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Dan didn't understand. Laid on a sofa in a house he could only guess was Squid's, with his muscles searing and his head spinning, Dan didn't understand.
The two wrestled with the sword, the burn in their knuckles as white as the skin there, clutching glowing metal as tight as their sweat-slicked fingers would allow. It slipped around in both of their grips, causing constant trips back and forth as the force of their tug-of-war failed to keep up with them. Their boots dug deep into the earth, deep enough to form craters, a desperate attempt through heavy breaths and blazing adrenaline to remain steady.
It wasn't clear to either of them exactly how long their tussle had been going on for. It could have been five minutes. It could have been an hour. Time moved slowly and painfully between an aura of bitter crimson, enough shots of anger to intoxicate running through their veins in floods of wildfire.
The only thing they knew was that it was still night time.
"You...don't...need it." Squid spat, the words tugged far apart when they were being halted by the strain in his muscles. His eyes were squeezed shut, partially to focus all his strength on prying the sword's handle from his opponent's hands, and partially because, if he opened them, what he'd see would shatter them, send a downpour streaming down his cheeks along with shards of smashed glass.
The other's voice came deep, unnaturally deep, and demonic, like its owner had been fed a thousand mangled souls and Squid's was next.
"I do," the monster stealing his best friend's body hissed, "it's...the quickest way...for me to manifest."
"And why...why do you need to do that?!" Squid's voice rose into a yell, splintering when it reached its peak. "To Dan? To Shady Oaks?? Why?!"
Darko laughed, and it was a sick kind of laugh, the kind that Squid felt in his face and immediately wanted to hurl upon hearing. "Oh, Squid. I thought...that was your whole thing."
"What? What...do you mean?!" Squid could barely hear either of their voices over the blood rushing in his head, torrential and hazardous.
"You want power. Over Shady Oaks. Right? Tell me I'm wrong."
Squid's mouth opened to yell back, but produced not even a whisper. The protest that'd begun to rise to his tongue fizzled out with a sour hiss, and guilt dropped into his stomach like a stone when he realised Darko was right.
And then came rage, as his blood boiled all over again.
"That doesn't mean...I want...to hurt Dan!" he screamed, feeling where it grated in his throat. He pulled on the sword's handle further, with newfound desperation, now operating purely on emotion.
A sure-fire way to lose any battle.
The sword slipped from his hands completely. Both Squid and Darko were flung back several feet away from one another, falling onto the ground hard, short plains grass failing to cushion their falls.
Squid bit down on his lip in an attempt to redirect the pain that stabbed through his back spear-sharp, and his eyes opened for the first time in who-knew-how-long. He lay there for a moment, helpless while he still needed to recover the air that'd been struck out of him, every second being five too long.
Then, at the first surge of raw energy, he was back on his feet, and running. Running towards Darko, towards Dan, towards every chance he had left of taking Kindness from him before the demons sealed within them both could unify.
"Leave Dan alone!" Squid commanded through the resentment growing in thick at his throat, tainting his voice rough.
He spotted the sword on the ground immediately, glowing too bright to miss, illuminating the pale fingers the handle was slotted loosely between. He reached down for it.
Darko was quicker.
His hand curled tight around Kindness' handle just as Squid's fingertips touched it. With his eyes still closed, other limbs still motionless on the dewy green, Darko's arm shot up without warning, throwing the sword upwards and behind him.
Squid felt before he saw the blade slash his arm, wincing at the stabbing pain that followed in an instant with a grunt muffled behind his lips. He looked back at Darko through squinted eyes, his hand instinctively moving to clutch the wound that was already pouring hexed rose.
Except it wasn't Darko anymore. The previously ghostly silver skin had begun to change back to Dan's original skin tone, rekindle the life beneath from where it'd been trapped in freezing static. Darko's charcoal-black hair was also saturating back into Dan's brown, and the dark ink-like liquid streaming from his eyes seemed to be evaporating in the light of the moon.
Dan had already been knocked unconscious, and, though delayed, Darko eventually came down with him.
Dan didn't understand.
He could see the blood. Even through the haze flooding his vision, he could see ahead of him, pick out the deep scarlet soaking bright yellow at the arm of the man crouched in front of him. And the man's features were fuzzy, unfocused, but concern was a crease large enough to cut through it all. It was evident in the blue that scanned him from head to toe, in the brows that were upturned at the bridge of his nose.
He lifted a hand to Dan's forehead, tracing soft warmth along it in one long, honey-smooth movement. And with the way Dan's arms already burned and his eyelids were already half forcing themselves shut, he almost wanted to follow rays of sunshine where they were trailing down from the touch and sneaking beneath his lashes.
Then, a voice broke through the citrine.
"Dan?"
A voice he'd already heard, only a few seconds ago. A voice he didn't want to believe he was correct in guessing, but now that it was less muffled than it had been then, there was no other direction for the arrows to point in.
Squid.
Dan knew what had happened. It was fleeting, a collection of flashes building a choppy memory of the event, but it had still come to him within seconds of him waking up. Darko had taken over him and tried to take Kindness; Dan had watched it through the eyes of the monster himself when he'd had him imprisoned.
Dan grimaced, gloss stinging the corners of his eyes as they began to well up. Fracturing, splintering. He felt like - no, he was suffocating - and yet the sound of his own breathing was still growing louder until he was drowning in it, until he could barely hear Squid's voice almost as frantic as he himself had become.
"Hey, hey, hey, look- no, no, look-" Both of Squid's hands were on both of Dan's shoulders. Dan had no recollection of him ever putting them there. "No tears, mate, please, just- just deep breaths, I promise yo-"
"I'm sorry." Dan choked out, shaking, words brittle and barely audible. His eyes had shut tight, mainly because, if he kept them open, he wouldn't be able to look Squid in the eye without tears washing every last drop of pigment from them.
"You're what? Mate, no-"
"I'm sorry!" Dan repeated, with a lash of the tongue directed entirely towards himself. "I should've- should've fought against him, I should've fought back, and then-"
"Dan..." Squid's grip on Dan's shoulders tightened.
"Then he wouldn't have hurt-"
"Dan!"
Dan's eyes shot open again at the sound of Squid's voice piercing like thunder through the storm between them. And wherever there was thunder, rain was never far behind. The tears that'd been held back by nothing more than the trust Dan held in his lashes poured down the moment they flashed up like lightning.
Squid's lips thinned, twisting at the corner where guilt was evident. "Sorry. But really, none of that was your fault, Dan, at all."
"Darko hurt you," Dan sobbed, voice still trembling, "I can see it."
"But that wasn't you. That was him."
"And I could've stopped him, I should've stopped him-"
Before any more words could cross Dan's mind or his tongue, he was suddenly pulled forward, crash landing soft onto comforting plush fabric. The two hands on his shoulders lifted and became two arms around his back, wrapping around him tight as he fell into Squid's hoodie, loud canary yellow offering an odd quiet to the discord behind his eyes.
"Don't worry about what you should have done. That's in the past." Squid was now almost whispering, at just the right frequency to begin slowing Dan's heartbeat to a normal speed again.
Gradually, Dan's arms lifted from his sides until eventually they were around Squid, and once they were, they held on, locked on firm.
"And, anyway," Squid added, and Dan could hear the rays of a grin, "it's not like my arm's been chopped off. It'll heal."
Dan felt a smile of his own start to shine through, felt himself already catching light from the most contagious person on the server.
He didn't understand how Squid was so willing to forgive him after he'd so gullibly let that monster take control. He didn't understand his focus on someone with no visible injuries, as opposed to the gash on his own arm.
Dan didn't understand.
But he was eternally thankful all the same.