“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?” The words were barely audible, but the Host’s head jerked in his direction regardless.
“The Host doesn’t know what Dark is talking about,” he said stiffly, but the way he stood- rigid as stone underneath that trenchcoat he drowned in- and the blood that trickled down his cheeks told Dark volumes.
The entity nodded toward Dr. Iplier’s retreating back. “He will never understand you. He will never understand the power you wield and the world you live in.”
Not like I will. He left that unsaid, but he had a feeling that the Host heard it anyway.
“You love him.” He said instead.
The Host didn’t answer. His jaw clenched.
In that moment, he resembled the Author. Arrogance and hard words and blood-spattered aluminum.
“He will never love you.” The Host undoubtedly knew this. Just as he knew everything.
“Come along.” Dark stepped closer, placed a hand on the Host’s shoulder, steered him back, further into the library. “There are better things for us to be doing.”
The Host made no move to resist or protest. His shoulders slumped, the Author in him disappearing in an instant. He allowed Dark to guide him, despite him being perfectly capable of navigating the library himself.
If Dr. Iplier came back, hours later, tear-stained and sniffling and trying, trying, trying to ignore the guilt that clawed at his insides, he would find nobody. He would find nothing.
He would be too late. Dark would make sure of that.
He wasn’t expecting to smell blood as soon as he stepped into his clearing. He wasn’t expecting to see it splattering the windows even from fifty yards away.
He wasn’t expecting to have to sprint to the cabin, bound up the steps and across the sagging porch.
He wasn’t expecting what he knew he would see as soon as he threw open the rotting, wooden door.
“Edward!” The body on the floor barely resembled him. There was so much blood and no life to the blank, brown eyes that stared upward without actually seeing anything.
But it was undeniably, unmistakably him.
The Author’s bat slipped from his fingers, fell to the floor with a heavy thunk. He didn’t hear it. It was drowned out by the thundering of his own heartbeat in his ears as he scrambled to Edward, dropped to his knees beside him.
It was then that he froze. It was then that he noticed that he wasn’t alone.
He slowly, slowly, slowly glanced up. Met the eyes of the man with no shadow.
“Author,” Dark purred, leaning down and extending a hand. “Allow me to help you up.”
“You killed him!” The Author cried, batting Dark’s hand aside, blinking back tears.
Dark scowled and withdrew his hand. “Of course I did. He didn’t deserve you.”
“What-”
“You can be so much more, Author.” Dark brushed past him, stepping over Edward’s body like it was nothing. “You have so much power. So much potential.”
“But your doctor,” Dark continued, wrinkling his nose, “was in your way. He was dragging you down.”
The Author finally tore his eyes from Edward and glanced at Dark. “He- I-”
“Loved him?” Dark sneered. “Don’t play that card. You’re just like me, Author. You don’t feel love. You use. You use, and you move on.
“Which is what you need to do now.” He offered the Author his hand again. “Move on.”
The Author looked back down at Edward. His boyfriend. His love.
He looked back up at Dark. Waiting expectantly. Offering promises. Promises of power. Of potential.
He only hesitated a moment before reaching out and taking his hand.
He still couldn’t do much on his own, still was mostly nonverbal, but the Author was doing better since his eyes had been carved out of his skull and he’d been dumped on the doctor’s doorstep.
Dr. Iplier couldn’t quite say the same about himself. He rarely slept, and when he did he did so poorly. Blood-filled, gory nightmares stalked his subconscious, jerking him awake in the dead of night screaming and reaching for the other side of the bed, where the Author should’ve been.
Dr. Iplier heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his hair, brushing the unruly curls from his face. Then he pushed up from his desk. It was time to change the Author’s bandages.
“Author?” He tried to keep his voice low as he left his office, but the Author still flinched at the sudden noise, still jerked his head in the doctor’s direction.
“It’s okay. It’s just me.” Dr. Iplier was quick to reassure him, and he grimaced as blood began to blossom against the white of the Author’s bandages. Seems he’d torn the stitches again. “It’s Edward.”
He went over, placing a hand on the Author’s shoulder to let him know he was there before leaning down to brush sweaty strands of hair back from his forehead before pressing his lips to the overheated skin. “You still have a fever, but I think it’s gone down a bit since I checked a few hours ago. How’re you feeling?”
The Author seemed to relax a little bit under his touch, settling back into his chair. He tilted his head and muttered something unintelligible under his breath.
“I didn’t quite hear you.”
The Author tilted his head further, more blood beginning to flow down his cheeks. It was then that Dr. Iplier realized that he was indicating toward something behind him. “Dark.”
“Yes.” Dark appeared in the doorway, hands folded behind his back. He strolled in, eyes zeroing in on the Author as if he were some prize. A faint smirk pulled at his lips. “I’ve come to collect our dear friend here.”
“What- you can’t- absolutely not.” Dr. Iplier stammered, straightening and fixing Dark with a defiant glare. “The Author isn’t fit to leave the clinic.”
“Nonsense.” Dark gave a dismissive flick of his fingers. “He’s perfectly fine. And besides, I have some business with him.”
“What sort of business?” Dr. Iplier crossed his arms, continued to stare Dark down.
“None of your concern, my dear Doctor.” Dark brushed by him as if he wasn’t even there, leaned down to offer the Author his hand. “Shall we depart?”
“Author-” Dr. Iplier could only gape as the Author reached out and took it, allowing Dark to help him to his feet. As soon as he regained his composure, he moved to block their exit. “This is preposterous. Author isn’t going anywhere.”
“I’d say that was his choice, whether he stays or comes with me. Oh, and do inform our good doctor of what you’re calling yourself now,” Dark addressed this to the Author, who stood still and stiff as a statue beside him.
“The Host.” It was barely a whisper, but to Dr. Iplier it was as if he’d shouted. “His name is the Host.”
“Author-” Dr. Iplier reached out, but Dark was already steering the Author away, back the way he’d come, and the doctor’s fingertips just barely grazed the Author’s thin hospital gown as he passed.
“We have much to do, much to learn. Come along, Host.” Just before they disappeared from view, Dark twisted. “I will keep you updated on his progress, Doctor. I’m sure you will be most interested.”
With that, Dark and the newly-named Host left the clinic, and left Dr. Iplier alone.
(This is some early Host and Dark right here, cutie pies…)
“Take them off.”
The Host’s hands are shaking. “Dark, please…”
“When has begging ever gotten you anything? Take them off or we’ll start all over again.”
He doesn’t want that. They’ve been at this for what feels like hours, and the deeper into future possibilities that Dark wants the Host to go, the more Host feels like his brain is going to explode. But there’s nothing he can do to make this stop except give Dark what he wants. So he reaches behind his head and begins to untie his bandages.
“You think that if you hide behind those things that you’ll have some kind of dignity.” Dark laughs. “But I know the truth. Shall we go over it again?”
The Host pulls his bandages away from his eyes, pulling some of the scabs and freshly healed skin with them. The cold air of Dark’s office hits the wounds hard, and the Host hisses in pain as tears slip down his blood-stained cheeks. “You’re the reason why I’m like this.”
Dark steps closer, and the Host flinches. “And?”
“I owe my existence to you.” The Host bows his head, but Dark grabs his chin and tilts his head back up.
“And?”
The Host feels a catch in his throat but grits his teeth. “And I live to serve you.”
“Exactly.” Dark brushes his fingers over the Host’s cheek and then the wounds around his eyes, causing the Host to curl back in fear. “Now… let’s get back to work.”
It was nearing midnight. The Author sat at his desk, working on his latest novel, while Dark perched on the couch- about as close to the crackling fireplace as he could without getting scorched- lazily going through the Author’s old manuscripts.
“What’s this?” Dark asked again, pulling a battered postcard from amidst the stack. He held it up to the firelight, squinting to read the chicken-scratch handwriting.
“Oh, that?” The Author glanced up, made a show of brushing it off. “A character who grew oddly attached. Unimportant.”
“Ah, I see,” Dark looked skeptical, “because you merely gift unimportant subjects with your precious manuscripts?”
“Uh-” the Author scrambled to find a suitable response, but Dark was already crumpling the postcard.
“Don’t lie to me, Author!” He snapped. “You sent him one of your final manuscripts.”
He got up from the couch, every movement jerking, rage darkening his eyes, his face, the cabin itself. “Edward Iplier isn’t some character to you.”
He advanced, every step sucking a little more color from the air, a little more warmth until there was nothing but gray and cold and Dark as he came to loom over the Author.
The Author tried to move, tried to lean back, stand, anything that could allow him to defend himself or put distance between them. But he was rooted in place. Frozen.
He leaned in close. “But you will only ever be a character to him.”
Then he straightened, a cruel smirk pulling at his lips. “You’ll only ever have me.”
With that, Dark turned and tossed the postcard into the fire.
He didn’t hear the door swing open with enough force for it to hit the wall. Didn’t hear the harsh bang of it connecting and cracking the drywall.
Didn’t hear Wilford’s exclamation of “what the fuck? Dark?”
He didn’t hear anything over the breaking of his own bones, of the shattering glass sounds of his own shell breaking, of it pulling, stretching, clawing at his form, ripping it into one, two, three mirror images of himself before snapping back together with a sound similar to that of a gunshot.
He didn’t feel the mirror shards digging into his knees, tearing into the fabric of his pants, couldn‘t feel the sting of the cuts in his hands.
He didn’t see Wilford approach, didn’t see his mouth drop open when he saw the tears oozing like inky drops of oil down Dark’s cheeks. “Dark? Why’re you crying?”
He could only see them. The face in the mirror he’d broken, the face that he couldn’t escape no matter how much time passed, that he could still see even though he’d shattered every reflective surface in the room.
His form wavered as another wave of rage washed over him, and he couldn’t help the strangled cry that slipped from lips that were and weren’t there.
Wilford crept closer, concerned. He dropped into a crouch and tentatively reached out.
His fingers just barely brushed Dark’s shoulder when Dark plummeted into corporeal form and his hand shot out, clamping around Wilford’s throat.
“You did this.” The words came out sounding like the crunching of broken glass, like the crack of a gunshot, like the piercing ring of its aftermath.
“Dar-” Wilford pried in a blind panic at the hand that held him, but he was unable to break free. Dark’s fingers only tightened, bloody fingernails digging painfully into his skin.
Then, as quickly as it had happened, Dark released him.
The edges of his form wavered as he stared at his hand, stared at Wilford with an unidentifiable expression on his face as Wilford choked and coughed and sucked in great lungfuls of breath.
“Dark-” He managed to stammer out, but Dark wasn’t looking at him anymore.
He was staring past him, over his shoulder, through the open door at the mirror that hung on the hallway wall.
Staring at the flickering figure that hovered just behind the mirror’s surface, face contorted with anger, with hurt, with grief.
Wilford twisted to see what Dark was looking at, but there was nothing there.
Dark’s fingers drummed against the polished wood of his desk as he glanced from the clock to the door to his work then back again, his frown deepening and his aura seeping further into the room, sucking from it all the color and all the life.
The Host knew damn well how important this assignment was, and he knew damn well he had to be in Dark’s office on time.
Another minute- another eternity- passed before a faint knock came at the door.
emptynarration 