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da-birb-writes-sometimes · 1 year

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Though The Path May Be Long, I Shall Find You; Leona Kingscholar

A path lies ahead, some are more treacherous than others. At the end of the winding, coloured footsteps is where they can rest; a bird directing them forward, made out of precious stone.

Main Character; Leona Kingscholar

Supporting Characters; Kifaji, Jack Howl

Content; Soulmate AU (I use the term soul match), gender-neutral reader, hurt/comfort, some inner turmoil, bird shenanigans, can be read as platonic, familial, or platonic and that was done on purpose

Content Warning; injury (Leona), I do mention scars/marks but I don't mention where/what they're from

Word Count; 5.5 K

Author's Note; The bird messengers are inspired by mutual relationships that people and some animals have with birds. As with all of my writing, do NOT put my -or other creators' for that matter- works into AI. I did struggle a bit with writing this, so it may read a bit differently, but hey, I wrote it and that's what matters.

Ruggie's Story | Jack's Story

Prologue

Much like the Sea Witch gifted merfolk with soul matches, the King of Beasts did much the same with beastmen. Instead of a song playing in their head or their soul being tugged at by their match, beastmen would receive a messenger made of stone. Typically, this stone messenger would come in the form of a bird, as they can travel far greater distances than a terrestrial creature. And the stone represented what their match would help them overcome in this lifetime. It represented a confidant, an advisor, a friend; the person that they needed most.

And once they were ready to find their match, glowing footsteps would lead them along the path.

These messengers are delivered during the night of their fifth birthday by the southern winds and remain dormant until the time is right for them to start searching their soul match, typically around their thirteenth birthday. If a child does not receive their messenger, it is said to be a marker of bad luck, a bad omen. Not only just for the beastman in question, but for their family and the community at large. This marker is of even greater weight should a member of the royal family not receive a messenger. The last time that happened, a great drought hit the land, causing mass famine and illness. Since then, any member of the royal family who does not receive a messenger is forced to abdicate the throne, even if they are the firstborn. For the common folk though, it holds less weight, even if it is still considered a bad omen.

What if someone does receive a messenger but they don’t activate? What does that mean?

It could mean several different things. It could mean that their soul match has passed before they had the chance to find them. It could mean that their match wasn’t here yet, still to come into this world. These lifeless messengers often bring a sense of loneliness or bitterness, and many a beastman try their best to discard these cruel reminders. No matter how hard they try though, be it magic, force, or distance, the little stone messenger will always come back. Always there as a reminder of what could have been. A reminder that only they can see. The little stone bird will sit by them, vacant of life, but watching them still.

But only they could see their messenger, the only other person who could see it being their match. They would only become apparent to each other once their person decided that they wanted to find their match, that they were ready. Upon finding each other, the two birds will fly around the two, performing an aerial dance. Once this dance is completed, their match’s bird will land on their shoulder, and their bird will land on their match’s in return.

And once these messengers activate they will stop at nothing to guide their person to their match, and cannot be destroyed. It could take hours, days, weeks, months, years, or even several lifetimes, but the bird is determined to find their match, even if the person wanted nothing to do with them. The bird won’t stop, and even though the path may be long, they will always find their match. No matter what.

…

Main Story

…

...

Leona had somehow managed to escape his various caregivers and the supervision of Kifaji… again. But who could blame him? The palace wasn’t the best place for a rambunctious four-year-old. He wanted to play. To explore. To not sit through Kifaji’s boring lectures and lessons. He wanted to just be a kid. And Faleena was always busy, not always able to play hunting games with him and leaving him without a playing partner. So it becomes a habit, to escape the confines of the palace, to trade the grand halls for the grasslands.

The little lion prince continued to walk through the tall grass, running his hands through the swaying blades. The sun was starting to kiss the earth as the sky slowly melted into night, and he could hear the various calls of animals from the brush. But he didn’t pay them much mind, since he was told that they would never harm him, as he was part of the royal family.

Something hopped out of the grass, catching the young lion-beastman’s attention; a butterfly. His eyes followed the slow wing beats and he decided to chase after it. The butterfly didn’t seem to notice or care, staying just out of reach and continuing on its lazy flight path.

“Come here,” Leona called after it, trying to jump and catch it, but the insect avoided his grasp. “Don’t fly away! Can we be friends?”

The butterfly eventually landed on a tree, high up on a branch. Now, why was Leona so determined to catch it? Well, he wanted to get a closer look at it, maybe have it land on his nose before letting it go back into the bush. It was a challenge, one that he wasn’t backing out of so easily.

Leona looked up into the tree and his ears twitched. “Fine then! If you’re not going to come down, I’m coming up!” He started making his way up the tree. Oh, if Kifaji could see him now, he would have grown a white hair on the spot seeing the young prince so high up. But the thought of his advisor’s fretting just made him climb up higher even faster. There! The butterfly was almost within his reach, just a little bit farther-

The butterfly took off, flying off into the sunset, just as he was about to finally catch it too. Leona sighed to himself. At least he had a nice view of the amber sun dipping behind the horizon, turning the sky into warm oranges, pinks, reds, deep blues and violets. Rustling from the canopy caught his attention, and he looked up, curious as to what was making the sound. Sitting on the branch above him was a red-billed hornbill, cleaning its plumage.

“Hi,” he waved at the bird, swinging his legs back and forth.

The bird stopped preening, its full attention focused on Leona. Further up in the tree, he could hear the faint chirping of baby chicks.

Leona stood up on the branch, getting closer to the bird. “Can I see your family? Do you have baby chicks? I wanna see!” He asked excitedly, getting far too close to the bird’s personal space and nest.

The hornbill ruffled its feathers and took flight, but it didn’t go very far. Instead, it turned back and swopped by Leona’s head, trying to tell the child to back away. Instead of backing off though, Leona caught the bird mid-flight. The bird, fearing for its own and its family’s well-being, scratched at his face, leaving behind a large scratch mark going over his left eye.

He let go of the bird, hissing in pain, teardrops starting to form. “Kifajiiiiiiii,” he yelled, tumbling down the tree and running back to the palace, tail in between his legs. “KIFAJIIIIII!” He didn’t want this to happen. He just wanted to play. To have fun. To be a kid.

…

Leona went to bed on the night before his fifth birthday, lightly tracing the still-healing scar on his face. It was still sore, and it stung, both physically and emotionally. Why does nobody like me? He snapped out of his thoughts though, shaking his head.

“You have no one but to blame but yourself, your majesty,” Kifaji said, standing in the doorway to his room. He strode in, and although his words may have sounded harsh, there was a softness in his expression. Sighing, he placed a cool, damp, cloth on the prince’s face. “What were you thinking? You should know better than to run off-” He stopped, noticing the conflicted look on the young boy’s face. Nagging can wait, right now Leona needed comfort, not a lecturer. “…But what’s most important is that you are alright.”

Leona sniffled, “What about my face though? It hurts… I just wanted to play… And it’s going to leave a scar-”

Kifaji smiled softly, “It will heal in time, as all things do. Besides, the King of Beasts had a mark just like it. It may hurt now, and perhaps it will leave a scar, but it proves that you overcame hardships. That you’ve learned lessons.” He tucked in the prince, adjusting the blankets around him. “As for the bird, I believe they were just protecting their family. Your mother would do much the same for you and your brother, as would your father. Now, off to bed with you, as you’ll be receiving your messenger tomorrow.”

“What do you think they’ll be,” Leona asked, his visible eye filled with curiosity. “Do you think it’ll be a bearded vulture? Like Faleena’s?”

Kifaji hummed, “I can’t say, as only you will know that come morning. Now, off to sleep with you. After all, tomorrow is a big day.” The blue-haired man dusted himself off, double-checked the cloth to make sure it was still damp and then left for the night. Leaving the young prince alone.

Leona picked at the dressing on his eye and looked out his window. Outside the stars were shining bright, and the songs of night birds and insects filled the air with their rhythmic melody. A warm breeze played with the curtains, casting dancing shadows onto the walls.

“Please,” Leona whispered to the stars, “please, please, please bring me a friend… I just want a friend.” He pleaded to the night sky. The warm breeze now playing with his hair, lulling him gently off to the land of dreams.

His dream was calm, a starlit sky ahead of him and shifting, glowing sand beneath his feet. All I want is a friend. Can I please have a friend? But he heard nothing, just the gentle hissing of the shifting glowing sand beneath his feet as he walked toward the horizon. A large lion stood in the distance, glowing green eyes looking towards him, beckoning him forward. But when he tried to walk towards them, the sand shifted, having turned into tar. And when he looked back up, the lion was gone. Leaving him with nothing but glowing sand and black tar.

When he woke up in the morning, a small hornbill made out of green calcite sat on his bed stand, silent and watching. And it would have been in perfect condition save for the large scar that cut across the left side of its face, mirroring Leona’s to the T. He touched his scar, remembering that fateful night only three weeks ago. “Why,” he whispered. Why did it have to be a hornbill? Why would the King of Beasts gift him a messenger that had hurt him? Why would he gift a messenger that left behind a scar? And why did it have a scar of its own?

…

It’s been fifteen years since Leona received his messenger, and it has yet to come to life. Yet to fly around. Yet to show him any sign that he had a match out there, somewhere. He took it as a sign that they had either died before they had ever met or, a more bitter thought, that they had yet to enter the world. He didn’t want to be some glorified babysitter.

He has tried to get rid of the damned bird. Thrown it as far as he could when he was younger. Used banishment spells on it as he learned about magic. And when his unique magic had manifested itself, he even used King’s Roar on it. But no matter what he tried, or how hard, the bird always reappeared, even when he turned it into sand. Still as silent and lifeless as it always has been since the first day it had shown up in his life. Still, a bitter reminder that he would rather forget about and pretend never happened.

Even in the ceremonial room, it followed him, taking a liking to his shoulder despite him flinging it off at any chance he could, before just stuffing the annoying thing in his pocket. People would give him a weird look, as they couldn’t see what was pestering the lion beastman, but they ignored him for the most part. Well, most people that is.

“Something bothering you,” Vil murmured under his breath, just loud enough so that only he could hear. “You seem more… irritated than usual.”

Of course, the Pomefiore House Warden would notice his behaviour. He wouldn’t even be surprised if that other third-year and creepy stalker, Rook, was keeping tabs on him. “And, what’s it to you?”

Vil raised a brow, “Just something I took notice of. Can’t be giving your new dorm members a bad impression on the first day.” He paused, as the ceremony was beginning, and welcomed the new Pomefiore students with a practiced smile.

Leona rolled his eyes but welcomed his new wards albeit not as prim, proper, and practiced. They deserved something real, and not dripping with formality. “Well, that ceremony was as boring as ever,” he yawned, having missed his usual nap that he would have at this time of day. “I’m going back to the dorm. If you’re in Savanaclaw House, follow me.”

That’s odd though, that blithering fool of a headmage was nowhere to be seen, and Leona could hear all of the hushed whisperings amongst the students. But he could hear the faint footsteps of two people making their way down the hall. And low and behold, the headmage entered the room in his usual tiring and flamboyant way. Huh, looks like one of the freshmen hasn’t been sorted. He didn’t really care though, even when that cat tried to set the room on fire, or the bickering with Vil. This was all so tiresome, honestly, why did he attend this again?

He didn’t pay much attention to the new Savanaclaw students, leading the way silently. And even though he couldn’t see the other beastmen’s messengers, he could hear the faint rustling of wind as they flew about behind them. His eye twitched, the weight of the stone hornbill weighing heavy in his pant pocket, still cold, still lifeless.

Upon reaching his room, he promptly flopped onto the bed, tossing the bird to the other side of the room with a satisfying crack. Leona closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, promptly falling asleep. Back to that damned dream where he was stuck in the shifting sands at night, the only source of light being the distant, twinkling stars and the faint gold glow beneath him. And the tar had grown, nearly drowning out the glowing gold.

The stone bird righted itself and came to rest by his head. The orange light from the setting sun warming it. As the sun was traded for the night, the stone bird blinked, finally and slowly coming to life after all these years of stillness.

…

Leona felt something pulling at his hair. Groaning, he grabbed the closest pillow and haphazardly swung it about, trying to get rid of the intruder. “Cheka,” he hissed, as the first person that popped into mind for this annoying behaviour was none other than his young nephew. But when he cracked an eye open, the cheerful five-year-old was nowhere to be seen. Something was still pulling at his hair though.

Flipping over, he finally laid eyes on the intruder, and he stiffened. Sitting on the edge of the bed was his messenger, and it was alive. After a decade of stillness, the pale green crystal bird was finally alive and moving about. He rubbed at his eyes, and the bird was now walking towards him, doing its little call and looking way too happy for his liking. What the- What kind of sick joke is this?

“Oi,” he pushed the crystal bird away, as it had tugged at his hair again. “Cut it out.” Why was it finally awake now of all times? It’s been ten years since it should have awakened, back on his tenth birthday. And now, out of the blue, the now alive and annoying bird had finally decided that now was the time. “Why are you alive?”

The bird flipped onto its back and played with his school uniform ribbon. Why did he expect an actual answer? It was a stone bird. But Leona’s brow was furrowed. Why was the bird finally awake? His face soured even more. I swear if they’re a kid… He didn’t want to deal with another Cheka, especially not for his soul match. Tch, why did I even bother waking up? The bird continued to play with the ribbon, rolling about on the bed.

Leona rolled his eyes and ignored the bird, at least it was pre-occupying itself and not annoying him. Hornbills are playful birds after all, so it makes sense that his messenger would be too. Why again, did the King of Beasts send him a hornbill as his messenger again? “I’m not going to go out of my way and find them,” he huffed, grabbing his ribbon back from the bird.

The hornbill stopped playing and snapped at his hand. “You need to find them,” they spoke in his mind. Ugh, he forgot that they can do that. That the messengers could speak to them in their mind when they deemed it as an important matter. “And they are not a child. They are around your age, from what I can sense. You need to find them.” All of the playfulness from before vanished, suddenly reminding him of Kifaji. Stern… Disappointed.

“What I need is for you to leave well enough alone.” He swatted at the bird, but it flew off and sat on the balcony where they could watch at a safe distance but still have an eye on him. “I don’t need or want you… or them.” They weren’t there then, why should I want them now?

The hornbill ruffled in irritation, “They couldn’t be there, not at the time at least. And you’re lying to yourself.” Their tone shifted, wavering, like they knew something. “You will need them sooner than you realize. When you change your mind, do call.” With that, the bird took off into the morning, leaving behind Leona with his thoughts.

The lion beastman tensed and relaxed his fingers, brow furrowed. “Like hell I’ll need them sooner rather than later,” he muttered to himself. Today had barely begun and he already wanted for it to end. He knew nothing good would come of that bird.

…

You held the green crystal in your hands, turn

ing it over and looking at the carved features. The hornbill was wiggling its toes and singing to itself happily. It was a cheerful little thing and always kept itself busy. And on occasion, you would see a similar bird sitting on the roof, but they never came down from their perch and would fly off before you could investigate further.

You had no idea why or how you came to possess the stone bird. No idea why it was alive the morning after your sudden arrival in Twisted Wonderland. No idea why there was a near-perfect replica sitting on your roof. And you had no idea what it all meant. But in the short time that you had your crystalline friend, you’ve grown attached. Yes, they liked to cause some mischief every now and then, but they were very sweet. They even took a liking to resting on your armchair as you worked, singing their little song.

The little bird even tried to fight that third-year Savanaclaw student, Leona, for you. During the first encounter, where he nearly took a tooth for stepping on his tail they had flown around in a panic; which wasn’t much help. But during his overblot, they had taken a hit from his unique magic, King’s Roar, for you. You had thought that your little friend was gone, forever turned into sand and lost to the wind. Even the bird that sat on the roof went missing for two weeks, but then they were back. Playful as ever before, but there was something else there as well, a sadness of sorts. Frustrated. Restless. Now they also had a large gash, from where they had been hit and it mirrored your own cuts and bruises that you had sustained from the fight. You also noticed that it had other marks, ones that you had sustained back in your dimension.

You should have been angry, but you weren’t. You felt tired, and a sense of guilt. Why had this little bird risked its life for you?

“Prefect,” Jack’s voice snapped you back to the present. Oh right, you had just been forcibly evicted from Ramshackle… the only place you could call home in this world. Now you were sitting in the Savanaclaw Dorm. “Are you alright?”

You blinked, coming out of your thoughts. Jack, even though you two had only just become acquaintances(?), friends(?), was observant that you were spacing off. “Ah… no,” you sigh, all of the stress of the past weeks catching up with you. “No, I’m not alright.”

Jack’s ears twitched, and your crystal friend hopped up onto your shoulder, rubbing its beak on your face. “Do you want to talk about it?” He looked at your shoulder, where the bird was sitting.

“Can you see them?” You could lay your heart bare right now, but you knew most of the answers to them. What you wanted to know was about the bird, and what it meant.

Jack shook his head, “No, but I can hear the flapping of wings.” His brow pinched, thinking. “Has anyone told you? About soul matches?”

Your bird hopped up onto your head and got comfortable up there. “Jack,” you breathed, rubbing your temples, “no one has told me anything.” You paused, realizing how harsh the last part came out. “Sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean-”

But it’s true. No one had told you anything about what a soul match is. Anything about what the bird meant. Anything about how you were possibly going to get back home; if it was possible at all? Anything of real importance when it came to living in this world besides the fact that there were seven pseudo-gods who were villains in your world and that magic was real. You had the scars to prove that much. And you were tired, so tired of not knowing anything.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he placed a hand by yours, in case you needed to hold on to someone. “I don’t know your entire story, Prefect, but I do know that today was stressful… I can tell you more about soul matches, and what your feathered friend means. But that can wait until you’re ready.”

You felt the crystal bird shuffle a bit, letting out a little snore. “I want to know.”

“There once was a king, both noble and fair. Who sought to bring joy to his people’s hearts. The King of Beasts travelled to the horizon and made an agreement with the setting Sun and the whispering winds. On the eve of their sixth year, beastmen and residents of the Sunset Savannah would be gifted a crystal bird messenger. No two were ever the same, as the birds would carry the marks and scars of their person. The crystal itself holds a message on what their match will help them with. These birds are only visible to their person, and can only be seen once they have decided that they wanted to find their match. And though the path may be long, and lead to many different crossroads, the little crystal bird will always find their match.”

Jack’s explanation of the bird messengers played in your head as you stared up at the ceiling. Said bird was sleeping beside you, and much like the story, it had all the same marks you had. The pale green crystal shone softly in the moonlight. Apparently made out of green calcite; a stone meaning to expand your compassion, to heal, of letting go of anger and resentment. You knew that you needed to work on that, but so did your match.

…

Leona was still at ends with himself after his overblot, and that herbivore from Ramshackle was now also crashing at his dorm of all places. But he did owe them, and like hell he was going to let some octo-punk get the better hand. He also happened to overhear the familiar story that Jack had shared with them. So he hadn’t been hearing things, the Prefect did have a messenger. But why did the thought of them having a messenger put a sour taste in his mouth?

You need to find them. You will need them sooner than you realize. He hated to admit it, but the stone bird was right. Maybe if he had taken their offer he would have found them by now. Maybe he wouldn’t have overblotted… Maybe he would finally know that someone could accept him, not because of his title or royal status, but because, just maybe, they would accept him for just being him.

“You were right,” he huffed, turning over and looking to the balcony.

The crystal hornbill was back like it had never left. “Are you ready then?” It flew over and took a roost on his forearm. Are you ready to start healing? It wasn’t spoken, but it was implied, especially after all of that blot had surfaced.

Leona shifted to an upright position, looking up to the stars, feeling the warm air gently surround him carrying the scent of warm earth and blossoming night flowers. “... Not yet.”

The bird nipped at one of his ears, “What are you waiting for then? An invitation?” It continued picking at his ears, trying to get Leona to action.

His ears flattened, from irritation but also to escape the attack. “Oi, cut it out, would ya? I want to make it up to them first before waltzing in like some ‘prince charming’ into their life.” He rolled his eyes at the cliched term. He didn’t view himself like that, and he didn’t want his soul match getting that idea either. He knew that he had aspects of himself that he needed to work on… That he needed to heal. But he didn’t want them taking the brunt of it. He wanted to prove to them, that besides his initial rejection, he was trying. That he wanted to make this work… Whatever this proved to be. Be they a friend, found family, or even something else. He was tired, so tired of being alone… maybe he could finally let someone in.

“Hmph, as long as you don’t keep them waiting for too long.” But the hornbill’s stoney expression softened, joking. Leona didn’t notice how the bird looked off to the side, looking at your sleeping form, nodding at the matching bird sitting beside you. “And they are a lot closer than you think.”

Leona flopped back on the bed, making the bird take flight to avoid getting tossed about. “Mmm, what matters most is travelling the path, whatever it may look like, and finding them at the end of it. Or whatever that bedtime story was.”

Going back to sleep, he was expecting to be back in the endless glowing dunes as he usually was every night. Stuck in the tar. But tonight was different. Instead of barren sands, he was surrounded by blooming flowers, towering trees, and a pleasant filtered light radiating through the branches. He was in the botanical gardens, under his favourite tree, his hornbill chasing after some butterflies… And the lion from all those years ago was back, standing in front of him. Follow the path. Find them. And it was gone, but he felt a hand on his shoulder. He placed his over their’s, squeezing it.

…

You’ve noticed something different about Leona ever since you made your alliance during Azul’s overblot. Yes, he still called you herbivore, but he seemed easier to read, not as closed off. You could tell that he was joking with you by the sway of his tail, and the flicking of his ears.

“Head in the clouds again?”

Oh right, there’s been another new development alongside Leona. Your crystalline friend now spoke to you. Well, not really speaking, more so talking in your mind. The first time it happened you nearly threw it across the room, but honestly, what were you expecting? A talking crystal bird shouldn’t have been that shocking to you after everything you’ve been through.

Your attention snapped back to the lecture Professor Crewel was giving a certain group of first-years about not eating during lab. “Just there’s been a lot,” you said. Seems like there wasn’t going to be any new content taught today since somebody decided to eat the ingredients and get rushed to the infirmary room. You wonder if Crewel just said that his hair was dyed or if he was going white early due to the impulsive thoughts and actions of his students. So you were able to freely discuss as much as you pleased with your stone friend. “What can you tell me about them?”

The bird paused in its fuddling with a spare pen, “I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“You need to travel down that path on your own decision, not influenced by anyone,” they took off, leaving you alone for the first time on their own free accord. But gold, glowing footsteps followed them, leading the way.

I need to travel the path on my own decision. You knew those glowing footsteps would lead you towards your soul match. But why did they lead to Ramshackle?

…

Meanwhile, in the botanical gardens, Leona was sitting comfortably under one of his favourite trees, eyes closed and tail swishing back and forth peacefully. But he was awake, and he was listening in to the conversation of his hornbill and a new voice.

“How do you think it will go?”

He recognized the voice of his hornbill.

There was shuffling on the branch, a new voice entering his head. “They are both quite stubborn, but seeing the progress thus far, even without them knowing, is promising. But they must go forward, forge their own path.”

He cracked an eye open, seeing the two green birds sitting together on their perch. But something else caught his eye, glowing footsteps. Follow it. So he followed them, the footsteps. Leona saw the other hornbill, his soul match’s hornbill take flight, the footsteps leading in the same direction. He looked back under the tree. To follow or not to follow, that was the question…

He ran after the footsteps, his hornbill clutching onto his shoulder for dear life.

“WHAT IS WITH THE SUDDEN CHANGE OF HEART?!” They squawked, falling off and flying beside him.

Leona rounded a corner, nearly running head-first into a Scarabia student, but he ignored him and kept on running, getting weird looks from everyone. “I’m tired of waiting,” he snapped. But also, he knew that there was going to be no perfect time to find them. He realizes what he needs to work on. He realizes that it will be a rocky path. That it will take time to heal. But he knew that whoever was at the end of the glowing footsteps, that they had the matching hornbill. That they were right. That they were his equal in all things. Regardless of status. Regardless of upbringing. Regardless of what even his first insecure thoughts were.

He stopped running, looking to where the footsteps disappeared under the door. The front door of Ramshackle Dorm. He put his hand on the doorknob, but he didn’t turn it.

They are a lot closer than you think. They weren’t able to be there for you for a reason. So it wasn’t just a sense of owing someone then. That bitter taste in his mouth from when he found out you had a soul match was jealousy that it could be someone other than him. Of course, it was you. One of the first people in a long time where he felt like you weren’t looking down at him, or just judging on initial interactions. That you accepted him. That you rolled your eyes whenever he felt like being snarky with you. That you bantered with him. That he felt… lighter with you.

But his hand didn’t move. He took it off the knob. He wasn’t just going to barge in. So he knocked on the wood, three gentle tap tap taps.

You looked up from the busted wall you were trying to patch up, the ghosts having alerted you that someone was waiting at the door for you. The fact that they were waiting surprised you, usually people would just come in unannounced or just kick the door down. But they were waiting. You made your way to the door and looked through a large crack. What was Leona doing here?

You opened the door, and you noticed the same bird that watched after you from the roof. Both of your birds took flight and danced with the other before coming down and landing on both of your shoulders. Performing the soul match dance.

"I'm glad it's you."

Fin!

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theknightmarket · 9 months

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"Choke on it."

In which Dark finally helps the person he wronged. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - AO3 TW: cursing, possibly abusive relationship, heavy violence, destruction of property Pages: 29 - Words: 11,500

[Requests: OPEN]

It was nearing midnight when your heartbeat finally calmed down. Not even setting foot into Mark’s apartment had been a relief, not when you were so close to toppling over the cliff of a heart attack. Your friend had yet to say a word since you got him out of the manor, and the distant expression on his face was little comfort. At least he still had a face. You didn’t want to know what that maniac would have done to him if you hadn’t come out of that bathroom in time.

Questions of that man swirled around in the forefront of your mind while your body acted on autopilot – Mark would have to settle for the sixteen-hours-on-set-in-summer protocol, which started with you laying him on the couch and getting two glasses of water. It was a good thing that you were used to this, too, because your focus was split between him, yourself, and the stranger.

You hated that. You hated that he distracted you from helping the person you cared about. You hated that the dozens of questions that plagued you like locusts refused to leave even as you retrieved the med-kit from a bathroom cabinet. Staring back into the mirror, you tried to fight them back, or redirect your attention to the present. The last hour didn’t matter, stopping your panic did.

Were you panicking? You couldn’t tell. When you tried to inspect yourself for injury, your eyes blurred your skin so much that you couldn’t differentiate between a shadow or a possible bruise. Didn’t matter. You knew that Mark was hurt. You could check yourself out afterwards.

He was exactly where you’d left him; lying on his back, spread longways on the couch in the living room. He didn’t look any more coherent than he did before. You didn’t expect that to change anytime soon.

The inside of the med-kit was rammed full of miscellaneous equipment. There was a pack of unlabeled pills, some Advil, three rolls of gauze but no band-aids, a cloth, and a couple of bottles. The edges of the box were surprisingly battered, as if it had been thrown around in the moving truck. One of the latches was nearly falling off. Was it ironic to have a broken med-kit, or just stupid? Not that it really mattered all that much. It was still a container if the lid wasn’t on it all the way. Nobody was breaking in to get at your random assortment of drugs. Or maybe they were.

Eight minutes you had spent staring into the med-kit.

You struggled between trying to tether your mind to the present – the feeling of the microfiber smothered in disinfectant – and it escaping back into the wilderness of questions. It got lost in the bushes as you brought your hand to Mark’s head. You had propped him up at some point, or maybe he’d pushed himself to a sitting position, but that dazed look was still present.

That daze was broken when the chemicals leached into his cuts. There were multiple in the same place, as well as the bruises from that psycho’s fist, so it made sense to tend to those first. The hiss that shocked the air was an understandable response, and you were glad that it was that to take him out of the haziness.

“Hush,” you muttered, almost inaudible, “we don’t need this swelling and making your head any bigger than it already is.”

Starting bits wasn’t part of your protocol, but you couldn’t stop one from pushing past your lips. It only made you feel slightly guilty when Mark didn’t laugh, or even respond in any sense of the word. That hiss was the most brought out from him.

“That was a joke.”

The lack of band-aids meant you had to fetch some scissors from the kitchen and cut out a sizable square of the gauze, with a slightly bigger one of medical tape to go on top of it. Apparently, there wasmedical tape in the box, too. You shifted your attention to his jaw.

“That didn’t go to plan.”

You leaned back at Mark’s words. That much was obvious.

“No, I didn’t think it did. Can’t exactly base a ghost show off a living man beating the hell out of you.”

The spit of, “Living…” did not fly over your head, but you assumed it was just natural spite. He didn’t like his pride damaged, and being battered, even if it wasn’t life-threatening, wasn’t exactly a badge on his boy-scout sash.

You continued to pepper the disinfectant around the most important areas, pausing for Mark to take one of the known pills, and then resuming your care. This being Los Angeles, you weren’t a stranger to helping out with injuries, especially when shoots wrapped up late. This one, though, confused you more than a random alley mugging.

“What was that guy’s problem?” you asked as you cut up another gauze and tape.

“I’m sure he has plenty of them.”

“Was that place even abandoned?”

“Not exactly.”

You blinked. While you hadn’t been asking questions for no good reason, you didn’t expect an answer, especially not one that put you on guard. Not exactly. That wasn’t a promising response from the very person who had told you it was safe not four hours prior.

Your eyes narrowed. “Mark.”

He didn’t take a breath before he rushed to his own defense. “The studio said we were going to use it, so I took it upon myself to check it out. If we hadn’t, we might’ve encountered that man halfway through filming.”

That eased your suspicions somewhat, enough for you to wrap the last injury and pack up the med-kit. The look in his eyes was somewhere between pleading and self-justifying, so you let it go. It wouldn’t do you any good to pick a fight when the dinginess of the encounter was wearing off finally – you quite liked being able to think, thank you, and if that meant backing off from Mark for the day, you were fine with that.

So, sighing, you grabbed the kit and rose from the couch. His eyes trailed after you as you made your way back to the bathroom. “I guess so,” you said, rounding the coffee table, “just don’t make it a habit, yeah?” The light chuckle you heard calmed your heart some more. He seemed to be in good spirits after the whole ordeal, and you weren’t about to go breaking that. He’d get an earful from the makeup department the following day, so that took the lecturing off your plate, and you wanted time to think about everything before you launched into an argument. You wanted answers, something to back everything up if he got on the attack; getting the full picture normally disproved a lot of Mark’s points.

Your feet brought you to the edge of the hallway. You didn’t like planning for a fight, but, with Mark, they happened too often to let yourself be willingly vulnerable. It would have a better outcome for you if you weren’t in the dark.

Though, there were things that you still missed. For instance, Mark’s whispered words of a forewarning promise that slipped by you. “Trust me, pet.” He made himself more comfortable on the velvet cushions. “I already got exactly what I wanted.” Ever the dramatist, he knew nobody would hear him, but being able to say those words aloud, and for them to be true, was one of the most satisfying feelings in the world.

The clock in the kitchen read quarter past one when you were readying a meal for yourself. The last thing you ate before arriving at the manor had been a slice of pizza you’d scavenged from the tech room, and that gave you the smallest boost of energy you needed to get back to the apartment. Now that you were out of danger and had missed dinner, you were starving. Mark had gone to his room before you asked if he was hungry, so, while you had the oh-so-generous thought of waking him up to eat, you ignored it in favor of the oh-so-appealing thought of just throwing down whatever you wanted and then collapsing on your bed for the next eight hours.

You rifled through the cabinets and fridge until you came up with the basic ingredients needed for a sandwich. Simple, quick, and good enough that it would get you through the night. It required no cooking and barely any clean up!

Brushing your commercial thoughts away, you settled down on one of the stools and took a bite. You’d suspected it for a long time, but, in that moment, you made concrete the revelation that things always tasted better after the worst possible day, at the worst possible time, with the worst possible thoughts in your head. You almost bit your fingers clean in two with the distractions floating about – the questions flitting around your mind like a plague of locusts that refused to leave – but a solid taste brought you back to some modicum of awareness.

However, only those first few bites were satisfactory. What you had was an addict’s high, as stupid as it sounded in comparison to eating food, because as you filled your stomach, the thoughts strengthened. They poked and prodded and pulled, demanded that you pay attention to them, the one thing you steadfastly refused to do. You squeezed your eyes shut, no help, you opened them, and took the lesser of two evils by forcing them closed again.

The sink was directly in front of you.

Goddamnit.

The manor was fine to think about, right? It wouldn’t hurt any to reflect on the day. It was just a building. An old building, which housed a violent mania— it was just a building. As far as you could remember, you didn’t like reflecting on things. Being in the moment, as people called it, wasn’t how you liked to spend your time. You could be out doing things that mattered, and the past had already happened, so why bother devoting a second more to it? Despite that reasoning, you’d found yourself reflecting more and more recently.

Like a bad habit.

You weren��t hungry anymore.

You wrapped the sandwich in plastic, placed it in the fridge, and wandered off to the living room. Something to distract you, that was what you needed. A bad show or reruns of a movie that was seared into your memory from how many times you’d seen it already. Anything but the stillness and quietness and void that pulled you into thinking.

A laugh bubbled up from your throat when you let yourself fall onto the couch Mark had occupied before. Most people liked thinking. The pillows were still disheveled, more so after you launched them into the air. One landed on the floor next to your foot, but you didn’t pick it up, choosing instead to search for the remote between the seat cushions. It didn’t take long to find it, drudging up a couple coins, some string, and a whole leather wallet alongside the thing.

You brought a hand up to your face, and, with the other, clicked on the TV. Whatever was on already was fine, you were too tired to change it, or even listen to it. Making that sandwich really sapped your energy, it seemed, teasing you into an early food coma. What was the lightweight version for food? Was there one? Could you make one? You rubbed your eyes until they stung, and your mind fogged up with the pressure. Everything was falling in on you, all at once. A headache knocked at the edge of your brain, stirred on by your own merciless hand and a swarming static in your ears.

You groaned. Great. Amazing. Now the TV was breaking. You glared at it from the corner of your eye, but it didn’t right itself; the silvery sparks danced across the screen, repeating and reemerging from every corner. You saw them as you looked away and as you looked back. Just what you needed, more problems to add to your pile of issues you weren’t ready to fix. A yawn stretched your jaws open. Screw it, you’d deal with it in the morning. You had time. For the moment, you could just switch it off and ignore it all. Or, apparently, with your thumb jamming into the button, you couldn’t.

The universe hated you. The damn thing wouldn’t turn off, and the static was overwhelming you, and you were tired, and you couldn’t sleep with that thing next to you, and you figured you might as well wait out your demise on your comfortable bed. Huffing loud enough that you wondered if Mark had woken up, you tugged your body off the couch and pulled your legs to the edge of the room. You had to get out quickly or the fixing chore would soon be a replacing chore.

You resisted sprinting down the corridor away from the living room, but you compromised by glaring at everything that passed. The windows, the lights, the paintings. You flipped one of them off out of spite. You knew you were being petty, but did you care? Not really. No one was there to see you, you could make as many obscene and nonsensical gestures as you wanted, as long as they didn’t wake Mark, and you had gotten pretty good at keeping quiet.

As you trudged around a corner, you noticed how many paintings Mark had. You’d once spent an entire day off counting them, but he must have gotten more in the meantime – one, because he was Mark and everything did was over the top, and, two, because there were some you didn’t recognize.

You ran your hand along the frame of a winter wonderland, then crossed to a split-screen of a brilliant disco and a monochromatic office. The third one felt more homely; a painting of a Victorian living room so detailed it might as well have been a photograph. You stopped at the last one. In the row of four, this was the one that gave you pause, knocked you off your rhythm, made you feel ill. It was… nothing. Just a black canvas. Completely empty, like someone had made a mistake and dumped a bucket of the darkest paint they could find on top of it.

When you moved your head, you saw the light reflect off it, bringing your attention back to nothingness. You moved again. You missed it again. Whatever it was, it was giving you a headache, not that you would be free of one given that you could still hear the static from the television.

What were you doing?

Right.

Bed.

You’d have to avoid this hallway when you woke up. There were enough rooms that it was possible, and you were going to take full advantage of that. You were well aware that you could cut off an entire section of the house by going in a different direction – you had found that out when you avoided Mark for a day and got on just fine. It did take some watching through a crack in your door for when he'd leave his bedroom, which was helpfully stationed opposite yours, but it worked, and you were proud of it.

Speaking of your room, as you rounded another corner, you spotted your door. Relief washed over you at the thought of your comfy sheets and no more static. If you heard it inside, you might have just thrown yourself out the window and called it a day.

Fingers on the handle. Still there. Pushing the door open. Still there. One step forward taken. Still there. Another step. Still there. The door drifted closed behind you.

Thank fuck.

If you silently pumped your fist in the air, nobody knew. You trapped the static right outside, you were the goddamn winner, you deserved an award, you were really tired. Stumbling over to the foot of your bed, you gripped the edge of your shirt and fully debated just sleeping in your clothes, and you probably would have, had you not been distracted by the figure appearing in a swirl of smoke in your full-length mirror across from you.

Your body sprang into action, fists pulled up, legs steeled in the stance you’d seen in movies before. You could question why the maniac from the manor was in your mirror when you knocked his lights out, and you could wonder if that was possible after you tried.

He held his hands up placatingly. “Easy, easy!” he said, “I’m not here to fight.”

That didn’t stop you from moving closer, eyes narrowed at him. “Yeah? What are you here for then?”

“You.”

He spoke as if it were simple. As if you were supposed to know that already. And, somewhere in your gut, you thought that you did.

“I just want to explain.”

“Go on. Explain.”

His eyes flickered, leaving trails of red and blue in the sockets. For a moment, you were worried he was bleeding, but you didn’t care. Why would you care? Maybe you didn’t want a dead body in your mirror.

You frowned.

“I can’t do it here.”

Your frown deepened.

“Why not?”

“He’s nearby.” Considering it was only Mark and yourself in the entire house, you could guess who he was talking about. “Anything I say, he’ll use against me, and you, too. We can do this on a level playing field.” He stopped. Last time you had spoken, albeit less speaking and more yelling, he had seemed desperate. Angry, but desperate. He had pleaded with you, for something that he didn’t receive, and then he conceded. Earlier that day, you were able to leave the old manor with nary a glance over your shoulder or a thought to the man until you arrived home. Now, he was different. You didn’t know whether it was because there was a screen of glass protecting him, or because Mark was asleep, but he was collected. His words came out confident and calculated. You weren’t about to admit that you preferred it.

After nodding to himself, he tugged at the edge of his jacket. “The manor is still open; you can meet me there.”

“And that’s a level playing field, is it? Your home turf?”

“Going anywhere else would be much more complicated on my end, and I need to get this done as fast as possible. It’s urgent.”

It was urgent? It was urgent. Something stirred in you that whispered to bite back, to send a petty remark, but not one that was fit for the person who assaulted your friend. More as though he had taken the last donut at the studio, apologized, and then left. You didn’t need to be angry, it told you, you just had to joke back to break the tension.

“Please. We need to talk.”

Another pang. It was almost hurting now. You didn’t like it. It was all wrong. You didn’t know how, but it was wrong, and, in order to make it right, you had to accept.

Begrudgingly. Of course.

“Fine—” because he was dangerous, “—tomorrow morning—” and he was untrustworthy, “—the manor—” and he would definitely use you against Mark, “—we’ll talk.”

So, aware of all that, why did you almost copy his smile when it spread along his face. He was relieved. Normally, you weren’t a fan of being out of the loop, but you felt no reason to ask. What you did want to ask, however, was something much simpler.

“In return,” you said, “you could give me your name?”

“Ah, yes, I always forget that part.” He shifted on his feet, both hands springing to his jacket. “Dark. You can call me Dark.”

Although you wanted to tell him that his name was actually an adjective, you held back and just nodded. You could bully him in person tomorrow. More fun that way, and you could think about that instead of the fact that you were putting yourself in the path of a metaphorical rolling boulder.

Or the light chuckle that you let out when Dark said a quiet, “Thank you.”

Your new acquaintance disappeared in a puff of smoke, the kind you’d see in TV shows, but it didn’t seem that odd to you. You got over the strangeness of the whole ordeal quickly, which you supposed was a good thing – though, whether you got over it or were ignoring it was up to debate.

After pulling off your shirt and reaching for the nightwear thrown over the bed frame, you paused with the fabric in your hands. Did you have to tell Mark? You knew that you should, it was only right for him to know. You wouldn’t not go if he told you to, but he should have been aware of it. Shouldn’t he?

You vaguely registered sitting down before you were overwhelmed by indecision. On one hand, Mark was your friend. You trusted him, and going behind his back to, what, meet with his assaulter was unfair. On the other hand…

You just didn’t want to tell him. It was so simple that it made you feel sick. You had to keep this from him. He wouldn’t want you to go anyway, and, if nothing came of this little event, then it didn’t matter if you told him or not.

For once, in the life that you could remember, you decided that it would be better for Mark to not know, and you carried on your routine without a second thought to it.

It was cold outside the manor, but it was infinitely better than standing inside. Preparing with deep breaths and calming thoughts was going to be no use when you were standing in the maw. Better to do it on the gravel, where you could turn tail and run if you couldn’t do it. But – deep breath in, deep breath out – you knew you could do this.

The door swung open before your fist could come within an inch of the wood. It revealed the foyer, the staircase, the rubble, a room devoid of life. A glance around didn’t help its case. Whatever had caused the door to open didn’t stop you from stepping tentatively onto the floorboards, but the twin shivers racing up and down your back stopped you from moving any further. Paralyzed, you settled on calling out to the ancient manor’s walls.

“Hello?”

Your voice echoed. Not a creak or a crack to reply. You were somewhat surprised the little word hadn’t caused the place to collapse around you, but weirder things were happening to pay attention to it. Your gaze zoned in on the mirror at your side, like a moth drawn to a flame.

It was difficult to blink as you looked at yourself through it, harder to take your eyes off it than inspect every inch of the glass and frame. The wood had intricate designs that coiled up and over, disappearing behind the dusty reflection of the rest of the room. Instinctively, you brought a hand up to your cheek. It felt the same as it ever did, but that didn’t stop you from brushing a thumb over every pore and rough patch.

When you pulled yourself away, like removing your body from fly paper, you didn’t try to suppress another shiver. You could convince yourself it was from the cold of the manor, but that was undeniably a lie.

“Who’s pretentious enough to own a manor?” you muttered, stepping back into the middle of the foyer.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Oh, shit—” You managed to not trip over your feet, but you whirled around far too quick to appear stable, “—don’t do that.”

Behind you, or now in front of you, stood none other than the man who had invited you here. Dark was still in the same outfit as when he’d shown up in your mirror; the black suit and white dress shirt, both uncreased and unwrinkled, even when he shifted his arms behind his back. The more you stared, the more you noticed, though you stopped at the faint red and blue lines that curled away from him. Weird.

Dark opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then opened it again. “I apologize,” he said. “I… it’s nice to see you, under better circumstances than yesterday.”

“Attacking my friend isn’t a good start.”

He recoiled at your words, but which aspect was most appalling was lost on you. “That is what we need to talk about.”

“Well, you can start by apologizing again for hitting Mark in the jaw. It’s his best redeeming quality.”

“That I cannot do.”

“An even worse start.”

How was this supposed to work, then, if he refused to apologize for the simplest wrongdoing? And what even was this, anyway? Dark had managed to be both blunt and vague at the same time, leaving you gasping for breath in a sea of confusion. You didn’t know whether taking this seriously would help you, because Dark’s way of speaking to you didn’t give you anything to go off of that would let the few meaningful words have any weight.

“By the end of today, if all goes well, you’ll understand why I won’t.”

Ah, so you were here to forgive him. Great. Okay. And what did that achieve? You hated being in the dark more than you hated knowing painful truths, so you wanted to speed this along. He must’ve seen your restlessness, because he hastily ushered you towards the archway that connected the foyer to that kitchen. You tried not to look at the sink, but you still found yourself seated in the same stool as last time with Dark in the one next to you. A pair of teacups still steaming on the marble had you questioning how much he had planned this morning out.

“You’re gonna have to start explaining, I have no idea what any of… this is about.”

Dark cleared his throat while one hand reached to tug on his jacket. Your first thought was that he had a weapon, but it just appeared like a nervous habit. You paused as he thought through his words. It wasn’t natural for him. The way his hand moved to the side ever so slightly before it lunged for the fabric made you think it was a replacement, and not a good one.

An artificially calm tone brought you back, Dark asking, “Can you promise to believe me, if only for the duration of this talk?”

That was counter intuitive. If you agreed, then what was the point of being told at all? Blindly believing someone was never a good idea, you would know, and an insane stranger was not a good candidate for it – why would you know – really, this entire situation screamed trap, and his request made it clear that whatever he was going to tell you was too outlandish to be taken seriously.

You nodded, ignoring the sense of reason that you shoved further back in your mind by taking a sip of the tea.

The story that followed sounded exactly that; a story, crafted with rough hands that produced cracks and faults the kind that made it impossible to hold itself together. A shoddy job, which definitely made you regret promising to believe Dark, even before you were halfway through. Everything was convoluted and paradoxical. Not a single word of it made sense.

So, why were you nodding along with the sections, filling in the blanks yourself, and acting less surprised than if you heard the lady down the street had lost her fifth cat? Why did it make sense that you were, apparently, somehow, the shadowy leftovers of a 1920s district attorney, shot in the chest by a colonel – who was still around there, somewhere –, and left for dead by your current best friend, who was really a century old actor? Oh, but don’t forget that the man sitting in front of you was three spirits, two of which were your childhood friends of a seer and the goddamn mayor, inhabiting your body after they trapped you in the mirror that you had seen when walking in.

You wanted to not believe it, so badly.

Dark watched you placed the cup back on the countertop. You weren’t angry, that was good news, but you hadn’t said anything since he’d began to talk. He was familiar with the old adage that ‘no news was good news’, but the silence made his throat dry, and his breath escape him shakily. Back to square one, looking at you as he hoped you would say anything, please.

You cleared your throat, and then said, “Except I can’t remember any of this. How does that fit?”

Dark’s shoulders lowered. Your tone wasn’t condescending, and it genuinely sounded like a question. Only, it was one he couldn’t satisfyingly answer.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “I was hoping you would be able to fill me in on that.”

“Do you have any physical proof that this happened?”

“Not as such.”

“Any witnesses?”

“None who would make it any more believable.”

“Right, then.”

With that, you rose from your seat, pushing the teacup away from the edge, and moved your gaze from his. Panic crossed out any other thought in Dark’s brain. You couldn’t leave now. You’d be going back to Mark, and he’d never have a chance of helping you again. You’d be stuck, and he’d have failed, and everything would continue to be wrong.

“Come on.”

What?

Your shoes unmoving on the tiles of the kitchen, you looked down at Dark. The movement of your head indicated you wanted him to follow. But weren’t you leaving?

He brushed himself off as he got to his own feet. “Where are we going?”

You spoke as you began to lead him back to the foyer, though you stayed well away from the front door. “If what you’re saying is correct,” you started, “and my friend has been lying to me for three months, and I’m really the—” you found it difficult to keep the laugh out of your voice, “—what, ghost, reincarnation, of a district attorney who died one hundred years ago… then we’re gonna see if we can’t recover some memories through good ol’ exposure therapy.”

You didn’t remember the layout of the manor, but the way you moved, hurled yourself around the banister, walked backwards up the first few steps of the staircase, certainly made it seem like you did. Like this was all natural to you. Dark hoped it was, even if it were just muscle memory, because that gave you a chance. It gave him a chance.

Hope was a hard thing for him. Frustratingly intangible and always disappearing at the last moment. However, as Dark inspected your face for deceit, he thought that, maybe, hope was something he could hold onto, if only for the rest of the day. There was something familiar in your eyes. It wasn’t the same as the 1920s, but neither was Dark, and he would find no comfort in something from the time he hadn’t participated in. That would be for Damien, or Celine, or the extra entity. The risky flame in the color that flirted with the paper white around it was just for him.

He placed his hand next to yours on the end of the banister and followed you up to the first floor.

This was proving more difficult than he had thought. For the past three hours, Dark had taken you around the manor – a tour through the most valuable places that might contribute to your memories. The office that housed Abe’s suspect board was a bust, but that was never going to be of any help to anyone. The room you had slept in on the night of the party yielded no results, save for your tripping over a loose floorboard that Dark had to right you from. Both the master and the other normal bedrooms were useless. Peeling out of the last room, he was gradually losing confidence in this not being another wasted venture.

That meant he had to think of the consequences. You couldn’t keep living with Mark but getting you to understand the danger you were putting yourself in was the only way of convincing you. It wasn’t as though anyone else in the manor was going to help. Benjamin was still annoyed about his kitchen and Wilford was—

Coming down the hallway.

His hopes dampened further.

“Oh, hello! Fancy seeing you here!”

The newcomer was a sight, to sum it up. Dressed entirely in pink and yellow, practically candy-coated, and oozing a manic aura that made you take a step back. He didn’t seem to take offence, too caught up in seeing you, apparently, again.

“Hello?” you spoke carefully.

The stranger moved closer, past Dark and past the door you had just come from, to walk around you, as though you were a zoo animal to gawk at.

“In the flesh, too.” His whistle was punctuated by a poke in between your ribs. You didn’t try to keep still, and, instead, slapped at his hand and crossed another over your stomach to protect as much surface area as you could. “I thought it’d take more to get you back, but I should have had more faith in our friend here, eh?”

Our friend? Well, whoever this was, he was involved in the events that you’d forgotten, but further judgement made it clear he was going to be just as vague as Dark in giving you information, if not more with a flair for the dramatic. A fluorescent pink moustache wasn’t the style of a straight-lace guy.

He came to a stop from his shark-esque circling next to Dark. “Though, really, I did not expect to see you with Mark.”

“And why would that be?”

He huffed and the hairs of his mustache shifted slightly. “From our last chat, between the two of us, I’d say I was the more sympathetic to him. Don’t tell me your flame’s gone out.”

The issue with having moved from where you had been standing before was that you were now trapped between the end of the hallway and the wall. It gave you no space to get away from the man who was now leaning in closer. The melodramatic attitude sapped away, exchanged for something more threatening.

And then he was gone. Not disappeared but planted further down the corridor than he could have moved in the second you took to notice. Creepy, but you preferred it to his invasion of personal space.

“Ah, no matter,” he announced, hands on hips, looking quite sure of himself, “it won’t take much to stoke that fire. You’ll be right as rain in no time, as long as Dark does his job right—” the wink he tossed was met with furrowed eyebrows, “—and I trust that he will.”

He patted Dark on the shoulder once, firmly, decisively, before spinning on his heel and marching back down where he had come from. That left just you and Dark, yourself staring at the retreating haze of color, and the latter looking anywhere but.

“That’s one of the witnesses?” you guessed.

“Correct.”

You barely took a breath before you replied, “Yeah, that makes sense.”

While you processed the new not-stranger, Dark carded a hand through his hair. He knew he looked disheveled but what else was new? He hadn’t been anything else since you had been taken, and now that you had returned, he was even more unstable than before. This effort to restore your lost memories was taking a larger toll on him than he would admit, especially when he had already reached the last resort.

The last resort, which he had conveniently forgotten was completely destroyed.

You whistled as you set foot through the library’s door, Dark’s face dropping behind you into a grimace that you missed when you walked forward. The toppled shelves and collapsed desk were all pushed to the side, as if to make way for the whirlpool of pages and books and bindings. Seeing the mess that he’d made sent another pang of regret through him to his core, but you were not deterred, likely because you didn’t know it was the man behind you who had created it.

You stepped carefully over a pile of the healthiest books and proceeded into the centre of the ring. From what you could glean of the covers, a lot of them were faux journals, framed as entries into some magical cyclopedia, while others were playscripts. You stumbled over a collection of Shakespeare’s tragedies but landed with a curse on spirit interaction guide. In a situation like this, you had no clue where to start, so you just dropped to the ground in a crouch and started rifling through the legible documents. At one wall of the library, Dark followed suit, scanning the higher up books for a hint of something to help you.

Ten minutes passed. Nothing. Thirty passed. Nothing. An hour passed. Nothing. Two hours passed. Nothing.

Dark prided himself on his ability to plan. He would map out every possibility and consequence of those possibilities in his mind and react accordingly. It helped in keeping people away from the manor and, although it had slipped in recent months, keep an eye on Mark.

Yet, certainly because of you, those plans were thrown out of the window and into a smoldering pit where they burned to a crisp. It was something about you that threw him off but let Mark keep afloat. His plan to recover your memories, foiled by either Mark or you or even himself. Nothing was working how it should, like it used to, and the only different component was you.

You lodged a spanner in the works and tore down the front Dark had managed to painstakingly construct of power and order.

Now, he was just some fool, searching through empty bookshelves for optimism and forcing the stress and the anger to the forefront to avoid thinking about why you had such an effect on him. Coming up empty after another half hour of skimming page after page only added fuel to the fire.

And all of that wasted time had no effect on you. You had returned to your spot in the middle of the library after searching in an arc for nothing in particular. He’d watched you out of the corner of his eye as you waved a hand over the viable covers or browsed the exposed pages for a line to give you any strong emotion. You’d even picked one up and laughed to yourself about a recipe’s annotation. How you were getting enjoyment out of this was beyond Dark. Hell, how you were still going with that slight grin on your face had him questioning whether you were taking this seriously.

He could only hope you were. For both your sakes. If he lost to Mark again, he didn’t know what he would do.

But he couldn’t let himself worry. Worrying would damage the dam he had set up to keep the emotional side of him away. He could worry after you were safe. For now, he would have to be stressed if he wanted to get anywhere. Dark forced himself to keep moving.

You were surprised to see Dark stepping away from the shelf – he hadn’t moved an inch in the last twenty minutes – and that surprise strengthened when you realized he was moving towards the door. Quite quickly, in fact. You narrowly missed tripping on one of the books in your effort to chase after him.

“Why isn’t anything working?” he muttered to himself, rushing in the direction of the staircase. You caught up with him as he rounded onto the first step, skidding to a stop against the dusty carpet. Dark was at the bottom before you could think to descend, and then he was turning the corner just as you reached the last step.

You were halfway to winded when you wound up next to him. Back in the foyer, back near the front door, back near the mirror, which he was staring very intently at, like the answer to his problems should have been written on his forehead. You didn’t stop the light chuckle at the thought from escaping you, going so far into the bit as to follow his line of sight.

Your throat dried up and your breathing froze inside. Every inch of your skin went numb to the outside, but you felt the blood course against the surface and your organs churn. Heart batting a dozen against the cage of your ribs. Mind focusing every conscious and unconscious thought onto the image inside the mirror. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t Dark. It was something else. You wanted to throw up. You wanted to look away. Neither of those you followed through with.

Against the backdrop of a void laid a body as clear as daylight, but, god, did you want it to be shrouded in darkness. The flesh was pouring off the bone, melting eyeballs staring right at you, taunting you, and the smirk of chipped lips from a face turned almost 180 degrees. A red robe molded itself into the divots and dips that the caved in skin left, making it difficult to discern between the crimson fabric or blood. The stuff pooled around his head to create a sick halo.

“Anything?”

You couldn’t talk. All of the breath was knocked out of you, stolen by the exotic corpse. Its smile grew wider.

“This was a horrible idea.” You barely registered Dark’s sigh. “Can you give me anything at all?”

You snapped your head to face him and immediately shivered. Stiffly, you replied, “Don’t get mad at me. I didn’t invite myself here.”

After taking a breath in and letting it out, you risked a glance back. Gone. Gone? The body was gone.

“You say that like you don’t care.”

A voice whispered to you that this was, indeed, a horrible idea. You shouldn’t have come at all. You should have brushed Dark’s appearance in your mirror off as the product of an adrenaline high, or simply a dream. It would have been better than this.

Dark took your silence for resignation, to which he took offence. “If I’m correct,” he practically spat, “you are living with a murderer.”

“And that’s a very heavy if. Mark’s my friend.”

“He’s not your friend.”

“Because I can trust the person who I watched try to kill him.”

Stop. Slow down. Don’t do this. It was happening again. You were getting into an argument when more important things were at stake.

“Look at me,” Dark spoke, trying to be as calm as he could manage, “tell me I look like some maniac who would attack someone with no reason.”

And look you did. Up and down, you inspected him. While he was right, he didn’t look like he’d assault someone for kicks, you couldn’t admit it. Because then you would have to admit that Mark was not who he said he was, and that you had to take this seriously.

All you could muster up was a faint, “People do things for so many reasons.”

Dark could tell you didn’t believe that. Your sentiment didn’t meet your eyes, and he’d spent long enough looking into them that he knew when you were genuine. “Then give me my motive,” he offered. “If not for revenge, why did I harm him.”

“Oh, who knows!” The hiss came out stronger than you thought it would. “It’s not as though you’ve been trying to convince me I’m a dead attorney for the last four hours. Give me some leeway here.”

“We don’t have time for a casual stroll down memory lane, you could be in danger.” In fact, he knew you were. You just needed to see that.

“It’s Los Angeles, it’s impossible to be safe.”

“Stop making light of this.” The command was stern and offered no alternatives, but he knew that had never stopped you before. “He murdered our friends, he left you for dead, he trapped you in a void—”

“He got me out!”

Who did Dark think he was? Barging into your life and taking away those happy moments that were the only things keeping you going, ruining the treasured feeling of sun on your skin and wind in your hair and the ability to walk ten paces to the left without seeing a dead body in your peripheral! He thought that it would be such a good idea to drag you back to the darkness. And you almost let him. You agreed to go along with it and go on a wild goose chase for something you doubted would even matter, because you couldn’t have this life without Mark. Being free meant being with Mark, and you knew it wasn’t true freedom, but the alternative was going back to that mirror.

Although you had only said four words, you were knocked breathless. Dark was similarly surprised, mimicking the shock on your face before it broke apart, half eager, half pained.

“I said you acted like a child, that you were being selfish.”

“You stole my body.” You wanted time to think about this, you tried to stop the response from shooting out, but you couldn’t.

“I minimized your suffering to explain my actions.”

“I was stuck in complete darkness.” The taste of metal spread in your mouth.

“I stayed away for three days after that.”

“I kept seeing Mark’s corpse.” You didn’t understand what you were saying, like the thoughts were coming from someone else and you were just acting as a conduit. But they felt right. They made sense, even if they didn’t to you.

Dark’s breath became labored at his final admission. “And I never got you out.”

“You left me for one hundred years.”

You both came to a stop. Cars going too fast that crashed into the same wall. Flames danced in your eyes, and wreckage collapsed in Dark’s. Tears trailed onto your chin, carving out the shape of a snarl, but you paid it no mind. You were caught, face to face, with this stranger. According to your statements, you should’ve despised him, if they were all true, but, now that you’d slowed down, there was something else. The accusations told you Dark was cruel, and yet the emotions behind them whispered otherwise. You cared for the monster, somehow, you cared for the man who had abandoned you. Mark might had left you to die, but Dark left you in your death. You didn’t know what to do about that, because your muscles spasmed against your brain that held them back from reaching out for him.

You didn’t know everything yet. Some of the most important memories were still trapped, and Dark knew how to unlock them.

He was running towards his office before either side could win you over.

“Oh, you are not leaving again!” Your yell echoed after him, following your shadow on the ruined wallpaper up to the first floor. Wherever he was going, you were going, too.

Although, he didn’t go far. You caught the edge of the door before it could close behind him and stalked into the office. Everything was so pristine compared to Dark, who was bathed in the streaks of bright light from the window. He looked almost ethereal. You knew he was no human, but it was undeniable now.

You stopped moving when you were a few steps away from Dark. He wouldn’t be able to get back out the door, but he clearly had no plans. Instead, he had pulled open one of the draws of his desk and was keenly searching it, with more vigor than in the library.

A book was pushed into your grip within seconds. Your skin burned against the cover, though Dark’s hands on the other end prevented you from dropping it. You couldn’t help the fearful look you shot him, your own hands shaking and words crumbling in your throat. You only managed a meek, “What?”

A gentle smile and the book cupped in your hands were all you were offered, but you still took a breath. It was just a book. Why did it hold so much weight?

“Go on.”

Damn it. Damn it. The soft look in Dark’s eyes, his encouraging smile, damn it. You had called him a monster, but he had gone so far to help you, and now, after you insulted him over and over, he was being kind to you. You didn’t know whether to laugh or sob.

You settled for opening the book to the first page.

Immediately, you were greeted by a sight you were all too familiar with. No memories from months ago were needed to recognize the signature on the white paper, you’d seen the thing just a few days ago when Mark had signed off on a year-long contract. A dramatic, emboldening crimson was the only difference. The flourish at the end like a blood splatter made your stomach churn.

The cold didn’t seem to affect you as much anymore. You were still aware of it, of course, but you got better at accepting that it was there. A long time ago, you had tried to exercise to generate your own heat, but this was better. Everything was better. You both hated and loved that it was. On one hand, it had taken a century to get to this point. The loneliness and fear had no reason to it anymore. But, on the other hand, it was over, even if its happening didn’t matter. You knew why it was better, too.

Dark’s arrival was a miracle. Behind the teasing and the pettiness, you were truly grateful to him for showing up – you could have done without the wait, but better late than never. You would admit that there was a tipping point when you stood on the cliff and looked over the edge into that ‘never’. You had been so close to taking the leap and letting go of everything. Lucky for you, the years of waiting strangled your perception of time, meaning the days you took to decide weren’t the seconds it could have been. And, even luckier, it was during those days that Dark chose to talk to you.

You didn’t get to the bottom of what he wanted, but you didn’t care anymore. The warmth that flooded you was enough that the need to know didn’t bite at you like it normally would.

You were happy. What a weird thing to say. You liked it.

With your nine o’clock soirees becoming habit, you were able to handle the void better. The aforementioned cold, the darkness, the body. Hell, you even risked a look in your peripheral just to show it that you could get better, and that you had and—

No. No, no, no, no, please, no.

“Hello, darling.”

The body was standing, but it wasn’t just a body anymore, because it wasn’t that same body. Frozen exactly how you were, you were able to see the corpse on the ground, splayed out just as it was before, but it was rotting. The more pristine duplicate was not wearing the robe, and it wasn’t snapped at an odd angle. No, this one was decorated like an alter to a forgotten god, sporting a red jacket, black tap shoes and a damnable smirk that made you want to throw up.

The Devil wore a suit and tie, after all.

You stumbled back in a blind panic, back to the mirror that you had been staring out of. “No, no, you do not get to do this, not now!”

Mark laughed. “If I knew I was going to get this reaction, I would have come a lot earlier.”

Your order unheard, you resorted to the only thing that you could trust in the void, though you had to get closer first. You braved every step you forced your body to take and swung at his jaw. Miss. The spot you would have landed on was empty, and, next to you, a puff of smoke revealed him again.

“Now, now, none of that.” You moved to get as far away from as possible while he teased. “Fisticuffs aren’t my forté. I came here to bargain.”

“Yeah? And what could you give me that’ll stop me giving you another broken neck.” Make him match the shell he left behind.

His command of the void got under your skin and made your blood boil. Celine may have worked in the dark arts, but at least she knew when to stop. Meanwhile, Mark took all the power he could get, and then some more. He disappeared and then reappeared again behind you in whirls of shadow.

His breath fluttered against your neck, as he whispered, “Freedom.”

You spun around to see him further than he was supposed to be.

“That got your attention.”

Bartering with this demon was a terrible idea. It was the worst-case scenario, the bottom of the barrel, but there you were, standing before him and asking, “What do you want for it?”

“Oh, just a small thing. You’d barely notice it’s gone.”

“You’re a dramatic bitch, Mark, just spit it out.”

“Okay, here’s the deal—” you hated that he was so prepared for your attitude, “—I will let you out of this mirror, if you promise to come with me and stay with me, willingly.”

Sneaky bastard. It was like dealing with the fae; you needed to know every term and phrasing of a contract to agree with it, or you’d be giving up more than you thought.

“You’re avoiding the question,” you spoke. “What do you get out of this?”

His hand leaped to his chest, and he recoiled. You, meanwhile, didn’t try to keep your eyes still. “You don’t believe I can do this out of the kindness of my heart?"

“I don’t believe you have a heart.” He still didn’t look actually offended, although it played it up as such. Redirecting your gaze, you sighed, “You said a bargain.”

“I’ll get the smallest bit of revenge. That’s all.”

A man like Mark had to be in tune with everything around him to get where he was. Every action and every emotion were things he had to be able to sense, in order to use them to his advantage. Playing on your hesitation was child’s play.

“You can feel the sun on your skin, the wind in your hair. You can talk to people with no connection to your death.” That word sent knives through your chest and needles through your brain, as though your body was trying to reject the notion that it shouldn’t be functioning anymore. Still in the denial phase, after one hundred years.

You were on the edge of accepting. Mark could see it in your body language. Your attempt to broaden your shoulders and make yourself look intimidating was hindered by your worry – and when you tried to make eye-contact with him, you missed. So, he surmised, you just needed a little push.

A step and he was close to you. That shark’s grin widened when you didn’t move away. “You can live.”

“I just have to do that in your presence.”

“Is that so much to ask?”

It was. It was so much to ask because, and you reminded yourself as you stared at his outstretched hand, Mark was the one that prompted your death in the first place. Without him, you would have died of old age or in a boating accident or robbery gone bad or something other than this horrid immortality. You would have had an actual life.

And you wouldn’t have to sacrifice the one you are being offered.

“Do we have a deal?”

The Devil wore a suit and tie, indeed.

You would do it, take the new life and use it wisely. As soon as he finished doing whatever meant you could leave, you would take revenge on him, instead, for yourself, for Dark, for all the victims of this bloodied monster. And once he was dead, you would return to the manor, find Dark and… you weren’t quite sure what you would do then, but it was an appealing enough fantasy that you suffered through Mark’s frigid touch to take his hand.

Up, down. The deal was done. Nothing had changed, but a burst of confidence washed over you, allowing you to pull Mark forward and grab at his jacket’s collar. “The moment I am out of this mirror, I am going to cave your face in.”

Your snarl met a smirk. “I can’t wait.”

Slowly, he leaned down and brought your clasped hand to his lips. If you had more time, you might’ve killed him right there and then, but the explosion of smoke and ash whisked you away before you could. The cage, for once, was missing its prisoner, and the warden stood inside. He was proud of himself for tricking you – you had been a force to reckon with back in your prime. He’d seen you argue a case with just a few loopholes to go off of in court. However, your skills had waned in the years of disuse; you hadn’t even caught the cold terms of the agreement. It made him sigh a breath of relief that you hadn’t asked what you’d be missing, and the little thing that you wouldn’t notice was gone were your memories. He didn’t lie, after all, not that you would remember the trick he had pulled.

Good. The first step in his plan was an undeniable success. With the other hand to the one you had held, Mark withdrew a calligraphy pen from his jacket and turned towards the mirror screen, underneath which laid a single, old book.

You were sobbing when you came to. Clutching the dampened pages of the book, your book, ‘The Lady in the Lake’, your heart thundered against your ribs harder than it had before. The restriction in your throat compelled more tears, to the point that the ink on the paper disappeared into mush. You ruined it. You’d ruined everything. It was all your fault.

“You’re okay,” someone whispered in your ear. You registered the pressure on your shoulders before you met Dark’s eyes. You cried harder. Regret, shame, a terrifying horror filled you; you had hurt him, emotionally and physically, and sided with Mark to do it. Could he ever forgive you? You assumed he hadn’t considered anything yet, given how he spoke to you in such a soft tone. “It’s all okay.”

“Dark, I—” The words choked themselves in your throat. How could you explain yourself, you couldn’t just say you had a plan. It was a foolish plan, anyway, it didn’t deserve the strain it would take to convey it.

But Dark didn’t care. His hands tightened on your shoulders, eyes fluttering around your face like he couldn’t believe you were you again. “I know, I know, I know. You’re safe now.”

You believed him. You believed him more than you believed yourself right now. You should have trusted him from the very beginning, but you hadn’t, and now you were here, collapsed on the floor of his office and lunging to do the thing you had wanted to before you were taken.

Dark was a lot firmer than you had imagined him to be. You half expected him to disappear into smoke underneath your touch, but he stayed put, letting you wrap your arms around him and just hug him. The fabric of his suit was a comfort, but his neck against yours as you buried your head into his shoulder made you want to never let go. You had yet to bask in the ability to touch, too caught up with fully being conscious with Dark for the first time in months. You shifted, barely, when you felt his own hands come up to grip at your shoulder blades, the most comfortable position so that you could continue for as long as you wanted without losing feeling in any of your limbs.

If you were to ask him after the fact, after the two of you had separated and looked each other in the eyes again, Dark would deny the tears that formed at the bottom of his eyes, but he would gladly confirm the way you made him feel. Loved. Simple as that.

“I’m sorry, Dark, I’m so sorry,” you muttered, using one hand to try and fix his hair, “I thought, I thought I could… I’m so sorry.” Trying to explain it would only cause you to choke up again, so you were grateful for Dark’s ability to just nod, mutter that he understood, and attempt to correct your collar.

A wet laugh bubbled up. You could have really used a mirror.

You didn’t think you could look at another mirror ever again. After being trapped for so long, you’d take your chances looking like the corpse you were supposed to be.

But speaking of corpses…

Gingerly, you got up from the ground and put a hand out for Dark. He gladly took it, hoisting himself to his feet, and following your example of brushing yourself off. You were tired, after all this, but a good sleep was third on your list. First of all was the mission of finding and dealing with Mark.

You took Dark’s hand again after his go-ahead, grinning as though you had just won the lottery.

“Let’s go make good on my promise.”

If you had it your way, you would have picked up some gasoline and matches on the way back to Mark’s house, but an agreement with Dark meant that you were going to face him immediately. You supposed this was better. You hadn’t thought through the implications of brutalizing a popular actor, who, in the eyes of his coworkers, was self-centered but not evil. It put a damper on your mood to know that you couldn’t outright kill him, but it worked to stabilize you enough to come up with a plan. You could go in, beat Mark with your bare hands, stage a home invasion, leave a little of your blood, and then leave with your pride and dignity intact.

Mark being the only witness would be helpful, and he couldn’t rightly tell the truth about the situation. No, he’d have to come up with something new, and that would give you the time you needed to come up with more plans. You knew just the person who would be eager to help with that.

That was exactly why, not half an hour after you’d left the manor, you were again greeted by Dark in the entrance hallway’s mirror of Mark’s home. This time, you were able to appreciate the irony of seeing him behind a screen of glass, but you weren’t overjoyed to see it, like how you imagined you would be months prior. Instead, you shot him a smile and a wave and moved towards Mark’s bedroom.

Kicking down the door was fun, you had to admit. Seeing Mark’s shocked face was better.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, “I was worried when you weren’t in your room, I thought—”

“Shut up.”

God, that felt good! And Mark looked dismayed to hear you say it before his expression melted into fear at your approach. He stumbled up from his seat at his vanity. Helpful. It was easier to swing your first into his jaw, landing directly onto the spot Dark had hit before, to which he released a pained yelp and curse. You didn’t give him the chance to take a breath, shoving him into the wall and taking a mirror down with him. Deserved him right for owning so many.

“W-woah, pet,” your fists ached to hit him again, “think about what you’re doing.”

For a brief moment, as you lifted Mark by his collar, you felt bad. Not for Mark, no, but because it was so similar to what you had done to Dark. When you hadn’t realized who he was, when you had fought on Mark’s behalf. The monster you were risking touching earned everything you were going to do to him.

“Oh, I’ve thought about it, and I have never been more confident in my decision.” A manic grin split the bottom of your face in two. “I said I was going to cave your face in, Mark. Took a bit longer than I’d have liked but, y’know, we work with what we have.”

He tried to smile, but the shock of pain from his jaw stopped him, leaving him to cough out a laugh. “You’ve got this all wrong.”

“Hmm, go ahead, then.”

His silence was the best noise you’d heard.

“Turns out explaining isn’t your forté, either.”

Unblemished skin bruised like a peach every time you landed a hit. No blood, only blooming violets telling you what had happened. You lost ten minutes to that haze. Repeated punches and kicks where you could fit them in, the temptation of using a weapon the only thing you were aware of when you had to brush it off. It was when you knocked Mark into leaning against his vanity that you slowed down. Huffing and puffing, you reeled back your fist, then stopped.

He looked awful. He deserved to look awful. That wasn’t what had you pausing and lowering your clenched hand.

It was the sight of Dark in the fitted mirror. He was watching you; you had known that since you started, but he didn’t look happy. Conflict, if you had to label it, a war waged between a two parts of him. One that encouraged the fire, the flame, the inferno of bloodthirst propelling you forward in this unfair fight – and another that just wanted it all to be over, so that you could return home and you could start to live without Mark. On the outside, Dark looked cold. You liked that less than the soft, caring side you’d been shown before.

You gaze trailed downwards, to the monster that you’d been using your anger against. There wasn’t a spot you hadn’t damaged, nor a bone you hadn’t knocked. You were sure you had broken one of his ribs sometime in that fog. He was breathing at the same rate you were, forcing you to steady yourself and get back to a better rate.

Rubbing a hand on your shirt, you glanced around the room. It was destroyed enough, you only needed to shatter a window to sell the story of an invasion, done so in quick fashion with your shoe.

A look back to the vanity, you saw a beaten Mark, and Dark behind him, looking pleasantly surprised.

You walked slowly towards the door, crushing mirror shards underneath your feet.

“We had a deal.”

The choked reminder of a dying god.

“Choke on it.”

And you, a happy heretic, gathered the few sentimentals you had gained during your time there and collected them in a rucksack.

“Could you come back to the manor now?” Dark asked from the void of the mirror in your room. “We have matters to discuss.”

“We sure do.”

Your smile wasn’t as manic as it had been before. It settled more comfortably on your face; it suited you better. You were sure you would keep it for years to come if you stayed by Dark’s side, and, as you set off to return to the manor, you were reminded of the second point on your list.

You were going to admit every feeling you’d ever had for Dark.

[I was hoping to post this yesterday, but better late than never, eh? In all seriousness, thank you for reading, thank you for supporting, and I hope to see you guys in the next - and, hopefully, final - part that will be major fluff. Of course, there's going to be some angst, because I'm writing this, but it will be as wholesome as I can physically make it!]

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