Chapter Text
The heavy knock at the front door came almost one hour before midnight. It was loud enough to startle the boys on the first floor who just couldn’t sleep, to wake the quiet second-floor residents who were preparing for bed or had just fallen asleep. It echoed with the dread of inevitability in the hollow in Time’s chest, way up on the third floor of the townhouse.
“Where is he?”
“Um,” Sky tilted his head as he held the door open, “he’s at work?”
Blood red eyes stared out from the shadow cast by the streetlamp over Dark’s face. “I’m not looking for Twi.”
Dark was of the same menacing stature as Time, and he loomed in a way that made Sky’s shoulders involuntarily tighten. The hollow sound of metal drew Sky’s gaze down to where Dark steadily bounced a pipe against his heel. Sky shifted back somewhat behind the door as though he meant to use it as a shield. “Dark, I don’t think you should be here—”
“Listen, flyboy,” Dark hissed as he barged through the threshold, pressing the threaded end of the pipe up beneath Sky’s chin, “we all know why that pretty princess keeps you around, so unless you want those balls knocked into your throat you’re gonna stay out of my way.”
Startled mute, Sky pressed himself against the wall, hunching forward a bit as though preparing for the promised strike as Dark took the door from his hand and shoved it closed. The villain kept him pinned there with a brittle stare as he walked backward across the entryway toward the living room. When he was certain Sky was too stunned to make a move he turned away, his eyes sweeping the rest of the first floor. “Come out come out, wherever you are…”
Legend didn’t need any special divining tools to feel the rage pouring off of Dark like steam. He sat in his usual corner of the living room, freezing like a terrified rabbit as the man began stalking in his direction. When his fingers merely twitched on top of his book, Dark’s eyes burned into his like smoldering coals.
“Don’t bother, rabbit,” he warned, pointing his weapon in Legend’s direction. “I went easy on you last time, and I’m already all warmed up.”
The snarl that twisted Legend’s face made Dark bark a derisive laugh before he shouted at the top of his voice, “I know you’re here!! Come on out!” When he turned away, Legend caught Sky’s eyes out in the hallway. Sky looked just as helpless as Legend felt, the two of them searching one another silently for answers.
This wasn’t like the intruders back in Termina. This man was here with a purpose and so help them, neither Legend nor Sky could shake the instinct that if I just stay still, maybe he’ll leave me alone.
“Oh, how cute.” Dark stood in front of the fireplace, admiring the little setup the boys had decorated it with. There was a little trinket from each of them: a carved whale bone from Outset, a Calatian fabric welcome doll, a brass bowl filled with citrine and dried herbs and a few green rupees, and so on. At its center was Twilight’s Solstice gift to Time that first holiday they all spent together, a photo of all of the boys smiling for the camera.
Dark picked up the picture frame and took a few steps back from the hearth as he examined it. “One big, happy family, eh?”
And then Dark tossed it toward the ceiling, taking the pipe in both hands. The shrill crack!! of metal and glass made Legend and Sky both jump as Dark swung with all his might, sending pieces of the frame scattering all across the living room, showering the couch and the coffee table and the carpet in glass. There was no way the sound didn’t echo through the rest of the house.
“Get down here, you fucking coward!!” Dark roared so loudly that his voice could have echoed through the frame of the entire house. “You and I need to have a talk!”
The sound of footsteps running down the stairs had Dark adjusting his grip on his weapon. He wrung the metal between his hands as he squared himself up toward the stairs. But it wasn’t Time who rushed down to greet him.
Dark stood up a bit straighter, his grip on the pipe relaxing somewhat as Warriors leveled his Guard-issue 9mm with Dark’s face. “What do you want?” Warriors shouted in a voice that most of the housemates hadn’t ever heard from him.
And Dark just couldn’t help himself.
He started to laugh.
Aside from the ends of his ears getting a bit red, Warriors betrayed no frustration. His appearance emboldened Sky somewhat, who moved to stand more squarely behind his friend. While Dark was distracted, Legend took the opportunity to slink out of his chair, still not sure whether he was going to fight or flee.
“Oh, gods above,” Dark wiped at the corner of his eye as he appeared to gather himself, “that’s ridiculous! Link’s prized twink thinking he’s all scary with his big bad purse piece.” He began twirling his pipe in one hand, his eyes boring holes into Warriors’s skull. “What’chu gonna do with that little thing, huh?”
“Why are you here?” Warriors barked. He didn’t move, not even as Dark began his slow approach across the living room.
“Because your daddy and I need to have a grown-up discussion.” Something about the term made a muscle in Dark’s face twitch and now he was shouting at the top of his voice again, “Did you have him call you ‘daddy’ when you fucked him raw!? Or is ‘uncle’ deranged enough, you sick fuck?”
A perceptible shift among the three Links was Dark’s cue, and the very moment that Warriors’s gaze faltered was when he moved. A hollow clang rang out as his pipe impacted the muzzle of Warriors’s gun, sending it sailing across the room, and then Dark’s fist was twisted in the neck of War’s sweater. Warriors was quick on his feet but Dark moved with unpredictable speed, twisting around and shoving Warriors backward over the coffee table. Wars cried out as the angles of it dug into his back, and he reached to grab the pipe with both hands just before the threaded end of it was forced into his open mouth.
“I bet this is your favorite position, huh?” Dark’s smile was sharp as he leaned his weight into his weapon, and Warriors grunted as the metal was pressed against his mouth. Dark’s irises were sliver-thin red rings around pupils blown wide. Was he on something??
Dark and Warriors and the coffee table lurched together toward the couch as a solid weight slammed into Dark from behind. Dark let Warriors push the pipe away so he could swing it around and slam it into the body on top of him again and again. Sky grunted as he took each impact in his ribs but he didn’t falter, winding one arm around the front of Dark’s neck and grabbing the back of his head with the other hand in a classic chokehold.
Sky hauled him up and off of Warriors, dragging Dark backward through the living room and back toward the door, but he didn’t get very far. Dark let his weapon clatter to the floor as he gripped the arm about his neck with both hands. Sky’s eyes went wide as Dark reared upward, his feet leaving the floor briefly, and in one smooth motion Dark lunged downward and forward, taking Sky’s weight with him. The world somersaulted around them before Sky came down hard on top of Warriors, driving them both through the coffee table and onto the floor.
Dark regained his footing and his weapon before either of them could get their wits about them. “I don’t have time to be dealing with you idiots,” he seethed, lifting the pipe over his head to start whaling on them both. But his weapon caught in a vise that rivaled even Dark’s strength.
Every hair on Dark’s body stood on end, like being caught in the instant before a lightning strike. He didn’t need to turn to know who it was.
“Your fight isn’t with them.” Time’s tone was low and dangerous, and… something else.
Dark leaned forward to blindly kick backward, fast and hard, but Time moved to the side like he expected it. Dark used his momentum to turn, twisting the pipe out of Time’s grip and taking a few steps back toward the fireplace, allowing Time to put himself between Dark and the others. “So nice of you to join us, you sick piece of shit!!”
Legend moved in quick, hauling Sky back to his feet and helping Warriors up off of the floor. Dark paid them no attention but Time still put out his arm, blocking them just in case.
“Something is very wrong with him.” Warriors sounded shaken as he moved to Time’s side. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. Behind them, Legend pulled out his phone and began typing away.
“Is that so?” Dark twirled the pipe once before setting the end of it against the floor and leaning his weight into it like a cane. “Well I’m not the only one in this damn house who’s a little fucked in the head, am I?”
“Dark,” Time warned, taking a half-step forward and raising his hand, “let’s take this outside.”
“Ohhh no no no.” Dark didn’t back down one bit, lifting his weapon to wag it in Time’s direction. “I think it’s important that the boys see this, don’t you? It’s only right they should know what kind of monster they’re living with.”
Time’s mouth tightened as he drew a breath. The weight of the silence in his pause made Warriors’s eyes dart toward his partner briefly.
“It’s nothing like that,” Time asserted.
“Don’t you fucking—” The flare of wild fury in Dark’s eyes had the boys stumbling backward as he lifted the pipe in his hands again. He twisted at the waist as he swung, cracking the television behind him through its middle. But one hit wasn’t enough. Dark kept hitting it again and again and again, pummeling the screen until bits of it fell to the floor. The boys flinched at the sound of every hit.
Time didn’t move to stop him. If anything, he looked resigned.
“This is a pretty black-and-white situation, Link!!” Dark was panting as he turned back toward them, his bottom teeth bared as he snarled, “Don’t even try to defend yourself on this one. Perverts like you make me sick.”
“What is he talking about?” Legend snapped from behind, adrenaline making him antsy.
“Tell them.” Dark lowered his weapon as he squared his shoulders, staring right through Time in a way the man would never forget. “Tell them about your new bed partner.”
The choice of words made Warriors’s eyes widen. Time ground his molars as he held Dark’s stare evenly. He refused to speak.
“Either you tell them or I do!!” Dark’s voice shredded at the edges as he lunged, showing all of his teeth now. “You fucking coward!”
The boys scrambled back, panicked, but Time moved smoothly forward. He caught the pipe aimed for his head with his left hand and took a solid handful of Dark’s leather jacket in his right. He grappled with Dark across the living room and toward the kitchen, trying to herd him away from the others and out the back door. But Dark was as slippery as the dragon coiled about his neck. Time faltered as Dark let go of his weapon and shrugged right out of his coat, dropping to the floor.
Time knew this move. He knew that Dark would pivot backward, planting his hands on the floor so he could kick with both legs, he could block it—
But he didn’t.
Dark planted his boots squarely in Time’s gut, sending him stumbling back into the living room with his arms wrapped around his middle. It took a moment for Time to catch his breath and by then someone’s hands were on his shoulders, steadying him as Warriors moved a half-step ahead of him, ready to defend.
Time’s chest burned with guilt.
“I always knew there was something really wrong with you,” Dark spat as he picked his weapon up off the kitchen floor. He had eyes only for Time as he advanced with grim purpose. “You don’t get so good at the kind of work we do unless something bad’s hiding in there,” he tapped the end of the pipe against the side of his own head. “Not unless there’s a part of you that likes it.”
Warriors was the first to move, lunging forward and reaching for Dark’s weapon. But he was too slow, almost no one was fast enough to match Dark’s hellish speed, and Time set his teeth as he moved in to block the strike aimed for Warriors’s face. He took it in his left shoulder, shielding his partner from harm but feeling something in his shoulder immediately move wrong.
The rush of bodies sent Dark leaping backward, back into the kitchen. Eager to put more distance between him and the others, Time followed, grabbing for the nearest kitchen chair along the way. But before he could get it up and off of the floor Dark slammed his foot on the seat, keeping it firmly on the ground as he brought his pipe down on Time’s hand.
That hit he didn’t mean to take. Time hissed as he yanked his hand away, guarding it behind his back as he back well out of Dark’s range.
“There’s power in hurting people, isn’t there,” Dark went on through his teeth. “It gets the heart racing, it gets the blood pumping,” he gripped the pipe with both hands and hauled back, “it gets you hard!!”
Time barely moved when Dark swung, and the pipe sailed so close to his face that he felt more than heard it whistle through the air. A second backhanded swipe at his chest nearly connected. Dark left himself open at the apex of each swing, and Time’s right eye twitched, how badly he wanted to let his own anger take over and just end this, but…
There was some wretched part of him that knew he deserved what was coming.
“But sometimes, even this shit gets old,” Dark continued as he stalked after Time, who carefully backed away from him around the kitchen island. If Time couldn’t force Dark back through the kitchen, perhaps he could lead him that way instead. “Sometimes it just ain’t enough, and that’s when we turn to other vices to fill that gap. Yours is sex.”
“Dark.” There was a warning in Time’s voice, but not nearly enough edge to it.
“You like lording over people. You get addicted to how it feels, making someone bend like that.” Shrewd ruby eyes picked up on how much more uncomfortable words were making Time than blows. As Dark moved forward the boys were moving in from behind, unintentionally crowding Time in. So Dark breathed down some of his wrath, stopping in the middle of the kitchen to block Time’s exit. “You don’t give a shit, what kind of damage you do along the way.”
“It isn’t like that,” Time said through his teeth. He was feeling more eyes on him than just Dark’s. He was beginning to sweat.
“And it doesn’t matter who it is that bends over for you, either, so long as you’re on top.” Dark’s spreading grin spelled Time’s unraveling. He began tapping the end of the pipe against the toe of his boot. Steel echoed against steel. “You’re the husband, the lover… the teacher…”
Time’s right eye twitched in time with the resounding ring of each tap against Dark’s boot. Next to him, Warriors took a minute step toward him. Close behind he could feel Sky’s cautiousness, Legend’s intense discomfort.
“The uncle.”
Frigid stillness settled over the room. Dark let the end of the pipe rest against the floor, and Time’s entire world felt like it had ground to a halt.
Behind him, Legend just barely stifled an incredulous, “The fuck??”
The way that Warriors turned toward him was terribly slow, his eyes hollow in shock. “No,” he breathed, his voice wavering on the verge of something awful.
Someone in the room was breathing hard. They were breathing hard and loud, so loud it was echoing in Time’s ears.
“Twilight’s a good kid,” Dark lamented quietly, although his mouth twisted in demented mirth as he watched the outrage unfolding among them.
“You can’t be serious.” Warriors took a half-step back, frigid horror written on his face.
Sky’s upper lip twitched uncomfortably. Legend shifted a half-step behind him, wrapping his arms around himself in disgust.
Time didn’t realize that he was the one breathing so fast and so hard until he tried to speak, “He came to me—”
The resounding SMACK!! of Warriors’s open palm against the side of Time’s face nearly drowned out his incredulous cry, “And you said ‘yes’!!?”
The impact dazed him momentarily. Warriors shoved him backward and into the kitchen island. Time put out his hands to catch himself and regretted it immediately, some of his fingers weren’t working quite right, and this time Warriors’s fist caught him beneath the eye. Now everyone was shouting, and Warriors had a fistful of his collar and had tears on his face, Sky had Time’s left arm pinned so that he couldn’t defend himself, Legend was trying to pull one of them off although he still looked frankly horrified—
Time twisted away from them, wrenching himself free of their grip and stumbling blindly across the kitchen before Dark caught him by the shoulder. “Oh no, please,” Dark’s smile was apparent in his voice, “allow me.”
The back door slammed open as Time was bodily ejected from the house. He doubled over the wrought-iron railing, failing to catch himself, before being grabbed him by the back of his shirt. He couldn’t tell who or how many of them hauled him upright again just to shove him off of the porch. And then Dark was at him again, swinging that pipe with all of his might as Time tried to keep his wits about him enough just to keep dodging.
“You self-righteous bastard,” Dark was growling, “of all the heinous bullshit you could do, and to him of all people—”
A litany of curses kept tumbling from his mouth as Time watched for some opening, some way to escape this that never quite came. Although he was eventually able to wrench the pipe from Dark’s hand and send it sailing away from them, Dark still had his legs and his fists and a righteous burning outrage in his chest. And yes, Time fought back, but just barely. The guilt that burned behind his eyes and in his heart kept him from lashing out in any meaningful way. Hardwired self-preservation was what kept his arms up to block most of Dark’s hits, but several of them landed, heavy and unforgiving.
“He looks up to you!!” Dark shouted, his voice cracking at the edges as he buried his shin in Time’s side over and over and over again. “What the fuck’s the matter with you!?”
But despite the unrelenting pain, Time wasn’t really seeing him. He was preoccupied by the boys standing on the porch, muttering amongst themselves and struggling between wanting to intervene and wanting to leave the house as soon as possible. By the vacant look in Warriors’s eyes as he watched the violence unfold in a detached, shell-shocked sort of way.
And he was preoccupied by the things he didn’t know—by Wild, leaving a ninth watery voicemail for him as he cowered in the back room at Telma’s, trapped by duty and terrified of why Time wasn’t answering.
By Twilight, who sat alone in Dark’s apartment, his leg bouncing as he sat on the couch, waiting for his beau to get home.
By the time Dark had dragged him down to the ground, Time was starting to involute. There wasn’t much strength left to him, but there was still that ugliness that lurked inside, bubbling to the surface whenever Time was too weak to keep it at bay. And it laughed at him, piteous and pathetic as he was, which only made Dark punch even harder as he sat on his chest and bloodied his knuckles on Time’s face.
“Why!?” Dark spat, landing one last solid hit to the jaw as Time’s tired arms finally gave out. “Why did you do it!!?”
Time coughed harshly, turning his head to spit out the blood that had pooled on his tongue. That spiteful ugliness reared its head as he looked up at Dark with two open eyes and a sharp-edged smile, panting the words:
“Because… he told me… you wouldn’t… give it to him.”
The last thread of Dark’s self-control visibly snapped behind his eyes.
That was the last thing Time remembered.