Status: going strong!! // tbh this is jack's fault blame him for his october videos ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Duplicity

i need your help, i can't fight this

This is the epitome of pitiful.

Stood before his bathroom mirror, the light dim, Mark lowers his head in an attempt to hide from his own sorry gaze. He is torn between wanting to get it done and wanting to laugh at his own stupidity. He does not have time for the latter, though; desperation is crawling up his spine, threatening to overtake him and make his moves for him.

The longer he waits, the closer Jack inches towards death. It is so horribly unfair that Jack — someone so good, so sweet and kind and loving — is in such a situation at all, strung up with wires that may not even pull him through to tomorrow. And that is why Mark is here, knuckles white as he clings to the edge of his sink, trembling before a simple sheet of glass.

He thinks back on a story he heard in his youth once or twice. "If you leave a message on the mirror," children had said, "a monster answers you."

Mark is an adult, one old enough to be able to distinguish between the truth and the myth. But he is also a man with far too much to lose; letting Jack go would be the end of him. Some would say he's too attached. He would easily agree.

"I heard that mirrors can take your soul!"

In all honesty, the prospect of losing his soul is horrifying. The prospect of any of this working at all is horrifying. But there is not a thing he can do; no one can do anything for Jack except wait for his heart to stop. It's this or it's nothing.

"That's after they answer your message, stupid! It's like paying them because they did something for you."

He had tried it once. A little less than twenty years ago, he was standing proud before his older brother in their bathroom. The lights were dim then, too. He blew on the mirror for what felt like ages, waiting for enough moisture to collect so he could leave his message. His brother had not laughed or teased, but had not urged him to abandon his idea, either.

Mark had written HELLO and pretended that his mind did not implode when he received a greeting in the form of a message on the glass. He had jumped, slammed into his brother, and acted quick to save face, abandoning the bathroom with his head high and his eyes wide.

Now, Mark stands with that memory floating at the forefront of his mind. Surely time had simply warped it, made it so that he blocked out his brother's interference and left the memory in such a way that he believed another entity had responded to him. That is it. That is certainly it.

And yet. He knows that if he believed that, then he would not be standing here, preparing to steam up his mirror in an attempt to give Jack his life back.

His head is throbbing from the ridiculous amount of tears he's shed over the past week. Ever since the reality of Jack's imminent death pulled itself tight around his brain, he's been useless. All he's done is mope and cry and linger by Jack's bedside and absolutely nothing fucking else and Jack has done so much for him and.

He owes it to Jack to just. To just try.

Mark steels himself as his head begins to rise, his eyes still red and swollen but no longer trying to look away from what lies ahead. He has the nerve to look at himself in pity; what is there to feel bad for? Jack is the one in pain. Jack is the one he's here for.

The hot water has been running for a while, doing its part to heat up the bathroom and create moisture. He can't just sit and wait on it, though. He needs to act.

So he blows.

As he huffs, short lines from the old stories flit through his head. "If you breathe on it, they'll come." He sucks in a breath. "Then they're just waiting." He pushes it out in short gasps. "For you to say something." He sucks in another. "I heard they don't leave." More short gasps. "Once you call them, they're there forever!" Is it steamy enough? He feels just the slightest bit lightheaded.

Regret and fear combine to tie knots in his gut before he even starts to move. He barely gets to pull his hand, aching from the strength of his grip, off of the sink before his heart starts to go mad within his chest. He cannot believe that he's fallen so low, but. Jack. He has to try anything and everything.

And this is the last of it.

With a final exhale, Mark presses his index finger to the glass and gets straight to the point. Though his writing is shaky courtesy of a trembling hand, he thinks it's just legible enough.

Please save Seán.

He's hoping in the back of his mind that using Jack's real name will mean something a little more, will give this whole thing that extra push that it needs to work. His eyes are wet again but he wills himself to hold it all back. He's done enough crying to end a thousand droughts.

Just as Mark begins to drop his hand in despair, the fog is cut into with a new set of letters.

Hello.

Very briefly, he jumps, contemplates running away and trying something else. He knows, though, that there is nothing else. This is all he has. He fights his instincts vehemently, standing still as his reflection begins to shift, bend and break and build itself again. His mouth is clamped shut, as he feels it's too dangerous to even attempt to speak. He's playing with something well beyond his understanding.

After ages, the reflection stills. It is still him staring back, in a way. It is him, though not entirely how he remembers. His eyes, for one, are now endless pools of black, broken only by two burning red irises. His smile is a crowded array of jagged teeth, lips pulled back to show the point and curve of each one. He's trying to come across as charming, maybe harmless; were it not for his fangs, he might have a bit of a chance. The familiar tan of Mark's skin has bled away, leaving no real color, no hint of life.

"You want me to save your lover?" coos the man in the mirror. "What is wrong with him?" His eyebrows shoot up in amusement as Mark goes to write in the steam again. "No, no. Speak to me."

His pounding heart in his throat, Mark stammers, "He-he's…he's dying."

"You must be so attached to call for someone like me." His voice is also strikingly similar to Mark's, though the deep tone is saddled with an air of danger, of importance that Mark will never be able to achieve. "What would you like me to do?"

"Save him," Mark pleads, caring little to none that the demon before him is watching him like the nastiest predator. "Please, he-he shouldn't. He doesn't deserve to die."

"There are a lot of people that don't deserve it. This is nature taking its course. He has always been weak, has he not?"

"I–no–he hasn't always been this bad. It's not his fault." He's getting desperate and antsy and angry and he just wants help, goddammit. "He's sick, but—"

"—but does not deserve to die. Why? Because you love him? Why is he different than any other sick and sorry man? Why are the two of you so special?"

Mark averts his gaze. The demon's eyes are just worsening his headache. "We're not," he says quietly, hair falling in his face to shield himself from his reflection. "I just don't want him to die."

"You didn't call upon me to save your father."

He knows that telling this creature to go fuck himself would be a terrible, terrible idea. He catches his tongue just in time. "I didn't know you existed then." Hopefully, his terse and tight tone is not as obvious as he fears it is.

The demon's grin pulls impossibly wider, his stare now brightening considerably. "You sound desperate, Mark."

"I am." There is no point in asking how he knows Mark's name or his life; chances are, he knows everything about everyone. A demon perk, perhaps?

"You must really love him to take chances with me." Mark chooses to simply nod, not trusting himself to say anything without ruining it in some way. The demon taps the point of what Mark believes is his canine (they all look horrifically sharp) with his tongue, shifting his weight as Mark does the same. "Alright. I'll make it as though Seán was never sick. He'll be fit for anything and everything."

It feels as though his body is threatening to give way beneath the demon's words. Weakly, he utters, "What?" as his knees begin to shake and tears finally begin to spill. It's just a drop or two, but it seems to excite the demon all the same. His voice shudders when he asks, "I–how are you gonna take my soul? Does...does it hurt?"

The demon sniffs. "I don't want that. I have no need for it." Incredibly, when he closes his grin, the fangs fit just fine. His sharp black and ruby eyes swipe over Mark's body twice before he speaks again. "Don't worry about payment just yet. For now, we are only making a deal."

"I can't settle anything, I don't know what the fuck you're—"

"Listen. If I were you, I'd waste no time deliberating. You were willing to give up your very soul; I doubt that anything I take will leave you worse off than that. Seán only has a breath or two left to his name."

Mark's decision is not made immediately. No, it was made the moment he summoned this monster. No matter what the demon chooses in return for his service, it will never hold a candle to Jack living his life.

"Okay. Okay, I'll. Yeah."

The demon's smile is close-mouthed now. He presses his palm to the surface, eyeing Mark in a silent urge to follow his lead. Mark does so with hesitance; despite all that has transpired in the last few minutes, he has the nerve to be afraid. He is much too deep in this to tear away. What is the purpose of fear?

Before he allows his fright to win him over, Mark slams his hand to the mirror.

The demon tilts his head just barely to the right while Mark allows his to sink. "Enjoy," he says, his lips twisting into a strange, cheery sort of sneer. Perhaps it is another smile of his. This one needs practice.

The moment his voice falls away, so does he. The image in the glass is simply Mark's own; the eyes are teary and brown, the face is shocked and red. There's no proof that the demon was ever there to start. Really, who's to say he was? Who's to say it wasn't Mark's desperation conjuring up something he hoped could save Jack's life?

He feels odd, though. So odd that he knows something happened, that he knows he just made a deal with (a smaller version of, really) the devil. It's not that he feels empty — he supposes that means his soul is intact? —, but that he feels out of sorts. Regret and relief are clashing so intensely that they seem to be eliminating the other, leaving him with a numb sort of buzzing that travels throughout his body.

Perhaps this is just the crashing of his demon-encounter high.

Mark slides to the bathroom floor, water still running. It's probably ice cold now with all the time he's left it on. He lays his head on his knees and rests his hands on the tile, allowing them to sit until they stop trembling. He hears his phone going off in his room, a destination that feels a million miles away. The sound only makes his heart beat even further out of time.

The only reason someone would be calling at this hour is if Jack passed away while Mark was busy wasting time, or if Jack has made a miraculous recovery because Mark asked a demon to save him. The latter is certainly better, but both possibilities make him feel sick.

He isn't sure when he falls out, but he thinks it's around the hundredth loop of that goddamn ringtone.
♠ ♠ ♠
chapter title: my demons by starset (holy smokes i haven't done this in ages)

okay, this is totally inspired by this amazing oneshot called breath and i tried not to make it too similar, but you can definitely see the inspiration. it only works for the starting chapter, though; after this, that's it.

two, this is an au, meaning there's no youtube to be found here, folks! and finally, some may say septiplier is dead but the fact of the matter is jack would save mark over felix if they were falling off a cliff bye.

thanks for reading, love you all! <3