I completely forgot to publish this one haha. Not one of my best works because I was crying while writing this. Apparently the box is sentient?? Another WKM angst train with the bois (sorry). I promise, I'm writing four things simultaneously and doing requests! Art by theroyallypurple on Tumblr- I need the fluff for my mental health.
So here's the deal, there are a ton of ways to interpret this:
- Damien loves Will and Celine & Will loves Damien and Celine. Basically OT3 (is Damien/Celine technically incest?)
- Damien loves Will and Celine but as a sibling & Will loves Damien and Celine.
Please comment on which one (or a better one) you think makes more sense. Thanks!
Warnings: crying, fire, burning things, pining, misunderstandings
It was Mark and Celine's wedding, and William was best man and unofficial photographer. Outwardly, Will was all smiles and joy at seeing his oldest friends happy. He made a humorous speech and ran around taking lots of pictures of the couple with his old film camera.
Damien knew better.
He could see the Will staring at Celine while he gave his speech. He could see Will's tried and practiced smiles, which were never as crooked nor as full of energy as his genuine ones. Damien could see how Will looks at his twin with adoration and longing and pain.
It's the same way he looks at William.
Damien tried not to think about that and focused instead on his darling sister and her beautiful wedding. He smiled as best he could when he saw Will's camera directed towards him.
After the wedding, Damien snuck into the darkroom where William was developing the photos. There was line of wet images clothespinned to two strings hanging from the ceiling to dry.
Damien's theory was confirmed.
On one string was a dozen perfect photos of Celine and Mark and their marriage ceremony, the two of them happy and in love. On the other string was a collection of candid Celines: her head tilted back in laughter at something Mark whispered in her ear, her back as she spun in a semi-circle with the photo blurring around her legs, the mischievous half smile-half smirk she gave Will as she prepares to dab frosting onto Mark's face.
Damien didn't need Celine's arcane abilities to feel the amount of love poured into these images. He knew that Celine and Mark would never see them and that he'd have to keep Will's secret forever, along with the other painful burden in his heart.
As much as he wanted to, he can't bring himself to feel angry at Will or Celine. Will couldn't help it after all, and Celine was everything Damien was not. He loved them both. Damien left with both hands wringing his cane and tears threatening to spill from his eyes.
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Will carefully unclipped the developed photos from the string. He put the wedding images in an envelope for Mark and gathers the Celines to his room.
William knelt beside his bed, pulling out a small box from underneath it. He opens it. Already inside was a fresh stack of Damien photos from the wedding that he had already developed. Images of Damien's warm eyes and soft smile at the camera, him standing as he gave a moving speech for his twin with a glass raised in the air, his somber expression as he gazed at the couple from afar.
Mark had stolen both their hearts, Will concluded. Why else would Damien be staring so jealously at his sister? As much as William wants to, he can't bring himself to not feel angry at Mark. Damn that charismatic bastard.
The photos on the bottom of the box were older, sepia vignettes of simpler times and their intertwined lives. They were like strings inevitably getting tangled until you can't tell where one starts and the other ends. The box was full of memories that Will never wanted to forget and love for the two people that stole his heart.
Will placed the photos of Celine into the box, closed it, and pushed it back under the bed.
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Decades pass. The house remains untouched and the box under the bed stays where it was left. Other than the thick layer of dust on top and slight discoloration of its sides, nothing has changed. The box saw many entities pass the room: William now Wilford, Damien and Celine now Darkiplier, Y/N now trapped spirit. The box has stood the test of time and remains standing. It loyally waits for its creator to come back. And he does.
Wilford visits the house for the first time years after the incident, indulging himself in the memories for a day. The building is already decrepit and rotting from lack of care, but Wil can't bear to think about it too much. The house is too important to get rid of yet too painful to look at, let alone maintain. He wonders briefly who bought the building for it to remain standing and untouched after all this time, but he decides not to look into it. A part of him already knows.
Wilford wanders through the familiar halls, the once gleaming space now reduced to dust and broken glass. Long forgotten memories resurface and he pauses in each room to relive them all. He mourns, he regrets, he remembers.
Even now, he still doesn't completely understand what went down that fateful night, aside from it being the main origin of Dark's hatred. Wilford can't bring himself to feel angry at Mark. After all, it has been decades since the incident and they've changed dramatically from that time. Wilford was a strong advocate of "forgive and forget", especially the "forget" part. Even so, he can't ignore the ache in his chest at the loss of the two people he loved and still loves.
Wilford finds himself trudging up the stairs to his old bedroom almost purely out of habit. He sits on the edge of his dusty bed with a loud creak. The box underneath it waits in trepidation. Wil sighs, remembering but wanting to forget. He remembers the photos.
He kneels by the bedside, unsure. Wil doesn't know if he could bear seeing those ghosts of his past. Memories are fluid and subjective, but these were tangible remnants: incriminating evidence of his affection. Wilford still carries a torch for them, and he will continue to hold it even as it burns down to his hands.
He slowly pulls the container out from under the bed. The box is nostalgic, yet glad for the touch of its creator's hands. Wilford carefully lifts up the lid to not disturb the layer of dust on top and sets it aside. Everything is painfully the same. The newer pictures from Celine's wedding sits on top of the older snapshots of their past, like layers of rock gradually being built over time.
Wilford carefully takes the photos out and displays them on the floor semi-chronologically almost mechanically. There were over a hundred images, layers alternating between Damien and Celine, Celine and Damien. He stares at the finished work. Some of the pictures were crisp and almost new, others were faded and almost to the point of falling apart: a timeline.
He feels completely numb. The pressure in his chest and stinging of his eyes told him he wanted to cry but he couldn't get the tears out. He wants to scream but found his voice caught in his throat. Why were there so many pictures? Wilford doesn't remember taking them all and each one made him recall a little more. He runs his fingers harshly through his hair, clutching his head as he curls up into a ball on the floor. Wil doesn't want to remember anymore. The box feels hollow, but most of all pity and sympathy for the one that filled it with years of love.
Suddenly Wilford sweeps all the photos into his arms and morosely stuffs them back into the container. The timeline is jumbled and chaotic now: a perfect reflection of his mental state. He picks up the box of memories and races to the bathroom. He pours the pictures into the white porcelain sink and tosses the empty box aside. If the box had a mouth, it would be yelling at Wil to stop. But of course, it can't do anything.
Wilford pulls a metal lighter out of his pocket and flips the top open. With shaky hands he repeatedly tries to flick it on, the soft scraping sound and his ragged breathing the only sounds in the room. He works frantically, eyes wide and darting from one place to the next. A small flame ignites in his hand. Before he can think to regret it, he drops the lighter into the sink. The papers ignite.
He studies the fire and stands motionlessly in front of the sink, his eyes stinging from the smoke. The room starts to fill with the sharp smell of burning plastic and ash. The photos crackle and pop, the smiling faces cracking and smoldering until it becomes a lump of black. The flames rise higher, further destroying and melting the images until they all blend into a charred mass. Wilford stands there for what felt like hours. The flames eventually die down until only ashen remnants and orangey embers remain. Tendrils of smoke radiates from the burnt remains like an offering. It feels like murder.
Wilford's eyes water and his lungs sting, and not from the smoke. The box expects this. If it had eyes, it would be crying. Wil sits on the edge of the bathtub, burying his head in his hands. And finally, for the first time in a long time, he lets himself cry.
The pictures aren't completely destroyed however. Their memories still remain burned into Wil's heart even when his head forgets. They live on in the locked drawer of negatives in Dark's office and a sealed box under Dark's bed with a cane and a small black veil.
Dark had them developed. On that same anniversary of the incident that created him, he lets himself look at the pictures spread out on his desk. He stares at them for hours: the candid Celines and Damiens and childhood photos. It was like holding onto a physical manifestation of his past and the people he once were, his whole entire life drawn out in only a series of snapshots. It emanates a lifetime of love and longing, the likes of which Dark didn't even know Wilford was capable of.
He only understands vaguely what they mean to William- maybe still Wilford. Dark doesn't know what to do with this information. He decides to keep it to himself for now, at least until Wilford was at a stable enough point to talk about it (which in all likelihood never may come). Things could have ended up so differently, and yet here they were.
As the memories flood back, Dark can't help feel a surging wave of rage at Mark for causing this. He cries. She screams. The entity writhes and hisses.
They mourn.
They regret.
They remember.