"I'm glad it was you."
In which Dark and the district attorney finally unite, for good. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - AO3 TW: cursing Pages: 20 - Words: 8,000
[Requests: OPEN]
Your return to the manor was not marked with fireworks or cheering or parades. Nobody met you at the door and welcomed you in with fruit baskets and wine. The place was just as drab and cold as it always had been, but that was fine by you. You radiated your own heat now, with a living, physical body that you could walk with, talk with, control to your beating heart’s content. The grin stretched across your face was your own slice of heaven. You hadn’t been able to keep your hands still since you left Mark’s house – the bastard that you beat, so you weren’t afraid to say his name anymore. Your fingers brushed against the curve of your cheek and danced along your sides.
Even the rotting wooden handle of the manor’s front door was welcoming. A rough texture to remind you it was there as you pushed the creaking thing open. The empty foyer failed to dissuade you while you strutted in.
You were confident. You were excited. You were so goddamn happy to be alive.
“Dark!” you called, hearing the sound of your very own voice echo. It echoed! You could barely believe it. All of this felt like a dream, but you refused to accept that. You deserved this after so long, you wouldn’t let a little doubt creep in to spoil your fun.
The air flexed around you alongside the arrival of someone new in the room. He peered round the corner of the kitchen archway at first, but within seconds he was in front of you. The ribbons of red and blue danced around his figure, the same you had seen through the barrier of a screen for weeks before and was now standing in front of you.
Dark spoke simply, “Hello.”
And you replied, “Hello.”
You tried to hold back; you really did. The records would show that you restrained yourself for a full five seconds before you lunged forward and wrapped your arms around his waist. You savored the smoothness of fabric beneath your fingertips, but you cherished the squeeze of Dark’s own arms around your shoulders more. There were no tears, not this time, because you reminded yourself that you weren’t going to lose this. Should he let you, you would gladly spend another century in this position.
But you were sure there were other important matters to tend to. It didn’t make you pull away, but you were aware.
“You’re very cold.” Words muffled by the jacket collar against your mouth, you gladly forfeited the joke for the comforting pressure he provided.
“Does that bother you?”
“Nope.”
His laughter was music to your ears. Deep, genuine, dare you say, dark. You were slightly mad that you weren’t strong enough to swing him around, but you settled for a comical squeeze.
“You are warm,” he muttered, a coat of confusion on his statement, as though he expected you to be as cold as he was. Unbeknownst to you, he did.
“Does that bother you?”
“Of course not.”
You stayed like that for another ten seconds without shifting. This was good. You liked this. You pushed the idea of moving away back like it was an incessant dog. The normality of your old life was long lost to you, but it reminded you of knowing you had to get to work but wanting to stay under the blankets for that much longer. The height of winter, the sun not yet risen.
You sighed, “My legs are getting tired.” And, while they were, the dull pressure rising from your knees, neither of you made any attempt to cut the contact. This wasn’t how it had gone when you first escaped the mirror. You were springy and enthusiastic back then, so this ache was likely psychosomatic, a possibility you relied on in order to stay right where you were.
“Are you,” Dark started, then he stopped to swallow. Being this close didn’t make you a mind reader, but his nervousness was obvious either way. “Do you feel like you can talk about what happened, because I have many questions.”
Did you? You supposed after effectively beating the hell out of Mark, you had calmed down enough to go through some of it. It was the best you would get from him; you weren’t about to get a written and signed apology.
Gently, you pulled yourself away from Dark, but you thought it best to keep your hands on his shoulders when you saw a spark of guilt in his eyes.
“Yeah, I think so. I mean, I have a lot of questions, too, but I’ll answer what I can.”
Dark nodded.
A second passed.
And then another.
Dark cleared his throat.
“Oh, you mean now.” He nodded again. “Sorry, I forgot what we were doing.”
The chuckle you drew from him was worth the slight embarrassment.
“That’s perfectly alright. I expected nothing else.”
When you had left the manor, you had been in a haze of bloodlust. You were prepared to burn the house down with Mark in it. Now, with your mind clear, you noticed that the few things had changed since your disappearance. The foyer that you walked through, towards the staircase, was full of more rubble than furniture. The most obvious was the pile of wood that had presumably fallen down from the landing above, but you were well aware of the splintering support beams and steps that you took to the second floor. It was almost disappointing to see the damage the place had sustained. From your perspective in the mirror, despite only being able to see a small portion of the rooms, you never saw any real effects of time. It was as though it was frozen, just as you had been, but everything caught up to it at once, leaving you to see a ruined temple instead of a magnificent manor.
When you reached the last step, you glanced along the hallway. “Is Wilford around?”
Dark hummed. Not even he could keep track of that man. “Possibly,” he answered, similarly vague as the topic was. “You’re back, that’s something interesting to lure him in, but then again, it is Wilford that we’re talking about.”
The one consistent thing about Wilford was his inconsistency, no rhyme or reason to his appearances. You thought about asking after Benjamin for a second, but spite had gotten you this far, so both the comments about your outfit were ones you decided to carry with you.
Beside the peeling wallpaper and the shattered console tables, the door to Dark’s study looked completely untouched. You couldn’t say that you weren’t surprised. It had seemed a focal point in the recent events, sweeping in and out, pushing and pulling the handle, and yet it was as good as new. Time barely touched it.
Dark sidled up next to you and opened the door to the room. Just as it was before. The sight of it alone, outlined by sunrays streaking through, instilled a tiredness in you, though the added relaxation made it feel like getting into a warm bed instead of forewarned fatigue. You felt comfortable before you set foot across the doorway.
There was already one chair parked by the window you were facing, so Dark moved the one from his desk into place next to it. A simple gesture towards the pair made you lightly comment, “How gentlemanly.”
“I do try.”
You enjoyed seeing him like this. When you were in the mirror, it was rare for you to see him smiling, and even rarer for it to be in your direction. You’d seen the perk of the corner of his lips when he reached whatever paragraph of the book that he enjoyed – you were always tempted to tell him to just laugh, it was obvious he was holding back the smallest chuckles. You never found out why, but, now, he was being unabashed with his happiness.
While you were enjoying the moment yourself, a worry gnawed at your heart. You weren’t here to stare at Dark, you were here to answer questions, and hopefully, get some answers to your own. Still, you felt guilty, knowing that the peace had to be broken, and the hammer rested between the two of you.
Dark was the first to pick it up.
“Ah, well, to business,” he spoke calmly, a guise he was proud of. In truth, he was just as disappointed as you were to move on. You were smiling, too, though he wasn’t sure if you knew it. It was all the better for him because there wasn’t a barrier between you, glass or distance or memory; he could see the way your smile bent into your cheeks as clear as day. He could reach out and cup your face if he wanted to.
To business.
“I have to ask,” he began, settling back in his chair, “how did Mark get you out of the mirror?”
Your reaction was immediate and volatile. That smile turned into a grimace at the mere mention of that man, so Dark was quick to continue.
“I know the circumstances on your end, but I had only just found a way to take down the mirror’s barrier, let alone get you out, and that was with Celine’s help.”
You sighed. It felt good to breath, as weird as it was to say, in a confined space. You drew as much comfort from that as you could.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t know specifically how he got me out, but, when he did, he just snapped his fingers—” You copied this action, and the click reverberated against the walls and molded with the small rings of light emanating from Dark, “—and I was gone.”
That was what he had feared. Mark hadn’t needed a book; he hadn’t needed anything but the experience of the void in order to bend it to his will. He could do anything, and had done something, on a whim. Having been a part of the void was not the same as practice, it seemed. That thought scared him.
“Do you know why Mark did this?”
Your simple answer was, “Bragging rights.”
Dark knew that. When Mark had appeared in his office, he told him. Flaunting, he had called it, and teased him with the fact that taking you didn’t matter to him while it meant everything to Dark. Despite all the proof, there was still something inside him that hoped it wasn’t true. He didn’t want you to just be a pawn on the chessboard, caught in the middle and then captured because it was convenient – because that meant that if he had not talked to you on that fateful night, you wouldn’t have gone through any of that.
The undertone of pleading was hidden by a groan. “Anything else?”
“Why would there be.”
You sat in silence for the rest of that moment, thoughts overcoming you in a way that got on your nerves. Against your will, they latched to the image of Mark beaten to the ground. What was he doing now? Was he planning? Was he recovering? Or was he doing what you largely suspected; getting ready for his next scene in a makeup chair to cover up the cuts and bruises, not a goddamn care in the world. Because the villains always lost and the heroes always won, and it wasn’t a mystery which role he saw himself in. He would find solace in thinking – knowing – it would turn out right for him in the end.
You felt a pressure on your hand. The one that lay on the arm of the chair was now covered by a gray one. Just yesterday, that might have seemed unnatural, but, this time, it reminded you to take a deep breath and look at Dark. He was calm, so you should have been, too. In and out.
You nodded with a small, tired smile for him to continue.
“You’re warm.”
“Yeah, we’ve established that.”
“No,” he laughed lightly, “as in you’re not cold.” His fingers curled around yours, as though having more contact would help him to figure out this confusing aspect. “Whose body is that?”
You hadn’t considered that. Getting you out of the mirror was one thing, but your old body was, well,occupied. But, after a second of thought, you were pretty sure you had an answer. You brought your legs up and your hands to your eyes, not enough force to drive the balls of your thumbs into your sockets, but enough that you could ground yourself.
“Well, it’s not mine, that’s for sure. Someone Mark deemed unimportant, which, in his eyes, could be anyone.” You felt Dark coaxing your hands away. You let him, until they were in your lap again, and he was holding them tighter than before. “But he wasn’t caught, so it can’t have been anyone socially important, either. I-I don’t know.”
His thumb brushed yours. You put one foot on the ground and tucked the other under your knee.
“And you have needs?”
That hit you like a freight train.
“I’m sorry?”
Dark didn’t look phased. He had the slightest tilt to his head and his hands stayed right where they were. Given his thought process, it made sense.
“You need to eat, drink, sleep?”
“Oh!” You weren’t given enough time to fluster, taken from one to one hundred and back to one, so you wasted no time in confirming, “Yeah, yeah, I do, and so does Mark.”
This was the most perplexing part of you to Dark. The whole pseudo-dying and resurrection, he understood that, he had gone through it himself. However, you were much more human than he was. The taste of food in his mouth was lost to time for him, and yet you needed exactly what anybody on the street needed. You fit in well enough with them, while he was confined to the manor. The entity that made him who he was kept back everything else. His humanity. Earlier in his life, he would have appreciated it.
The patter of rain drew his attention to the window. A gloomy day to suit the topic of conversation and the moods you had both been moved into. It was difficult to confront it all, but you had to, and you knew that. You had to move forward with everything, but the concept was warred over in your mind.
“It’s a pity Celine doesn’t have any books on necromancy,” Dark said, “I wish I could be of more help to you.”
Whether it was the time spent in the modern world or the century since you’d used your manners, you found yourself barely stifling a laugh and eyeroll. “Are you serious?” A glance towards him told you he was. “I’m the one who was missing a batch of their memories, you can’t be the one to forget our conversation.”
He didn’t respond in the pause you gave him, so you sat forward further to look him directly in the eye.
“The self-loathing, Dark, it’s not good for you. You’re also just wrong.”
You held your clasped hands higher between you. “Without you, this wouldn’t be happening. I’d be locked behind glass or trailing after Mark like a puppy. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the one who got me out, even if you don’t believe it.”
All it took was lifting his hands slightly for you to lean down and kiss them. On your end, it was an appreciative gesture that occurred to you from somewhere unknown. On Dark’s end, he froze, meaning you were the only force to lower his hands to where they originally were. His eyes flitted around your face, like a bee searching for a flower. He never found the confusion or regret that he assumed he was going to find, only honesty, and he didn’t know how he should react. It was no secret that he wasn’t the best with social cues, and neither were you and neither were any of the others in the manor. The only thing that he felt right doing was letting slip the little smile that danced at the corners of his mouth. So, he did.
The emotion behind it changed when you asked, “But, uh, do… do you think Mark’s able to put me back?”
You were scared, and that smile softened to a comfort, as best as he could.
“After the state you left him in, I don’t think he’ll be able to put himself back.”
That image flashed in your mind again, your eyes losing focus and your jaw clenching.
Dark rushed to continue, “It doesn’t matter. He’s not going to get the chance. Now when you’re here.”
Albeit unspoken, he hoped you understood; not when you were with him.
“You’re right, it doesn’t matter. Look, this is my first real day of being out, and I think I’d rather do anything than keep talking about Mark, so could we…?”
“Whatever you want.” He hadn’t expected to get even this far with his questioning, and there wasn’t much else he thought you would know. At least, nothing worth drudging up the experience again. “Though I can’t promise a sunny stroll through the gardens.”
The raindrops were pelting the glass even faster now, a group of storm clouds swept in with it. Weather like this didn’t worry you, but you wanted to spend some time with Dark, and he wasn’t about to go dancing in the rain with you for himself. So, you sat and thought for a few seconds, and then an idea struck you.
“I know what we can do.”
Despite you keeping the plan to yourself, Dark got up when you did and followed you into the hallway again. It didn’t take long for you to wind up at the door to the library, and his hesitance catching up with him was just as quick. You had already seen the carnage he left behind in there – why you would want to get close to the room, he didn’t know, but you gladly strutted in regardless with your arms spready out wide.
Did you think things would be different? No. You knew fully well that it was going to be as bad as it was when you had searched for some memories. Dark’s frown made it obvious he wasn’t going to repair anything, and the thing about being dead was that you couldn’t touch anything, so that ruled out Benjamin. Wilford wasn’t around enough to devote any time to a project, if he was able to stay focused long enough, anyway. And who did that leave?
You spun around, back against the wall and hands settled on your hips, and announced, “Cleanup duty.”
Grabbing one of the more intact books that was within your reach, you stepped forward and threw it to Dark. He caught it without a second thought, though not yet done processing the situation.
“Can’t make a new start without fixing the old one, right?” you said as you moved towards the first bookshelf that needed de-toppling.
Your companion watched you, hands clutching the book. The leather binding was bent away from the pages, and some of those were shedding from the glue. The knicks and gouges were a feature of every book that he saw, but this one had three sizeable dents in the sides, and, when he opened it, the first paper was labelled at the twenty-seventh.
And yet, he couldn’t help but concede, “If this is what you want to do.”
Your bright smile was all the push he needed to place that book to the side and help you to reset the room.
It was an endeavor, to say the least. The shelves and cases were heavy, but it was harder to avoid stepping on the remains of encyclopedias and journals. Paper was strewn on every inch of the floorboards, and you were not proud to say that you almost slipped over once or twice. A side-table had to be made right, and, underneath, you found the missing pages of the book you had thrown to Dark. With them all in one place, you safely moved the copy to the salvageable pile. Somewhere along the way, roughly half an hour in, you had developed a system. The utterly destroyed books were packed in one corner, ready for an unknown future. Dark felt the rush of guilt whenever he added to the steadily growing mound.
Then, there was the stacks of the aforementioned salvageables. The only important thing was that they had most of their pages together; the covers could be remade, but the contents were what mattered. They were in the first corner you had cleared, as though a protective ring were summoned around them. And that was another positive of the inhuman inhabitants of the manor! There was no dust for you to clean up beneath the papers.
Nevertheless, it was only right that the survivors, the very few books that might have sustained a scratch or tear, were placed in the hallway on a console table. Only the ones that had been stashed far into the bookshelves were of that nature, but you still felt prideful when you fished one out.
Your merry pair of cleaners was an hour in by the time that Dark picked up a book that was very literally hanging by a thread. He shifted it carefully in his arms to avoid agitating the binding, barely moving in a centimeter, but it didn’t work. The connection snapped and the bound pages drifted to the floor in a heap, like feathers after a bird was shot. Dark kneeled next to the remains and, with a gentler hand, he picked one of them up.
“Unfortunate, really,” he spoke, noticing you begin to crouch at his side, “I rather liked that one.”
It was true. In all of his years in the manor, he had the option of doing two things; either he could follow the trail after Mark that was undoubtably going to run cold, or he could read. When things got too much, or Wilford forced him out of his office, he would end up scouring the shelves of the library. His library, technically, because Celine was the only one to ever use it. All her early occult guides were on one side, while the other held the recreational books. Non-fiction, mystery, horror… The Lady in the Lake had come from one of those shelves, and so had the one that Dark looked down at.
He was only drawn out of his regret by your shifting. You glanced at the first few lines, then to the mess of papers that joined the rest of the graveyard, and finally to the door. Dark looked at you when you got up and left, barely processing what you were doing without an idea of what you were going to do.
Luckily, he only worried for a minute at most, before you were back in the library with a picture frame in your hands, and his worry melted to confusion. It had lay in the hallway, empty now, as it had once held a distasteful photo of Mark and Celine. Dark sat tight while you popped out the back and handed him the glass and wood.
He blinked.
You nodded.
Restraining whatever strength might have torn the page more, he placed it facing into the frame and reattached the back, slotting the clasps into place. Your hands moved it out of his own grip as you got to your feet. Dark followed suit so that he could see you setting it onto one of the upright shelves in the neater corner.
And, just like that, you went back to inspecting more books and readjusting the furniture.
Dark didn’t know what to do. That seemed to be happening a lot today, but he was getting no more use to it. Maybe it was because the last century hadn’t been action-packed, but he was being surprised and confused and simply flustered recently, all by the same source.
You were a variable in his life that he hadn’t planned to plan for. Getting you back was the goal, and, when he passed that goal, it was done. End of the story. Except it obviously wasn’t because there you were, fixing the mess he’d made of the library, surprising him with every movement you made and every emotion you made him feel, even when it wasn’t an emotion he could name. The warmth you exuded, body and soul, he had never felt it before. Normally, he would immediately distance himself from any kind of uncertainty, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Leaving you again, when you spooked away ennui like a nightlight in blackness, was impossible for him. He wasn’t going to deny that he needed you – though, it might have been harder for him to accept that he wanted you. This situation was one fate had plotted since you had first stepped across the threshold of the manor.
“I don’t suppose you know what’s happened while I’ve been gone?”
Dark snapped his head towards you.
“How do you mean?”
Your back was turned to him, eyes focused on stabilizing the wooden plank in front of you. “People aren’t wearing suits and smoking everywhere anymore. How have times changed?”
Dark huffed a slight laugh as he rearranged the paper of another book. “To be quite fair, I’m not all that up to date either,” he forewarns, separating one of his favorite pages from the rest of the brutalized chapters. “From what Wilford has told me, a lot is different. I was… unaware of the earlier years—” You didn’t need to know the explicit, dehumanizing, jarringly goopy details of his first ten years, when he was barely holding himself together as a creature instead of a person, “—but there were more wars, some hot, some cold. We got to the brink of annihilation at one point, but Wilford glossed over that fact. He was more focused on the disco in the 70s and 80s, he still is.” You shared a breathier chuckle with him. “If I may ask, what have you seen in the last month?”
This was where he had you caught. You had asked what was different solely to get a grasp on where you were. Wilford’s time travel talk was going to need to be backdropped with the current events, after all. However, in your time with Mark, you had seen some things, and being asked about them pushed your preparation to the back of your mind.
“Hollywood got big,” you stated immediately, “I saw a lot of movies, for obvious reasons, and every single one was,” you took in a breath, spending it on another giddy laugh, “they were beautiful. They had these special effects and computer-generated imagery and, Dark, they could take people’s voices and replay them over and over again, and they’d never run out. They put normal people in space or in Ancient Greece.” You abandoned your current task to bounce towards your friend. “They even put people in the 1920s, and you could see the color of their clothes! Everything was bright and expressive; I’d love to show you.”
Dark hadn’t seen many, or any, movies. You would expect that to just be during his time in the manor, but that did include all of his time as him. He had vague memories from Damien and Celine’s theatre experiences, but all of them were clouded over with time and fatigue. The way you described these new ones, though, had him joining your smile regardless, and helpfully disregarding how your proximity to him and your hands on his upper arm made his breath labor.
“I’d love to be shown.”
And ignore that, when your smile spread further, his did, too, and his eyes darted around your face from your sparkling eyes to your grinning lips to your cheeks flushed with excitement.
Meanwhile you fully accepted the rapid beating of your heart with open arms, not only because you now had a heart to beat. Dark cared, no matter how much he tried to hide it, he cared. He did things with you that he wouldn’t do alone in a million years. He paid attention to you when nobody else did and he made up for the time that he didn’t, twice-over. He saved you because he cared. How could you not love him?
Was that the right word for it? You hadn’t felt like this in so long, you never had to put a name to the foreign feeling. But when you looked at Dark, saw him smiling back at you, face to face with nothing but the smallest gap of air between you, you couldn’t think of anything else to call it.
In total, repairing and cleaning the library had taken three hours. The shelves were straightened, the curtains were replaced, and the books were sorted. All you needed to do now was wait for the next day to get out into town, so that you could go on your hunt for supplies and a manual on how to actually fix the books.
While you stood next to Dark in front of the door, staring at your project so close to its finish, your heart ached at the thought of waiting. The hands on your hips clenched and you inwardly groaned. In your humble opinion, you had done enough waiting for multiple lifetimes.
You spun on your heel to face Dark, who looked pretty happy with himself. Good.
“What else needs fixing up?”
He glanced at you like he hadn’t expected you to say anything. “My dear, I do think you should take a break.”
“You’re one to talk.”
As hypocritical as he may have been, even Dark could see what state you were in. Your breathing was fast, blood rushed to your face, you jumped from one task to another.
“I’m not the one who has needs.”
“Y’know, I’d love for you to not call them that.”
“You have to eat,” he stressed, not letting you deflect another time.
You took a step towards him and reassured, “And I will.” You appreciated the concern but the idea of slowing down at all make your stomach churn. “I don’t want to waste all this energy.”
“You won’t lose it, I can assure you.”
Thinking of a last resort, you huffed, opened your mouth to retort, and then stopped. Had you not just said this was why you loved him? Because he cared? And who were you to ignore him, a man whom you trusted with your very life? Being out of that mirror was bringing you back into some bad habits, it seemed.
In the end, you nodded and pulled open the library’s door.
“Fine,” you groaned with no real annoyance, “but I am coming straight back.”
“Where are you going?”
“No offence, but anything that’s been left in the kitchen is going to be well past its expiration date, if they even have them. I’ll drive down to a fast-food place, pick something up and be back by eight.”
Your promise was exchanged for Dark’s confused expression, making you chuckle to yourself as you moved halfway out. That confusion shifting to blunt worry stopped you.
He didn’t know what two of those things you mentioned were, but he knew that it meant you were leaving the manor. An hour at most, but leaving, nonetheless, into the outside world, where he could not go.
“I don’t have to go, I could—”
“No, no, you should,” Dark cut you off, steeling his emotions for however long it would take to convince you and himself. “Go, just stay safe.”
A smile and a squeeze of his hand.
“Straight back,” you reminded softly.
And he repeated, impossibly more so, “Straight back.”
He watched you leave into the hallway and then walk down the staircase in his line of sight. This was okay. He watched you make it to the foyer and open the door. This was fine. He watched you shoot him one last look before closing the creaking wood behind you.
He lasted all of thirty seconds until fear seeped in through the floorboards and window cracks. The pacing started at the forty-five mark, as though his legs had decided that, if he couldn’t go with you in person, he would in spirit. But you said that you would be straight back, and he had to trust you. It wouldn’t do to start this relationship off with assuming the worst. You were able to take care of yourself. The best he could do was patiently wait for you to get back, safe and sound, like you’d promised.
That thought did little in of itself to get him to calm down. Regretfully, Dark was never good at convincing himself of the bright side, and, yes, he understood the joke. What helped him was catching a glimpse of that frame again, all of the backboard now plastered with pages from the best of the collection. He trotted up to the shelf until it was within arm’s reach, but he didn’t take it off just yet. He simply looked at it.
Was this too much? Did this domesticity suit him? It felt good to slow down for once and take a breath. Mark was on the backfoot, you were safe in the manor, there wasn’t anything else to do. Dark had forced you out because you were so keen to keep working, but there he was, clenching and unclenching his jaw. It felt good, but that itself felt wrong. He wasn’t built for this. He hadn’t been brought into the world as an innocent child, he was the amalgamation of three different beings that shambled around in the rough approximation of a man in order to carry out the singular shared goal of vengeance.
The wooden frame was smooth against his fingers.
It didn’t matter if he was destined for this peace, he was choosing to enjoy it. The slow moments, with you, were better than the volatile decades of constant hypervigilance.
If he had to guess, he would think that the affinity was coming from Damien’s side of the family, but he also liked to think that this was just himself.
The frame in hand, Dark walked from the library down to his office, the lack of surfaces giving him few options – the desk or the windowsill, really – but that was obvious enough to give him only one. He secured it next to the lamp on the left side, the light igniting the ink with a white sheen.
He left the room within the next minute, barely a glance over his shoulder. He didn’t need to; he knew it was right, and he would be seeing it every time he sat down to work. He would be reminded of when he read those books, and of who gave those books back to him, and of why he couldn’t wait to find more copies so he could share them with you.
That went further than he thought it would.
Benjamin wasn’t in the kitchen when Dark entered. He’d made himself quite scarce since you got out of the mirror, but the comments you had exchanged with each other didn’t leave you on the best of terms, so perhaps it was the wisest move. Nevertheless, the smell of baked goods helped relax him to the point that he didn’t look any different from your departure when the front door opened again.
Sitting at the island gave Dark a good view of your approach, a white, plastic bag of presumably food in one hand and twirling your keys with the other. A few questions popped into his mind – what a fast-food place actually was and whether you really had a valid driver’s license – but he brushed them aside when you waltzed through the kitchen’s archway.
“I made it through that lawless wasteland,” you joked. He thought you would go straight to grabbing a plate, but, after placing the bag on the counter, you casually ducked down and kissed Dark on the cheek. That was the first surprise, though not unappreciated, while the second was you finding two plates. “And I know you don’t eat, but I picked something up for you, just in case.”
You were smooth, apparently. One hundred years in a mirror didn’t disadvantage you any. He was immeasurably grateful that your back was turned so that you didn’t see the warbling of the red and blue lines. They stretched and thinned like waves in the ocean, breaking upon the counter and only normalizing when he redirected his attention to the bag. You said you’d gotten him something. That was more important than the completely unexplainable and extremely unnatural effect your simple actions had on him.
You dished out what you bought, two identical meals, onto those plates before pushing one towards Dark. You sat side by side on the stools by the island, thinking less about how much of a change from the status quo of the 1920s this was and more about how hungry you were.
“Thank you. I appreciate it,” you heard Dark reply, sounding surprisingly dazed, not that you paid attention to it when you were eating food and conscious of it for the first time in decades.
You missed this. You readily admitted that this kind of scene was something you had imagined many times while you were in the mirror. The food, the freedom… the only addition – which surfaced during the latter days – was the man who sat beside you. You were always alone in your fantasies. Call you a love-struck idiot, but you were so happy with this outcome, even if it took kidnapping and near-murder. This was good. You were good. Dark was good.
The patter of rain developed into a downpour as you made your way through your food. Dark was lagging behind, if only because he had trouble figuring out how to eat at the beginning. The first bite he swallowed entirely whole and somehow avoided choking, but he got the hang of it in time. You were finished when he was halfway through, giving you time to watch the patio doors. It was completely dark outside, illuminated by the few rays of moonlight that dodged the tree line. They hit the surface in specific places, one bouncing off the water feature, another the stone walkway, and a third breaking into the manor itself. All of them were interspersed with the pelt of rain, as if someone had flicked a paint brush onto a gray canvas.
A wistful sigh bullied its way out of your throat.
“Go on.”
Your gaze flashed to Dark, who stared right at you. Surely, he didn’t mean what you thought he meant. If not for the water damage the old house would sustain, he definitely wouldn’t want to risk getting it all over his suit.
But he saw the way you looked outside. He wasn’t about to stop you from fulfilling a whim, especially after so long. Briefly, he wondered how many times you thought about the weather. Such an unimportant thing, a problem in some cases, but he knew you relished it.
So, Dark nodded again. “I don’t control what you do.”
Like firing a bullet from a gun, you were off, shoving back from the island, almost foregoing remembering to open the door, and slipping out on the stones. Immediately, you were drenched. Your clothes stuck to your skin and made everything flash in the light of the moon. You looked like something he would find in the pagan books Celine had. A nymph or fae. Given that he had eaten your food, he supposed he was never allowed to leave. What a poor, unfortunate, regretful fate for him.
Regardless of the dramatics, he didn’t think he was against that thought, as long as you stayed with him, of course. He imagined he could do anything at your side, and he would do anything to stay at your side. He wasn’t going to fool himself. He wouldn’t be able to handle losing you again. He had only just gotten you back; your return pulled him out of the pit of misery, and, were you to leave for good, he was sure he would fall again, further than he had before, than he had thought possible.
Dark dropped his head into his hands, elbows rested on the island.
He wished he had someone to ask. He usually kept his own council, both figuratively and literally, and reaching out was a skill he’d long since abandoned. It would be so much easier to find an answer to this feeling if he had someone else, who could explain why his breath quickened, his waves flickered, his smile widen like he had received the best news he could ever hope to hear. Nothing made sense, and yet everything did. The logic was thrown out of the window and replaced by emotions that he never relied on, but it felt right, and he didn’t know why, and nobody was telling him what to do or what was going on. A being that couldn’t feel was feeling. He had never made a plan for this kind of situation, leaving him high and dry. Benjamin was less social than he was at this point, he had seen how Wilford’s situation had turned out, and obviously you weren’t an option, because you were the person Dark loved!
Oh.
Well, that certainly solved that dilemma.
There was really only one choice he could make here.
Dark got up from his seat and made his way to the linen closet, where he pulled out the softest towel he could find. None had been used, so it didn’t take long to get back down to the kitchen with it in his hands. Slow and steady. He split his attention between walking forwards, keeping his aura in check, and the growing headache at the back of his mind. He knew exactly what that was, he was just electing to ignore it, despite that very specific third of him trying to veto his decision. Slow. And. Steady.
You, meanwhile, were trying not to trip on the wet cobblestone. The grooves and divots of the stone made perfect targets for your feet as you danced around. The rain was a great thing, wasn’t it? Droplets ricocheted off your clothes when you spun and slid down your skin when you stilled. Your impromptu performance was a mix of graceful twirls and jagged strikes of your body. Not a care in the world for the inevitable squish of the fabric when you stopped, you embraced the adrenaline and continued to go about your business until the patio door slid open in the corner of your eye.
The infectious smile you sported as you dashed to the cover where Dark now stood spread to him. You slid to a stop in front of him, dripping head to toe.
The towel he wrapped around your shoulders had you grinning even more.
“We don’t want you to catch a cold, now, do we?”
That little joke – which wasn’t really a joke – was the end of it, leaving you both to watch the rain fall. It lightened and strengthened at a gust of the wind. You leaned against a wooden support beam, face barely peaking below the edge of the cover, and Dark stood next to you with his arms behind his back.
“I don’t remember it raining before,” you muttered. In the weeks you’d spent with Mark, every day was blasted by sun.
“It has been quite a while.”
The silence enveloped you again. It was comfortable, knowing that you could move around without limit, that Dark was right next to you.
His quiet admittance broke the quiet. “I don’t think you’ve stopped smiling this entire night.”
“Why would I?” You shifted to look at him, softness breaching your eyes and his when they met. “Look,” you gestured to the gardens of the manor, “look at all of this.” You hand made contact with the wooden beam; one side was wet from the spray of rain. “And this, this, I can— look.”
Your other hand darted forward without your thinking and grabbed Dark’s before raising it between you, much like how you had done earlier. He briefly thought you might kiss it again, and you the same, but then you stopped and swallowed the words you had meant to say. Something about how it felt, surely, but then another train of thought came to mind.
“I didn’t think I was going to get the chance to do this, ever,” you whispered, “I thought that I was going to stay in the void, watching the world go on without me until somebody broke every mirror in the manor.” What a purgatory that would be. You hated that you could easily imagine it. “But I was wrong. I’ve never been happier, and you know how much I hate being wrong.”
You clasped your other hand around Dark’s remaining one. Earlier that day, when you had pledged to admit your feelings, you didn’t think it would be this difficult. You had been running on adrenaline and fumes. Now, your mind was catching up to you and made you fear the consequences if all of this went wrong.
But you could ignore it all for a moment longer. You had to, or you would never get this out.
“And if anybody was going to talk to me in those weeks,” you continued, a shake in your voice that you tried to breathe through, “I’m glad it was you. I don’t think I could take time-travelling talk or another insult to my outfit.”
Dark was still smiling, that was good. Nothing to stop you now. You had to take the plunge.
“And I meant to say this earlier, but—” no going back now, “—I love you.”
Dark froze. You felt him freeze. He stopped like you’d knocked the life out of him.
So, you rushed to speak, words flooding out of you to rival the onslaught of rain that battered the ground.
“I understand if you don’t love me, or have any feelings for me, I just had to say it or else I’d lose my mind about it, and I did not like it when I was close before, so—”
Your rambling stopped. Not only because you physically couldn’t speak, but because your fears were abandoned in a second. Even as Dark had stepped closer, even as his lips melded against yours, you were both smiling. His coldness and your warmth meshed together, like steam rising from dousing a fire, calming the initial thunder of your heart that made up for Dark’s lack. Despite that, you felt the waves of red and blue clash against your skin, absorbing at some points and bouncing at others. You sighed into the kiss as your hold on his hands severed, only to let you grip at his waist. It was significantly dryer than yours, half the reason why you felt the pressure of Dark’s hands at your jaw and cheek. The other half was so that he could lean further in without pushing into the rain. The touch grounded you in reality, as much as it the entire situation made you believe you were dreaming, and so you kept your position, although your lips parted.
Barely an inch from your, Dark whispered, “I reciprocate your feelings.” It took a moment for him to recognize the hoops he was jumping through, and he amended, “I love you, just the same, if not more.”
“I’ve seen this before; we’re not doing that.” The whole I-love-you-more-no-I-love-you-more was overplayed and tiresome. You were happy with your shared confession.
The inch was covered, and your lips met again, moving in tandem like waves breaking on a sandy beach. A rhythm took over as you stood at the back of the manor. Everything that had happened, stretching back to that century, seemed worth it. You were certain in that fact.
You separated again, not for the last time, for Dark to ask, “What are we doing, then?” “Well, as you keep saying, I have needs.”
The alarmed expression on Dark’s face was all the entertainment you needed, though, inwardly, he was certainly not opposed to any suggestions you might have had. He felt your breath on his lips as you reprimanded quietly, “I’m talking about sleeping, Dark.”
Your spark hadn’t been lost, that was for sure. He doubted that were possible. Your amused laughter chimed in his head, chasing out any possible worries about you, about himself, about the future you would share together.
One hand in his, you tugged him forward and captured him in another kiss, the rain returned to a comforting song in the background.
[And there we go! The final part to what was originally a single chapter! Thank you, everyone, for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the ride. Of course, this was meant to just be a fluffy chapter, but, this is me, so I had to put some angst in it, and that final joke was a literal flip of the coin of whether I should include it. Nevertheless, again, I hope you've enjoyed reading]
