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Everything had been leading up to this, you knew. Every plane-ride out of state, every night alone thereafter, the longing late-night texts, calls, sometimes even video chats that were more often heartbreaking than elating - every moment away from him led to this.
You couldn't blame him, though. Mark was such a loving person, so caring of others, especially his family, his dearest friends, you.... No, this wasn't his fault, not when you'd been showing signs long before he'd ever entered your life. By that time, you could control it, the mocking voices, the...the strange things you could sometimes see, the sheer panic of being left to your own devices . You could control it, and yet-
He was staring at you again.
It had always started like this, with the staring. For a while, that's all it had been, an endless cycle of eye contact until you were able to shake yourself from his stare, stand back and look away. For a while, he would always disappear after the break in eye contact, and when you'd look again, it would be to your own reflection looking back at you, wide, haunted eyes giving away the panic you felt prickling along your skin.
Mark didn't know. He didn't need to, not when it happened so rarely and usually when he was away to a con or off to visit his family and friends in Cincinnati. He was a busy man, after all, and with such a minor break in your control, there was no need to alarm him while he was out of state. You'd been doing so good for such a long time; one little break in your defenses wasn't going to break you. It just meant you needed to build them back up stronger, think of different ways to get this new, yet familiar, problem under your control once more before it even attempted to get out of hand.
He was smiling at you, now.
His smile both calmed and unnerved you to no end. It used to be creepy, almost sinister in nature. After countlessly being subjected to it, however, it became a welcoming gesture, even when it twisted into a smirk. Nothing like Mark's smile, sweet and goofy as it was. Nothing like Mark, at all.
"He's left you again, hasn't he?"
All you could do was stare back as he spoke to you with evenly paced words, his voice deep and relaxing even as it created a spark of discomfort and unease down your spine. It was always the first thing he asked during these little episodes of yours, when the bathroom light seemed much brighter around you than in the mirror you were looking into.
There was a time you wouldn't answer back, a time you were too afraid to answer back, as if it would only encourage your reoccurring condition. Speak back, and the voices would return. Speak back, and lose that much more control. But your resolve was only so strong, and after countless times of being left behind, not because of poor planning or no need for your presence, but fear of upsetting Mark by involving him in your own personal world of crazy, speaking back was all you had left. After so long of keeping quiet, it felt good to speak, to be heard instead of being the listener.
This time, however, you kept your lips firmly shut out of a fear that had grown stronger and stronger over the weeks - the fear of finally giving in. This action forced a frown from the reflection staring back at you. For him, it was new, yet for you, familiar. Upsetting and beautiful in the strangest way. So very much like the look Mark had given you that late afternoon before he left. A near perfect image, recreated before you.
"Are you absolutely sure you don't need me to stay? Because I will, you know."
Mark had carried a frown then, equal parts worried and curious about you, the way you'd been acting. He'd even voiced his concerns the previous day, how he'd noticed for a few weeks now that you'd been off your game. My, but you were slipping too fast.
"You act like you don't want to go at all," you said, jokingly, of course. He was off to Cincinnati again, a trip he anticipated each time he had the chance to plan it, and as much as you'd love to join him this go around, you just couldn't. Not when you were like this. Not when you were so...unstable.
Work was an easy excuse, as this trip was a bit on the unexpected side. Even if things weren't so volatile for you, you were almost certain your boss wouldn't have let you off on such short notice, save for a family emergency.
"I do! I do, but...I just don't want to leave when, well...you're not really yourself."
He's noticed...he'll leave for good soon enough.
Damaged goods is all you'll ever be...thought you knew this by now?
Hiding secrets...hiding seeecrets!
God, but the voices were getting louder. You were more relieved than surprised Mark had yet to hear them.
"What? You big goober...go, I'll be fine."
"And what if you're not?"
Mark's words had thrown you off, sent warning bells inside your head. He'd been watching you far closer than you thought. Mark wasn't an idiot, even if he acted like one from time to time. He knew something was amiss, something was wrong. He was offering to stay behind, to cancel everything he had planned just to stay with you. How badly you wanted him to.
"If you don't leave now, you'll be late. Go, have fun. Tell your mom and Tom I said hey."
He was still frowning when he kissed your temple, when he promised to call as soon as his flight landed. You were still smiling when he couldn't, and that should have been warning enough, to the both of you.
As the night moved on, the voices were ceasless in their onslaught of your mind. You'd taken to pen and paper in hopes of easing your mind with the focus of penmanship, something you did often, but your concentration was shot to hell, your thoughts in a torrent. Texting Mark had garnered no better, and you were forced into the situation you were in now in hopes of quieting your demons.
For whatever reason, it worked. You weren't sure if you were grateful or scared to death.
"Why so quiet? Don't you want to talk? All those voices must be so...bothersome to listen to all day."
He was egging you on, you knew. It wasn't that you didn't want to talk; you were long past that caring, already well aware that things had escalated to the extent you had been trying so hard to prevent. The words were hard to get out, though, as if they were sticky, adhering to the inside of your throat and choking you the longer you held on to them.
"He's...aware," you managed to get out, watching the smile slowly creep back across his face. He understood. Of course he did.
"Then you know it's only a matter of time. He'll find out your lies-"
"No, not lies-"
"-and he won't understand, (Y/N). This feeling, this darkness, he has never known, and he cannot fathom how deeply it affects you."
"But...but Mark-"
"He will NEVER understand this!"
His shout reverberated all throughout the bathroom, made the glass vibrate with the booming quality it possessed. Those eyes of his, darker than chocolate, had gone completely black for a moment, had nearly begun to glow red, you swore. Or maybe it was your eyes playing tricks on you, your brain making you think you could see and hear all these things, just like before. Just like before Mark, before you had gotten everything under control only to have said control slip right through your fingers the very moment your friendship with the exuberant man became something a little more.
It wasn't his fault, it was yours. You should have known the consequences. He didn't know. If you could help it, he would never know.
"Why continue to fight this losing battle?"
"It's not normal," you answered, feeling your eyes burn with the onset of tears. "This isn't normal...I'm not normal. I'm so messed up in the head! I don't understand, I...I used to have control of all this!"
"Your control was nothing more than an illusion," he spoke with a purr to his voice. "It all led to this. It was meant to happen, one way or another."
"But why me? Why?"
"You're not normal," he answered simply, "and, baby, crazy looks amazing on you."
He was grinning from ear to ear, his teeth gleaming as he gave a smooth chuckle, haunting and delightful. He wasn't there, you had told yourself time and time again. He wasn't there, you were hearing things again, stop talking to yourself. This wasn't real, none of it was.
Mark was real.
He wasn't Mark.
And yet...he was, wasn't he? Not your Mark, but something darker, something more akin to the crazy you felt, the demons you harbored.
"What...what do I do?"
His grin settled back into a smile, but it was no less unsettling, no less beautiful. No less understanding.
"Won't you join me?"
He reached out toward you from behind the mirror, something he had tried countless times before, yet had always been stopped by the thin veil that separated you both, a pane of reflective glass that kept apart two worlds that were inverts of the other. This time, however, something had changed. The glass did not stop his movements, did nothing to hinder his slow process of reaching for you. His hand parted through as the mirror's shine rippled around his arm like water, an action most mesmerizing, absolutely terrifying.
You stared long and hard at the offered hand, thought for a moment on how such a simple act beckoned to you, how it was even possible to begin with. Your mind was playing tricks on you again, such awful, promising tricks....
"He'll never understand you, not like I can. I can keep the voices away; I can ease your distress."
Lies, all of it. He was lying, he had to be. But how many times had you escaped to his staring gaze, only to have the voices silence themselves in your mind, as if intimidated by his very presence alone? Mark couldn't do that, not when he was so far away, not when he knew nothing of your condition.
"You've fought for so long. Let me keep that pretty little mind of yours quiet, now. They can't reach you in here."
That's all you wanted, really. An escape from your issue, a release from the problem that plagued you for so long. Was it really as simple as taking his hand?
Vaguely, you were aware of your cell phone going off in the bedroom, the tone silly and echoing in the air. Mark was calling. He must have just arrived, then. You really needed to answer it, lest he start to worry even more.
"M-Mark-"
"-is not here, but I am, and I will never leave you."
His words were all the push you needed into taking his hand, his grip nearly possessive as he slowly pulled you forward. You watched as his arm disappeared back into the ripples of the liquid-like shine of the mirror, momentarily surprised, then relieved when there was no resistance met as your hand passed through with his. When you looked back into the reflection that was not your own, he was staring at you, his eyes as black as the night sky and his tooth-baring grin a sinister contrast to the relief you were feeling.
Everything had been leading to this, you knew. It was only a matter of time.
He waited so patiently, and he finally won.
Maybe this time, your demons would finally be at peace.
"Fuck, c'mon, (Y/N), pick up the phone," Mark muttered as he tried your phone for a third time, once again coming across your voicemail. It wasn't like you to not answer, especially when he flew out of state. You always answered, no matter the time. It wasn't even that late, either.
"Relax, okay? Maybe she fell asleep, maybe accidentally turned her volume down," Tom said in hopes of calming his brother.
"It's not like her to do that. She's been acting strange lately. I don't know...I can't shake this feeling that something is just really, really wrong. I shouldn't have left her there."
"Give her some time. If she doesn't get back to you by the time we get home, have one of your friends over there check up on her, make sure everything's okay."
"Yeah, okay. Yeah."
It wasn't like he had much of a choice, really, not when he was already so far away. Maybe he could get one of the Grumps to check up on you, make sure everything was fine, that you were fine. Maybe they could even get you out of the appartment tomorrow, at least for a little while. You hadn't been yourself as of recently, and he was beginning to worry that-
"Wha- oh! A voicemail? My phone didn't even ring."
Tom offhandedly said something about crappy signal, but Mark didn't pay much attention, not when he was so focused on the static-like quality of your voice, how completely lifeless it sounded, how the words you spoke chilled him to his very core.
"There's someone in the mirror. He looks just like you, Mark. In the mirror, he waits for me, and this time, he'll pull me through..."
"(Y/N), oh God, what...?"
"He's waiting...he'll pull me through."
There was the sound of the phone dropping as your voice grew fainter and fainter until there was a long moment of eery silence...followed by the sound of shattering glass that nearly had Mark lurching from his seat. He shouldn't have left you alone. Damnit, he knew it...he shouldn't have left you alone!
He waits for me....
He waits for me....
This time, he's pulled me through....