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Darren Lynch
It was far earlier in the evening than Darren usually texted so when her phone chirped, Jolene was most definitely not ready. A text message was simply, straight forward and left no details other than it was not just another night of take out.
I'll be by in 45 minutes. Date night.
Jolene Logan
She eyed the phone, making a curious little sound. She didn't get a lot of messages, almost none. She didn't have a lot of apps, most sounds that her phone made came from Darren, or a group chat prone to memes. She blinked as she eyed the message, completely unprepared for that text! ...a date. Like a date date?
I'll be ready.
What did one wear to a date? A dress? Or was this a joke of date? Was it actually work....no...maybe. She erred on the side of a real date, and took those 45 minutes to clean up, shower, put on a dress, a splash of make up, no heels though, slip on shoes, always and forever. Or boots, boots were acceptable in a pinch.
Darren Lynch
It was true, last time they'd gone on a date they'd dug up drugs in an old prison cell. No, tonight was a real date. A date date. He arrived on her doorstep, actually knocking rather than letting himself inside, waiting for her to answer. When she did, he was obviously a touch dressed up. A longer nicer coat than he often wore. New more fitted slacks. A pleasant looking sweater. His clothes were always nice, but these were stylish, which he rarely cared about.
"You ready then?" he asked once she'd answered the door.
Jolene Logan
She opened the door, wide eyed, a bit uncertain but then she saw him, and you could practically hear her knees go weak. "For you? Always." more than a little coyly. She was in a black sheath dress, that may have been the single most form fitting piece of clothing she had. She'd second guessed it half a dozen times, but she only owned three dresses, and it seemed the most appropriate to a date date.
After a moment of staring, she'd step out and lock up behind her, before grinning up at him like a little fool.
Darren Lynch
Thankfully he had enough composure not to stare. He let her lock the door and leaned to give her a kiss, before running knuckles over her cheek and smiling loosely. "Took me a bit to get this lined up. I 'ope you like it.." he'd offer his arm for the short walk to the car. He'd clearly rented a nicer one than his own sedan. She could relax knowing their were no drugs under the seat or stolen contraband in the trunk. No chance of blood stains on the interior. He held her door for her and returned to his side, where he started driving, checking his watch for the time to make sure they'd not be late.
Jolene Logan
She looked more than a little curious, she was the sort that had a level of curiosity that could lead to a good measure of trouble. Her arm slipped into his. "I'm sure I will." she had no idea what he had planned, but she knew him, and she knew she loved spending time with him. It seemed like a safe bet that she'd enjoy the evening, probably even more than that time they dug up drugs in an old prison cell.
She eyed the car, and couldn't help but grin, he'd clearly put a lot of thought into this. The world was unlikely to ever know, just want a romantic the enforcer could be, and she would never tell. She slipped in as he opened the door, and let out a little low whistle, clearly admiring the upgrade in a ride, though the truth was she wasn't overly materialistic, she just liked the thoughtfulness of it...wait....were those heated seats, okay, she might be just a tiny bit materialistic.
Darren Lynch
The drive wasn't a horribly long one. They seemed to just head downtown. Perhaps they were heading to a theater or maybe some type of live show? It didn't seem his thing, but tonight was clearly about her and not him. When they pulled up to valet, he waited for the attendant and pulled out a long thin strip of black fabric. The building they were next to looked to be concrete. A new installation, obviously part of a minimalist chic aesthetic. There weren't any labels for the entrance they were about to take though. "Close your eyes," holding up the blind fold.
Jolene Logan
Her eyes traveled constantly, taking in the sites of the passing city, and as he pulled into the valet, she looked even more curious! She turned to look at him for a long moment, and then just softened a touch, her eyes closing. There was no one else alive who could so readily convince her to do such a thing. But there she was, eyes closed, waiting for the blindfold, fingers toying with the fabric of her dress.
Darren Lynch
It was a treat to spoil her. She deserved more than he could truly give her. But this one thing felt like a win. He gently tied the blind fold so she'd not be able to see. Tight enough for no peeking but not enough to hurt her. For a moment he looked to her, in the dark and vulnerable and that level of absolute trust she gave him .... he pressed his lips and left his side of the car. Best not to linger on things too long. Too much pressure and foundations crack. He left the car, closing his door and coming around to hers. Taking her hands and guiding her out. She heard voices then, another man's. "It's all yours Mr. Lynch. Place is empty for the evening." Darren's voice in reply, "Thank you Brian." handing over the keys. "We'll call you when we're done."
A door opened and the noise of outside melted away. She could hear her flat shoes and his boots on tiled floors now. They must be in a hallway... the sounds around them muted and personal.
"Just a bit more..."
Jolene Logan
She felt that pregnant pause where he didn't move, but didn't understand the weight of it, the man who always struggled with notions of what he did or didn't deserve. She gave his hands a squeeze with her own as she moved as he guided her. Like a dance, she followed where he led. Brian, she set the name aside. Listening as a door opened, to the change in the ground, her head tilted, there was no hiding that she was trying to process the changes in circumstances. "Just a bit more." She echoed with a little grin.
Darren Lynch
There was one more door, this one opening with a soft click, like they were entering some type of enclosed space. The echo of their foot falls felt distant and vast, though the room itself was comfortably warm and had a tiny hum to it. The door they'd just come through closed and quietly latched, which made the room itself light up. That much she could see through the blind fold. They'd been standing in darkness and now they were surrounded by light. He stood behind her and she could hear music faintly beginning to play as if it were part of the experience rather than anything he specifically had done.
"I got you the stars, Jo.." he whispered against her ear and slipped the blind fold free.
https://open.spotify.com/track/3RoQX4ou3qYEASsuC7YAWD?si=ayyQgzlLR2WEnU8WyjhkUw
Jolene Logan
She smiled faintly at as the music started, as she processed that darkness had turned to light. It was his whisper against her ear that really got her though. She loved stars. Loved them. Knew a dozen constellations, and had created two dozen more out of childhood whimsy. As the music, the whispered words, and the blind fold gave way, she sucked in a sharp breath. Blue eyes wide with wonder, as she leaned into him for a second, before slowly starting to turn in a circle.
A hand was pressed to her lips, wide eyed, and clearly moved. Finally she remembered words. "It's so....beautiful." Blinking rapidly as that rush of emotion brought the right kind of tears to her eyes. She looked to him, and reached out for his hand, to squeeze it. "Incredible." Him? The universe he'd just handed her...both. It was both.
Darren Lynch
He took her hand in return, holding it gently, they were on a tiny platform that let them wade out into the nothingness at the middle of the room so they could be surrounded in endless reflections. The music seemed to come from all over, not just a well placed speaker here or there. "I want you to have as much time as you like. There's a few more rooms, but this one I wanted you to see first..." he said, looking up, the lights reflected in his green eyes like flecks of gold. He looked inhuman, as did she when she caught herself in her own reflection.
Jolene Logan
"You know me well..." Softly as she eased towards the platform with him, gently in tow, clearly wanting to share it, but she wouldn't drag him if he didn't want to. He did know her well, almost from the beginning, he caught all the ways she deflected, all the ways she protected herself from the world at large, and he carefully rid her of each of them when it was just the two of them. "So vast...." Pausing as she caught a hint of her eyes in reflecting back, the shade was wrong, it must have been something in the lighting though and was easily dismissed.
Darren Lynch
"Yeah we say that, don' we?" he seemed amused at the thought. "We know each other well. And in ways we do. Constantly finishing each others thoughts. Knowing without asking..." he knew they had this strange rhythm together that didn't sync with anyone but themselves. Or maybe that was just him that thought so and he was just a fool. He stood by the door for a long moment then finally stepped out to join her, wrapping his arms around her waist again and looking around the room.
Jolene Logan
She smiled towards him, something soft, sweet. "....we know how the other works...might not know all the details of each others histories...but the details of our history might play a part in shaping us....they don't define us." Ooooh, someone had been really processing his sentiments lately it would seem. Working through her past and what it meant for their future. It was a slow, thoughtful bit of commentary that promised, she was in fact, still working through things. She rested into him as he held her, looking around and she realized she felt...serene. A peace she hadn't know, perhaps....ever.
Darren Lynch
He let them stay in here for some time, perhaps picking up on that same serenity. It wasn't a feeling his soul experienced often. Too wrecked with violence and anxiety. Stress and duty. He finally did nudge her though suggesting they ought to get to the other rooms. "The rest of this place is like a maze. Come. We'll need a bit of time. And then we've got dinner reservations." Knowing the both of them would never bypass a chance at a meal and a drink. He guided her back to the door pressing on it twice like some sort of magnetic release and stepped back out into the dark hallway. A tiny exit light ahead of them suggest they way they came in, but he took her to the right and they stepped into a new room.
Jolene Logan
She moved as he nudged her, realizing she easily could have spend the night here. But there was more! And so she moved along with him. "This may be the best maze ever." She assured him, before she'd even seen the next room! ....dinner reservations, oh he really had gone all out. She was definitely glad she went with the dress, over the jeans, and hoodie.
As the door was opened, like a magical gateway to another world, she made a little squee of sound "A whole new universe." As if he'd somehow created this, or at least was directly responsible for this magic, like a small god, who made incredible things just for her!
Darren Lynch
They stepped into the room and immediately there were quite a few doppelgangers of their images, moving in tandem with their steps, the sway of their arms. It was a bit disorienting at first, but they quickly got a hold of things. More music continued, but this was softer. She began to realize he'd given her the grand tour in reverse, the room with the loudest show at the end was her first foray into the rooms of light and reflection.
https://open.spotify.com/track/2pr6us08iPNzIex5q6fMvI?si=EYTBA3krQ0GdgLp04C1kug
There was a pause as her brain processed all the look alikes and the music, she had a growing feeling she was experiencing these exhibits unlike anyone else had. That while others might move through these rooms, they would never know them as she had. That pleased her in it's way. As she adjusted the sway of arms moved to the music like their own little dance. A hundred fractured images of them, but she was more whole than she'd ever anticipated being again, there was something sweet in that irony. That all the broken reflections were a thing she was slowly putting behind her, and not wholly defining. "....I'm so grateful for you."
Darren Lynch
The door closed behind her and was quickly lost to the pattern of eternity. Above them she could make out squares for the individual folds in the mirror, but it only lent to the disorienting feeling making her feel a bit dizzy. Her first few steps, hands stretched outwards, her dozens of look-a-likes moved along with her in a symphony of form. The strokes of her arms though soon encompassed the room and looking around her, she saw it was only her reflection in the room. Darren's copies had all blended into hers. Perhaps he'd taken a different path in the same room?
Jolene Logan
A hand reached out, and tried to brace on something, only to find air while she worked to steady herself. She frowned slightly as she hunted for Darren's reflection, as she found her words met with silence, and turned quickly, too quickly, which led to all her copies turning too quickly only heightening the dizzying disorientation.
Darren Lynch
The room seemed empty save for her and them. The door lost, the path out hidden. Darren gone. The way back stretched out before her, though it was hard to say if it were more tricks of the eye or something more at work. Had the room changed? She looked all around, feeling gently for the path. The music above darkening to something just as beautiful as before but a touch more ominous. Her twins reaching out in equal desperation.
https://open.spotify.com/track/2htOnrvotLnbrHrGNGieN2?si=HvCmBRdTRTO83lTGuZM_5A
Jolene Logan
Her heart was racing, the brief serenity was utterly lost. She had worked hard to master her composure, but this moment was getting harder to keep it in. He'd been here, he'd been here...with her...and then he wasn't. There was a growing, primal frantic energy about her, as she began to start trying to find the exit. She wasn't using his name anymore, just little chirps of sound, that turned into little desperate whines of sound. Her movements faster, more erratic, trying to find a wall if not the door itself!
Darren Lynch
She slammed her hands against glass mirrors, slapping them for the exit, moving along at a rapid pace. None of this made sense. None of this filled her with the warm and tingly feelings she'd grown while in here. In a second it had been ripped away and she felt like an animal in a cage. She came to a halt, trying to collect her wits and slowly looked up to see that the reflection in the mirror was looking back at her. A perfect reflection of her own face and body, sure... but in movements alone in was entirely different. The posture was all wrong and it seemed more like it was leering than anything else. It's hand lifted off the glass where hers was, detaching from the copy it was meant to be and drummed its nails against the glass, it's lips slowy parting into a devious smile.
Jolene Logan
And her pained confusion, grew to full horror. Her lips peeling from her teeth giving a snarl in sound, recoiling from the mirror and her sinister little doppelganger. Murmuring 'no no no' over and over. When she was young, she'd teetered on madness more than once, seeing too much, hearing too much, without enough of the 'real' world to counterpoint things. Telling what was real, and what wasn't had been almost impossible.
...and this...this felt like that bit of madness. As she began to back away from the wall she'd been against, her eyes still cast up at the mirror of her that was all wrong, horrifically wrong. A spirit? Something more foreign?
Darren Lynch
Suddenly she felt her energy levels deplete rapidly. It was like her blood sugar dropped and the room dimmed at the same time. The music slowed a touch in her ears and warped uncontrollably as the mimic's face split and the colors of her bled to the edges of the mirror. The others all laughing, their backs arching as they held their stomachs, hair falling off their shoulders. (Lose 4 willpower).
Jolene Logan
She felt her body go weak, all the will leaving her, as if even breathing was getting tiresome. She eyed the split figures that were her but all wrong as she sunk to the group, nearly split. A finger stroking over 'tattoo' behind her ear. "Tell him, I'm sorry, I don't know where I've ended up, tell him....I love him, and it was beautiful, none of this was his fault." She murmured softly, clearly certain this might be the end, likely was. The words were careful, heavily accented English, to the messenger pigeon of a tattoo, that would dash off to perform it's sacred duty, relaying of important messages.
Her arms moved to hug herself, head swimming as she began to try and crawl to a wall again, but every mockery of a reflection, made her recoil, making it impossible to even begin to fathom her escape. Her heart felt like it was going to explode.
Darren Lynch
She felt hands on her then, coming from behind. A grip that seemed too tight to be friendly. In the mirrors she only saw herself, that same laughing wicked mimicry. The room was cold now, the door must be open? Something's changed, the atmosphere is off. Like breaking the surface of water, she didn't realize she was beneath.
Jolene Logan
She tried to twist, half crawling as she was, it quickly became thrashing, and little growling whines of sound. Hot angry tears streaming down her face as she tried to scramble away from the grasp. The last of her words spent on her farewell message, she was quickly devolving to a wounded, feral stray, snapping at the air, and twisting this way and that.
Darren Lynch
It was then that the noise of breaking glass snapped her out of it, the laughing menaces from the room before her all blinked away as the mirror shattered and fell in little crystals all around their feet. Darren standing beside her, an arm around her waist, he'd just put his fist through the glass and pulled back a bloody hand, shatter whatever illusion had them both for a short while. He'd had a small cut down his cheek in the shape of an x, shoddily and hastily done. Pulling himself back he turned and picked her up, unsure if she were still under the spell or not and began to carry her out whether or not she were thrashing against him.
Jolene Logan
She couldn't think, couldn't get her head to work how it should work. She was out of control, but solely with in her tiny little bubble of self. She felt his arm around her and there was a wild moment of twisting before the smell of him broke through all the confusion, and she stopped the brief protest as he began to carry her. She didn't have much will left to protest as it was, sinking into him, a violent shake passing through her body, her eyes clench closed as she made herself small against him. Madness. This was madness.
Darren Lynch
The door he made it through, the hallway, and finally the cool January evening air. "Get the car, get the fuckin' car!" she'd hear Darren's voice as he carried her outside, setting her down only when the car arrived in the passenger seat. The door closed behind her and for two seconds she was alone, ears ringing from the silence in comparison, Darren's muffled voice telling them to charge him for the damages and then he crawled into the passenger seat. "Jo?" he asked, pulling out of the drive, "Jolene." his voice stern but not yet panicked.
Jolene Logan
And she, well, Joe was trying to make herself small, knees pulled into her chest, her eyes wide, but glassy, but utterly fixed on him, with her cheek pressed to her knees. As if she was scared if she so much as blinked he'd disappear again. Her name. He was saying her name. She remembered this. People talking to her, and her struggling to find her voice. She took a slow shaky breath, before tentatively murmuring. "...we're okay?" like she still wasn't sure.
Darren Lynch
"We're okay," he said, "I think..." he looked her over as he drove, ditching their dinner plans and heading back to her place. If she were anyone else he'd be quietly cursing himself in another language but he knew damn well she'd know his words. Angry for the stupid idea he'd come up with. Angry at believing they could have just one night of peace. He said none of it, letting the harsh truth play over in his mind as his cheek bled.
"We're gonna be fine," he said quietly, the words she'd need to hear. Even if they weren't true.
At her place, he parked and carried her inside, checking her over for wounds or anything else, not stopping until he was sure she were okay physically.(edited)
Jolene Logan
She didn't fight, or resist, or question. She didn't say anything else. She just tried, really really hard to believe him. She let him carry her inside. And there was one brief moment where it became really obvious she was debating the closet over the bed....but his presence made the decision for her. What other damage they'd done to her, it wasn't physical, that much was obvious as his check came back with nothing new. It was only when he was done that she finally spoke again. "...they hurt you." Frowning as she eyed his cheek....
"I'm sorry." Like it was her fault, and she was sure it was, she was a beacon, and a thin place, and there was an X on his cheek, her lower lip giving a slight tremor. "I'll get the first aid kit....." But she didn't move as she processed that it was back in the bathroom, and there was a mirror in there, and all her will had been drained, and she didn't know if she could get there, face a mirror, get it out...
Darren Lynch
He rubbed at his cheek, smearing away the blood formed there, "They didn'. I marked myself. The copies were only copies of us as we came in. When I could see the difference I could do somethin'." he said, revealing his own path to escape. "I'm sorry Jo, I didn'.... I wasn' thinkin... I thought it was just us. I thought it was safe." he said. He held her hand, shaking his head, "S'nothin' to do with you. Just... fuckin' spirits bein' spirits. I should've known better. Place like that.." he swallowed. "Just lay back.. rest.. it's okay now."
Jolene Logan
She reached up and ran her fingers over the marks "Clever....they took something from me." Him. Her will. "I was not...I should have....i failed." Spitting out the last word. "....could have been a different sort....could have gone different. Malicious fucks." Her lips peeled from her teeth, holding his hand tightly. "....the stars were beautiful." As if trying to assure them both it wasn't a complete waste, as if trying to remind herself she was okay, that it hadn't fucked her up that bad....but it had. "....stay?" Squeaking the word, suddenly terrified he might go, and she wasn't quite sure how she'd handle the night just yet.
Darren Lynch
His face fell at her words. And there she was again, conditioned to take the blame. There was a darkness in his eyes in response, a hatred for the moment where he'd been responsible for her gettin' hurt. For her taking that pain in as something she deserved somehow. He nodded slowly. "Let me get cleaned up first," his voice absent as if already his mind was moving on to other things. He'd move into the bathroom then, closing the door. She heard the faint voice of him making a call. "Burn it to the fuckin' ground."
Jolene Logan
She heard....oh she heard the order. She wondered if she should protest. It had been beautiful. But no. No burn it to the fuckin' ground. That one perfect moment would only be theirs, and fire made smoke...and smoke had been one of the first offerings man made. "burn it to the fuckin' ground." she murmured her agreement even as she heard him cleaning up. The dress had been discarded during the inspection to make sure she was okay, it took the last bit of her will to pull out a shirt for pajamas, but she didn't lay down, she sat up, waiting, eyes wide, constantly surveying the room, like any moment it might also betray her.
Darren Lynch
Roll Credits
https://open.spotify.com/track/74vyO7hH282ADrURp0gN3L?si=gd3_lYXIQQWm2qvXB_OxLg
Jolene Logan
And in the bonus credit scene, in the early hours of the morning, while Jo is in fitful sleep, Darren methodically removes every single mirror from her house...
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