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Dark thinks this is taking a fucking OBNOXIOUSLY long time for just a walk.
Chosen's been trying a little harder lately, at long damn last, to... Communicate a little better? Act more towards things they want? Unclear, but they're not just lying around doing nothing as much as they used to, so that's a win!!
Or it... Eeehhhh... It should be a win, but sometimes it's so fucking annoying. Like today!!
She'd been lying on the floor of her work room, coding on a laptop instead of on the computer, because she didn't feel like being on the damn chair at her desk anymore. There was nothing WRONG with it, she just wanted to move, stretch out a little, nothing wrong with that. Everyone does it.
And then! Her darling terrible idiot enters the stage! Chosen walks in, without knocking, as usual, and stands right by her. Staring down at her and tilting their head a little bit like some perplexed bird.
"... Yeah dude? What's up?" A light hearted opener, but it elicited no response. Chosen just sat down and kept watching. So Dark went back to her business, while being relentlessly observed, and kept at it until they FINALLY started actually getting to the point.
They wanted a walk. It was that simple. They wanted to go outside in the forest and move and look around and not do anything. With her there.
Now, Dark isn't stupid, she knows Chosen likes walking aimlessly, she knows that this is weirdly important to them, and obviously she can make some little sacrifices in her busy schedule to please her sweet dumb bug when they ask so nicely.
But then... Then when she started hovering to follow them, they held onto her arm, and looked at her, a bit disappointed. They wanted her to actually walk. And they couldn't even explain why when asked!!! It'd just feel wrong if she floated somehow!!!!!! Which is stupid and dumb!!
And in spite of it all, her pet gets everything they ever want, because looking at her with those pathetic eyes of theirs, she receives her daily reminder that her will is weaker than wet tissue paper when it comes to Chosen's wants.
So they're outside together!!! Walking on the stupid grass, in the stupid forest, doing stupid amounts of fucking NOTHING!!! And she wants to be so, so mad about it, but the way they hold her hand for a while every few minutes, and then pull her off to look at some random bullshit, it's...
... It's just cute. It's endearing. Chosen just isn't usually so... active. So involved. It's new, it's exciting, Dark wants to be able to see it through, to get to see more of this side of them.
So she's endured, and endured, and endured, for what seems to be about 5 hours now, if not more. It's boring, of course, but worst of all, it's starting to... Feel weird, somehow.
"–And even if it weren't, that'd STILL have been the wrong use case, because we weren't at ALL underwater ANYWAY?? No fucking idea what they were thinking." Her stories all have the same amount of steam, but they're getting... shorter. "Whatever though, I bet you'd do it worse."
Her shards all feel like they're grinding together while she walks, eroding away into nothing. The vibrations crowd in her mind, churning, scraping, repeating louder with every step she takes. She's falling behind a little bit.
Chosen stops to look back at her. They take a few steps back, to lean against her side. Their head splits open, and they bite at her face, faintly huffing and growling. Indignant. An adorable counterargument.
... This is what she does it for. She'll withstand any stupid headache if she just gets to keep this back and forth going with them forever. They're perfect. They're everything that matters.
Dark tunes out the aches, the discomfort. She grabs onto the fluffy parts of Chosen's jacket collar and pulls them into a very uneven embrace, considering they're both still trying to move forwards.
They hug and bite and scratch at each other, Dark sneaks her hands up against their sides and they squirm at her attention, her tail sways from side to side, the true picture of contentment.
They stay that close for some time, Dark tells another grandiose tale of adventure she experienced away from Chosen, and in turn they point her to whatever they think looks interesting and, occasionally, they even say something!!
It's maybe half an hour later when they fully part, still no closer to home, and now, without someone to conspicuously lean her weight onto, Dark suddenly feels it again.
The world starts to blur into vague shapes and colors, slowly. The sounds all muffle behind the scraping of thousands of glass shards, sliding in and out of place all over her body, in every direction.
The fluid that keeps her alive, that keeps her pieces together, intact, that keeps them all quiet, it feels like it's spilling out, flowing freely, like the force of gravity on her limbs is squeezing it out of her, just so it can pool uselessly on the grass.
It gets hard to walk. And she keeps moving. Then it gets hard to talk. And she keeps talking. And then it gets hard to breathe, and–
Something shatters under the pressure. She can barely hear it over her own beating heart, but she knows, because all of a sudden she's bracing herself on the ground, and she can see her blood near her shaking hands. Obviously not where it's supposed to be, but she can't quite will it into behaving.
She feels a strange weight that is identified properly when Chosen headbutts her to get her to move. They're touching her, trying to figure out what the problem is. There IS no problem!!!! They don't have to do this! She'll be fine, she just needs a minute!!!
Dark tries to nudge them away, but they don't budge, moving her to be sitting against a tree nearby. She's got a great view of all the shards of her leg from here.
Oh, so that's what broke. Dark's breaths start to even out, the surroundings slowly twist back into focus, and she kind of feels like shit, actually. Which is stupid. AND Chosen is STILL doting on her. Which is MORE stupid.
"Bug, I know your likeness to a fly is incomparable, but you don't have to inspect every corner of me like I'm a window keeping you from the great outdoors." Dark snarks, because it's all she has, and maybe that'll put them at ease. "If you want to get eaten by birds, then by all means, go for it, I'm not stopping you!"
Chosen looks at her weird. Wrong, it's the wrong reaction. They look a little relieved, but they're also... Still nervous. And a bit sad?
... Pitying. They feel bad for her. They think she's pathetic.
"... What's your problem!!" It kind of pisses her off, a little bit. This is all THEIR fault anyway. THEIR fault for letting that orange thing explode her, THEIR fault for not having her back when she's always had theirs, THEIR fault for going on this stupid dumb walk, they should be BEGGING her for forgiveness right now. "Stop looking at me like that, dumbass!"
The Chosen One hugs her, instead. They hold her gently, but firmly, like they're trying to hold her together before she falls apart entirely, like she's fragile. She's not. This is terrible. Dark tries to kick them off, and for her efforts she's rewarded with more searing agonizing pain, shooting all throughout her remaining functional leg.
Blood splatters down on the ground, a handful of already loosened shards all dislodge and scatter out onto the grass. She doesn't yell. She doesn't squirm or cry. All she lets herself do is flinch and hiss at the feeling.
Chosen does back off, thankfully, even if only to startle, and then to assess the damage. They take her leg in their hands, holding it in place, occasionally moving it to a better angle. She allows it until they start picking up her pieces and fitting them back into place.
It's wrong, it's disgusting, it's uncanny. They don't do this. Especially not to Dark. They KNOW her, they know she can handle herself, they know she'll put herself back together anyway, what's wrong with them???
Her tail smacks against their hand. They don't pull away. She growls at them instead. Low and threatening. They meet her gaze and have the fucking gall to snarl back at her. It communicates intent very clearly. They won't budge, no matter what she does.
"Wh-!! Choooo! Come onnn. This is so unnecessary." In fact, this is terrible, she really hates it. "You don't have to do this, I don't WANT you to do it, you'll probably put them back wrong anyway and I'll have to fix it later!! There's no point!"
A lie, they'd probably do just fine, they'd get it right even if her pieces were the size of sewing needles, they know her too well, love her too much not to know. It's disgusting. Her stomach twists at the thought. She doesn't like this.
The Dark Lord feels gross and weak and wet and tired and she'd really rather not be looked at while she's like this. But she can't just say that. It'd only make her look weaker. Chosen really is a conniving little bastard...
She makes do. Tries very hard to just ignore it. She pointedly doesn't pay attention to how they slot her pieces back into place, how they hold the shards in place with unnaturally cold hands until they stop threatening to come undone again, how careful, how loving they are.
Even when they're done with it, they still linger, rubbing at her, an attempt to be soothing. As if in defiance, her heartbeat quickens, and she feels ever so slightly more like a cornered animal. Gross. She huffs and complains, but they don't really care.
Chosen moves to put her other leg back together. It takes even longer, every second dragging on, every piece feeling gross and foreign, every bit of contact too cold, too hot, too restricting.
They're treating her with pity, pity mixed with reverence, it's weird and it's misplaced, and frankly it's kind of disgusting too. How dare they, even. Her breathing starts to feel uneven again, the closer she gets to being physically whole again.
Their grip feels like being caught in a bear trap. Startling, and painful, and she'd rather break it off than have to withstand it for another damn minute. But they wouldn't let her get away. She's caught by someone else's tricks, for once. Feels bad! She wonders if they planned this, briefly, but she knows they don't have the foresight.
That and. Well. She never told them this could happen. Would happen. She doesn’t like thinking about it and that's that. She can usually just float to ease up the pain and her body fixes itself eventually!! It's usually fine!!!! Not an issue, she's as strong as she used to be! Stronger, even!!! She doesn't need their stupid doting!
They're done fixing her body again, eventually, after what feels like hours of torture, but they're not done with her. Leaning in, gently grazing her scars with their teeth, just another reminder that even while she's whole she's still not the same.
She needs them off of her, needs them gone now, needs to get away and pull herself together, needs to piss them off enough that they go back to normal.
Dark does the only thing she knows how to do.
... Her hand hurts. Feels warm. Chosen is a few steps away now, so that's an improvement. They hold their face where she'd punched them, growling, glaring at her. Yes. YES!!!! THAT'S MORE LIKE IT! "... Ha. Haha. Well, hey, I did warn you. Used my words and everything, unlike SOME people."
They growl in return, rumbling through the earth around them, smoke pouring out of their mouth like a poorly contained wildfire. Digs at their silence always got them going, so she used that tactic sparingly. To preserve the effect. "Ohhh, yeah, didn't like THAT, did you??"
"Well that's fine, hey, you're useless in other ways too, so don't even worry about it!" Dark laughs, with what little breath she has left to waste. "It doesn't stand out from all the OTHER things that make you a big dumb animal."
For a split second, satisfaction overflows as she gets exactly what she wanted. They snarl and finally spring at her, about to bite her damn head off. When her instincts catch up, she ducks out of the way, letting them rip a chunk out of the tree she was just leaning against, instead.
Their mind catches up to the mistake quickly, falling over onto her to stop the swift escape she was about to execute. Shit. Shitshitshitshit no!!!! "No-- no, no!!! Let go!! Motherfucker!!! I'll rip you apart!"
Their hands stay firmly planted on her back, not providing any leverage. They shift around to be sitting on her. Funny, actually. Restricting, but in a way where they're really TRYING to be demeaning now, which inherently makes it not work. She decides to fuel this fire accordingly. "You heavy bitch!!! How dare you!! AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!"
Her treacherous horrible partner in crime snorts at her woes, wrath subsiding, making room for more of that sad fondness they've been showing today. She doesn't even have to look at them to know. It shows in the way their grip loosens, the way they lean a little further into her. They're not angry anymore! Already??? What the fuck is wrong with them?
"What the hell." Her concerns are voiced accordingly. She squirms to break free, and yet it only makes them sprawl out on top of her like a greedy oversized cat. Still bearable, but she's not sure what to think yet. "Choseeeeeen. Watch it. I'll fucking hit you again. So hard it'll break MY hand. Not to mention your stupid face."
They pause at that. But not how she wants them to. They lean down, and nudge their face into the space between her head and her shoulder, nuzzling, comforting.
It's bad!!!! Bad bad scary bad she doesn't like it!! It makes her chest feel tight, and her breathing fast, and the words get stuck in her throat, and her head feels weird, and her vision is wet and blurry!!! Gross gross gross!!!
"Off. OFF. FUCK OFF GET AWAY FROM ME." Dark wishes she could breathe fire, or freeze herself into a little ball where they couldn't reach, or hit them with something strong enough to make them just go away already!!! She commands all the goo she can spare to jut out in sharp spikes along her back, forcing them to back off.
They hold a little stand-off, hissing and snarling and sparking, baring their teeth at each other.
"... Just-... Just stop trying. I'm fine." Dark is inevitably the one to ease up first. Everything hurts, and she can't really keep standing for very long right now. Her goop can't even hold that shape for more than a few seconds, so she lets it get back to keeping her shards together. "I know you like that soft shit but I don't. It's stupid and this is YOUR fault anyway so the least you can do is fucking listen."
Chosen's expression changes to one of guilt almost immediately. Dark feels some satisfaction in that too. That's something she knows. She's in control. The sound of shattering glass still rings out on loop in the back of her mind, but it's muffled now, she's getting her head back in the game.
"... Buuuut, I might find it in my heart to forgive you if you carry me hoooome." Dark teases her annoying terrible bug and leans on their shoulder about it. They sweep her off her feet without question and start walking. "Aah!! Hey! What the fuck!"
"... You asked." They mutter it so quietly she almost misses it, but she knows it was meant for her. The irreverent bastard....
"Ooohhhh that's IT. NO dinner for you EVER again I'm NEVER cooking even ONE more dish, bitch." She smacks their face a couple times with her tail, to drive the point home. "Not even soggy rice that sucks!!! You'll starve and die."
In response, they lean their head down to rest on her chest, the fluffy collar of their jacket making it all feel a bit claustrophobic, and they look at her with the most pathetic expression they can muster.
... It's really not that different from their neutral expression, but Dark can tell. She always knows what they mean. They're so cute, too. Annoying. She sighs theatrically and pets their head. "Okaaaay, okay, I'll CONSIDER letting you have dinner, but only on fridays and tuesdays."
They huff, but otherwise drop the subject. Dark's not done complaining, though. In fact she has another issue to bring up already!! "Choooooooseeeeeeeeen, this is gonna take FOREVER!! Can't you just fly us home or something?? Hurry it uuuup!"
"No." ....... And That's It?! Their cruelty is truly unrivaled. She opens her mouth to complain again, and they quickly blow smoke in her face, thwarting the attempt before it starts. EVIL!!!
Dark coughs, and groans, and when she settles into their quiet, she finds that she's not as freaked out anymore. She's still in pain, of course, she probably won't be able to walk for a few... Uh... Doesn't matter. Because regardless of that, it's manageable now.
The way home is entirely trod in silence, beyond that point. Dark needs that time to think. She upset Chosen, made this a bad experience, they're probably going to feel too bad about it to ever ask her again.
... Then she'd never get to see their cute excitement over some weird bug or plant or rock, though. And that just won't fucking do. No, that won't do at all... A plan is formed, from the moment this threat is conceptualized to when Chosen politely places her onto their shared couch back home.
Dark holds onto their hand when they move to leave, pulling them closer, trailing soft little kisses up their arm. It clearly catches them off guard, their expression slightly more alert than usual. They squint and tilt their head when she looks up at them. Cute.
They want to know why she's cozying up to them like this, when she was getting mad at them for being gentle not that long ago. Clearly, they don't fucking grasp the difference. That's fine, they've always been a little slower than her.
"Well I just feel bad for upsetting you out there, is all." A lie. A very blatant lie. The Dark Lord never feels bad about anything. They roll their eyes and move to pull away, while Dark tugs them back and groans indignantly. "Okaaay, fine fine fine fine fineeee!!! Look, just. Sit down with me and we can 'talk about it' or whatever. Like losers."
Dark's beloved murder target sits down with her to 'talk'. Really, they'll probably mostly be listening, but communication allegedly has some degree of importance in interpersonal relationships or whatever, so they'll... Make it work. Together.
"Listen, I don't like talking about it, you don't like HEARING about it, so I'll keep it quick. My body's been a bit, ah... Brittle. Ever since I. Y'know. Exploded?" Dark feels gross, speaking of it at all. She wills herself not to shiver or gag or experience anything at all about it. She recites her own loose notes, casually, like it doesn't mean anything. "It isn't usually a big deal!! Obviously nothing holds me back. Especially manageable in fights, especially hard to manage under... eeeehhh long bouts of strain, especially repetitive ones like. Well. Walking for several hours."
Her cute bug looks so sad about it, when she turns to really look at them. They'll blame themself forever if left unchecked, but she can at least nudge them in the right direction now, and change their mind properly later.
"Oh come on, it's not like you could've known, idiot. Wipe that sad dog look off your face before I figure out how to erase events from history just to stop you from overthinking it." Dark swats at them uselessly from her cozy spot on the sofa. "You'll be so sad about it you'll cry into the few, few dinners I still make for you. And we can't haaaave thaaaat!!"
They make some weird noise between a snarl and a huff, leaning down to press their heads together. Dark giggles and hugs them in turn. Silly little thing... It makes the pressure in her chest loosen, it all stops writhing and thrashing and screaming, and just eases into a much more bearable murmuring, squirming little thing. Insidious, but not overwhelming. She's pretty much over it, basically.
Her legs still hurt. And Chosen clearly wants to dote on her to a degree that borders on worship. Which is almost as flattering as it is kind of terrifying.
... But for now, none of that matters.
She can stop thinking about it, and let it be a problem for later, when she has the actual strength to go burn down some fake city about it to feel better. Astonishing restraint, by her standards.
It's... strange. It's different. But Dark can withstand that uncertainty, even if just to prove how cool and strong she is for doing so.