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“So.”
Trap knew he was asleep. He’d remembered very vividly flopping into his bed wholly undignified after yet another day of nothing happening. He’d flopped into his bed and promptly immediately passed out.
So when he opened his eyes and there was another him standing there, he wasn’t confused, but just rather immediately already tired of this whole mess.
Part of him was pleasantly surprised that it looked much much better than it did last time. More put-together. Nicer to him, he supposed, or rather nicer to his ego.
Its face was completely blacked out save for a single visible eye, the wings on its hips were black instead of white, and the tips of its fingers looked like they had been charred rather than the purplish frostbitten look that Trap’s actual fingers had.
It clapped its hands together, clasping them. Trap could just tell it was smiling
“Let’s review everything, shall we?”
Trap sat up with a groan, resigning himself to not really getting sleep tonight. Whenever it visited his dreams for long periods of time, he always found himself barely rested if rested at all. Part of him still preferred it to the recurring nightmares.
“Can we get this over with, Darkheart?” he sighed.
“I don’t think this is going to be a quick conversation!” it practically purred, leaning forwards, “Bet you’re quite glad that thing has been quiet for a while, huh, Icarus?”
“I’d be more glad if we weren’t in this damned place,” Trap leaned back, holding himself up with his arms, “I’d be more glad if I could get back to them.”
“Is that still your goal?” it questioned, “Merely to get back to them? Now now now, I thought you were improving yourself, Icarus!”
“Trap,” he corrected, “Only Nate and Caleb can call me Icarus.”
Darkheart clicked its tongue, “I think the sword you stole should get to call you it too, and lookie here! I’m the sword you stole!”
“I thought we were over this!” Trap spread his arms out in exasperation, “Let’s say I didn’t steal you, okay? Then you'd be back in that stupid minotaur’s grubby hooves!”
“HEY!” Darkheart hissed, “He’s not…he’s not stupid!”
Trap blinked, staring for a moment before he scoffed in disbelief, “You’re kidding me, right? You’re defending the man who, from my understanding, harassed your sister for most of her childhood?”
“I–” Darkheart suddenly shook itself out, “No, you don’t get to try to tell me what to do! I don’t have to take this from the man who killed my destined wielder!”
“YOU DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO TELL ME HE WAS YOUR DESTINED WIELDER!” Trap flung his arms into the air, “I was stuck in the worst situation known to man, okay?! Gods, are all of you swords like this?! I feel sorry for Kidd!”
Darkheart drew in a breath before it snapped its teeth, whatever it was about to say lost as it hummed, “No, not really. Firebrand is actually quite sweet to Kidd. Very fond of him. Plans to actually stay in his grasp once this is all done! Our dad is gonna be difficult to convince on that front.”
Trap settled back down again, slowly pulling himself to sit with his legs crossed as he sighed, “...That….actually leaves me pretty curious, if you’ll humor me.”
Darkheart blinked at him before, much to his surprise, calmly sitting down next to him on the bed, humming in question for him to continue.
“...Do you plan to try to get yourself in Chance’s grasp when this is all done?”
Darkheart paused and then sighed, flopping backwards onto the bed, “I think you ruined that for me. The first time I saw them I thought: “There they are! There’s who I want to wield me! We’ll be a terrifying team!”, and then…” it trailed off, thought left unfinished.
“...Gods, I never thought about how a sword feels when it kills,” Trap grimaced.
“...I suppose it could have been worse,” Darkheart scratched at its neck, clearly uncomfortable, “Venomshank got used by our sister to kill our papa and our dad.”
Trap was also now viscerally uncomfortable, and part of him was left wanting to point out that he had, multiple times in these past few months, used Darkheart to kill Builderman and Shedletsky.
“Killed them to send them here,” Darkheart corrected, raising a finger before it tapped its head with the same finger, “I can hear your thoughts. I honestly don’t blame you for killing while here, we both know what happened during…the truce.”
“Ugh, that stupid truce,” Trap groaned, flopping backwards as well, “I don’t know what anyone was thinking. Of course that wouldn’t work.”
“You mortals are stupid sometimes,” Darkheart chuckled, “Kinda funny to watch. Not so funny that the poor child got caught up in it, though.”
“In defense of us ‘stupid mortals’,” Trap waved a hand, “Dusekkar was the one who came up with the plan. A man who is distinctly not mortal. What were we supposed to do, not trust Life Itself?”
“Fair point,” Darkheart shrugged.
There was a long, long string of silence as Trap simply stared at the ceiling, not much else to say. Darkheart didn’t speak either, and after a while, Trap began to debate trying to sleep in the dream in an attempt to feel at least somewhat rested, only for Darkheart to make a strange sort of noise.
“Hey! You got me way off track!” it suddenly hissed, sitting up, “The recap! The review!”
Trap lazily blinked at it, not bothering to sit up after it, “So you’re back to yelling at me,” his voice was quiet.
“Not yelling,” Darkheart corrected, “I just want to know your full train of thought. I want to hear your justification for what you’re doing with my gift. I want to hear your justification for what you’re doing to him.”
Trap lay there in silence for a long minute, feeling Darkheart’s gaze practically boring holes into him as he tried to get his thoughts in a line, tried to truly justify himself.
“Azure is…” he started, and then trailed off for a minute, “Azure is fragile, as much as he hates to admit it. He’s built up a carefully guarded front, because of everything that’s happened to him in the past.”
“And you felt you had to get through that front because…?”
“I didn’t feel like I had to,” Trap shook his head, “It was an accident at first. I just wanted to test your gift. I wanted to see if I could get him to do something he’d never do without push from someone he trusted.”
“And so you planted the seeds in the gardener’s head.”
“I just wanted to see if I could get him to talk to them,” Trap put a hand to his head with a sigh, “And I didn’t actually succeed in that. I just ended up…setting Chance up to stand between them both. Next thing I knew, Azure suddenly…was listening to me. I think the first time I really sat down and realized what happened was when he first called me Wolfsbane. I said to 1x later that day that I was upset with it, because I thought that Azure and I were getting along, and then he called me something with bane in the name.”
“And they pointed out it was a poisonous plant,” Darkheart laughed quietly, “just like he calls them Snakeroot.”
“It’s a poisonous plant that specifically causes feelings of cold,” Trap pointed out, “A nickname of one of his favorite things, specific to me.”
“...Does it scare you?” Darkheart questioned, “Having that much control over someone so guarded?"
“Beyond belief,” Trap admitted.
Darkheart hummed.
“But if I sit back and just let him be, he’ll probably just….” Trap waved a hand, “...spiral. I’ve seen it before–when we were in his garden. He went on a whole talk about not knowing if we can get out of here safely when we’re all…dead, and then when I brought up Dusekkar, he snapped at me.”
“Great idea to bring up Spawn around the ex Spawn-cultist, by the way,” Darkheart yet again looked so smug even with just a single visible eye.
“I had to,” Trap justified, “If even one of us hates another, then the plan falls. That’s another reason why I’m glad your gift ended in Azure starting to think better of Two Time again.”
“And is that every reason?” Darkheart pushed.
“...Pardon?”
“You’ve spoken about two reasons as to why Azure was pushed to not hate Two Time as much,” Darkheart explained, “One was just to see if you could. The other was to ensure everyone was calm with everyone. Is that really the only two reasons?”
Trap stared blankly at Darkheart, then moved his gaze to stare blankly at the ceiling.
“...Yes,” he lied through his teeth.
“Now,” Darkheart turned to face him, and he could just tell it was grinning, “I thought I already told you I’m in your head. Let’s try that again, shall we?”
In one swift movement, Darkheart leapt to its feet, dragging Trap up alongside it, forcing him to catch his footing. It spun him around, cackling the whole time before it dipped him like they were merely dancing. To Trap’s horror, the mask of pitch black covering its face began to drip, inky black splattering onto his own face and tangling into his hair. He sputtered in disgust, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to shake whatever it was off.
When he opened his eyes again, Darkheart no longer looked like him.
“Is that the only two reasons?” Darkheart spoke in a certain gambler’s voice, wearing the same suit they wore on the day they were murdered.
“W…What…?” Trap muttered.
“Here, let me spell it out for you,” Darkheart purred, still in a voice that didn’t belong to it, “Azure is a man who was stabbed by his partner, who frantically justified their betrayal.”
“I…don’t follow,” Trap’s voice was desperate.
“You’re smarter than that, Feathers!” Darkheart trilled, still sounding so affectionate, “What’s Chance?”
…He couldn’t lie any more, could he?
“...A man who was stabbed by their partner, who…frantically justified his betrayal…”
“There we are!” it pulled him up out of the dip, twirling him around again, “You see yourself in that frail little ex-cultist, don’t you? And if Azure can forgive Two Time…”
“...then maybe Chance can forgive me,” he breathlessly admitted.
“THERE WE GO!” Darkheart purred, twirling him yet again before throwing him into the air and catching him like it was some elaborate ballet act, “Knew we’d get there eventually!”
Trap wheezed, trying to catch his breath, “C–Can you set me down and stop looking like him, please?”
Darkheart blinked and, much to his surprise, gently set him down and let him get his footing before it shook itself out, appearing back as the modified mirror of Trap himself.
“So now we’ve gotten to the root,” Darkheart tilted its head, voice shifting back to its own, “So how do you intend to go from here, hm?”
Trap didn’t meet its gaze, staring at his own hand for a moment before he looked away towards the door. He knew this was a dream, but if he walked out of the door, to the upper hall of rooms, would he find Azure’s door? If he opened it, would he find them sleeping peacefully, not worrying about the escape because he made them not worry? Or would they simply not worry because they knew that, at least for the time being, rounds weren’t occurring?
“...I don’t have a choice but to keep it up, do I?” Trap sighed, “If I just stop now, then he just…crumbles, doesn’t he? He’ll catch on something and spiral.”
“And you think that’s your job to fix?”
“If I don’t, then no one does,” Trap shook his head, “And I just can’t sit by and watch that happen.”
“So in a way, you’re being selfless, aren’t you?” Darkheart adjusted its coat, “You’re putting yourself in a position you don’t like for the sake of someone else. However…”
It stepped to be between him and the door, forcing him to look at it.
“What about yourself? Who catches you? Who keeps you from spiraling?”
“I’m not going to spiral,” Trap made a noise akin to a growl.
Darkheart simply tapped its head.
“I don’t spiral,” Trap insisted.
“You were sure spiraling when you were seeing Chance’s ghost everywhere after you killed him,” Darkheart nonchalantly checked its nails, “I’m sure everyone saw it, you know.”
“I don’t spiral, and if I did, I hid it well,” Trap narrowed his eyes, annoyed.
“Oh c’mon, Trap,” Darkheart sighed, leaning against the door, “Even Scripter noticed it, and he’s the most oblivious person I know!”
“You say that like you know a lot of people.”
“Well, I sure know him, and unfortunately for both of us, I know you.”
Trap put his head in his hands, groaning, “This is stupid.”
And then he paused.
“...You called me Trap,” he pulled his head up to stare at it, “You didn’t call me Icarus.”
Darkheart blinked, shrugging, “So I did.”
It stood up fully, resting a hand on the doorknob.
“Get some rest, Trap. None of us know what comes next. We just have to be ready, which means you have to get some sleep. Actual sleep.”
It opened the door as Trap clambered back onto the bed. He had nearly shut his eyes as Darkheart opened the door and stepped out.
“...And one more thing,” it called over its shoulder when it paused before shutting the door behind it, and when he looked, he could see it looked…genuinely concerned, even though he could still see only that single eye.
“Please, take care of yourself too,” it hummed.
And with that, it left Trap alone with his thoughts.