We're not in love;
We share no stories.
Just something in your eyes.
.x.X.x.
Her eyes.
Her beautiful peepers.
Those round, glowing orbs, filled with scorching sapphire. They burned within him, filled with nothing and everything. Living, yet dead. Bright, yet spilling with darkness.
Strong, powerful, able to move him and cause his once dimmed spirit to stir.
When Daniel Dickens first laid his broken eyes on Rachel Gardner, he was set aflame by her. Her very being screamed of no longer being human. Her sluggish movements, her unresponsiveness to his questions; the way she looked at him without seeing. As if her gaze travelled beyond him, to somewhere he couldn't follow— a gateway to the afterlife.
Those peepers, so beautiful, tranquil and precious, seared him to his very core and ensnared him so strongly that he was helpless to fight against his desire to have her.
To have those peepers all to himself.
This broken, fragile girl needed something to hold onto, and he couldn't have been luckier for her to fall into his grasp. It was as if his wounded self had finally gotten its wish.
A pair of eyes as majestic and serene has his mothers had been, when she had hung herself from her bedroom ceiling. Those blank, cerulean orbs that had lost all light— Rachel's eyes echoed those in so many ways, but were even more beautiful. Somehow, she was so much more than that. Like an imprisoning husk, housing the portals to the bridge between life and death. Her blue, oceanic eyes that were filled with shadows that consumed her, was irresistible to him.
And, somehow, this young girl swept him up into her atmosphere, and her peepers dragged him down, down, down, into a spiral that left only her on his mind.
He fell hard, fast, and irrevocably, for her eyes.
.x.X.x.
Don't be afraid;
the shadows know me.
Let's leave the world behind.
.x.X.x.
He took those peepers under his wing, and he let her flourish.
He did everything he could for her. Rachel's every whim, her every need, he took care of. Anything for those deep, abyssal blue peepers. His heart wrenched with joy when she turned them on him.
Even still it wasn't enough. He wanted to do more, to become more to her than just her caretaker. He wanted those eyes to become his.
He would do anything that she asked, if only she would be his.
Danny even went so far as to create her own floor, to cater to her personality, including the massacred yet magnificent wreckage of what's left of her parents (at her request). It upset him greatly when Gray told him that she would have no choice but to undergo the trials to find her place at the top.
He thought it would be no problem, of course; he knew she wouldn't fail to find his floor, and he would take her there. He would claim her as his own.
His feelings constantly conflicted. Sometimes he would be enamored with her eyes alone, with the magnificent empty sapphire; other times, he loved more of her, came to desire more.
It was so sick, so twisted, but oh-so good to him. He needed her, became obsessed with her so deeply that Rachel was his every breath. Everything he did was for her, every choice he made was for her.
This mysterious, broken, dulled corpse of a human being. Her long, luxurious blonde hair, her porcelain skin that resembled that of a priceless doll. Her slim, adolescent body, barely on the cusp of womanhood yet still holding enough feminine charm to keep him looking at her. In fact, his own eyes couldn't stop from raking over her, from drinking in her own unreal beauty. She really was gorgeous; it was almost a shame that she was so wrecked on the inside, with a soul that took everything and gave back nothing, one that steals others and consumes them to thrive.
It made her so, so special.
So, when she arrived on his floor with flickers of real, true life in those once majestic peepers, he felt unbridled rage. Gray hadn't told him that she would be given temporary amnesia; immediately he wanted to crush that life from her, to make her soul resume the undead aura it had once had.
This Rachel wasn't his Rachel. This was a frightened, youthful, bright girl who jumped at just a hand on her shoulder.
This Rachel feared him, and he didn't want fear from her. He wanted admiration, need, longing from her. He needed her to want him, and only him. If he couldn't have that, he would pry her cold peepers from her body for himself alone.
When he pinned her to his operating table and she squirmed and cried out under his much larger body, it sent so many thrills through him that he didn't want it to end. Yet he knew he had to pry that soul back out of hiding, remove this false Rachel and remind her of exactly what she was; a monster, a murderer, and dead inside.
That she embodied a witch, who consumed others to continue on.
It was so tempting that moment to take it too far. He knew hundreds of ways to tear through her facade and reach the inner beast within her, stemming from torture to letting his inhuman desires run rampant and allow him to ravage her there on the table. That part was almost overwhelming to crush within him. As much as he wanted to ruin her so that she would never look to anyone but him, he couldn't bring himself to just take her right then and there. Somehow a part of him told him not to go that far, even if he left tiny pecks along her collar and gripped her wrists so tightly he cut off blood flow. Even if he wanted to rip off layers until she was exposed inside and out.
He's a monster too, ugly and imperfect, which is why he couldn't sully her right then and there. It might've been one of the hardest battles within himself to fight, when he's already killed for his pleasure. In search of those perfect eyes.
Those peepers he's dreamed of, located right under his own, staring straight into his. If he went that far, they might've been too far gone to recover the illustrious dark mixed with light.
In a way, it was almost frightening to him how desperately he wanted to claim her as his own. At first it was for her eyes alone, but now he was so attached that he would lay down his life just to be her servant.
She was his, and when he finally made the light withdraw from her majestic peepers, he knew he had won. She would never leave, and she would be his forever.
And nothing, nothing, nothing would get in the way of that.
...Until Zack.
.x.X.x.
Beneath the sky as black as diamonds;
— we're running out of time.
.x.X.x.
Fucking Zack.
Of every single person in the damned world to get in his way, it would be that nasty orphan with his ugly eyes. A mismatched pair of peepers that showed nothing but disdain and unbridled rage, they were useless, and he wanted to rip them from his bandaged face and have the pleasure of ridding the world of one less insect.
Zack Foster was a disgusting parasite, and Danny's life would've been so much easier had he just killed the brat long ago.
How, instead, was he the one to be cut down?
How, in his infinitely superior choices, did he manage to lose Rachel to him?
Danny was forced by his own lapse of judgment to watch as Rachel joined with that grimy menace. He followed their every movement, their every move, from afar. He knew every secret cubby and passage in the building from being part of its construction, and he took full advantage of it to keep an eye on them.
Oh, Rachel truly was magnificent. Her eyes, pools of dark blue crystal, were too good to ignore. How dare Zack be the one to have her peepers all to himself? How cruel is fate to take from Danny this one thing he desired?
He had given her everything, and he wouldn't let some prickly, undesirable sacrifice ruin that for him.
How dare Zack threaten her with death, when her fate was Danny's alone. He didn't put his effort and soul into her just for it to be for nothing. Those peepers would be his no matter how he got them, even if he had to pry them from her sweet face.
That's when he started realizing something was wrong. The further he kept watch over them, the more he came to hate Zack. Something about him was all wrong, and it was affecting Rachel. Her eyes— those beautiful peepers of hers were changing. Something was happening to her because of that stupid boy, and Danny hated it.
He had to get rid of him.
Unfortunately during Cathy's floor, he lost sight of them. As winding as his passageways were, they weren't all-seeing, and he became easily frustrated. However, knowing that they had to have at least been on Gray's floor, he exited his safe space and found himself near the elevator. As luck would have it, Zack happened to be there as well, apparently sleeping.
His stained hoodie was caked in dry and fresh blood mixed into a garish slash, and already Danny felt the urge to stab into him with scissors and pop his discolored and grotesque eyes from his sockets. Maybe pull apart the severed flesh at his abdomen and rip him apart from the inside. It would be more than satisfying to cut away his bandages, his layers of skin, and hear him scream. It would be more than fitting, considering him stealing away his Rachel. No pain would be great enough.
Rachel not being with him, made Danny pause.
Where? I only lost sight of her for a little while. Where is she? Where are my precious peepers?
He made a show of goading Zack up a moment later, making the injured man rise to his feet and try to hack at him. In his mind, Danny can only laugh. It's pathetic, purely pathetic. He could hardly move, can hardly breathe without pain, yet he was trying to fight back. Almost admirable, if it didn't sicken Danny. What motivated him to do it? To keep going even when blood pours from his ripped torso?
They exchange heated words, and Danny grew increasingly agitated. This stupid boy didn't understand. He didn't understand what Rachel means to him. Rachel was his everything, his endgame choice. She held his future and his love, and he'd be damned if he allowed that to be stolen from him again like it was with his mother.
This forgotten trash of a person thinks he has any grasp of Rachel's future?
"Whatever happens to Ray isn't yours to decide!"
The boy's mismatched eyes flickered when he said that, and for just a second, Danny lost himself. He was filled with blinding fury, because he recognized that gleam. This brat, this vermin, rose to fight not because of just a will to live and defend himself; it wasn't because he wanted to steal the medicine off his person. It was because of her. His Rachel.
This poor, grimy bastard had fallen in love with her as well.
Danny saw it, as Zack spoke to him. How his own peepers held his stare as he proclaimed how he felt, even if the boy himself didn't realize his true feelings were revealed.
"Without her eyes, her laugh and smile would be empty. I'm not giving you anything, you bastard!"
If he hadn't held attachment to her, he wouldn't have given three seconds of thought to her fate. Danny knew Zack well enough to know that this was very out of character for him, so something must have happened between them. Just the thought of the brat laying a hand on Rachel made his blood boil with anger.
How dare he even think of sullying her and her magnificent blue peepers. How dare he consider her his property, or his to lay claim to? She was Danny's all this time, he had her firmly gripped within his fingers up until this fucked up brat.
This twisted, conniving garbage will never be with her. I'll never let it happen.
.x.X.x.
Don't wait for truth to come and blind us.
Let's just believe their lies.
.x.X.x.
He thought he had won.
How? How did everything go so, so wrong?
Daniel finally revealed his precious doll as what she truly was to the person she cherished most. He had laid her bare, exposed for the world to see her true self.
For Zack to see.
On her floor, he forced the boy to face what she was, what her real self was like. He kept her safe while he watched in glee as Zack discovered tidbit after tidbit about the girl he'd been traveling with.
He'd done so much just for Rachel. It's only right he be the one to show the truth behind her lies. Her beautiful, deadly lies.
Finally, he got to see it again. The flash of the death mark in her eyes, the light faded completed from them. Darker than the loneliest night, she finally was his again. He had her back in his arms, his to control, his to claim. Everything finally came back to him as it should have been. His love, returned.
It felt like pure bliss to watch Zack suffer at her hands. To watch her soul break when the hooded murderer told her he would no longer play God.
Rightfully so, the arrogant whelp. Her soul was never meant to be whole in the first place. If Zack ever thought she was his, Danny would slit his throat and dance in his blood.
It was going so well. He was going to watch Ray kill the little bastard, and then they would run off together. They would be by each other's side, and he could hold those limpid, empty peepers close and no one else could ever have them again. Building be damned, Gray be damned, everyone else that stands in the way could fuck off.
Nothing else mattered if he had Rachel.
So then, why…?
Why did he lose everything?
Why is his broken, battered body laying prone against her carpet, within touching proximity of her deceased parents? Why is he covered in his own blood again, barely able to breathe, in excruciating pain…?
Why was he forced to watch as Zack chose to ignore everything he'd seen, as that idiot broke Rachel free from his grasp without even trying? He'd lost consciousness for a moment, but he'd heard the moment that Zack and Rachel's bond grew stronger. He'd seen it with his own eyes.
It filled him with bloodlust. With a need for vengeance.
A sense of loneliness welled so deeply within him that it overtook everything else. The anger, revulsion, despair—
The look on Rachel's face, as she whispered an apology and shot him while still using those deceitful, lying peepers.
It infuriates him.
When they left him (after kicking him while he was down, even,) he made sure her gun was non-functioning as he picked his struggling body off the ground. He made sure they'd wonder where he went.
After all, he's not going to let them get away from him. Those eyes of hers are his alone, his to protect, his to keep.
He won't let Rachel leave.
She's his. She's always been his. From the day they met they were destined to spend eternity together, and he will be damned if he'll let that be taken from him.
...At least, before he takes something of hers first.
.x.X.x.
He watches the two, side by side, getting ready to leave the building after everything they'd done. He seethes, and his body screams in pain, but he's not done yet. He can't die yet.
Burning down the building isn't enough.
He raises his arm. Cocks his gun, staring at the pristine white of Rachel's coat.
The smile that crosses his face as his finger presses the trigger is wider than any other.
—Bang.
.x.X.x.
No secrets worth keeping—
—So fool me like I'm dreaming.
.x.X.x.
Flames engulf the world around him.
Destruction of his own making has led to his own demise, but it's alright. It's not like it matters anymore. It's not like he'll be leaving this place.
His final resting place will be this dismal, forgotten building, left to bleed out and scorch to death so that he resembles Zack.
Daniel's body aches, drawing its last few breaths, and he struggles to maintain his consciousness.
He truly has lost it all, hasn't he?
He had been so consumed in ruining that which he had loved, the girl he cherished and the boy who stole her from him, that he lost sight of what he was. In his anger and hatred, he had lost not only Rachel, but himself.
He had shot her, but he had even failed that simple task of killing her. He had no choice but to watch as Zack cradled her in his arms like a beautiful, scarlet-splotched porcelain doll and took her away. His retreating hoodie will haunt him long into the afterlife, as will everything Rachel said.
"Zack is human."
"An oath… can't be stolen by someone else."
Ah… he really had deluded himself into thinking he could ruin them, didn't he?
It wouldn't have mattered in the end. His love of Rachel and her peepers could never have been fulfilled as he had wanted, because Gray's words had rung true as well.
"By showering her with love, you would only desire to someday be loved yourself."
The truth is that, as much as he wanted to pretend Gray was wrong, he wasn't. Even at this very moment they spin crystalline truth that he wanted her to love him back.
That love he had been cursed without, that his mother had taken with her into death— he wanted it back. And in doing so, had tried to take it from Rachel.
Haha… So this is the punishment of his own selfishness.
Those lying, empty peepers he loved so much would never be his. Not now, not ever. They never had been. He had fooled himself into thinking that he had her all to himself, when she had slipped out of his fingers like water.
Rachel… HIs dearest Rachel.
If I can't have you… I hope no one ever does.
That soul of yours, that consumes others, that thrives off of the people around you— I hope that the beautiful, dismal darkness there will continue until the day you die.
If even I could not offer you what you wanted, then… Will you ever find it?
Or maybe, you already have…?
The ceiling above him cracks and threatens to collapse atop him, but he closes his eyes, the flames licking at the edges of his coat. His end is coming.
Perhaps, in another life, my dearest Rachel… We will be together.
Your beauty in death will be my purpose in life, forever.
If that is the case, then…
...I will search for you, my sweet, precious Rachel.
I will search for your dark, immortal eyes forever.
.x.X.x.X.x.
Let go of the light.
—Give in to the dark side.
.x.X.x.X.x.
A/N: Written using lyrics from 'Dark Side' - Alan Walker. I don't own them.
This isn't exactly how I thought I'd come back into the AOD fandom, but here I am. I had this sitting for like 8 months and decided to finally finish it because, well, I like looking into the mind of derangement.
On another note, I recently finished a playthrough of AOD and have it up on youtube. Link's on my profile if y'all are curious.
Anyways, thanks for reading. See you later.