Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Damien—

Can he call himself Damien, anymore? He feels like Damien, still. Sort of. 

Damien was never this consistently angry. Damien never lurked at the fringes of reality, diving in and out of shadows and cracks in the veil on a mission, aided by power he doesn’t understand.

Damien didn’t always feel split down the middle like this.

He can’t say Celine did, either, when she was awake. When she was alive.

Because that’s what they’re in, now, some accursed undeath. He isn’t Damien, because he both is and isn’t also Celine, and when you add in that they’re possessing a broken body that isn’t one of theirs, that once belonged to a person Damien cared for so deeply that it ached—

Granted, that could be the injuries that killed them in the first place. His power doesn’t seem to extend to healing old wounds; his gut burns and twists if he ever tries to indulge in such unnecessary habits as eating or drinking, and his neck has an unnerving tendency to twist of its own volition, bend into an unnatural angle that needs correction with a painful crack.

(They died in agony! They died trying to help! They—)

Damien— is he Damien?— cuts off that particular train of thought. Guilt has no use except as a hindrance, and he has no time, not when he’s on Mark’s trail.

The annoyance of being so attuned is that sometimes, Mark goes... places. Certain places, places that bring to mind guilt and loss and longing and other painful memories that slow him down and throw him off.

Mark had always been too clever. A terrible combination— it feeds into his narcissism, yet never makes him sloppy.

That is, if that is his real intention. It’s difficult to say, at times.

This location, though... he can’t find any other reason for Mark to be here.

His old manor. Broken and fallen into disrepair after years of neglect— an entire party’s worth of people seemingly dying or vanishing off the face of the earth truly drives down the worth of the place, no matter how grand.

A spiderweb of cracks radiate from a spot in the marble floor, permanently stained rusty-brown. Underfoot, jagged shards of glass and pottery splinter into grit, spreading in quiet sibilant noise over the stone.

“Why?” He rumbles, and the voice echoes all wrong in the cavernous foyer: too close, too layered. It doesn’t sound like him and hurts his neck and throat, but that doesn’t stop a second question. “Why did he come here?”

There are no answers to be found, of course. For all of Mark’s— it’s quite appropriate, really— stench permeating the air, it gives him no clue as to motivation, no clue as to which rooms, when, and for how long.

An unnecessary annoyance.

He could trudge the halls, drawing up memory after awful memory, in the hopes of finding something, but that feels like a waste of his time.

Likely, that was the entire reason. Bastard.

All that said, he doesn’t turn to leave out the front door, slip through some tear in reality to find his way out. It could be some hideous vanity that turns him towards the mirror, or an unconscious self-punishment, but he forces himself to look.

It’s the body he inhabits— 

(that we stole after promising them that everything would be fine, and they trusted us, God, why did they trust us—)

and it looks... like him. But not.

At least, he hopes he never looked half as ragged as the creature he sees in the mirror. It’d reflect quite poorly in the mayoral office.

Reflect, heh. Only a taste for poor jokes would remain, wouldn’t it? All part of the ultimate, cosmic joke.

Some shadow moves, deep within the cracked glass.

He doesn’t startle— that’s not easy these days, not with... everything— but not because he knows the source. It isn’t his aura dampening and twisting the light coming through the smashed windows. It isn’t an unconscious extension of himself, reacting to his thoughts. It isn’t even a rat, though several must have taken residence, considering the droppings.

It’s something else, and when it fades in again, in no more of a defined shape, he behaves... impulsively.

He wants to say that’s Celine’s influence, reaching through her slumber, but he can’t say for sure. Things are different, now.

That’s how the mirror ends up in his ‘office’— a place between here and there that stretches and warps because he’s never been able to keep visuals solid in his head. It hangs on a wall, in empty space, hidden by a curtain or front and center, pride of place.

It flickers a few more times in— time is arbitrary, but from previous reckonings— the next hour, then falls ‘silent’, as it were.

He puts it out of his mind and sets off on a new trail.

Chapter Text

The mirror has been flickering, again.

He’s spent the last no-time-at-all watching it, leaning against a desk wrought of little more than thought and shadow, eyes tracking for the next bit of movement. 

There is no light in his ‘office’. That, alone, should make the shadow impossible— should make vision impossible, if one wants to be pedantic about it, though the last time he properly obeyed the laws of physics was... well, before he was this. 

The mirror, though, gives a reflection of him, cracked as it might be, missing pieces and all, because mirrors are meant to reflect things. It should reflect him, because he is here, and nothing else, because nothing else is here. He’s made absolute certain of that.

The shade flickers, somehow a little bigger, a little more of a shape, and he hisses between his teeth, fingers clutching the desk in what would be a white-knuckle grip, had he a proper circulatory system.

He isn’t hiding from it— though he keeps the desk firmly between him and the mirror.

He doesn’t run from it— though he takes a step back when it doesn’t fade so quickly.

He doesn’t scream— though the pained noise from his chest as it finally, slowly vanishes is entirely involuntary.

It does this a few more times as he watches with narrowed, wary eyes, moments like eternity between each new cycle, the shape less and less opaque with every appearance.

Like it’s growing weaker every time, the fading of a light as the bulb slowly burns out the filament and dies.

The thought of it chokes him, something icy and shocking where the burning hole of his stomach should be, and he whips away in a swirl of void, desperate to erase the feeling.

He catches one last attempt, though. Not strong, not dark, more a wisp of fog in the shattered remains of glass, but—

It looks human.

He needs to return to the void to get anywhere he needs to. There is only one Void, a place in between, but it’s endless; he can be at any point in it and out the other end on a whim, less effort than a thought.

He doesn’t have to see the mirror at all as he busies himself with another trail, this heading all across the continent.

Like a bloodhound, maybe. He doesn’t mind the comparison— he liked dogs, once, and still does.

They don’t like him, though. 

Nothing does, really, if he thinks too long on it. His presence makes everyone and everything uneasy: humans, dogs, cats, wild animals, plants. Even the air itself grows restless, charged with static and warping around him, growing cold and thick.

It’s a depressing thought, but whose fault is that, really? He didn’t choose to be a slapdash construction of three disjointed parts, held together with the thought of revenge and a bit of magic.

He never got much of a choice at all, did he?

The rumination makes his warp from the plains near Austin, Texas sloppy, edged with bitterness and distraction, and—

He catches the dusty edge of the dark, ornate wood, a gleam of not-light off the jagged side of a piece of glass. There’s no shape but his own, shadowy as it is, but it still unnerves him, because he didn’t want to see the mirror. He can summon it and banish it, avoid it and seek it as he wants, because he can go anywhere in the void.

He never thought it might be able to do the same to him.

No, that’s— that’s ridiculous. It’s a mirror. An odd one, to be sure— cracked yet still, ultimately, intact— but a mirror. It holds no will, no desire, no thought.

Their brief reunion was simply an astronomical coincidence, given the void’s limitless nature. He’s becoming paranoid after so long chasing Mark’s footsteps, entertaining such a flight of fancy.

He warps away before anything can change, just to be safe.

Chapter Text

It stops being a coincidence after Cincinnati, Ohio.

It becomes eerie after New York City.

He’d never admit it, but it’s terrifying after somewhere in the California desert.

The mirror is not appearing out of random happenstance. It’s following him.

He contemplates destroying the damned thing when the trail, once again, goes cold.

It’d be simple; with less power than the movement of his little finger, the entire thing could be ground to sand and sawdust, and he could be rid of the entire ordeal.

No more mirror awaiting him every time he moves.

No more dread of seeing a shadow in the depths.

No more distraction from his vengeance.

It would be remarkably, pitifully easy.

At the first sign of shadow, barely even opaque, let alone shaped, he bolts to a different part of the void.

“Do you think I fear you?”

The mirror, of course, does not answer him. He’d be a fool to think otherwise, but the silence stokes his ire.

“I don’t. You’re hardly a threat to me— I can’t even get a splinter, wood or glass. You’re nothing but a bother. A nuisance.”

Nothing at all, even a glimmer of not-light. Just his reflection, annoyed and beginning to twist as the result of his aura.

“Why do I bother,” he mutters, rising to his full height on the other side of his desk. “Why did I keep this wretched thing? I could make a mirror. A better one. Why don’t I?”

One does take shape, then, just to the cracked antique’s right. It’s smooth and clear, ovular and without a frame, floating in space like a silvery portal to somewhere else. It’s serviceable, despite the mismatch of style, as it shows his twisted visage just as well— better, without the cracks to mar it.

He grimaces, quickly averting his eyes, and the new mirror melts back into nothing.

With the cracked one, he can at least pretend it’s the fault of the mirror, not a series of increasingly-worse choices for everyone involved with that snake.

“Well.” He straightens his clothes as best he can in a show of indifference, rolling his twisted neck and brushing away imaginary dust. “At least you’re good for something.”

The desk cracks in half, curling away into shreds of smoke and then void, as the shadow suddenly appears just to look at him— really, truly look, with little more in the way of eyes than a pair of glowing golden embers. They still carry all the heat of a bonfire beneath a dark ridge of cloud-stuff acting as a brow.

He holds no fear of fire, of heat, of glass shards, not with his current situation. He’s a twisted, shambling corpse hosted by spirits, filled with void and vengeance, and he won’t die. He won’t get hurt. He’s right in saying the mirror can do absolutely nothing to him.

He still finds himself shrinking back as the shade— seemingly exhausted by the effort— slips back into nothing.

Chapter Text

He stays in the physical world for a period of measurable time, for once, with no return trips to the void. A few months, maybe— he seems to no longer have a frame of reference.

Physical transportation is slow and clumsy, and humans ask too many questions of him wherever he goes, when they don’t actively avoid him.

When did he stop thinking of himself as human, too?

(Somewhere between his connection to the shapeless void and possession of a body that doesn’t change, he imagines.

Splitting into disparate fragments if ever he gets too emotional doesn’t help.)

He doesn’t like it, but he likes the mirror even less, and it’s sure to be awaiting him. He’ll have to return eventually, but he isn’t certain which he dreads more: the shadow being there, or not.

Yes, dread. He can admit to that.

Something about those eyes...

It’s staring him down.

He’s been back for what seems like very little time at all, drinking in the odd, temperate comfort of nothing all around him, and the figure in the mirror showed almost immediately.

The edges are sharper in the glass: less shadow, more silhouette. If he looks closely, he can make out the wrinkles of a shirt, the individual strands of unruly hair springing out of style.

It doesn’t move as he does, follow him like a reflection would, but it’s so distinctly human, shifting weight from side to side, fidgeting with clothes or hair or hands. Even with all of this motion, without the fiery embers for eyes, the head seems trained on him; if he moves, the head does, just enough to follow.

Thankfully, the definition falters nearly as fast as it arrived, melting at first into shadow and then into formless, near-invisible smoke.

“Did you get enough of my pretty face?” He snarks, once words have returned to him. “Or was it something else?”

The smoke twirls a bit, but doesn’t solidify.

“Of course you won’t talk. Typical.” The bitterness sits wrong, for once, on his tongue, and he can’t restrain a grimace. “However,” he continues, haltingly, “if... if you wanted to.”

He doesn’t know why he offers.

(It’s them, a voice insists, his but not, somewhere deep inside, faint as the smoke in the mirror. Please, I just want—)

There’s a reason they’re in that mirror, whatever it is, and he only sees two real options:

It’s the entity in the walls, the foul being that watched, gleefully, as it corrupted and destroyed everyone he ever truly loved; the leftover part that didn’t sneak inside to hold him together like glue resides there, and it deserves this as a final prison.

Or...

Or, if he listens to that minuscule shred of goodwill he still has, so quiet but so familiar—

It’s a person with the brightest soul he’s ever encountered, a little hot-blooded at times but searching for truth and justice— the real kind— with every action they take, someone Damien loved beyond measure, regardless of form—

— the kind of person who would only get in his way if they remained free.

Whatever the reason, whatever the shade really is, giving it a voice to torment him further is the last thing he wants.

He’ll never have a moment’s peace— not that he’s had many of those, especially recently.

Yet... “I could help you. If you’d trust me.”

The smoke coalesces, just a touch, into something that smashes into the glass from the other side. The entire mirror rattles, glass and frame, alike, and another few cracks splinter away from the impact site.

It’s gone immediately afterwards.

He scoffs, turning his attention back to Mark’s last known whereabouts; even so, his shredded stomach sinks.

Yes. It’s them.

And they are deeply unhappy.

No, not unhappy— angry.

With him.

Chapter Text

He returns to the void after a fruitless chase down the West Coast— of California, though he wouldn’t put it past the bastard to hop a plane out of the United States because he’s done it before, though then, it was a boat— to find the mirror rattling.

If it does its entire routine while he’s gone, he’d never know. Appearing and disappearing makes no change at all in the surrounding void it’s in, and he’s considered before if it’s his presence that prompts their efforts.

Not so, it seems.

“What are you doing, now?” Annoyed, because the rattling beats like a drum, and he can’t get a headache but it sure feels like one is about to start, he walks to get a better look.

They aren’t human-shaped, this time, and he could guess it’s in the name of solidity. They only seem to be capable of one or the other at any given time, and even then, not for long.

This dark mass of fog rears back, and then—

The mirror rattles again as they impact with the barrier, shards of glass threatening to fall loose before settling back into precarious position.

There are more cracks in this instance. Fine ones, yes, but cracks all the same.

“Are you trying to free yourself?” It’s a stupid question, because, yes— why else would they be beating themselves against the backside of the mirror?

They still give him an answer: another full-form charge into the glass. The hairline fracture that splits off only seems to encourage them, as they try for it again.

His gut-wound burns with a mixture of wholly-unpleasant emotion, and he bares his teeth in a sneer. “Stop.”

For a fraction of a second, they do— that shred of him recalls a face, stubborn and challenging— before ramming back into the glass even harder.

“Stop,” he growls, and then, after a more powerful slam that loosens a shard from the rest of the pane, “Stop that. Stop, right this instant!”

The writhing black in the mirror doesn’t belong to the shade— it’s a boiling sludge that curls around him, half void and half shadow. Shapes— so close to an outline, another silhouette— that flicker in the air, tinged red and cyan.

It’s disturbing even to him, and as it settles back into his normal static, as he rolls his neck, he finds that it’s given the shadow pause, too.

“You stubborn thing,” he intones, forcibly calm. “What makes you think that breaking the damn mirror will free you? What if it just kills you, instead?”

The voice in him quails at that, cold despair leaching into his chest, and he forces his eyes to the ‘floor’ just under the mirror.

A few sparkling bits of glass, further shattered by the drop, litter the space, bright amidst black nothingness. Faintly, he’s reminded of stars, confidence in the face of incorrect names for the fun of it.

A swirl of void whisks them far away, and he stands up straight. “If you want to kill yourself over a lousy, faint hope,” he starts, sharply, “by all means. Just do it while I’m not here.”

He could expect the spiteful creature to resume their battering, just to infuriate him further. It would be remarkably in-character— they were always more stubborn than an irritable ass, especially against outside obstruction.

The mirror doesn’t rattle, but a humanoid shape, light gray and translucent, stares back at him.

It doesn’t move a fraction for the next few seconds; after that, he leaves.

Chapter Text

More glass covers the ground, larger chunks of revealed backing within the frame, a pattern of jagged deep brown and silver.

He sweeps the shards away with a tiny gesture, and steadfastly ignores the figure in the mirror, watching him in stony silence.

Again, more glass on the ground.  The cracks are widening, growing jagged where they were thin and smooth, full pieces the size of his hand threatening to fall.

The shadow stares at him, arms crossed, judging by the silhouette, not moving until he leaves.

What makes him angrier, he can’t say. “It won’t help you. You’re stuck in there, forever.”

No reaction.

With a frustrated growl, he wishes himself away to a different ‘office’.

He comes so close to Mark, once.

In the Upside, the world they both came from, once upon a time, it’s been decades— time works differently for them in the void, even as an abstraction.

He looks a little different, likely to try and blend in with the style of the day: different clothes, different hair. He’s adjusted his voice, deeper and slower, less sickeningly charming.

He can’t change his eyes, though. Dark, arrogant— it would be easy to imagine slitted pupils, a forked tongue and devil’s fangs.

Same snake, different skin.

He’s too surprised by the ease with which he caught up, then too enraged at the very sight of him, to follow through with any of his plans. Before he realizes, Mark is surrounded by people— too many that might notice his disappearance and cause trouble— and whisked away down the street.

He catches his angry disappointment before he does much more than startle a stray cat— which, to be fair, would have happened, regardless.

It doesn’t matter. Mark looks comfortable here, right at home, and he hasn’t moved in some time.

He has a reliable place to try and hunt him down.

Chapter Text

A loud shatter greets his warp into the void.

Though he hasn’t had something in his stomach— they didn’t— since that party, a wave of horrified nausea swells up through his chest, and he jumps to the mirror without thinking.

A big piece is gone from the mirror, one closer to the supporting edge, and it lies in scattered fragments below his feet, across the unbounded ‘floor’.

“No,” he mutters, choked beyond the twist in his neck, and then, “Are you still in there? Or did it work?”

He isn’t entirely sure what he means by ‘it’. Regardless, a faint humanoid shape appears, a cloud-person that fades in behind his own reflection, split by the missing chunk and every remaining fracture.

It has no face, still, and yet, he can tell it isn’t pleased that he’s so close.

He’ll show them displeased. “Why do you keep fighting? Every single time, another piece falls, and I’ve told you it won’t help.”

The shade steps closer, a little more solid and dark.

“You won’t be able to escape. You are trapped in a broken, twisted thing, and there is no end to that!” He grabs the mirror, one hand on each side of the frame; surprisingly, it’s warm. “I’ve told you, if you keep pushing it, breaking it, you will die!”

The shadow doesn’t match his reflection’s size, exactly. It’s shorter, and slighter— standing upright, it might only reach his chin. That doesn’t stop them from stepping around his own roiling, warping reflection, somehow, to be right up against the glass. He’s starting to see detail, again, the unruly hair, the wrinkled clothes—

He trembles, gritting his teeth. “Do you want to shatter this mirror and just be gone, for good? Because that is the only thing keeping you around, and you don’t have another vessel as an option.”

Faintly, so faintly, he can start to see other definition: the details of the clothing, a grayscale of shading to make the bridge of a nose, the right curve of a mouth.

He has no doubts, now, the thread of a voice screaming somewhere deep inside him, something close to anguish and relief all at once.

“Do you want to die?”

The District Attorney looks him dead in the eye and glares.

Chapter Text

The DA looks so different, now.

Not just from being in grayscale, still, and not for the most part. They haven’t aged a moment, of course, being dead, and they still wear the same clothing from the days at the manor. The length of their hair, the shape of their body— all of it, exactly as it was, before any injury ever threatened (or ultimately ended) their life.

Their face, though.

That little voice in him won’t shut up, not since they showed their real face. It pushes forward memory after memory, cries of relief and despair in turns.

Their face, tilting towards him with a warm smile. Their face thrown back, mouth open wide in a brilliant laugh. Their face, joyous and kind and mischievous and thoughtful and—

Everything other than the look they’ve been giving him for the past however-long.

It’s equal parts pain and sorrow and fury, contempt and disgust and bitter, bitter betrayal.

He’s never been on the receiving end of such an intense glare, before, whatever part of him may want to speak from experience. Not from anyone, but especially not them.

They used to look at him with life and beauty, but now...

He hasn’t said a word, only retreated to sit on his desk, facing the mirror. It isn’t a staring contest— for all of his power and all of their weakness, he cannot look them in the eye— but he does keep his eye on them.

And they, him, really.

The silence seems to drag on, their anger never wavering; finally, when he can no longer bear the weight of it, he snaps and asks, “You really hate me, don’t you?”

They don’t say anything, face unmoving.

“Why don’t you hate him?” He gestures out with an arm in an arbitrary direction. It has no meaning here, but the point stands. “He took everything from us, it’s his fault we’re like this, now— not mine!”

A motion, but only their lips thinning, further deepening their scowl at the mention of Mark.

He scoffs. “Right, so you hate him, also. Maybe I’m not so special as I thought.” After a few moments— he could call them heartbeats, but no one here really has one, anymore, do they?— he continues, “Do you... you’d really rather disappear? Kill yourself?”

The DA, finally, finally looks away from him, though nothing in particular seems to catch their eye. Their shoulder lifts in a shrug.

“That’s unlike you, my dear,” he says, without thinking. The DA bristles. “You’re stubborn on the best of days. If anyone could simply will their way...”

He pauses, considering. “I suppose we saw that in action. I told you the truth and still, you persisted. Why, if I may be so bold? Is a final death better than whatever purgatory this is?”

They turn their head back to him, just enough to see the wry edge to their expression. They indicate nothing else, but that expression, alone, could mean so much.

If one thing hasn’t changed, it’s a penchant for infuriatingly vague responses.

(It used to be a joke; I still knew what they meant, anyway, always...)

“If you would— could?—“ he eyes them to try and gauge a reaction, to no avail, “— speak to me, this would be a lot smoother. You could rage as you wish, I might get an answer.”

He raises a hand towards the mirror in good will. “I could help you,” he says, not exactly softly, but more so than before. “I promise I could, just let me in.”

If their ire was ice before, it blazes into the surface of the sun, itself, at his words. The snarl transforms their face, no longer beautiful— handsome, or did they ever really care what he— what anyone said?— but twisted as they uncross their arms, slam both fists into the glass to make it rattle.

Their mouth moves, quickly and intensely, around words he can’t hear, though they must be shouting at the top of their lungs.

It scares him— some part of him. The voice, yes. It looks unnatural on them, a parody of the face it remembers.

But, the glass shakes dangerously as the DA pounds, and whatever animosity they feel, however detrimental to his plan they might be, Damien can’t let them go.

“Stop— stop—“ He hops off the desk and raises his hands, as if calming some wild creature. “You’ll break it— listen to me!”

Each step closer appears to enrage them further, harsher shouts and harder pounds of their fists. Only another step or two away from the frame, he sees tiny, sparkling bits of glass flaking away from the cracks, widening them further.

“It’s all going to fall apart! You have to stop!” Even the aura does nothing, the voice of a demon and not a man going unheard. In a stab of cold panic, possibly prompted by Damien-the-voice, possibly not, he reaches out to touch the glass with his fingertips. “Please! Please, you need to stop, my friend, you must listen!”

He isn’t sure if that’s what ultimately works, or if the DA simply wears themselves out. Either way, they stop slamming against the glass, stop shouting, and they bow their head.

If he wasn’t watching so closely— and he is, hands on the cracked glass, eyes only on them— he might not see their shoulders shake, nor their hands loosen until their palms are to the glass. Their bowed head taps forward, just a brush of their hair smashed up against the barrier, and the pressure of the motion tilts their face back up.

Their face is still twisted up, but not in rage. They hold no color, save shades of gray, and only have the strange not-light to illuminate them, but their cheeks shine.

A shadow traces one of those shining lines down where he can see it, rolls down and off their chin after a few quivering moments. Another follows shortly after, with what looks to be a sob, and their mouth moves again.

He hasn’t felt much but rage in some time, not deeply, anyway. It’s all distant, muted with mild disinterest and distraction— pity, annoyance, some twisted humor.

It’s with genuine sorrow that he sighs, closes his eyes at the oddly-warm glass against his own forehead. “Oh, my dear,” he murmurs. “My dearest friend, what has he done to us? We were never so angry, were we? Never so trapped, never so silenced. I can’t even hear you.”

When he looks, the DA is looking at him, further despair in their dampened eyes. When they blink, another tear falls, and their mouth moves.

He doesn’t need to hear to guess. “No. Complete silence, save the shaking glass. You may as well be— hey, now,” he warns, as their hands and shoulders begin to shake. “Shhh... if I count, will you breathe?”

It’s something Celine doesn’t know, something dredged up from deep in the memories of who he was, before. A scenario, just like this, without the wall of glass between them— a dark room, a looming deadline, shaking fingers clutching his like a lifeline.

Something in his chest twists with the memory of warmth, of breath, of life— all of which have been stolen so mercilessly.

They don’t need to breathe, but the panic slowly drains with each slow breath, his quiet counting.

Eventually, the DA steps back from the mirror, taking one last big breath. As they let it out, they meet his eyes again.

“Are you alright?”

The gentleness in his voice surprises even himself, but he gets a solid response: a single nod.

They still don’t look happy. Their face is still damp, eyes still watery, and they look uncertain, still a little upset around the edges. Like they don’t understand him, like they’re shocked he would do any of what he just did.

Like they don’t trust that he won’t do something far worse, now that they’re calm.

They don’t say anything else before they vanish entirely, not a speck of shadow in the void’s reflection save himself.

He doesn’t move away for some time.

Chapter Text

When he spends time in his ‘office’ for longer than a blink of transport, he finds that the DA likes to stop in.

Well. Likes is a strong word, really, but how else to say ‘doesn’t glare at him or try to shake apart the mirror anymore’ succinctly?

There’s no warning to their appearances. With himself, the air and light will change, a harsh ringing noise before he finally warps in; even at a simple walk, his aura corrupts everything. He’s not the most stealthy of creatures, for all of his backdoors and shortcuts.

He’ll be sitting at his desk, working on something or other— usually plans to kill Mark, sometimes plans to track him— and look up, just for a second, and they’re there, watching him from the glass.

They meet his eyes each time— Damien-the-voice expects a wave, a cheeky grin, anything— lips pulled down into a mild frown, but they don’t try to talk, again. They don’t try to grab his attention.

(They always have it, they always did.)

They watch him like he’s a tiger in a rusted, old cage: fascinated but wary, suspicious of the barrier between them and its ability to keep them apart. Not fearful, which speaks to their inordinate and foolish courage, but cautious.

If they didn’t want to be prey, they shouldn’t look it, he thinks, returning the frown and bending his head back towards the desk. Not that he’s all that much of a predator, contrary to popular belief.

He only has one target, and there are vipers waiting in the grass, after all.

Sometimes they’re further from the glass, shrouded in fog, features indistinct and blurred.

Sometimes, they keep a respectful distance with that same, thoughtful countenance, watching as he moves but never reacting.

Rarely, they press their hands right against the glass, nose just brushing the cracked surface. It’d be silly— not amusing, ridiculous— their face all but smashed against it, like a child trying to get a laugh, but those times...

Those times they don’t look cautious. Those times they look at him like they’re searching, like if they get as close as possible to the mirror, they’ll find whatever it is they’re looking for in his face.

It isn’t hopeful. It’s desperate, and when he doesn’t react the way they might want— he’s not certain how he could, because Damien-the-voice wants them happy but he’s not that, so he just stares, blankly— they just crumble in further.

He can’t stand that pathetic face, the seconds-from-tears. He’d rather face that burning rage all over again.

They vanish before anything spills over, but the next few times, they stay far in the background.

He knows it’s coming, one day. In his periphery, he can just make out handprints, palms flat on glass. If he looks up from his work, turns his head just to the left, they’ll be there, watching him with wide, searching eyes, lean in further when they realize he’s looking back.

He won’t give them what they want, and they’ll—

They’ll just—

He sighs, a deep, weary sound that rustles the paper under his hands, and counts himself down. Three, two, one...

Yes, they’re watching. Yes, they lean in a little. For once, they open their mouth—

“What do you want from me?”

He doesn’t raise his voice, keeps it neutral— a question, not a demand.

Confusion crosses their face.

“Well?” He stands from the desk, coming around the corner to stand before the mirror. “What do you want? You are always so disappointed with whatever you see. Tell me, how can I improve?”

The DA takes a step back, hands slowly lifting from the glass; they shake their head, the smallest movement.

“No, please.” He copies their step, slow and calm. “Old friend, dear friend— what do you want from me? To have a voice again? To be free? To be alive?”

Their gaze is edging towards guarded, the same wary tiger-in-a-cage look, but it’s pained. Still searching, somehow, thinking if they simply look hard enough, they’ll find their prize, find a reason to no longer be so suspicious.

It’s deeply irritating.

“I can provide you with any last thing you want,” he says, and he wants to, the rare moment of his and Damien-the-voice’s desires aligning. “Anything, and gladly— just tell me. What do you want?”

They won’t answer. They never do, and can’t, besides. Perhaps it’s a cruel thing to ask of them, to demand an answer in the guise of helping while knowing they can’t.

If only they stopped looking at him like that, though, like there’s something missing and he has the only key to it, and perhaps that’s why he asks. So he can avoid that stare, and avoid the crushing disappointment that comes afterward, because if he has to see their face crumble and grow damp one more time—

He can be impulsive, these days. He knows that, and knows that it isn’t always the best impulse.

He doesn’t want to even have the chance to break the mirror, though it would make everything so much easier.

The DA doesn’t come back towards him, doesn’t even consider it; that said, they square their shoulders, feet spread and stable, look him in the eye with chin up.

He sees them swallow. Take a breath.

Their mouth moves: one word.

The way their lips move, the shape around the word— he can hear it clear as day in their voice, even without sound. He knows that word intimately, more than any other.

It surprises him, and from the surprise springs forth anger. He grits his teeth. “I can’t give you that. You should know better— you’d have sooner luck breaking free from this mirror.”

The smallest of flinches, just their face, but they stand firm. Three more words from a trembling jaw.

“He’s dead.” He growls. “He’s not coming back!”

They lift a hand, jabbing the pointer finger towards him.

“I’m. Not. Him.” His aura flashes around him, swirling and angry like a storm cell. Faintly, he hears his papers flutter in the surge of power. “Precious Damien died decades ago. There’s nothing left! He’s dead and gone, like you should be!”

Funnily enough, they don’t shrink away under his power, like they might have, once. Even his cool questioning frightened them more, it seemed.

Their jaw remains set, stubborn like an ox, but their brow furrows, nostrils flaring.

The DA spreads their arms. Out wide, to either endless direction. When he doesn’t move, they gesture to their stomach, a twisted gleam of bitter humor in their eye as they say three more words.

They emphasize it, slow and deliberate, to make sure he understands.

‘Then kill me.’

The corresponding wound in his own body twists, burning painfully, and he backs up from the mirror with a snarl.

The heave of their shoulders indicates a scoff, backed up by the sneer on their face. In seconds, they disappear from his view.

They always were good at poker, he thinks, when he’s somewhere else in the void. They’d toy with loss, then clean house with little effort, grinning like the cat who caught the canary. However, a few decades without practice must have rusted their bluffing skills.

He saw their face start to crumble.

Chapter Text

He doesn’t see the DA for a long time, even by his outside-reality standards.

They just don’t show up, even when he seeks the mirror out intentionally— not that he cares, but the voice is rather incessant when not despondent. It’s empty, showing his own reflection and nothing else.

Even when he calls.

Even when he uses their real name, unearthed from a jumble of memories in the back of his mind.

Hell, he raps on the glass to try and get something, once— no dice.

Eventually, some time after he stops trying to reach out— there’s no point if they won’t meet him— he spies glass on the floor.

The next time, more, and the next, and the next.

They’re never in the mirror, but the evidence is overwhelming that they haven’t actually left— if even they could.

Damien-the-voice despairs over it, because of course he does— his love for the DA hasn’t wavered, hasn’t diluted, and he doubts it ever will—and they both know the potential consequences. He doesn’t want them dead.

He— the not-Damien, not-Celine creature, the man in the shadows, the Broken Thing— doesn’t want them dead.

Not for good, not where they can never meet again. The void is lonely, and though he has little patience for others, and the DA is the quietest yet somehow most irritating companion...

They’re still his companion, the only other than Wilford right now. He hasn’t seen Wilford in an age, and his eccentricity fosters that, making him forget how things are or grow too manic for him to tolerate.

He’s stormed out on him, before. Wilford bounces back, and he doesn’t let go of those he considers real friends for anything so small. A holdover, from before.

He gets a sneaking suspicion they’ll be reunited quite quickly, indeed.

The urge to stay in the void until they return to finish their task increases with every shard he finds on the ground. If he stays long enough, they’ll have to return, and when they do, he’ll—

He’ll...

He’ll have to say something, of course. He can’t let them go.

(I’m ashamed we ever did. I should have told them—)

It’ll be a battle of wills, no matter what. The DA has nothing but time to wait for him to leave, whereas Mark gets further and further from him every second he stays idle.

The DA is so convinced of shattering the mirror, whatever the outcome, and he can be convincing, but convincing enough? He can’t give them Damien, but something else, surely?

(I’ll give them anything— we’ll give them anything, just please, don’t let them leave!)

He knows a lecture will do nothing. Anger, disappointment— that will do nothing but reinforce their conviction.

Spite, he remembers, he’s seen, is a powerful motivator, especially for them. Stubborn little monster. 

He’ll need to appeal to them. Put his anger aside, if he can, to become calmer. Softer. They listened when he cared for them, became curious and drew close of their own accord— though their anger may now be too great to calm with a few breathing exercises, a moment of empathy, isn’t it worth the attempt?

He can’t be Damien, again, but... the voice might know what to do. He was, after all, their dearest friend.

Chapter Text

He hadn’t realized just how awful the mirror had become, even as he watched it fall apart, counted the slivers below his feet.

There are only a few more pieces, now, each already cracked, held in place by the barest of tension against the frame’s inside edges. A stiff breeze might knock them loose, if the void had breezes.

That’s why he doesn’t attempt to knock when he approaches the mirror. He doesn’t want to hasten anything.

He hesitates a few moments— are they already in there, watching him?— with the unfamiliar feeling of anxiety, words catching before he can try to say them. He needs to get this right.

Alright.

Softly, he calls their name. “My friend— I’d like to see you, if I could. To talk to you. I understand that you’ve been angry, and avoiding me—“

He clenches a fist, rolls his drifting neck back into place. Gentle, calm, no matter his irritation. He’ll push them away, otherwise.

“That’s— understandable. I said something to hurt you, you’re taking it out on the mirror. Or— yourself? Myself? It can be difficult to tell, these days. The point stands that I... I apologize.”

It doesn’t sit right as he says it, somehow. Partly, he supposes, because he doesn’t exactly see a need. He was entirely truthful, and breaking them from their hopeful delusion— however sweet— was necessary. It shouldn’t require apology.

But the man he was would apologize, no matter if he was the correct party, because he hurt someone. He was a foolish man, then.

Kind. Trusting. But foolish.

The mirror doesn’t show any smoke, any figure— just void in what little surface is left.

(With an apology that lackluster, of course not.)

He sighs. “If you’re still inside, at all, please— show yourself. We don’t know what this will do to you, if you continue: hurt you, kill you, free you. From what I remember, you... you aren’t a risk taker. You wouldn’t take the chance.

“But now, you are, with no certainty whatsoever, and I’ve pushed you to it. I don’t mean to hurt you, my dear, and I think you already know that I never meant to, even back then. We may have changed— irreversibly— but that hasn’t.”

It isn’t guilt, as such, that keeps him talking. Maybe a bit, rising up from Damien-the-voice, but it’s still dulled, a mask of indifference over top. Mostly, it’s the desire to keep them, the displeasure at the thought of them leaving him, however they manage it.

It’s one less person on his side, and he’s sick of losing people. He’ll do anything he can to stop.

“Regardless of intention,” he continues, “I did. And I apologize. I apologize that I can’t give you what you’re looking for, and I apologize for saying something so cruel. No one should be in this mess at all— any of us. No one should be stuck, changed, dead.

“You should be alive and free, with that wonderful voice I remember, and I apologize for ever saying anything to the contrary.”

(Better.)

He doesn’t see anything for a few moments, but then— there, in a shard: an eye, all that fits within the boundary, the rest of their face cut out by dark wood.

Just from that one feature, he can tell they don’t look the most convinced.

They always were good at seeing through people— it’s why they made District Attorney so young.

“I know you don’t believe me, but please.” He lifts a hand to the mirror, unconsciously, before he remembers the very real danger and catches himself. “Please, my old friend, you need to stop. You’re one wrong move from this entire vessel falling apart.”

The eyes narrows, darting over his face. Whatever they see in his expression, it must be at least marginally convincing, as they move back some, until he can see from their ribs up.

Yes, certainly skeptical. Crossed arms, a frown, the slightest wrinkle in their brow— but disheveled, more than usual. For a being with no real body, for a being entirely in grayscale, they look tired, sick.

“You don’t look well, friend,” he says, quietly. “And I have to wonder if it’s tied to the mirror, at all. If the damage you’re causing it is hurting you.”

Their mouth twists, and they shrug.

His jaw tenses, just for a second. “Of course it matters. You may not believe me when I say it, but I don’t want you hurting. I don’t want you to leave, either. What can I do?”

The DA’s expression tightens, a flash of real anger in their drawn, suspicious features; then, they heave a sigh, and with the breath, their entire posture slumps. A hand comes up to rub at their face, fingers pressing firmly over their brow, the bridge of their nose.

(Headache, a migraine. In university—)

He knows what a headache looks like. The problem is that they’re dead— they shouldn’t have one, at all. “What is it? What can I—?”

Their eyes cut to him before he finishes the question. They just look tired, sad— not determined or angry, anymore. With their free hand, they gesture towards him, then ‘pull’ the hand towards themselves. To their throat.

“You want a voice.” What good that might do them is a mystery. Perhaps they only want to lambast him further. “If the mirror were more stable— if you’d asked earlier, possibly...

“However,” he adds, quickly, before they can start to fall apart again. He still can’t stand that. “However, I can try. All you’d need to do is—“

(We are not making a deal. Not for this, not now.)

“— is stand still,” he finishes. Loathe he may be to say it, but Damien-the-voice is right. Even from a practical standpoint, he can’t collect if the other party is... gone. “I’ll try my best, just please stand there. Relax, if you can.”

They give him a droll look, but gesture a ‘go ahead’.

He wishes he could rely on Celine’s expertise— not that she had ever shown much outward power, not like he does, now, but she had knowledge. If anyone could teach him—

Well, she’s asleep, and he has a responsibility. He doesn’t know what to do, but he should figure it out.

It might give him further mastery. It might make him more powerful.

He finds, diving into his power, that while the Upside and the Void are separated by a barrier— two different dimensions beside each other— the mirror is another such dimension. A tiny bubble of a world, stuck inside another.

Like the place Damien and Celine were in— the Place for Broken Things.

This barrier feels different to that, though, less solid and more like the veil he’s used to traveling through. If he can move between the Void and the Upside, change things in either, then what makes the place behind the glass any different? He could get in. He could get them out.

Stability, as it has been, is the answer in this case; the smallest brush of his power against it— a little test of teleportation, just to see if it works— causes the entire thing to tremble like a leaf, threaten to pop.

Good thing he didn’t promise a way out.

“Don’t get discouraged, now,” he mutters, almost to himself as much as the DA. “Hold on.”

There are other tactics he can try, other powers he knows aren’t as forceful, though many tend to be.

Like... a true meeting of the minds. It wouldn’t be a permanent voice, no, but it would be an understanding. If he could just touch the spirit on the other side—

But that requires permission, at least from the DA, and they don’t like him asking. He can’t really blame them for that. Still, what other option does he have?

“If you want me to hear you,” he starts, opening his eyes, “I will need to ask something of you.”

Of course, they bristle, shoulders hunching defensively.

“No tricks. I only wish to speak with you.” He raises his hands up. “You will have autonomy. You will have clarity. A... a telephone call, if you like. Just a bridge between you and I, and you will have the ability to cut it off, should you wish.”

They still look suspicious. After all of his manipulations, he imagines they may be in the right for being so. What would convince them to at least try? What would make a cautious person take such a risk?

Desperation. Desperation would, and what is his old friend desperate for?

“I... I may have lied, before.” He clasps his hands behind his back, lowers his chin. “About... Damien.”

The smallest twitch of their jaw.

“I’m still not him.” He feels the urge to pace, but that will remove him from the DA’s line of sight, and everything hinges on their reaction to what he’s heading towards. “But he’s not entirely gone, and neither is Celine. She sleeps, but every time I speak to you, every time I see you, he speaks. He can’t help himself.

“It’s rather annoying,” he admits, darkly, “but... I remember things, that way. And he cares for you, so much so that I am making you this promise because he could not bear to see you in harm’s way, from either myself or yourself.”

Their entire body trembles, now, and they blink rapidly. They say a word.

“I can’t be him, and he can’t come back.” That is the truth, harsh though it sounds, though he tries to soften his tone. “But I truly think that, if I deceived you, that last shred of him would find a way to tear me apart. Will you let me try?”

Desperation does not play well with their stubborn nature, with their sharp mind. He patiently watches them struggle for a few moments, torn between evidence to his nature, spite, and the hope of their dearest friend.

Even as they begin to pace—

(During study sessions, during cases— they’ll pace until they drop if you let them.)

—the corner of his mouth unwillingly turns up, and he forces himself back into indifference, clearing his throat.

That catches their attention, and they lock eyes with him through the glass.

They still look conflicted, a little teary, and very tired. The eye contact stretches on for quite some time, more than strictly comfortable—

(They hate eye contact, even with me.)

— long enough to make him doubt his plan. Perhaps they aren’t desperate enough.

Then, slowly, they nod.

Chapter Text

It’s tricky business, trying to go about such a thing. He can’t just seep into their mind, as he’s done with people Upside, not with the barrier in the way. Even with the gentler force of telepathy, the boundary shakes if he moves too quickly, tries to send over too much of his influence.

One wrong move...

He feels the DA’s mind faster than expected, an oddly-tangible presence that soothes Damien-the-voice almost immediately.

Surprised— human minds don’t work that way, don’t filter out of their own accord to meet him— he risks a glance at the DA. Their own eyes are closed, a wrinkle of concentration on their brow.

He knew Celine had some psychic ability, even before everything— but did his old friend always have it? Or is that just the touch of the mirror?

Or the manor, for that matter. Not even Mark knows what that thing could really do, for all his attempts at study.

It doesn’t matter. Now, there is a bridge, and all that needs doing is crossing it.

“If you speak aloud, I may hear you,” he says, closing his eyes once more. “No need to think at me, if that’s what you’re trying.”

“Well, forgive me for not knowing the exact details.”

(There, there! Oh, my dear friend, my darling— it’s you!)

His fists clench at his sides before he can realize it, strange warmth blooming in his chest: Damien-the-voice, rising and rejoicing at the sound of them.

Even the dry tone is as wonderful as he remembers.

“Can he hear me, too?”

Their voice edges softer, a little tremulous with cautious hope.

“He’s over the moon,” he admits, gruffly. The feeling is foreign to him after so long, and therefore unsettling. “What did you want to—“

“Can he speak to me? At all? I haven’t heard him since— please, if he can.”

Further desperation. Wonderful, if he needs—

(No deals! Just let them keep speaking.)

“Unless you heard something just now,” he starts, “no. He’s only a thread of consciousness— and I don’t feel like playing messenger for the pair of you. It’s bad enough hearing him fawn all over you; I don’t need your love notes, as well.”

They bark a laugh, and the feeling only resurges. “Oh, but I wish you would. If it’s half the torment you put me through, it’d be enough for me.”

“Torment? The mirror?”

“Among other things.” He can hear the sneer in their voice, a sharp and bitter edge. “I was so angry at you. You promised, and I trusted that it would work out. And you cast me out and locked me away for— for— however long it’s been! In this, unable to move, and then in this place, whatever it is.

“And all you’ve done since is play with me. Threaten me, say the cruelest things to me, yell and flash your unholy powers. Is it any wonder to you that I would take such a risk as to shatter this damned thing?”

Damien-the-voice feels shame, which means he does, in a way, but that’s easy to quell. “You stopped. Afraid to die?”

His mocking tone only earns a dismissive scoff. “I already have. If this is to be my afterlife, I’d sooner erase myself, entirely.”

Hm. That’s... unpleasant.

“I stopped because of Damien. Because I don’t think he’s just a thread— or, if he is, he has more control over this than you claim he does.”

“Hardly. I’d like to think I know my own being, thank you.”

“Don’t we all? You comforted me the first time I could show myself, the same way he always did. You sound like him, sometimes, when you try to act like you’re still human. And,” they continue, “you look like him. A choice, I know, because it’s my body, but mannerisms beyond that. The proclivity for suits, postures, expressions.

“You’re... like some dark version of him, and now you’ve told me he’s still there, however small. You might have left me, but I’m not leaving him.”

There’s powerful conviction in that statement, will so strong he can almost taste it. He almost wrinkles his nose in distaste— almost. “How sweet of you. Dark, you say. Fitting.”

It works better than anything else, thus far. Dark.

“I could call you other fitting things,” they reply, sweetly. “Liar. Manipulator. Monster. Other things that Damien would be sure to scold me for, though he never had a qualm with his own bad language.”

“Is this what you wanted a voice for, you little monster? To rave at me?”

“Don’t—“ A harsh, short exhale through the nose. “Don’t call me that. And yes, because I can do little else to make you understand what you did. If I were able, you wouldn’t need Damien to tear you apart.”

Dark— it will take getting used to— can hear something in their voice, something Damien doesn’t remember. It seems they’ve grown darker, too. “So vindictive. You’re making Damien quite upset, darling.”

“Don’t call me that, either!” The DA takes a few moments, seemingly just as surprised at the sudden outburst as Dark, himself. “He— you would know, wouldn’t you. This is just further torment.”

“I don’t aim to make your afterlife hell. We could work rather well together, I think,” he adds, cordially. “If you curbed your bullheaded temper.”

He can practically see the haughty lift of their head. “You liked it, once. Maybe because it was never directed your way, but you called it something else, then.”

Yes, he remembers. What glimpses he caught in the courtroom, their offices, in university— a fire in their eyes and a set to their jaw. “‘Your righteous determination is naught but a virtue, my darling,’” he quotes, speaking just as Damien does, deep within him. “‘With more people like you, the world would be a great deal less wicked.’ It was important that you understood.”

“Yes,” they say, so softly. “I did understand, because if I ever listened to anyone... And you tell me he’s just a thread, a whisper, but you say that and—“

They cut off with a hard swallow, throat clicking against what sounds like the beginning of tears.

It seems as though the sound of it rankles just as badly as the sight. “Don’t. Don’t start that. He— I— no tears, not from you.”

“So much the same, yet so much changes.” They sniff, though their voice no longer hitches. “What happened to us?”

“Mark,” he answers, simply, and the very mention of the name has his aura flaring around him. “I’m hunting him. I’ll find him, and I will kill him. Even if it fixes nothing, he doesn’t deserve his stolen life.”

There’s quiet horror in their words when they say, “No— no, we can’t just— that’s revenge, not justice. We can’t just kill him.”

“Says the person who threatened to tear my heart out not a few minutes ago.”

“I didn’t say that. Besides, that was an empty threat, and you know it. I could never hurt you, even if I really wanted to.”

Dark hums mildly. “No. No, you couldn’t.” For more than one good reason, at that. “Mark is a monster in human skin. He deserves to pay— there is no justice to be had here, my dear. What could you do? Take him to the authorities? Explain all of this to them?”

They’re quiet for a second. “No,” they mutter, a touch embarrassed. “After all the time I’ve spent in here, thinking, I’m no less angry with him than I am with you, and if I were able to, I’d... but it feels wrong, sentencing him to death, even for all of this.”

“Soft-heart,” he says, and it’s meant to sound mocking, but it comes out much more gentle than intended. “You always have been.”

“You were softer than me,” they retort, “and if it hasn’t changed for me, why can’t it be that way for you?”

Because he’s not a complete soul? Because he’s suffered and been betrayed by a good friend? Then again... the DA has been through the same. “Duress changes us all differently. You didn’t carry a scrap of ill will towards him at the time, and so you were pushed out. You’re a conscience I can’t have.”

If they’re angry at the admission, the real reason they’re trapped, they don’t show as much. Rather, softly, they say, “You can. We don’t have to kill him, we can figure something else out. Let me help you.”

“Mark— he deserves to die,” he restates, firmly. “There is no stopping him, otherwise. He will keep cheating, lying, and killing until he gets what he wants, and he needs to be stopped!”

“Please, don’t—“

Oh, Damien? I know you can hear me, don’t ignore me, now.

Dark opens his eyes with a start. That unctuous, self-satisfied voice— “You,” he snarls, power flaring in response.

“Wh-what’s happening?” The DA sounds panicked, less clear. “Everything’s shaking!”

Yes, me! You can find me so well, why couldn’t I turn the tables?

“What do you want, you viper?” He isn’t anywhere in the void, which he can’t decide is better than actually finding the bastard waiting.

To ask you a question: Where’s the mirror?

He wants to know where the mirror is. He wants to know where the DA is. To... to what, serve his narrative better? To be a ‘hero’?

To take away his—

The rage at the idea warps and twists around him, boiling tar in massive tendrils whipping indiscriminately. He can’t. He can’t. “You—“

“Wait, no—! Da—“

The link cuts out, the last syllable of the DA’s voice echoing down the line. As he turns, he just catches sight of the last pieces of glass tumbling to the floor, leaving nothing but an empty frame.

“NO!” he shouts, and he knows that it’s neither just Damien or simply himself. It’s the most brief of moments, where they both align.

The cold despair, the horror, makes him want to fall to his knees, try desperately to fit the pieces back together.

It makes him want to rage, smash the frame and desk.

Damien, I’m waiting.

It makes him want to destroy that hideous, fork-tongued monster waiting Upside.

If it wasn’t for him, they’d be happy.

If it wasn’t for him, they’d be alive.

He brought it on himself.

Dark forces himself to breathe, schooling his face to as close to indifference as he can manage. “Mirrors break. If not yet, they’re stolen, first. I don’t know where it is, but I doubt it’s worth anything to you after all this time.”

Of course it is— you know I love a mirror.

“Of course you do. You can never get enough of yourself.” Narcissist is an understatement. “If it’s not in the manor, I can’t help you. Go to a shop and pick out a few for your collection.”

Before Mark can say anything further— anything that might break whatever tenuous hold he has on his anger— Dark takes the frame from the ‘wall’ and warps away.

He doesn’t know what to do with it, if it can be fixed, if the DA could at all be brought back. Whatever dimensional barrier he felt has gone, the bubble popped through his carelessness and temper.

They’re finally, truly dead because of him.

Chapter Text

When Wilford comes back around, he doesn’t recognize the frame hanging on the (real office) wall at all— though Dark catches him watching it thoughtfully.

“Shouldn’t there be something there, Damie?” He says, just once. “Art or something? Something big and colorful— maybe—”

“Dark,” he interrupts to correct him, though calmly. “And no. It’s a mirror frame.”

“A mirror, then! Yes, so you can get your eyeliner just right! You wouldn’t mind if I used it, would you?” He twitches his mustache, pink and curly as ever. “This thing is hell to put on some days.”

He clenches his jaw. “I don’t like mirrors.”

Wilford shakes his head. “Alright, touchy! I’ll find another one. Weirdo,” he mutters as he walks away. He’s one to talk.

As more and more of the egos filter in— it’s quite the learning curve, understanding what, exactly, they are, but he takes them in, anyway; they’re all created and abandoned by Mark, in a way, and he understands quite deeply— that’s the one thing that they all learn quite quickly, no matter how dense.

Dark doesn’t like mirrors, and bringing up the frame is not a good idea.