Play Date **JUST UPDATED**

Darkness to Light: Catharsis

( Author's note: Slash and het sex scene/themes warning for this chapter)

"I swear, when I catch up to you, I'm going to rip you a new one!" Laughing Jack was anything but laughing now. His ditzy half had led him on a wild goose chase through his own hall of mirrors. He started running down one of the hallways when the familiar tune of Pop Goes the Weasel started playing all around him. RJ was pushing his buttons, rather, turning his crank.

With a snarl that rose in crescendo, LJ burst ahead to slide down a long hallway. The mirrors erupted with the sudden vision of RJ all around him. He was laughing and pointing at him. LJ screamed "SHUT UP, you bloody nuisance! I'll find you!"

RJ crossed his arms and smirked. "How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine?"

"As good as it will be when I give you one of my special candies, you little pain in the arse!"

He smashed a hole in one of the mirrors, making the vision disappear. "Much better." He started to step off to continue his mad run through the maze, but a hole appeared under him and he fell hard.

  LJ landed on a huge round red cushion in the middle of a dimly lit room. All the furniture was red and gold. "What the hell is this crap? I never made this!" he protested. To his annoyance, RJ's voice boomed out from seemingly everywhere.

"Yes you did. Welcome to your personal house of the seven chakras. This is your root, hence, the lush colors. I do admit, you have SOME redeeming qualities." LJ rolled his eyes. He could sense the wink in RJ's voice. The room looked like a cross between the Hilton, his personal tent on party night and the porno version of Aladdin. "Don't get too comfortable though. You need to explore the rest of the house."

   LJ scowled, crossing his legs up on the cushion and leaning back. "Shut up, you little git. This is my place, you're not the boss of me. I still have a bone to pick with you, actually a whole skeleton. I'm not going to play your little game. I'll find you or I'll rip this whole place apart till I do!" He jumped up, and found the cushion was like a trampoline that catapulted him up in the air like a cartoon. He screamed and grabbed the first thing he could. It turned out to be a piece of splintered wood. What the hell was THIS? He looked down, but the lush living room had disappeared. All was darkness except some ambient light coming from a hole in the ceiling seemingly a mile above him. The entire room had been burnt out. What little shards remained around the edges were seafoam green.

"This was your heart, LJ."

LJ scanned what was left of the "room". He wasn't liking what he saw. "FAAAAAWWWWWWK!" he screamed helplessly in frustration, balking at the unreality of the rapidly unravelling situation. This just had to be some infernal fever dream. He banged his head on what was left of the wall, but he didn't wake up. Instead, an old wooden stairway appeared behind the hole he punched through. An oddly familiar stairway. A jolt of recognition went through him as he climbed up. He knew where it led.

HIS room. The boy whose name he had put out of his mind for over a century. The one who had broke his heart, who had corrupted him and drained his colors, his life.

His heart.

Was the Angel behind this? Was this his final punishment for his crimes?

When he walked into the old room, he found himself trembling. The memories of his old self and a young, innocent Isaac seemed to play on the crusty walls. Everything from his first emergence out of the box to his murder of Isaac.

::violence begets violence:: the voice of his conscience (CONSCIENCE?!) sounded softly in the backgrond of his tortured memories. To LJ's shock, his old box fell off the shelf onto the dusty bed. The handle turned by itself, faster and faster, its familiar tune playing. Then suddenly, it stopped. There was a pause, then RJ leaped out of it with a bedazzling blast of light and color. Only this wasn't a memory. This was real, and present.