given it to him. Now, he had to deal with your wreck of a body. Your weariness was an impediment, and it only got worse the closer you got to your death. By then, you were little more than a shambling husk.

That he had made a nest in.

Dark’s hand was moving before he could process it. He was more forceful than last time when he whipped open the drawer and shoved the frame into it. A slam followed not a second later.

The ache got even heavier.

He pushed past the weight. He was halfway through, with only two more photographs on the desk. He was with hesitation, he cursed you, and then he picked up the next frame.

It unsettled him how many of these had Mark as a centerpiece. It made sense that the man would fill his manor with as much of himself as he could fit, but why Dark kept them was another question. Damien could only go so far to restrain him, and Celine’s perspectives were doing them no favors, especially for the photo of her wedding.

It was light in his hands, but it sent a wave of memories and emotions crashing through him, as though the image of a white dress was a pickaxe to a dam. Just as quickly as they came, they retreated. Celine’s input was gone within seconds. Dark didn’t linger.

However, it became a choice between two-evils; either he could put himself through the regret of a marriage, or he could be subjected to the inevitably wasted potential of one.

You and Damien stood side by side, which wasn’t a surprise. The ceremony and the reception were spent much the same as the prior celebration. You’d shared drinks, laughs, glances on the odd occasion that you were pulled apart. One would think that, given the atmosphere and the build-up, that you would address the elephant in the room.

One would also think that one of the best lawyers in the city and the damned mayor would be able to get over their nerves, but they didn’t know either of you. Not how Dark, begrudgingly, did. They didn’t know that Damien snapped his mouth shut whenever the thought occurred to him, or that your fears clouded your mind with the worst of possibilities – Dark couldn’t hide the frame away fast enough, it slipped into the drawer but the feelings didn’t follow – they didn’t know that Damien stared at the alter for just a second longer than anyone else, including Celine and Mark, or that you had the briefest spark of hopeful delusion right before you separated in front of the arch, or that your heart, your thriving, beating, human heart—

The ache got so heavy that the rope it was dangling from snapped. Dark shot up from his chair, headrest denting the wall behind him, and slammed his hands onto the desk to keep himself stable. It did nothing. His shoulders shook from forceful, useless breaths, as if this body – the wasted vessel that had always acted against him – were trying to regain its humanity. Pointless. It was gone. The humanity was gone, and he was all that remained.

The storm in his eyes flashed up to target the mirror.

And who did you think you were? Leaving him with this was childish, and you probably knew it, but there was no retaliation for him to find solace in. Your last choice had been to leave him with the aches and pains of humanity – giddiness, trepidation, fear, love. You gave him these damned feelings and refused to take them back, as though he deserved them more than you. The graduation, and the movie, and the wedding – all this pain was yours to bear. It was supposed to stay with you. Maybe you could have found comfort in them, but he couldn’t, and you were saddling him with the responsibility of a life. It was human and painful and not what he needed.

The memories and the feelings didn’t help him. He was there to get vengeance on Mark, that was it, that was all that he wanted to do.

He didn’t want to feel this way.

He didn’t want it anymore.

Slowly, Dark peeled back one fist, little specks of glass twinkling as they fell from his skin. Spots welled on the photograph, a graying crimson that leached into the plastic and ate up the scene itself.

The last frame lay shattered underneath his hand.

“Do you remember this?”

You weren’t there, and Dark knew that. It didn’t stop him from talking to you, though, and it was easier that way. He was able to spill his thoughts to his reflection, which was your reflection, without fear of your judgement.

“I do.” Quickly, he amended, “Damien does.” And then again, “Damien did.”

He searched his own eyes in the glass for a sign of you.

“He remembered this moment down to the final detail. You took his hand and slipped away from the group, and he thought you were just ready to go home—” A huff of laughter escaped him, “—because he had driven you there. But you moved to the other side of the building where nobody could see you. He only realized that the camera had been moved, too, when the photographer offered him a copy of the photo.”

With delicate hands, Dark brushed aside the loose glass and dislodged the plastic. He gritted his teeth, a redirection of his roughness, until it pulled cleanly away.

“You were… you were so many things. Happy, yes, but you were also racked with anxiety. You were scared of what you were going to say to him because part of you didn’t know, and you hated not having a plan before you went into something as serious as this, but- but every time you tried to form a sentence, your heart was shot with terror. So, you gave up and hoped that the words would come to you in the moment. You’d improvise. You also hated improvising.”

Dark’s recount was flowing steadily now, though he supposed it was less of a recount and more of a narration. The memories and feelings, they weren’t his but getting them out into the open air was the only way he could think of to unburden himself. He had no one to talk to.

How funny it was that a timeless being, who had seen the rise and fall of humanity through four other’s eyes, was lonely.

“When you stood in front of Damien, you worried that you were having a heart attack. Why else would it be thundering in your chest like a wild animal and sending shockwaves up your throat to silence you? Your adrenaline struggled against it, and you worked so hard to get over the fear…”

Damien remembered this exact second, and he remembered the soft nod you gave after he spoke, and he remembered going home with a dead-eyed stare to collapse in his cold bed, which would stay that way even after he died.

“And Damien said that he already knew, and he felt the same way, but neither of you could risk it.”

Dark felt the crushing force of failure, barely outlined with the silver of confirmation. You had tried to replace the despair with relief, but that was another disappointment, and the ride back to your home was the most uncomfortable silence you had ever spent with him. He didn’t say this out loud. A brief pulse of empathy held his mouth shut; you didn’t need to hear it again.

Dark had to remind himself that you weren’t there.

Was that why you had given him your feelings? Why you cradled his heart? You would have been trapped in the mirror with this emotion. It was torture to know that you loved him. Not him but still him. Not loved but still loved. His heart ached with the love you had for him.

But what if it hadn’t been your choice? Perhaps you wanted them back. His eyes lifted to the mirror. Perhaps you were just as lonely as he was. It had been years since you last spoke to anyone, and that conversation was not the most enjoyable, so it could have been more than wishful thinking to imagine you happy to see him. It was a slim chance, so small that it was practically negligible, but it was there – and he had to take what he could get.

Dark pulled at his lapels as he stood up straight, and his neck tried to twist to the side as he took a few steps forward. For once, he wasn’t angry or snide. He was nervous, which was new and uncomfortable and buried deep in his bones.

With his mind working on what he wanted to say to you and his feet making the deadly journey to the foyer, his heart was free to beat like a hummingbird against his ribcage, desperate to return its feelings to their rightful owner. Yes, when this was all over, Dark would feel nothing at all. He was eager. He was relieved. He was happy.

Of course, he was happy.

Would you be?

hey, so this was real mean of you to make me think about.

jk, i love making Dark experience the consequences of his actions, and I really appreciate you requesting (even though it's taken a stupid amount of time, im so sorry). This can be read as a precursor to Mirror, Mirror, since, yeah, this is why he goes to talk to them, but it can also be read just in general.

Also, I like to think that - if Mark and Dark didn't hate each other, like how actual Mark describes their relationship - they would have a monthly 'I-stole-this-body-but-it-actual-sucks' meeting, regarding Damien's leg and the DA's neck/feelings respectively.