#Darkiplier x Wilford Warfstache | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

otterlyinluv · 1 month ago

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Only Mortals Catch the Sniffles

Summary: You decided to go shopping while it was raining. But you forgot your umbrella. So of course you end up getting sick (you have a really poor immune system, don’t you?). What’s unexpected is who exactly decides to take care of you and what discoveries it leads to.

Pairing: Darkiplier x DA!Reader

Tags: sfw, the flu, argument and misunderstanding (gets resolved), proximity, tension

A/N: I have almost no time to write. (Who would’ve said I’d be reading lots in a linguistic course—) But hopefully you’ll enjoy this little thing I’ve been cooking up for quite a while now ^^

Word Count: 4.5k

——

You rummaged through the cupboard to find some of your favorite snacks but were met with empty space instead. You sighed and shook your head. Your secret stash of snacks has been disappearing at a suspiciously fast pace, so it was safe to assume someone was eating it. But eating all of it without notice? You’d have to have a stern word when you found the culprit. If at all.

This shortage has happened multiple times already. At first, you let it slide, but it was really beginning to get on your nerves. Scratch the beginning. You were mad. You were going to get your snack. Now.

Breathing slowly to clear your head a little, you decided to go for a late-night shopping run while you were at it. After all, there were some other things you wanted to buy, along with the snack. And then you’d catch whoever had been stealing them.

You walked down the corridor and noticed the time on the grandfather clock. You winced. If you wanted to go shopping you needed to get ready and fast.

You grabbed everything without thinking too much about the details. Your phone, purse, and a shopping bag and bolted for the door. You managed to faintly hear something Google was trying to say, but you had no time to listen. Off to the shop it was.

—

By the time you returned, it was pouring. And you hadn't brought an umbrella.

The door opened with a creak, and you stepped in, clothes dripping with water all over the carpet.

Out of the corner of your vision, Google raised an eyebrow before coughing silently: “I did attempt to tell you the forecast was saying it would rain.”

You pushed your wet hair out of your face. “Yeah. I don’t think that'll help now.”

“Well, if you had given me admin privileges, I would have been able to contact you even while you were away—“

You walked away irritated, not bothering to hear his ‘Giving me admin privileges is the solution to all your problems’ speech.

While sprinting to your room, you almost crashed into someone, but you were able to steady yourself and not make his suit wet. Suit. Only one man would wear a suit well into the evening.

Darkiplier eyed your very much drenched form from head to toe. Before you could say anything, he spoke, no visible emotion on his face. “Your clothes are wet.” It sounded as if he was merely making an observation.

A scoff escaped your lips. “Haven’t noticed.”

“Did Google not tell you about the weather?”

He who stayed mostly cooped up in his office most of the time had the audacity to lecture you for going out when it was raining?!

“Well, obviously I didn’t have the time to get an umbrella!” You threw your hands around, irritated, and stormed off into your room.

—

You woke up still tired. Your throat felt dry. You swallowed. Sharp stabbing pain. You groaned and turned around to check the time. You slept for 10 hours?!

The sun was already high in the sky, an unusual sight for an early bird like you. Weird, but you supposed it was better to get started for the day, you said to yourself, trying to sit up. Emphasis on trying.

You clutched the side of your head to dull the throbbing pain that emerged from your movement and flopped back onto your pillow. Well, this was a problem. Everyone would start wondering where you were sooner or later since you routinely woke up first.

The pain was almost enough for you to consider just staying in bed. And yet you couldn’t do that.

You’ve never allowed yourself to rest even while tired or under the weather. The work helped you focus on other things. Without it, your mind started to wander into territories it shouldn’t. Like those recurring dreams of a strange mansion or a poker game with people you didn't recognize… and it was doing it again. Which is exactly why you needed to get back to work.

You weren’t able to attempt to get out of bed again when your door handle swung open violently, almost slamming into the wall. There was almost no time to register the urgent steps stop as Wilford put his hands on your shoulders and began shaking you.

“Oh, my word, we thought you died!”

Wilford was a mess. Eyes shot wide, clothes untucked, hair unkempt, like he was running around and forgot to fix himself up.

“Wilford…” you said lethargically, Wilford’s shaking making your hoarse voice sound even quieter.

“Illinois said he hadn’t seen you at breakfast, so I thought you must have eaten already, but when I went to check, you weren't at your office and you’re always at your office, so we all thought you got kidnapped…” he continued ranting, almost like he was stuck in panic mode with no regards to the fact that you were actually safe and sound in your bed.

“Wilford, I’m fine!” you yelled as loudly as you could muster, which was not much but it seemed to break the loop he was in. He stopped shaking you. “I’m just not feeling well, that’s all…”

“Oh…” he said softly, slowly pulling his arms away.

His eyebrows scrunched up in almost a comical fashion. “You’re sick,” he stated, as if for some sort of confirmation.

“I’m not that sick—”

“But you never get sick.” He shook his head, looking positively baffled.

“Again, I’m not that sick. Just woke up a little later than usual, nothing to be worried about…”

“You are ill?” you heard his voice before you saw him appear. Darkiplier was standing in your doorway. Who knows for how long. His face looked neutral, except for the smallest furrow of his eyebrows.

You sighed, exasperated. This was too much to deal with in your current state. Which was not that bad, mind you. Besides, how and why was Darkiplier even in your room? Wilford, you could understand. You were acquaintances—friends even, but it was different with Darkiplier.

Sure, you had mutual respect, but your relationship had always been on the more formal side, seeing as you were one of the few people he could rely on to complete the tasks you agreed on. But he would have never struck you as a person to be worried about someone’s physical state.

“I am fine. It’s just a cold. Nothing I can’t handle—“

He interrupted you before you could finish your sentence.

“A cold? A cold that leaves you unable to get out of your room until noon? Is just a cold the reason you are left bedridden and shivering despite being underneath a duvet?” He walked until he was near your bed. There was a cold sort of fury hidden behind his eyes.

That irked you. Of course he never cared about your well-being. He only cared about how the search for Mark continued. And no matter who helped him along the way, as long as he got his revenge, nothing else mattered.

You weren’t able to yell, but your gruff voice was teeming with anger. “Well, I’m sorry I had the gall to fall ill. But not all of us have the ability to work for days on end. Some of us are human!”

You hadn’t meant to say that last sentence. Pain flashed in his eyes. You’ve always had a suspicion that he used to be human. At least at some point in time. You got your confirmation now. You would’ve regretted saying it any other time, but not now. Not now when you finally found out the thing he cared about most was your productivity.

“I think you should leave,” you said coldly.

You’ve honestly forgotten Wilford was also in the room as he hasn’t butted into your conversation like he usually did. Darkiplier’s face was stunned, maybe even regretful, but he did nothing, as Wilford took him by the shoulder and led him away from your room.

As they left, you turned to the wall and closed your eyes. Tired from the emotional exchange and your current sickness, slumber soon overtook you.

—

You woke up still tired, your mouth dry as if you hadn’t drank water in forever. Which, you hadn’t. Your stomach ached, but you highly doubted you could muster up enough strength to make yourself something. Another grumble of your stomach convinced you otherwise.

You looked around for a bathrobe to put on over your pajamas when your eyes got caught on your bedside table. There, lay a tray with a plate full of chicken noodle soup along with a spoon.

Did someone…. make you food? You have eaten along with some of them, such as breakfasts with Illinois or Yancy, and sometimes Wilford liked to join you for lunch. Then there were the late dinners in Darkiplier's office. But this? You weren't used to that. You leaned over and put the tray on your lap, careful not to spill anything.

You wondered who would do such a thoughtful thing for you. It looked homemade, so that ruled Yancy out. He approached you a few weeks ago if you could re-teach him some simple recipes since he's been in prison for so long that he's forgotten how to cook.

You were familiar with Illinois’ cooking skills, but you doubted he would find the time to make you soup. He’s always joked that he can’t give anyone special treatment or else they’d fall in love with him.

And Darkiplier… you threw that thought away before you could even start thinking about it properly. As if he’d be all nice to you after treating you no less than an expendable employee.

Wilford, you couldn’t be sure about. You’ve seen him cook occasionally, not soup, but he seemed to have both skill and like you enough to be so considerate.

Satisfied with your thought process, you set to eating the surprisingly still warm soup that you deduced Wilford had made for you.

After about twenty minutes, you already having finished your soup and cuddled up facing the wall to sleep the cold off some more, a quiet click of the door handle filled the silence of your room. Soft tentative steps tapped on the floor, seemingly so as not to wake you up.

You turned around.

“Hey Wil, thanks for the soup…” You trailed off when you realized the one who entered your room was, in fact, not Wilford but a rather startled Darkiplier. You have never seen him with that much exposed emotion. He was frozen reaching for the empty plate, his eyes slightly wide, as if he got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. It, however, didn’t last long. He promptly straightened his back, wiping imaginary dust from his jacket, his expression back to being deadpan as usual.

“Why are you taking that plate?” You eyed him warily. Was he here to chastise you for not working? Or perhaps—

“Because I made the soup. I figured you’d have finished it by now.” He moved to pick the tray up.

“You made the soup? You made me soup?” you blurted out before you could really think about what you were saying.

“You’ve seen me cook,” he said in the most matter-of-fact voice.

“Well, yes, but…” You sat up and tried to gather your thoughts. It all lead down to just one thing. “Why?”

“You are ill. You need rest and warm food. So I made you soup. Is that enough of a reason for you?” There was a hint of humor in his voice, his expression mostly unchanged, except for the faintest sparkle in his eyes.

You were absolutely baffled. He gets angry at you for getting sick and not working and then makes you soup?

He seemed to notice your irritation increasing and opened his mouth to speak. You crossed your arms and leaned on the pillow.

“Listen. I know a plate of soup isn’t enough to make up for what I had said. And I didn’t just make the soup to make amends. I want you to get better. I know what’s done is done but you need to know the truth.” He looked away momentarily as if he had to find strength to continue. “I wasn’t angry with you for not being able to work. I was angry… with myself.”

“What?”

He sighed, looking away.

“What I had said and the way that I had said it was harsh. There is no excuse for it. I was just…” He took a deep breath and shook his head absentmindedly. “I was worried. When you didn't show up in the morning. I thought something had happened. That maybe you had left or perhaps needed some time off. You work too hard all the time. And I did not want to intrude even if I was worried. A part of me was glad you finally decided to take some time for yourself. But when I was passing by and heard Wil say you were ill…” He looked off to the side for a moment.

“I have never seen you ill. Ever. So I said things without thinking them over. And for what it's worth, I am sorry.”

Your eyebrows only scrunched up more. Many emotions of increasingly more confusing variations started bubbling up in your brain. You didn’t say a thing. Just kept looking at him as if that would help you comprehend what exactly he had just said.

He sighed.

“Do with that what you will. But believe me when I say, I am being completely sincere that I truly hope you do get better.” With that, he grabbed the tray with the plate and left your room.

A part of you wanted to say something. To tell him to come back. But you couldn’t will your tongue to move. And not because you were sick.

With a closing of the door, you were left alone once again. This time, with many more things to think about.

—

Evening rolled around faster than you expected it to. You spent most of the time sleeping. You even felt good enough to make some light dinner for yourself. It seemed none of the residents were up to their usual antics of annoying you today. Lovingly, of course, but you had thought when they came to know you weren’t dying, they’d come to visit you. But that didn’t seem to be the case as no-one has been in your room since your… exchange with Darkiplier.

But as all sickness goes, it gets worse in the evening. And so you were lying in your bed, as lethargic as ever, unable to even sleep.

Your door creaked, the sound so quiet you wouldn’t have been able to hear it if you hadn’t been lying in dead silence.

Darkiplier opened the door and looked over into the room. Your eyes met. And even through your hazy state, it felt like you locked eyes just a second too long. Not like any other time.

“I... came to check up on you.” He looked away, cutting the silence.

“That's awfully nice of you.” You weren’t really thinking about what you were saying. It seemed to a side effect of your illness. Or maybe you weren’t so guarded with him anymore.

His eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. It looked oddly adorable.

“Are you feeling alright?”

You didn't know if he meant healthwise or your current state of mind, and you didn’t care.

“Absolutely.”

He walked over closer, right up to your bed. You watched him curiously, a bit more attentive even despite your heavy mood.

“No fever or anything of the sorts?”

You scoffed lightly. “No, nothing of the sort. Really, I’m fine. Never been better. See?”

You moved to sit up when he gently grabbed your shoulders and pushed you back onto the pillow.

Breathing became a foreign concept. Even your sickness existed only in the back of your mind. Your body was faintly pressed against the plush of your pillow, yet everything paled in comparison to all but one sensation.

Him.

So close.

And yet not close enough.

His hands on your shoulders were secure and just a bit insistent. But not necessarily painful.

“Don’t get up, you need to rest,” he said firmly but softly just the same.

Your eyebrows raised. He leaned closer. And closer. You closed your eyes.

The touch of his lips on your forehead was feather light.

After seconds which seemed like hours, he pulled away just a little, deep in thought. “Your forehead isn’t warm so it seems like you really don't have a fever…”

It sounded like an inner monologue or a passing thought, but your brain froze from the moment he kissed your forehead. It was so soft you weren’t sure you weren’t actually having a fever dream. Your eyes moved on their own accord, studying his face. His eyes caught yours. You have never seen him from this close. Your mouth was slightly open as a shallow shaky breath escaped it. It was as if the Earth itself stopped spinning and all you could feel were his eyes. Staring. Pensive. As if he himself was also frozen.

“You… you shouldn’t be so close to me,” you said quietly, almost indiscernibly. Your mouth was dry. A few seconds passed. Silence. Just him and you. And his eyes. Oh, those dark eyes. They went deeper than you thought. Like they were their own little galaxies. Did he even hear what you said? Did he—.

“Why?” His voice was quiet, similarly to yours, with a slight purr that you’d never heard from him. You could feel his chest rise and fall, dangerously close to your own. Your heart was beating so quickly that you wondered if he could feel it. A shiver ran up your spine. Your brain desperately searched for an excuse. But did you really want him to stop?

“I’ll get you sick,” you tried. Oddly enough, you weren’t feeling all that unwell at the moment. You were, however, feeling something else you couldn’t describe. And his closeness only heightened the tingling in your stomach.

“I’m not human. I can’t get sick,” he said without missing a beat, almost matter-of-factly.

Curses, he’s always been good at quick responses. But— Hang on. How would you know such a thing about him? You’ve spent some time together, yes but… Not enough to know an obscure detail like that.

“But you were.” The words left your lips almost by themselves. And yet, something in you knows that it’s the truth. Somehow, someway you feel he used to be something else before this.

His face darkened, his expression shifting to the all too familiar one you knew from working together late into the night.

“I… used to,” he admitted. You had to keep your mouth from falling open. This was the clearest confirmation of their past you’ve gotten out of any of the residents of this mansion. And to get it from Darkiplier first… If anybody told you a few days ago that such a thing would happen, you would’ve laughed straight into their face. But now… Him sharing something vulnerable with you felt strangely familiar. Like it happened before.

“I can see that brilliant mind of yours working. But whatever questions you want to ask, save them. There is time and place for such conversation and this is not it.” This was his way of saying no to talking about this topic. Rather tactfully from how you’ve seen him snap at Google when he is genuinely angry for a sensible reason. There was, however, something in the sentence that you could use to gauge him. You could consider yourself fairly well-versed in a few things in life but for Darkiplier to call you brilliant? And with such casualty. Like he has already said it before. But he hasn’t. There had to be something more behind it.

“’Brilliant mind’?” you repeated his words inquisitively.

His eyebrows furrowed apprehensively and you knew then you struck gold. He pulled back from leaning over you but you followed suit, sitting up on your bed.

“Forget it,” he said, his voice clipped.

“No.” You surprised yourself by how fast you replied. And it seemed to have the same effect on Darkiplier since he didn’t move from the spot. Encouraged by this, you continued: “… No. Why did you say that?”

“I…” There it was—he hesitated. You waited with bated breath for him to reveal whatever it was he kept trying to hide. You knew it was something that weighed heavy on his soul.

“It is none of your concern,” he said after a few tense seconds of your waiting. Ever the diplomat. Was he a politician in his past life or what?

“Considering the fact that you said something about me, I think it very much concerns me.”

“Look, you are ill and there are things that are beyond your understanding—”

“Then tell me something I can know.” That was it. Your last ditch effort to get to know something more. More about this man who went from only a colleague to someone who has actually, and much to your surprise, proved to care for you. As much as a man with seemingly so little external emotion such as Darkiplier was. But only seemingly. You have seen him smile before this even if it was scarce. But now you could finally admit — it did suit him.

Darkiplier looked at you, brows furrowed, seeming almost perplexed. “You truly wish to know more about me?” he asked, to which you nodded quickly before he could change his mind and decide to leave right then and there.

He sighed.

Then begrudgingly sat back down on your bed.

Bingo.

You made yourself more comfortable, propping your back on the wall behind you. It felt like a child getting ready to hear a bedtime story. Darkiplier raised an eyebrow and let out a soft breath through his nose, the corner of his mouth raising almost imperceptibly.

He looked to the side thoughtfully for a few moments before turning back to you.

“I don’t have to breathe.”

Well, that was unexpected. You thought he would talk about his life experiences or the people that he met. Then again, you should have known better than to think he would actually tell you anything about his past or elaborate on the whole “brilliant mind” comment. Nonetheless, this new information was quite intriguing.

“What do you mean you don't have to breathe?”

”It’s… more of a habit than anything physiologically needed.”

“But— your chest raises and falls so regularly...” you said, more musing out loud than actually meaning to share any information.

“Do you watch me?” he asked. If you didn’t know him well, you’d think he’s irritated, his tone slightly accusatory. But when you looked at him, there was that familiar tug of the corner of his lips. He was playing. He didn’t sport that look often but he pulled it off quite well.

Apparently, you had drifted off again because his lopsided smirk had only gotten wider and he was closer than before.

“Do I have the privilege of your presence now?”

He was close. Really close. Like when he kissed your forehead to check for a fever kind of close. Your heartbeat picked up, and you could only hope he couldn't hear it. Heartbeat... does he have one? You must have spoken out loud because a thoughtful look spread across his features.

“I’m not too sure myself. Want to check?”

Did he really mean to say that? You blinked. His expression hasn’t changed. So he did.

You placed your hand on his chest matter-of-factly. That’s all it was. A checkup. You weren’t doing anything weird. It’s not like you felt his dichromatic aura bristle slightly at your touch before returning to a faint buzz, albeit a bit louder than a few moments ago. With him wearing only a dress shirt, you could feel his skin and the lack of a heartbeat.

“You know I’m only letting you feel me up like this because you’re ill.”

“Stop being cheeky.” You clicked your tongue in irritation when he disrupted your concentration. There was a faint huff of laughter before you refocused on what lay beneath your palm.

“There’s nothing,” you said quietly.

“You won’t be able to feel it like this.” And with that, you found your hand pressed even closer to his ribcage, covered by his. You felt his chest rise and fall more deeply, almost like you’d feel a regular person breathe. That’s when you felt it. A faint heartbeat right under your fingertips.

Badump badump

Even with his palm on top of yours being extremely distracting, it was clearly discernible. Orderly. A sign of life where there really wasn’t one.

His hand lifted from yours but you kept it there, utterly entranced by aseathe sensation of his heartbeat. He didn’t comment on it and spoke up, his tone softer than you’ve ever heard him be.

“There has to be oxygen for it to beat strongly. And that happens when I breathe more. Not that I need to per se, it’s more of a habit.”

“How is that even possible? How can you function without air?”

“There are no... rules for the amalgamation that I have become.”

That was one genuine bit of emotion you’ve seen him express. Frustration maybe? You’d have thought Darkiplier had come to terms with what he had turned into but it seems time can’t heal all wounds.

“I have been... this way for a very very long time. And yet I don’t know the constraints of myself.”

You hummed in understanding, mind racing with thoughts of what exactly he can and can’t do, absent-mindedly tracing the buttons of his shirt.

You felt his heart speed up, his chest jerking in as air hit your fingers. Your eyes flicked back up to his face.

Burning heat. Molten lava and blistering cold of his aura. His eyes searched yours for something. You weren’t sure what. Maybe he—The cracking of a mirror...

The intensity of his gaze made your hand twitch back, your whole body freezing up.

After a few seconds, he exhaled and smiled softly, bittersweet yet understanding, tender even — have you ever seen him smiling like that? — and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear.

“Rest. You need it.” He stood up and headed towards the door. Just when he was about to reach the door handle, you called out:

“Dark?”

He turned around, a look akin to hope in his eyes.

“Yes?”

“Will you… make me soup again?”

The tender smile was there again, devoid of all previous bittersweetness.

“Of course. Anytime, darling.”

It was only when he left that you realized, you called him ‘Dark’ instead of Darkiplier. And that Dark apparently resorts to pet names.

——

Fun fact I wanted to write it but could not manage to insert anywhere: Dark was the one who told the others not to disturb the reader :)) Oh and either Wilford or Yancy is stealing your snacks. Which one do you think it is?

Also, if anyone wants to be part of a taglist for future fics, let me know :)

#otty writes #darkiplier #darkiplier x reader #x reader #reader insert #dark x reader #darkiplier x da!reader #soft sweet dark #markiplier egos #iplier egos #googleplier #wilford warfstache #writing #fanfiction #imagines #fanfic #writersofmark

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theknightmarket · 7 months ago

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"Deal."

In which three disagreeable deities are forced to agree. TW: cursing Pages: 28 - Words: 11,500

[Requests: OPEN]

You were a cultist. You weren’t about to hide that aspect of your life because it was no mere aspect, not anymore; you devoted your entire being to tracking down the pantheon that would mark the end of all humanity. It wasn’t out of spite or service. You had no cosmic motive behind your catastrophic actions. But it wasn’t a test either. Belief rested in your heart and calm in your mind as you traded away the lives of your friends, your family, strangers who would never know what was coming, and your own, for one little thing.

A kiss.

Everyone thought you were joking. Nobody, not even the dredges of society, would risk it all for a little physical contact. They snorted when you told them your plan, and raised an eyebrow when they thought you were carrying on the bit for too long. Oh, there went the ‘town crazy’, traipsing down to the antique shop to pick up the latest prop for their little jape. We laughed at them, for they carried the weight of the jester for our amusement.

Oh, you’d show them. If they lived long enough to recognize what was happening. If they didn’t, you’d still be better off than them.

You proudly owned up to your title of the local lunatic, although it was first given as a joke. One step into your apartment, and they might’ve realized that you weren’t joking. All the ritual memorabilia scattered along the walls, all the unholy ingredients stored in the cupboards, all the little things that contributed to the utter collapse of humanity. Well, as long as the person working the antique store wasn’t a liar.

And, chances were, he was.

But it didn’t hurt to try. And try. And try. And try. One of these days it would work. Eventually, you’d hit the nail on the head and get exactly what you wanted.

The slam of the book on the wooden alter reverberated around the apartment, swallowed by the artifacts you’d collected. You didn’t know when that day would come, if it would ever come, but you were definitely trying. A manic grin split your face in two as you flipped through the yellowed pages. Awful corruption for a god, but you were going to use it anyway. You could always rewrite it if all you needed was the instructions. They were deities, after all, they deserved better than some dusty, half-broken tome.

You hummed to yourself while you worked. Normally, your speakers would be up and running during the hours you studied old texts, blasting the playlist you’d accumulated over the years. Sorting things was never your forté, so they were all in one place. A bit jarring, but you got used to it, and you didn’t have the time to rearrange anything right now. There was work to be done.

The circle you’d engraved in your wooden flooring – which you notably did not tell your landlord about – was surrounded by candles to make the points of a star. Classic. Reliable. Any source of light was diminished, including the overhead lights that you never turned on and the curtains that you never opened. There wasn’t anything to see anyway, and you preferred your side lamp, though you also switched that off when you had everything in place.

Finally, you rushed to the book and read through the specific instructions for the one you were going to summon first. Try to, at least. The preparations before were all commonplace, every ritual used them, but this was where it changed. You might have been drawing a different symbol or equipping a unique relic. In this case, you were to light the candles pink and inscribe all manner of curls and swirls on the floor with a similar shade of ink.

The packet of lithium was in your hand before you knew what you were doing, but you didn’t resist sprinkling it into the wax divots near the wicks. Your high school chemistry lessons finally paid off, as long as you ignored that your first thought was food dye; working with a pantheon of deities outside of your understanding of the world was undoubtably taking a toll on your mental state.

But that didn’t matter right now. The only thing that was important was the paintbrush in your hand that pooled thick lines of neon pink in the exact shape of the symbol in the book. It had to be exact. Perfect. They deserved it.

You connected the last line to the rest of the shape and sat back on your knees to marvel at your work for the brief moment of life you had left. You wouldn’t get the chance once the end of times was ushered in. It didn’t matter to you if it was a sin to be proud of the product of your years of labor. It was probably more of a sin to cause the deaths of eight billion people. What was one more drop in the bucket?

Wiping your paint-splattered face with your sleeve, you rose from the ground and hastily stumbled towards the alter again. The only thing left to do was chant.

Adrenaline rushed you as though you were being judged, chased, stalked. And you likely were. You felt the stares of a hundred gods and monsters on you, from all directions, right into your eyes. They were eager to witness the introduction of apocalypse. They followed where your pupils went. Holding sparks of anticipation, they flitted across the page to work out the pronunciations, wild birds in their cages pleading to be free from the confines of flesh. Your grip on the alter tightened, knuckles paling as all blood rushed away. Any tighter, and you’d rip splinters from it.

You knew you opened your mouth, and you knew you spoke. The chant flowed like thick oil from your throat and poured itself over the paper. You felt it – gods, did you feel the words cling to the life you gave them – but you didn’t hear it. But it was working. It was working, so you didn’t care. You didn’t matter. The ritual did.

So, it didn’t worry you when a flash of pink light, brighter than an atomic bomb, sprung from the centre of the circle at the dip of one of the paint’s arcs and blinded you. Sight and hearing gone, you relied on touch to ground you, and even that was fleeting. The alter was knocked to the floor and you followed it, landing roughly on your palms in accidental prayer. You assumed you were still looking in the vague direction of the flash. The pink had turned to white in the space of your fall. Whatever was with you now, you had no choice but to worship it. The host of the apocalypse, the bringer of the end of times, the catalyst for the collapse of humanity.

The thing that smelled sweet and clasped your hands gently. You still couldn’t see. Did you do it right? Did you summon the right one? Did you knock over a candle and accidentally burn the apartment down and this was heaven? How did you get into heaven?

Your vision was clearing up while you spiraled. Gradually, the spots of light were pulled apart by a softer tone. It wasn’t the shadow you would have expected after removing all sources of light save the candles, but it wasn’t the flashbang from before, and you would take it. You’d hate for your efforts to be for something but unable to experience it to its fullest.

Shakily, you breathed out, exhaling something akin to dust from the lining of your lungs. A few particles remained in your mouth. Sweetness, again. As though you had dipped your tongue in sugar.

“My- my God?” you mumbled. You could hear your voice this time. Words you knew and recognized. Familiar. Safe.

Yet you still felt safe with the hands of a stranger wrapped around yours. They were warm and soft, and, blinking with the sensation of stepping into the sun for the first time, normal looking. Slowly, you turned them over, so the palms were facing up to you. They were human.

But the thing kneeling mere inches away from you was not.

“Please,” they spoke, with a smile you swore you once saw carved into marble, “call me Wilford.”

He looked kind. When the last vestiges of bright light faded, you were greeted by the pleasant sight of a handsome, if not confusing, man. Really, the pink moustache and hair, the same color as the paint and candles, was the only sign of him not being the average person on the street, besides the fact that he appeared in your ritual circle like the second coming.

When your eyes met, his grin widened. You couldn’t guess what was going through his head, you wouldn’t dare, but you had questions as to why he was guiding you to stand so tenderly. “Now, whatever did you summon me here for?”

“I-I... well, I meant to- uh, dammit, I—”

Your poor excuse for a sentence was cut off before you could make more of a fool of yourself by hushing. Of course, you quieted down, thankful for the excuse to focus on breathing instead of talking. A haze of some unknown emotion clouded your mind and heart, but whatever you were experiencing must have been obvious to the deity you stood before. He took you by the crook of your arm and coaxed you towards the couch a few steps away. Doing this ritual thing in the middle of the living room was a blessing and a curse, though the latter would only come into play if it failed. You hated rearranging furniture.

He laid you down onto the plush pillows, cooing at you softly. Was this the relationship between gods and humans? Pets to play with as they saw fit. It made sense, as much sense as infinite immortals could make. There was no argument to be on an equal playing field, but you had imagined it to be more…

Violent, maybe subservient. You didn’t expect to be pampered with a hand patting your hair and assurances muttered until you were able to function again.

“I summoned you,” you shakily spoke. It was a statement, but you couldn’t stop the uncertainty seeping into your words.

“I should hope so—” Wilford’s laugh was the same as his voice, incredibly sweet and lighthearted, despite having enough power to stop your heart with just a glance, “—I am here, after all.”

Hesitantly, you nodded. Alright. He was actually there. You had summoned him. It actually worked this time.

“Do you remember why you summoned me?” came his own question.

You definitely did, and your subconscious seized your mouth again to avoid having to say it aloud. To the people in your town, the ones you entertained with your plots and stories, it was easy to tell what your end goal was. With the actual deity face to face, it was much harder. You should have planned for this. Maybe you could buy some time to get your confidence back.

You latched onto the odd choice of words that confused you in the first place. “Do… do I remember?”

“Sometimes I forget myself, and if an eldritch god does, I’m sure humans do, too.”

Your own breathing filled the silence left behind at the admission. Wilford’s chest didn’t rise or fall, why would it, and he seemed preoccupied with carding a hand over your head anyway. His moustache twitched every time that he brushed against your actual skin, and his smile grew an unnoticeable millimeter wider. It left you frozen and staring at him, which he didn’t appear to mind.

You could do this. There was no going back now.

“Well, Wilford,” you began, barely managing to escape his touch long enough to sit up straight, “I do remember.”

“Good! How can I satiate your heart’s deepest, darkest desire?”

“I want to kiss you.”

The reaction you received was not one you expected from a god, of any shape or form. He hummed pleasantly. Nothing else, he just hummed, the sound reverberating in the small room but never seeming to fade. It died out in a flash, instead, as he placed an elbow onto the couch cushion and balanced his head in the hand of it. In the fifteen seconds that you were both completely immobile afterwards, he didn’t blink, and his smile stayed plastered where it was.

“You want to kiss me,” he repeated, tone as peppy as before you revealed yourself.

No matter how hard your heart beating against your ribcage, you didn’t dare back down. You were in it now, whether you liked it or not. So, slowly, you nodded, becoming more and more sure of yourself in the process.

Wilford stayed perfectly quiet and perfectly still for another moment. You wondered if you’d done something wrong, something so taboo that you’d broken a god – but a kiss was much easier on the mind than the murder of billions of innocents; you should have been the one to freeze, and yet there you were, waiting with bated breath for him to say anything else. But he didn’t.

Not before he lunged forward, springing to lean over you in an inclined plank and barricade his arms around you. Even without the cover of blinking, his eyes seemed to mimic the stars – flashes of planets and sparks of supernovas jumped around in his pupils and radiated light to the whites. You could barely move your head enough to make eye contact with how close his face was, pressed almost directly underneath your chin, enough that you felt his mustache ticked at the skin as his grin grew impossibly wider.

“Oh-ho, now that’s an unusual request!” he commented, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before.”

The position you were trapped in gave you no leeway. When you spoke, your breath shifted the curls of his hair. “You haven’t?”

There was silence in which Wilford tried to remember, but he came up empty; so many years and requests and people, anyone would have trouble keeping track of them all. His own established issues didn’t help him any, but that didn’t matter. After all, that was the past, or the future, or a different present that he needn’t care about. You were the one in front of him, looking awfully scared for such a simple want, and you were the one he was tending to. The strange human who just wanted a simple smooch in return for possibly giving him the entire world. It was almost unfair.

“But it is intriguing.” His head cocked to the side. “The average summoner would ask for something bigger. Riches, power, time—” Then a thought occurred to him that made his smile collapse into a sharp grimace, broken only by him spitting out, “—fame.”

You supposed it had crossed your mind once or twice that you should do something more substantial with your boundless wish, but nothing else seemed worth it, to you at least. Why would you care about being a billionaire when you wouldn’t live long enough to use the money? Power was a moot point because you didn’t care enough about any entity to want to control it, and time?

“Isn’t the world going to end anyway?”

A few stray chuckles floated up from Wilford’s mouth. “Oh, no, of course not!”

Any fear that remained from his bout of silence was traded out for doubt, surprise, and a great deal of confusion. When he brought his head back to eye level with you, there was no sign of a lie, just dim amusement as your misconception. You might have been offended had you not been preoccupied by the questions that ran through your head.

He peeled back far enough that there were a few inches between you. “What point would there be in destroying the very thing that gives you power? The cults of eldritch gods support them, in every place and time at once, and to willingly minimize your area of effect would be plain silly. We can’t just destroy dimensions willy-nilly; we have to be selective. So,” he practically purred, closing up that gap slowly, “you’ll be completely safe. The people around you, however…”

Although he trailed off, you didn’t need any more explanation. A world-ending catastrophe wasn’t your aim, anyway, what was currently happening was. The space between you was getting smaller and smaller at a leisurely pace. You couldn’t complain, physically or figuratively. Puffs of air danced across your lips, like fog rolling in from the sea, and the couch dipped as Wilford’s knee came to stabilize him at the edge. You risked prematurely closing the gap entirely when you whispered, “That’s fine.”

“Good,” his whisper came out as the final bat of a wave against the shore, “you don’t exactly have a choice anymore.”

Not that you would protest as his lips skimmed yours so lightly that you weren’t certain it was happening at all. If you were to lean less than a centimeter forward, you would connect, and the deal would be done. Internally, you were a blank canvas, mind in a haze of expectation and adrenaline. Whether this was just you or the effect an eldritch god had on you, you didn’t know, and you didn’t care. You had devoted years of your life to this pursuit, you couldn’t waste the golden opportunity on minor worries.

But it wasn’t your fault that you were interrupted.

Another flashbang blinded you with white light. Ringing in your ears that stopped you from hearing anything except the high pitch, even when you felt your mouth open. This time, instead of the complete blankness of your senses, you were overwhelmed with pain, as if you had been dunked in the river Styx. Not just the brightness of an atomic bomb, but the agony of one, too. A migraine flexed and stilled in your mind, focusing all the thoughts on the damage it must have been causing you. What this was or why it was happening were secondary to silent prayers for it all to stop.

And then, just like that, your prayers were answered. In the flap of a butterfly’s wings, you were left reeling on the couch, pushed back into the cushions and fighting against your swimming vision. It was hard to distinguish direction for a moment, even the memories of the apartment you’d lived in for years struggled to help you, but it soon cleared up. In front of you, from the couch to the wall, was the same as it always had been, and you had to wonder whether Wilford had just made a dramatic exit before anything could actually happen.

Voices from behind you made you realise not only did Wilford not leave, but someone new was in the room with you, and it wasn’t a friendly neighbor checking in about the noise.

“The least you could have done was wait until I was finished.” That one was the voice you recognised, but the tone was much more acidic than the softness you were already used to.

And then, came the one you weren’t familiar with. “What would be the point of showing up after you’d sealed the deal?”

Against the bell chime of Wilford’s voice, this one was sleeker, as if it had been artificially smoothed down to slide from the throat to the mouth and out into the air. It lacked a sweetness but made up for it in baritone words like the soft pounding of a heart in your ears. It matched your own that had dropped into your stomach as your thoughts clouded with the newcomer.

“From what I remember, you’re not one to act with much sense,” Wilford replied, a spite overtaking any of the enthusiasm he had shown you. Whoever this was, he didn’t like them.

The stranger’s sarcastic laugh punctured the air of your apartment. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

“And anyways, I was here first, and, unlike you, I was actually summoned.”

“Wilford?” You were surprised by the shake of your voice – you weren’t a meek person by nature, but you supposed being in the presence of two gods would do that to anyone. You understood that you should have been groveling at their feet, thanking them and begging for forgiveness, and yet you simply rose from the couch to finally catch a glimpse of the deity he was on the cusp of arguing with.

“Yes, darling?”

His response was thrown to the wayside as your eyes met with the unfamiliar face in your living room. Your first thought was to wonder how the second god you’d ever seen was just as gorgeous as the first. The second was that your eyes blew so wide with fear with that you were sure they were going to fall out. They were draped head to toe in a crimson that burned in the candlelight, which, now that you actually looked, was no longer the pink you had lit it to be. It was much darker, eerily the same color as the blood that flowed through your veins, but it caressed the edges of their body and face like a lover’s hand.

You swallowed before you asked, “What- what’s happening?”

Your question flipped a switch in the two’s minds. On one hand, Wilford broke out into a snarl unbecoming of the man you’d seen him to be as he groaned, “We’ve been party-crashed.”

On the other hand, the one in red started to step – glide – toward you, the robe swaying across the floorboards and creating patterns in the still wet paint that they strode across. A smirk pulled at the corner of their mouth when you were within arm’s reach.

“What Wil here failed to explain is that I am the King in Red, Heir to Carcosa.” Neither of those titles you recognised but you felt your heart drop regardless, especially as he stopped barely a few inches away from you. The sliver of Wilford that you could see did not look pleased, but he stayed where he was anyway.

“Another eldritch god,” you clarified.

His touch on your hand felt like someone had lit a flame in your palm, the veins used as routes for a wildfire to grow. Your impulse to snatch your hand back was overtaken by the need to close around the warmth. The decision was made for you as he brought your hand towards himself. “Guilty as charged.”

The kiss was better, worse, different to the flame of his contact. It was so hot that it fully circled temperature and fell into a blazing coldness against the back of your hand. You were half sure he had melted away your skin, despite the strange lack of pain, and taken your breath along with it. You didn’t speak, couldn’t find it in you to, when Mark came out of his bow and stood straight enough to meet your eyes again.

“Considering Wilford here told you his, my name is Mark.”

You didn’t know how to feel; all the awe and terror and confusion and fatigue was catching up to you, convincing you with a gentle hand to lie down and forget that there were two gods in your living room, who you now knew the names of, that you were going to play host to. Everything was crumbling around you.

Putting up your scraps of confidence, you asked desperately, “Why are you here? I didn’t, I mean, I already—”

But mortals’ crises were nothing but spilled milk to eldritch deities. Flippantly, Mark waved his hand, the sleeve of his robe peeling back, before he spoke, “Yes, yes, I know I’m not technically the one you summoned, but I couldn’t help but overhear what you were trading for the lives of your friends and family.”

“Something that doesn’t involve you, that’s for sure.” Whether you were grateful for Wilford’s intrusion or appalled by the obvious disrespect didn’t matter. Mark’s smirk sharpened, expelling all the smooth charisma.

“If you’re going to make snarky comments,” he snapped, “I suggest you find another of your cultists and make some other exchange. I know you have hundreds.” Wilford gasped indignantly, not that you knew which suggestion he took the most offence to.

“And leave you alone with one of my followers?” His scoff cut into a growl.

In your preparation for summoning a god, you hadn’t done much research into who you’d actually be summoning. The specifics of the character weren’t anything you cared for, considering you would use whatever you could get your hands on – pink paint and lithium were the easiest combination of materials, and some of the other rituals asked for either very difficult or very uncomfortable things to get your hands on. As such, the relationships between those deities were unknown to you. Whatever this was, an ancient rivalry or a mere spat, you hadn’t prepared for it.

Nor were you prepared to be the person they were fighting to convince.

“Darling,” Wilford started moving closer, intentionally giving Mark a wide berth, “I know I said you’re safe, and you still are, but being around him for a long period of time has proven to be deadly.”

Sarcasm bubbled up within you. You hadn’t expected it to be a safe endeavor, after all. Still, you kept your mouth shut, more out of respect than the fear.

Mark had no such qualms about backtalking, however.

“Because becoming a ditzy canvas with no memories at all is so much better than what I can offer?”

Wait, what?

“Quite frankly, yes! A lot of people would take it over becoming a husk for you to puppet on stage.”

What?

One second, you were damning the world to apocalypse. The next, you weren’t, and everybody could live their happy endings. And then the next, you were sacrificing the people in the town but saving your own skin. And then the next, you were either losing your memories and your mind or you were renting out your body as an actor.

You really wanted someone to give you the story straight, without all the fluffy words and fighting. But the fear must have showed on your face, because Mark was gesturing in your direction with a manicured hand.

“Come now, you’re scaring the poor thing. I think we can come to a better agreement, don’t you?”

You didn’t like the tone of his voice in the last half. You didn’t like it one bit. He was suddenly less like a sneaky door-to-door salesman and more like the snake in the garden of Eden.

“I mean—” Your words sounded choked out, even to yourself, “—I don’t really think I want anything else.”

“There’s no need to pretend with me, dearest, that’s my job. You must have a larger goal – and with me, you won’t be sacrificing the people around you. They get to live, and you get what you want. Isn’t that better?”

You saw what the problem was. You supposed that after so many years of humanity milling about, there’d be conflicting impressions of them, especially for gods who didn’t see things on the same level as you. The world wars and the protests and the charities muddied the waters of what humans were really like.

Mark was making the – albeit completely understandable – mistake of assuming that both you and the townsfolk were good people.

“I think you overestimate how much I care about the people in this town.”

You couldn’t help the swell of pride in your chest when you noticed the shock on his face. Hell, his back straightened, and he blinked as if he just weren’t seeing you right.

“But your family. Surely, you don’t want to be the cause of their deaths?”

And he was assuming that your family was still alive.

“No, I- uh, don’t have a family.”

His face dropped as if you’d spoiled the ending of a show. Unimpressed, bored, and vaguely disappointed. Maybe he wasn’t used to this kind of resistance, maybe he wasn’t used to getting it wrong. Presumably, that wasn’t a habit the gods made, but it happened regardless. It was happening, and Mark was having a hard time getting back onto his feet.

After a moment’s hesitation, he stilled and frowned. “You’re making this a lot harder than it has to be,” he complained, and yet he spoke with such confidence, as if the outcome couldn’t be anything but him getting what he wanted, that you almost believed it, too.

Wilford stepped around Mark, very obviously and probably meant to tease him, in order to pull you back down to the couch cushions with him. You flopped against the back of it, only secured by his arms around you, cradled like a toy that a parent threatened to take away from their child. Just as stubbornly, he spat, “It was all going smoothly before you showed up.”

“And if everyone played along, we’d be done by now.” You could hear Wilford rolling his eyes better than you could see it in response to Mark’s groaning. You weren’t doing it on purpose, or, at least, you didn’t think you were. Why would you? The man beside you definitely was, trying to get under his skin and poking and prodding, but you were just answering the questions. Were you supposed to play alongor were you supposed to tell the truth?

Wilford interrupted before you could come to a conclusion, “In this day and age, I don’t understand why you’re here.”

Mark looked you up and down. Judging. He smiled, not unpleasantly but vastly less wholesome than Wilford’s grins. It reminded you of a rose, not just the petals but the thorns as well. He wasn’t lying about the danger he brought, he just wasn’t mentioning it, in the same way that you might not recognize a rose for the pain it would cause but for the beauty it was known for. Nobody talked about the spikes, just the satiny crimson of the prettier parts. Distantly, you wondered whether that smile meant you passed inspection or something different.

“I’m just interested.”

“Go be interested in someone else.” He waved his hand, a shooing motion that lit a flame in Mark’s face, his cheeks becoming just as red as his robe. You didn’t particularly want two gods getting into a petty fight in the middle of your apartment – hell, you hadn’t planned for there to be two gods in the first place – but you still wound up the mediator.

At least, you tried. “Can’t I make a deal with both of you?”

But your proposition was shot down immediately, a combined, “No!” bouncing off the walls and down the hallway. It sounded like the thunder and the rain of a storm, like it was down the street and right next to your ear simultaneously. Their yell, their one agreement so far, could have shaken the earth in the way you had expected their arrival to, instead of the flashbang you had been met with.

You shrunk back into the embrace of the couch, pressed into it in the way that got pennies and wallets and keys lost. You couldn’t tell whether it was out of fear, worry, or the want to get disappear like those common trinkets. The feeling of regret flexed in you, growing and shrinking and growing and shrinking. This whole ordeal was more than you had bargained for. You’d expected a one-and-done kind of thing. Now, you had childish rivals tossing insults.

Speaking of.

Mark bent down to take your hand into his again, but he didn’t lean to kiss it. Instead, he drew his other hand over it, fingers dancing along the skin and prompting sparks around your knuckles. “Dearest,” his teeth were gritted together so that the words struggled out from behind the bars, “I would rather die than share a follower with him. We both know how well it worked out last time.”

A tut from your side before it merged into a laugh. “You’re still hung up on that?”

“What reason do you have?” came the venomous response, disbelieving and mocking.

“I just don’t like you.” Wilford’s smile was bright even as he insulted Mark to his face. If you were to reach out, you were half sure your hand would catch on the tension between them, and you were surprised when you were able to get up from the couch and drag yourself through the air without being stopped.

When you were a few steps away from the pair, out of the blast radius, you sighed, “It’s obvious that this isn’t working. Is there a way to end the whole summoning thing?” You weren’t keen to have to redo all your hard work, but you were even less interested in losing your apartment to a minefield. As the saying went, there were plenty of fish in the sea, and finding another god couldn’t be that difficult. You hoped.

Your eyes latched onto the sudden fear in Wilford’s eyes. It was small, but it was there. Despite that, his grin never faltered, and his voice was steady as he answered, “No—”

“Yes, there is!” Mark announced with more excitement than you had heard in your entire experience with him, and, possibly, it was the most genuine, too. His head whirled to frantically search around the room until his gaze landed on the alter.

Wilford jumped to his feet. “It’s extremely complicated and you probably don’t have the materials and it takes time—”

“They have the book, don’t they?”

What ensued was by far the most insane part about this situation; you stood next to the wall, watching with concern, while Mark dashed for the summoning book. He was barely a few inches away from grabbing it before his face met the floor, snuffing out the candles that he landed on and knocking several others onto the floor. Wilford grunted in the new position as Mark’s elbow connected with his stomach – he recovered surprisingly quickly from the tackle to the ground – and he tossed the other god onto his back. A bundle of flames licked up at them on your wooden boards, but the threat was diminished with their combined rolling away.

Before you met them, you would’ve been scared out of your wits by the thought of two eldritch beings grappling in the middle of your apartment, especially because you would have made certain assumptions – that they had demonic powers, that they could kill you accidentally with the snap of their fingers, and maybe they still could. It was only now that you realized they not much more than schoolboys fighting in the field at lunch break. You couldn’t be intimidated by that.

So, walking forward to stamp out the fire that had been growing into a few smoldering patches of ash, you grabbed the book that they had seemingly forgotten about and proceeded towards your front door. Not schoolboys. Toddlers. Thinking of them like that gave you only one course of action; wait for their tantrums to end and then pick up the pieces.

They didn’t react to the creak of the door, Wilford too preoccupied by bending Mark’s arm back and Mark too preoccupied by not getting his arm bent back, so you slipped out into the night with ease. Immediately, you felt the change in the air. There was no tension out there, covered by the coolness of late hours. They offered a comfort you would never be able to match. Never had you been so glad to be human. Sure, other people were a nightmare and getting out of that town was a dream you aspired to, but you enjoyed this little bit of the world. You wondered if ants felt the same when they looked down off a hill. In the presence of ‘dangerous’ deities, it was nice to sit back and appreciate what you did understand. At that time, you would normally have been able to see the stars twinkling distantly against the black void of the sky, but they must have been hidden by the clouds because you couldn’t see them.

Or the railing.

Or the balcony hallway itself, or, as you whirled around to run back inside, the wall of your apartment. The door stood out like an unfinished painting, bordered by the same darkness that was all around you. You felt caged. It was closing in and spreading apart at the same time, and you could only think to return to the living room. At least you knew what was in there. Out here? Glares burned into your skin from all directions and the shiver of a frigid gust of wind was more physical than your own body. You lunged for the handle to escape it and threw yourself in.

More darkness greeted you.

“Wilford?” you called out, “Mark? Is anyone there?”

You had spoken to the void, but you didn’t expect the void to speak back.

“So, you’re the one causing all of this trouble?”

Those eyes seemed to narrow. The only thing you were certain of was the rapid thud of your heart in your chest, and even then, it was inconsistent. A scream clawed at your throat, but you choked on the sound.

You managed to struggle past the blockage to ask, “Hello?”

The words reverberated around wherever you were, but it wasn’t your voice. Some of the echoes were deeper, some higher, some altogether unintelligible, as if spoken in another language. It hurt when they came back to you.

“Darling, dearest—” Something writhed in the pitch, “I’d ask how they got so attached so fast, but we both know who we’re talking about.”

“And who am I talking to?”

“You’ve been messing around with that book; I should hope you know.”

You almost jumped to your own defense before you remembered what position you were in. On one hand, you had only meant to summon Wilford, not Mark, but, on the other, it probably didn’t matter in the eyes of whoever – whatever – you were talking to.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” you started as you searched for the confidence you had started the day with, “but which one are you?”

“I have man names, many faces… you won’t be around much longer, so you may refer to me as Dark.”

Well, it was certainly fitting. As if to confirm your thoughts, a patch of the void appeared to constrict and tear through itself. Each particle fought for space, sparking with red and blue light, and collected into smaller masses. You were stuck to where you were standing while the voice continued in the background.

“Those two are tenacious.” More flecks of light joined the fray. “Neither will stop until they get what they want.” They warped the area around them in the vague shape of a person. “That just so happens to put you in a tight spot.” The color seeped out of the portrait, but it was still distinguishable from the void. “Wilford will slowly erase your memories, even though he doesn’t mean to nor is he aware of it.” A body began to coalesce where you assumed the floor of the void to be. “And Mark will take your physical form as soon as you pledge yourself to him to use in one of his plays.” It travelled up from dress shoes to black pants to the edges of a white shirt. “And you were about to choose both.” A neck appeared above the collar and those particles caressed the line of a jaw. “That…”

A face emerged.

“That is fascinating.”

Before you stood the fully formed god you now knew as Dark, and you had mixed feelings about that. For one, you had actually watched him appear. He didn’t arrive in a blaze of light, he did quite the opposite. That in and of itself dug a pit in your stomach, and his earlier comment that you wouldn’t be around much longer wasn’t helping your nerves. You felt like you were on the edge of spiraling out of control, but you also felt strangely calm, like there was a voice whispering in your ear that there was no need to get worried. Your breathing stayed steady while you looked at him. A formal black suit and ashen skin were the only notable features he sported. There was no taste in your mouth, no pain in your body, just confusion and a hint of fear.

He opened his mouth to speak, and you braced for impact, but his voice sounded normal. “What’s so important to you that you’d give up your mind and body?”

The answer was coaxed out of your mouth before you could think to say it. “A kiss.”

You had managed to shock not one, not two, but three eldritch deities. You were three for three, and you were damn proud of yourself! When you were back in your room later that night, you were going to celebrate. With what, you didn’t know yet, but you were already stewing in the feeling. It didn’t take long for Dark to recuperate, though, and you were brought back to the present by his gravelly laugh.

“Mortals,” he tutted. “You can never seem to decide whether you’re so significant that you’re the centre of the universe, or you’re so irrelevant that nothing you do matters. You’d give up yourself and the people around you for a show of affection, no doubt ingenuine?”

“Is it so hard to understand that I don’t care about the people here?”

“And your own soul?”

“I went into this thinking the entire world was going to end, so this is a preferrable outcome.”

He thought for a moment, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes. You felt like you were being inspected, and maybe you were, but you must’ve passed his scrutiny because a grin crept across his face. Not sugary like Wilford’s, or sly like Mark’s, but understanding, as if you’d given him the last piece of the puzzle that he had also known from the beginning. You confirmed something in him, and he was going to use it to his full advantage.

“That settles it,” he said, bringing a hand up to snap his fingers. That sound reverberated, not unlike your original words, but without the pain. Instead of granting to a headache, it swept away the darkness like a curtain to reveal your apartment. You were standing exactly where you would have been after coming back inside, a few steps away from the centre of the ritual circle, only Dark was situated opposite you. Just to the side were Wilford and Mark, still tousling as though you had never left.

As Wilford reared back a fist to sock Mark in the jaw, he finally noticed your return, to which he shot a smile at you. A stark bruise had found a place above his eye, but that didn’t stop him from winking at you while he drew his fist further away from his target.

And then he paused, hummed, and jumped up from the floor to greet Dark with a hug and a call of his name.

Mark, meanwhile, stumbled to his feet. He didn’t look worse than Wilford, but he certainly wasn’t better; a cut dripped blood around his mouth, which he wiped away with his thumb. His expression didn’t brighten when he saw Dark, and, instead, he took the grace period to trot over to you and swing an arm around your waist.

“Couldn’t handle me on your own?” he boasted when you were well situated, “You had to call in backup.”

At the insinuation, Wilford whirled on his heel and spat back, “I’ll have you know I am perfectly capable of—”

“Can we be civil?”

Whatever relationship the three of them had, Dark seemed to be the most – if not liked – respected. The two men stopped talking immediately and looked towards the one who had spoken, whose voice somehow sounded like it brought the walls of the room closer even if the volume didn’t change. He was powerful, that much was certain, and he proved it more than Wilford or Mark had, so far.

Another demonstration was when he reached into a slightly shaded corner of your apartment and retrieved something from the inky black. For a moment, it was nothing more than vapor, like dry ice, but then he pulled it further towards him.

Even though it now had a physical form, it helped you none with what it actually was. All you saw was a piece of yellow, tarnished paper that made Dark grimace, before he shook it and the color seeped out of it. You could have assumed it was a trick of the light had that not also healed the rips and tears.

“I’m sure the little cultist didn’t summon anyone here to see a petty squabble,” he said as he reached back into the shadow to get something that made more sense to you, a pen. Not that you knew what to do with it when he stepped closer and held both items out to you.

You looked him up and down in confusion.

Dark didn’t look offended while he explained, “If you agree to these terms, you can proceed with your original plan.”

Wilford popped up over his shoulder to take a peek at the writing. His lips pursed and his eyebrows furrowed but he only stated, “Dark loves a good contract.” Mark, meanwhile, tightened his grip.

Now that you were able to see the front of the paper, you could understand the words and be surprised it was in English.

To sum it up, after your eyes had skimmed over the terms, you would get what you wanted. You were ready to stop then and there, but common sense told you to keep going. Something about survival instincts or whatever boring thing your mind felt the need to involve.

The extra lines told you what would happen for the deities beside you. Wilford would get to take the memories of the entire town over the course of a couple days at a time – a similar situation to what you’d heard happened in Insmouth – but would use your apartment as a home base of sorts instead of an eroded group of rocks. You’d be there for the upkeep and taxes and, strangely, companionship. For two days after that, you would go with Mark to actively participate in his plays. At your side, he seemed to brighten when he read it. You guessed that unconscious husks weren’t the most entertaining when it came to improv. The final line stated that you would return to your apartment, alone, for the weekend, which worked for you.

But you weren’t the one it would be difficult to convince, and, what surprised you, nor was it Mark.

“Unfortunately, we have been over why a custody agreement won’t work,” Wilford piped up, leaning an arm over Dark’s shoulder. “Someone holds a very old and very useless grudge and is also the last person I would ever want to associate myself with.”

The impulse to point out that he had spent the last hour or so associating with Mark reared its head. You subtly patted it down, only noting that your confidence was coming back after the whole eldritch gods acting like petty toddler situation.

Dark spoke as though he were used to this, though, “You won’t have to make contact with the King in Red if you don’t want to. A day’s interim for handover has already been specified.”

Wilford couldn’t help but groan back, “You’re taking the fun out of this whole thing. They’re not a time-share, or a car being traded between dealers.” He went to cross his arms but was interrupted by his own gesture to the man who still had a grip on you. “And besides, Mark would never agree to it.”

“Oh, I’m fine with this arrangement.”

You blinked. Maybe you had preemptively gone insane because that void sounded like it was Mark’s but, even from your limited experience with him, he wouldn’t give up that easy. It unnerved you how casual he sounded, as it did the other two; Wilford’s eyebrows shot up, to be expected, but Dark also slightly reared back, like he had the chance of seeing the truth if he looked from another angle.

“Really?” you asked, turning your head to make eye contact.

“I’m given two days, and it’ll only take one to convert you fully to my side.” His hand left your waist and moved to pull your jaw towards him. “Contracts can be amended, can’t they?”

Damn. He was smooth. You tried to ignore the blush that flourished on your cheeks, and how your thoughts reminded you how little space there was between you and him. An inch, maybe less. It wouldn’t need much energy to move closer – in fact, it made more sense to just remove the gap altogether, right?

Until Wilford slapped his hand from your chin and stood steadfastly between you, the ideas falling out of your mind like a bucket with a hole punctured in the bottom. You hadn’t seen him move in the first place, but nobody looked shocked.

“We haven’t started yet,” he spat, and you were almost distracted by his pout.

They made faces at each other while you reread the contract. It all seemed very cut and dry. There was no point in a fine print if you were selling your soul for some kisses, because there was nothing to hide. No devils in the details for you.

Well, except…

“What’s the weekend for?” you asked. Dark didn’t seem the type to give you ‘time off’ just like that.

And you were right, in both aspects. He didn’t try to cover it up before he started explaining, “If I’m going to notarize this contract, I’m going to get something out of it.”

That got the other’s attention. Their heads snapped to look at Dark, both as confused as you were.

“Your follower here planned to trade reality as they know it for a single kiss, not even the three that we’re offering.” What? “Just imagine what else they could give for trifles like that.” What?

It took you a second to process what he said. He wasn’t looking for a one-up on another god, or entertainment, or companionship. He was looking for a gateway into the human world, and he found that gateway in you. What else you could give him. Access. Apparently, ancient beings who were witnesses to the dawn of time were also subjects to legalities. They couldn’t go invading the world whenever they wanted, they were like vampires, they had to be let in.

As Dark said, you would be the one to let him in, so that he could wreak whatever havoc that you could, or couldn’t, imagine.

That might have put other people off from making the deal. But, then again, you weren’t other people. You were you, and you had no qualms about breaking that dam and letting the flood destroy the town. You’d get what you wanted, that was all you really cared about, and it was the first line of the contract.

“Alright.” All three of the men around you looked towards you. “Deal.”

You took the pen that Dark was holding out to you, ignored the smirk that pulled at his lips, and signed your name on the dotted line.

The paper disappeared in the same puff of smoke it had appeared in. Dark’s hand was left empty, and so was yours as the pen took its own exit, but he quickly crossed his arms behind his back and took a step away from you. More than one, in fact, until he turned and started to walk towards the front door. He didn’t have to see your confused expression to understand.

“Privacy,” was all he offered before snapping his fingers and pointing at Mark.

It must have been insulting to be beckoned like a dog; he frowned and groaned and sighed and stomped all the way to where Dark stood, and then, with an upturned nose, he passed him and stalked into the exposed hallway. It only took a shared nod between Wilford and Dark for him to leave as well, following into the darkness that still stained the world outside your apartment.

You and Wilford were left alone. Right back to the start.

“Well,” he started, taking both of your hands into his, “I’m sorry about that, darling!”

“That normally doesn’t happen, right?” The warnings you’d found scratched into the first pages of books, the cryptic words from sellers, all of them foreshadowed the danger of summoning an eldritch god. None of them told you how ending up with three would turn out, so either it was a rare event, or nobody had lived to give their own advice on it.

Wilford simply nodded and answered, “Quite right.” His eyes drifted to the door that only just clicked closed. “Though, it was the actor and I last time, too, so maybe we’re exceptions to the rule.”

“Rule?”

“In theory, the followers who choose us have such different aims that we never cross paths. I have the mind, he has the body,” a laugh jumped out of his throat, “nobody’s going to Mark to forget their wife’s death. But nothing ever goes how it does on paper. We get muddled up, and then we both make deals, and then our follower’s caught between a rock and a hard place, and then—well, you’ve seen what happens.” He gestured dramatically to the apartment, that now seemed so much smaller than it did before. “You are what happens.”

But you were alive. You survived. No matter what happened from that point on, you had gotten through such an ordeal that would surely make anything else pale in comparison. You could do it.

“This is the first time Dark’s taken part,” Wilford offhandedly commented, before his spine straightened as though he was struck by lightning. You swore you could feel the leftover sparks when his hand returned to yours. “Oh, but no more about them. Party-crashers, really, are the worst of the lot. Just criminal. And not even the fun kind of criminal.” His eyes finally met yours again. “But we got there in the end.”

It was in that moment that his voice dipped from those jovial, sugar-coated words into something deeper. Not that his tone had particularly changed, there was just another layer to it, like a tree stripped back to the core of it. It befitted the god you imagined prior to summoning him. Now that you had met him, it made your heart flutter in your chest and your breathing pick up to match it. Much like how it was what seemed like years ago, except there was going to be no one popping in with a flash of light to interrupt you.

“Now, where were we?”

Standing up straight was an odd choice, but you were in an odd situation and by far more distracted by Wilford pushing forward through the thin air between you and connecting his lips with yours. The second that you were fully touching, you tasted the sugar that seemed a permanent coat for every part of him. It was incredibly soft, gentle, like he thought you’d shatter if he applied any pressure, and he did. Humans were such fragile creatures, bound by the laws you’d created for yourselves, both physically and socially. A pinprick, a papercut, a prod to the wrong part of you, and you could die, just like that. Wilford was determined that you wouldn’t go that way, but it made him far lighter than he would have liked to be.

But if this was him holding back, you couldn’t help but wonder what full force would be, because you couldn’t tell whether it was the sweetness or the man himself that was making you want for more. You forgot to breath as you focused entirely on the movement of his lips against yours. Your mind swam with thoughts, all centered on him, to the point that the last hour wiped out of your mind, and you returned to the beginning. It was addicting, to sum it up, and Wilford had to guide you apart when you started to go far too limp in his hold.

You must have looked some kind of way, maybe a certain dazed fog in your eyes, because he laughed – a sound that was so much lighter than before, if you could remember what it was like before – and tapped your nose with one of his fingers. Your barely caught Wilford’s wink in the hazy mind field you tried to pick your way through.

And then the pressure was gone, just like that, as if he’d never existed in the first place. For a moment, the impulse to agree with that flitted across your mind – it all seemed ludicrous, anyway, that was undeniable – but then the door behind you crashed against your wall, bounced back, and was eventually shut when a pair of shoes were fully inside.

You didn’t turn around, because you neither had the reason nor the time to do so. It was obvious whose hands were on your waist in a matter of milliseconds, each finger pressing into your clothes in time with the corresponding one on the other side.

“Finally,” Mark mumbled as his head came to rest in the crook of your neck. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see his fluffy hair bat against your skin, one stray lock managing to knock against your earlobe. “I thought he’d never leave. He never knows when the party’s over. Never remembers.”

If you hadn’t seen the outcome of their little sparing match or the squabble, you could have been easily convinced he was in love with the other god, going off how much he talked about him. Many of your fellow students in high school pretended to hate who they were secretly attracted to, though they didn’t have the power to smite you if you were to suggest it to them. The man currently wrapped around you proved to be a deadlier risk.

“But that doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone and we can finally make good on our deal.”

You were shocked out of your joking assumptions by the graze of Mark’s teeth where his head was planted. A nip, and you were wondering if you were starting already, but he stopped long enough to mutter some more muffled words.

“Oh, I have so many ideas.” You barely registered one of his hands coming up to guide your jaw into looking towards him. “If we’re doing it differently,” his whispers danced across your skin before drifting up as he gently pecked up your neck, “I can’t have you doing the same old King in Red script.

From what you’d heard, that was the pseudo-ritual to take your soul, and, as per your contract, you were supposed to be fully conscious when you were performing. You were glad he’d picked up on that, it would be annoying to go through all that hassle just to be exorcised from your own body at the last hurdle. You were sure that you would have completed it had he not brought it up, thankful that at least one of you wasn’t distracted by the current events.

“I would offer Othello,” he continued, and you shivered at the new puff of breath, “but the bard seems too tame for your first experience. Musicals are especially rough on the vocal cords if you’re not used to it.”

Damn, Mark was a tease. Your oh-so-dutiful-cult-follower exterior was cracking the longer he dragged this on. He wasn’t doing this on purpose, he was too excited about the prospect of plays to be disingenuous about the subject, but you had half a mind to jumpstart this thing.

“Your heist movies have always interested me—” Maybe two thirds a mind, “—what’re your thoughts on space?”

In fact, a whole mind.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

That felt sacrilegious, and your immediate thought was that you were indeed going to die for your transgressions.

The next thought was how good Mark’s lips felt against yours. The sugar-coated texture was wiped off and replaced by a satin ribbon. Fear of your blasphemy was thrown out the window as you cherished the push and pull, barely noticing the ache of your neck until it disappeared with a switch of position; you were twirled around by the hand that remained on your waist and the other shifted to the back of your neck. You appreciated the stability but found you couldn’t voice it as Mark dove deeper, gripped tighter, sighed against your mouth. The kiss on the back of your hand was nothing in comparison to this. Anywhere Mark touched was completely numb. No fire, no chill, just a blanketed safety from pain when he settled into a gentle caress of your skin. And then it started to tingle. Pins and needles danced on the surface. Capsaicin.

You shivered.

“It’s unfair,” he separated far enough to whisper, “that we don’t have more time.”

Everything moved at a different pace for deities. Decades could go by in the blink of an eye, entire empires rising and falling with less effort than the waves. Most of the time, they were forced to take a back seat, if only because it all would move too fast for them to have any sort of effect. Eldritch gods found their homes in the stars, where things went more at their speed, where things felt more welcoming than the place that valued every second of the minute more than life itself.

But that begged the question; why were you, a human, so comfortable? Why did it feel right to have you in his arms? You aged and you changed, but you made the weight of time so much lighter. Somehow. In a way that such a powerful being couldn’t understand.

You might have nodded at his words. You weren’t actually aware of your actions, but you vaguely felt your head bob up and down, even if it was slight. Your eyes were still closed – you weren’t sure when you closed them – but you felt Mark bow his head to slot between your neck and shoulder again. That was where it felt like flames licking at your skin, but you didn’t back away. Why would you?

You felt him speak before you heard his words, “But have no fear. It won’t take long for the day to roll around, dearest.”

Your heart stilled in your chest.

“We just have to be patient.”

The flames were doused and feeling returned to your lips in the space of a few milliseconds. Fog lifted from your mind, and you blinked slowly to regain your sense of self.

And then there were two.

Dark didn’t enter with a show of dramaticism like Mark had, nor did he go to find some physical contact like Wilford. Instead, he simply opened and shut the front door and let you adjust to an actual room with him alone. There was an inkling of fear in the back of your mind, the ancient part from the years of hunting buffalo and being scared of the night that yelled at you to run. You pushed down the fight or flight reflex that begged to be triggered. It hushed without challenge, leaving you strangely calm in the face of the most powerful being you had ever met.

You found that you liked his smile. It was surprisingly pleasant, and presumably rare, considering the most you had gotten out of him since Mark and Wilford were involved was a smirk when you signed the contract. This was less sly, and, instead, had the corners of your mouth perking up, too. It only felt right.

What was weirder, though, was the fact that you felt equal to him. You, a mortal with zero self-preservation skills and 206 definitely breakable bones, felt equal to a god who could snap his fingers and kill you. There were no more witnesses, and there was only so much the police could do to track down a being of myth and legend. And yet, your mind assured itself there was no need to fear because you were on an equal playing field. You were both part of that contract, neither offering more or less than they could handle.

Dark, somehow, managed to voice your thoughts before you could. “So, you state your terms, I’ll state mine, and then we’ll have a deal,” he stated.

“What kind of terms are we talking about?”

He stepped forward once, and then twice, until he was close enough to take one of your hands and pull you towards him. Middle ground.

“Let’s start with this one, alright, dove?”

Your stomach flipping, you were the one to cross no-man’s land. Being so confident in the presence of a deity was unnatural, but, then again, everything about this was – except the feeling of lips against yours was beginning to become more and more familiar. The pressure, the texture, the—

The kiss ended as quick as it began. Dark drew back an inch with an exhale of cold breath while you stayed frozen. Your eyes didn’t have the time to close in the first place, so you easily noticed the plain shock on his face. Eyes wide and shoulders down, you could only imagine that you had done something wrong.

You were sorely mistaken.

You registered being dipped when Dark’s hands came to rest at the small of your back and your neck, and then your lips connecting so harshly that you thought they might have bruised. They were definitely already swollen from the combined efforts of the last two experiences, but now? You forgot the ability to breathe and simply submitted to the tug of his teeth against your skin.

Apart from the lapse at the beginning, you had no way of knowing this was Dark’s first encounter with anyone, let alone a human. For all his suaveness and elegance, social skills weren’t something he practiced often. That left them lacking, outside of business deals, to the point that every conversation with someone turned into a trade. Information, ideas, physical assets, it didn’t matter – but this scenario, with such a nice warmth contrasting his coldness, he forgot that this was an official exchange. It almost had him wanting to disregard the terms altogether and figure something out for just the two of you.

But Dark was nothing if not formal. No matter how much he felt the impulse to go further, he had to calm himself down, and that meant he had to take a step back.

He only managed a gap worth a sheet of paper at first.

“Mortals.”

You drew back the rest of the distance, so that both of you could speak comfortably and without temptation.

“You really are fascinating creatures.”

With those closing remarks, Dark trailed the hand from your neck to your jaw to your chin. A finger pushed at your bottom lip.

“I look forward to finding out more.”

He disappeared as quiet as Wilford and Mark, while you struggled to stay upright with your knees as firm as jelly and your heart threatening to give out.

So much had happened in the space of those two hours, at most, in your apartment. For one, this was no longer your apartment, really. You shared it with three eldritch gods, only one of which you had signed up to interact with, and even that was something you originally thought would end in the massacre of your species. Complete extinction. But there you stood, alive and well, in the middle of the living room. Nobody was dead yet, and nobody who you cared about would die.

You didn’t fight the laugh that bubbled up in your chest – it spilled out like an overflowing bathtub, you felt like you were drowning, you were drowning, but you were alive. You were alive! You’d done it! You got that kiss you wanted, and two more on top of that. A hand, probably yours, jumped to your mouth to cover the cackles that escaped you, but it did no good. It was all just so hilarious.

The laughter only died down when you bit into the palm of your hand. With your teeth lodged into flesh, you had physically tied your mouth shut like a bear trap. This way, you could think.

First, you had to find something pink to wear. Second, you had to brush up on your improvisation. And third? Well, you didn’t exactly know what Dark was going to do, but by all the eldritch gods in that book on your alter, you were excited to find out.

[Yep, I definitely went insane. My mind crumbled and this was in the rubble. I normally struggle with the kiss at the end of these kinds of things, so I kinda shot myself in the foot by giving myself three in one, but it's done now, so enjoy while I sit here and collect the pieces of my brain <3]

#theknightmarket #fanfiction #writing #markiplier egos #markiplier egos x reader #markiplier #one shots #x reader #actor mark #darkiplier #wildlife #markiplier wilford #darkiplier x reader #actor mark x reader #wilford warfstache #asshole mark #sucker for love

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