"Mark? Hey, Mark!"

Markiplier blinked up at the Irish voice of his fellow youtuber, who took back the hand he'd been waving in front of Mark's face.

Jack had been trying to get his attention, apparently.

"You alright there? You zoned out for a bit."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Mark muttered, sounding more distracted then he'd intended.

They were sitting in Mark's study, well, study implied something official, it was really just a room with a bunch of computers and books. A mini-library, almost. They were both editing a video they'd recorded together the day before.

Mark had been taken up in worrying about the slight mental pokes he'd been receiving more and more often now. It was not a good sign, at all. In fact it was a very bad sign of very bad things.

Jack shrugged, figuring Mark would tell him of it was something important.

"Well, as I was saying, I'm gonna order some pizza. Want one too?" Jack stood up and stretched, trying to wake himself up a bit from the relaxed silence that had fallen between them in the last hour or so.

Mark grinned at him, no traces of his previous absent-mindedness left. "Oh, you know I'm always up for free pizza."

"Yeah, to be honest I don't know why I even bother asking anymore," Jack admitted. Mark laughed at that.

When the other left the room, presumably to call a pizza place with their usual order, Mark sighed, his mood dropping back into worry.

At the rate it was going, he couldn't keep this up very long. The demon inside his head was growing stronger and stronger, and so were its attempts to take over Mark's body.

To reiterate, that would be bad. Mark had seen what Darkiplier could do and wished he could unsee it. Mostly, though, he wished that nobody else would have to see it.

At that moment, Mark felt something slam into his mind with an unexpected force. His eyes widened and he focused on willing it back, but the other entity fought back harshly, determined.

Time to go bye bye, weakling.

Hell no. Not before, not now.

He'd stopped panicking over every mental attack a while ago, not able to afford distraction anymore. But the anxiety that one day Darkiplier would win permanently always stayed with him.

Darkiplier had won before, temporarily, but controlling their body and constantly fighting off Mark proved too much to maintain. Mark usually got control back before Dark could do any lasting damage.

Keyword being usually.

Markiplier could feel Dark beginning to pull away from the attack, seeing he wasn't going to win and presumably saving his energy.

"Pizza should be here in a few minutes!" Jack announced cheerfully, walking in, phone in hand.

Mark started and whipped around, not having heard him coming up. Then he realized his mistake as he felt Darkiplier's triumph, and his shift in focus was taken advantage of to overwhelm him before he could defend himself.

No, no, no!

With a sheer burst of panic, because Jack's in the room who knows what Dark will do, Markiplier shoves Dark aside again and takes back control, letting out an inaudible sigh of relief when it actually worked.

"You're sure you're alright?" Jack was looking at him with a weird look, but then shook it off and frowned a worried frown. "You've been acting strange all day."

Mark gave a shaky smile back, still not able to believe how much of a close call that was. "Yeah, I'm fine, you just startled me, that's all."

Jack nodded, but gave him one last weird look before beginning to babble about a skit idea he'd had.

Because Jack had been pretty sure Mark's eyes were pitch black, if only just for a moment. Was it a trick of the light? Maybe he'd imagined it.

You saw that too, right, Anti?

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Oh my god I can't believe I'm starting another story.

Dammit.

Yes I know it's short, but I wanted to end on that note because that just seemed like a great note to end on.