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Chapter Text

The sound of her crying broke his heart. 

Arthur held his daughter—light as a sparrow on his knee—and rocked her gently back and forth, swabbing her tiny face with his handkerchief. 

“Shshsh… just wait for a little while longer, darling.”

Bravely, she gave an enormous sniff and rubbed her fists into her eyes. 

“When?” she warbled, and his chest clenched. 

“Soon. Any minute now.”

Arthur, sighing, checked his watch. They’d been waiting by the door for the past twenty minutes, him fidgeting in his best suit and coat while she clung to him with a look on her face so desperately tragic that he was tempted to call off the entire evening and stay here forever, rocking his baby and humming her lullabies. 

But he needed to attend this meeting—more of a dinner really, with two recording executives. Their studio had offered a welcome sum for this new song contract, enough to keep her in fresh diapers and new shoes until she inevitably outgrew them. God, she was growing up so fast. Already talking and forming opinions. Figuring out who she was, what she desired. Making demands. 

“Want now!” she wailed and burst into fresh tears, all bravery forgotten. 

Best suit be damned, he dropped the sodden handkerchief and mopped her tears with his shirt sleeve. 

“Do you want to hear the story about the three Billy goats?” he suggested.

She quieted into hiccups as she smeared her wet gluey face into his jacket. 

“There once lived three Billy Goats named Gruff,” he began. He bounced her on her knee and rubbed her back in gentle circles. 

“They needed to cross a bridge over a raging river, to get to the lovely valley where they could feast to their heart’s content. But under the bridge lived a mean old troll, with ugly yellow eyes. The youngest Billy Goat Gruff bravely began crossing the bridge, his little cloven hooves going ‘trap trap trap,’”

 He jiggled her up and down, eliciting the tiniest burbling giggle. 

“And from underneath the bridge came—”

The door knocked three times. 

Faroe’s head shot up, eyes wide and gleaming. She wriggled backwards off his lap and leaped to the door. 

“Open!” She demanded. 

“Yes princess,” sighed Arthur and opened the door. 

The man standing on his stoop already had his arms out, a delighted Faroe careening herself into his embrace as he lifted her up over his head with a booming laugh. 

 Arthur stared him down with cold daggers. “You’re late.”

John shrugged, already hoisting Faroe onto his shoulders. 

“The trains were delayed. You might want to hurry if you want to get to your meeting on time.”

“Crumpets,” Arthur cursed and leaned across the broad shoulders to plant a bristly kiss on his daughter’s cheek. 

“Scratchy,” she complained. 

“That’s me. The scratchy man,” he sighed. “If you weren’t such a convenient sitter, I’d resent you for stealing her heart. You know she waited by the clock all day waiting for you? She wouldn’t stop crying when five o’ clock came and went.”

John’s gaze melted and he plucked Faroe off from his shoulders, swinging her in his arms to her delighted shrieks. 

“I’ll make sure to be here early from now on.”

“You’d better.”

Distracted, Arthur checked to make sure he had everything—hat, coat, scarf, briefcase containing his precious compositions—and was halfway to the stairs before John cleared his throat and thrust something at him. 

“For the casualty of my tardiness.”

Arthur looked down at the sticky globs his daughter had left on his lapel. 

“Thanks,” he said and grabbed the yellow handkerchief. “I should be back by nine. At the latest. Her dinner’s in the ice box, remember to cut up the beans so she doesn’t choke. No milk before bed. And make sure her rabbit is tucked in before she is or else she’ll never—”

“Arthur, the train.”

“Right.”

He blew a kiss to Faroe and dashed down the stairs. She watched him leave with a deepening divot in her baby fat forehead, pudgy fingers wiggling in farewell. 

“Daddy gone,” she stated. 

“Yes,” John concurred and closed the door behind them. 

Arthur stepped into his darkened apartment, staggering wearily across the threshold. The night commute had been murder, the dinner a tense affair as both executives—twins, as far as he could tell—dissolved the evening into a passive aggressive dispute over copyrights and percentage ownership. He’d stayed mostly quiet throughout it all, trying to smile pleasantly and swallow forkfuls of his undercooked steak. 

But it was done. He patted his briefcase, bearing the precious contract—a substantial one with a commission bonus that would keep his little darling warm through the winter. 

He hung up his coat, scarf, and hat, then crept across the floorboards, prepared to fall face-first onto the couch—and caught himself on the edge of his toes as there was no couch, not where it should have been. 

He glanced about, confused, and by the watery moonlight beaming through the window, saw the shadow of it propped against the far wall, turned on its side with its cushions excavated into a veritable mountain. A blanket cloaked over it all—the large duvet from his bed—forming a draped shelter from within which he could hear rumbling snores. 

“For Christ’s—”

Arthur got to his knees and lifted open a flap. There was John, his bulk condensed into this narrow space like a bear hibernating in a cave, and there was Faroe, cuddled into the crook of his elbow, a cub fast asleep.

Arthur placed his face in his palm and resisted the urge to groan. Now he’d have to carefully extract her to her bed, and if the slightest jostle woke her, he’d have a bloody time getting her back to sleep. 

Usually when he returned late from gigs or extended hours in the studio, Arthur would come home to find John dozing in the window seat in Faroe’s room. He recalled nights of tiptoeing in, opening the door a crack to see John, cheek in hand and elbow on the sill as he kept a dutiful bleary eyed watch on his ward. 

They would usually chat for another half hour or so afterwards, reminiscing on memories from their childhood (“Remember when I pushed you too hard off that swing set and you went flying? I thought you’d sprouted wings, Arthur, I thought you were never going to come down.” “And then I did. Landed in a hospital bed in a coma for a week, no thanks to you.”) 

Sometimes Arthur broke open the good whiskey, just to celebrate if he’d had a particularly good gig. John tended to tense up after he watched Faroe, the responsibility and dedication with which he approached his uncleship bearing heavy on his broad shoulders—but two fingers of the good stuff always brought him back to his usual jovial self, enough so Arthur felt comfortable sending him home with gratitude on his conscience. 

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, old friend,” Arthur usually said after a shot or two himself. “I mean, the odds of us running into each other in Arkham of all places! I was so sure you were going to waltz off to Spain, open up that detective agency you always went on about when we were boys.”

To which John usually gave an easy chuckle and a, “You know me, my strategy would be to shake the guy first and get the clues later. I’d solve nothing but make a lot of enemies.”

Then they’d laugh. Maybe meet for lunch later in the week or a movie—something appropriate for Faroe, who would riot if she knew Arthur was meeting her beloved “Unkie John” without her. 

Yes. A blessing in his life, to be sure, a stalwart friend to him and his daughter, a shoulder to lean on. 

Arthur glared at his best friend now, thinking of a dozen curses to fling at him when this mess was settled. 

Gingerly, Arthur removed layer after layer of the cushion fortress, doing his best not so much as squeak the floorboards. Approaching Faroe from above, he reached down, slipping his slender fingers with agonizing slowness around her shoulders and legs, then strained as he hoisted her up into his arms in a deadlift while keeping her neck cradled. 

For one horrible moment, he stumbled over a pillow on the way to her room. She stirred and he internally mourned the sleep he’d be missing that night, but she only turned into his chest and breathed a dreamy sigh. 

After another delicate operation, a smooth tuck in only capable of the most experienced of fathers, he’d gotten his sleeping daughter into her bed under her blankets with her rabbit under her arm without waking her up in the slightest. 

Pleased with himself, Arthur turned and nearly tripped backwards at the sight of John’s hulking black silhouette in the doorway. 

“Jesus,” Arthur wheezed once the door was safely closed. “What the fuck John, don’t LOOM like that.”

“I wasn't looming,” John argued groggily. “I was watching .”

“Well don’t do that either. Christ above. You’ve always moved like a shadow, but you almost made me eat my heart.”

“Sorry.”

They both spoke in a half-whisper, rasping at a register that wouldn’t be detected by toddler ears. 

Arthur surveyed the mess of couch cushions then turned an accusatory eye on John. Even in the near-darkness, he could see the sheepish glance askance, his friend avoiding his gaze. 

“Sorry,” John repeated. “I uh—she wanted to play castle and…”

He gestured. 

Arthur ran a heavy hand across his mustache. 

“Help me get this cleaned up.”

He and John tidied up the apartment, returning the couch to its rightful place and clearing the forgotten remnants of the dinner table. 

Arthur placed the last plate in the sink and said, “Well then. Appreciate your help, as always. I suppose it’s my turn to apologize for coming back so late.”

John waved a hand, stifling a yawn. 

“It’s no—“ his face froze. “Ah. The trains.”

“The damn trains!” Arthur squinted at his watch. “The last one left—bloody hell, a half hour ago.”

“Yes.”

“And far too late to walk… to…”

A strange expression crossed Arthur’s face and he turned to John. 

“I—that’s odd. I don’t know where you live. I don’t think I’ve ever been to your place before.”

“Oh it’s nothing special,” said John quickly. A tad too quickly. Arthur frowned. 

“You—do have a home to go to? I don’t just—banish you to some dusky corner of the city every time we part ways?”

“Of course not,” John scoffed. “I live on the east side. Near the warehouse district. We’ve definitely talked about this.”

“Much too far of a walk then,” Arthur mused. “Well. There’s nothing else for it. You’ll have to spend the night.”

He turned to the couch, hand up mid-gesture before his arm lowered to his side. 

“The warehouse district.”

“What?”

“The warehouse district. That’s not on the east side. It’s on the south.”

“Oh. Is it? I’ve always been bad with directions, you know,” John made a dismissive gesture. Arthur narrowed his eyes at him. 

“No you’re not. You were always the one to direct us places when we were kids. Like that time when we—when we got lost in the…”

Arthur put a hand to his forehead. “When we… the forest. The cave.”

“Ah— ah yes the forest and the cave,” John said enthusiastically. “We got so lost, we were out all day and the sun was setting. Remember how frightened you were? I thought you’d never stop crying.”

“That was you,” Arthur said. The memory returned in full clarity and that strange sensation—that disorienting sense of jamais vu, like he’d at the same time remembered the memory and hadn’t experienced it at all—disappeared in a flash. “That was you, you underhanded manipulator. Don’t try to misdirect me—I distinctly remember you pouring tears and snot into my shoulder.”

They shared a warm burst of nostalgia, chuckles erupting from them both in the hushed apartment. 

“Anyways,” Arthur said. “You’re definitely spending the night. We’ll have to work a way around getting you out the door in the early morning before you-know-who sees.”

He gestured conspiratorially at Faroe’s door. 

“You know the rules in this home. No swears, no music past 8:00 PM, and no watching Uncle John leave.”

John nodded with an affectionate smile. 

“I’m aware of the consequences if I don’t make my exit fast enough—I’ll be sure not to overstay my welcome.”

Arthur placed a hand on John’s shoulder, all irritation and weariness lost as he reminisced on the good fortune of having such a friend, such a companion to depend on, such a source of happiness and companionship especially after… After. 

“Arthur?”

He shook himself. 

“Ah. I suppose it’s later than I thought. I can’t keep ahold of my train of thought.”

“It’s old age,” John teased. “The gangly youth I knew wouldn’t hesitate to stay up until the small hours, reading adventure books.”

“If I’ve aged, then so have you,” Arthur returned as he rummaged in the hall closet. “Poorly, if I may add.”

John smirked as he helped him haul a spare pillow and blanket from the top shelf. 

“Rather thin,” Arthur mused. “I know you run warm. But it is January after all. Can’t have you catching a cold on me.” 

“Really Arthur, it’s fi—” John began, but Arthur had already made his way to his bedroom.

“I’ve got an old knit thing stowed away somewhere—Bella said her mother made it, back in the old country. Wanted Faroe to come back from the hospital swaddled in it, she requested that…” His voice died. He stopped in the doorway of the bedroom, back turned to John. 

“...That. Very. It’s January.”

“What?”

Arthur abruptly strode to the nearest window, craning his neck down at the street below. He then immediately bolted to the door of the apartment and wrenched it open. 

“Arthur!”

John lunged after him but he was already down the stairwell, taking them three at a time. 

“Arthur, stop! You’ll trip!”

Arthur heard the stumbling thuds of John tearing after him but he broke into a dead run and hurtled down the final flight, reaching the door out of the building and careening into the night. 

“Arthur!” John called. “Where are you—“

The night air was cool, not too cold. Had he been wearing a coat earlier? Yes, and a scarf. It was winter. One wore a coat in winter. But the air was comfortable, not biting, not so much as a harsh wind. And the trees—the cars—

Arthur whirled. He could see John standing on the far end of the empty street—a dark dark silhouette against the moonlight. 

 He burst into manic laughter. 

“Stop it Arthur,” John called. “You’re scaring me. Come back inside.”

“The snow. You forgot the snow, John,” He yelled. He erupted into a fresh fit of humorless laughter, coughing and hacking, bending over with the effort. His cackles echoed like a madman’s chorus between the buildings. 

John stepped towards him. “Arthur, the people—“

“The people? What about them?”

Arthur took a few stumbling steps backwards: hands up in front of him. His breathing came hoarse and ragged. He knew he was hyperventilating, shirt soaked in sweat, every organ inside of him from his lungs to his heart imploding from the inside out. 

Bella. Faroe. Oh god Faroe. 

“There’s no snow. There ARE NO PEOPLE,” Arthur roared. “The dinner—I met with them less than an hour ago—but I can’t recall their faces. I can’t remember any of their faces—not the waiter, not all the bloody people on the train. It’s mid winter. Where’s the snow? Where’s the chill in the air? Where are the lights in the apartments,” he gestured around them— “A-and the late night strollers and the streetlamps and the taxis?!”

“Maybe people happened to turn in early,” John suggested. “There are no streetlamps on this street. And it’s been a warm winter. Remember—

“Stop!” Arthur skittered backwards, hands over his ears. “Stop, don’t you FUCKING dare tell me to remember. Because then I’ll remember. I’ll remember how warm the winter’s been this year. I’ll remember that the warehouse district is on the east side, not the south side. I’ll remember a hundred little details that—don’t match up. Everything wrong with this— but I WON’T remember,” his breath caught. “Her mother. Bella. I can’t—You—You,“ his voice cracked and he clapped a trembling hand to his mouth.

John only stared. From this distance, Arthur could see nothing else but the tall outline of his figure, but he swore he could catch the glint of his friend’s eyes reflecting the perfect moonlight on this perfect night. 

“This is you. This is. All you. We’ve done this before. You made me forget her. You—you made me feel like it was just… you and me and… and this life and Faroe and… Are you—are you even my friend? Why can’t I—”

“Of course I am.” John’s head tilted and Arthur could see now the half shadowed desperation in his face, the remorse welling in tears winking down his face. 

“I—Goddamnit Arthur I’m trying to PROTECT you—just come back to the apartment—I’ll leave early in the morning and—and Faroe—remember, you wanted to take her ice skating tomorrow.”

Arthur was suddenly overwhelmed with longing. He could perfectly picture the silver frozen lake, lacing the tiny skates onto his daughter’s feet, holding her up until she could take her first hesitant glide—the pride that would well in him, the joy at watching her so triumphant, so happy, so confident in maneuvering across that frozen lake. That frozen water. And everything dark, deep, suffocating under it. The sound of rushing rushing rushing water. 

Arthur gave a cry and fell to his knees. John ran towards him, clutching his shoulders. 

“Arthur! No, Arthur! No it was—“ tears now poured freely down John’s face as anguish contorted his features. “It was almost so perfect—you were doing so well, I thought this would be the one—”

Arthur blinked—snow was now building up in his peripheral vision, snow piling on the trees, over the cars and buildings, tire trodden slush in the street like it had always been there. 

The snow settled over them too, John half cradling half clasping him and Arthur limp, suddenly overtaken with the sound of water. And lullabies. 

Faroe. Faroe. 

She cried for him. He could now hear, distantly, his baby girl, calling for her father, asking him to come home. Her voice wailed down the street, now completely buried in snow, the sparkling white drifts meters high, but all of it no cooler than ash. 

“Arthur,” John begged. “Please.”

Arthur focused his gaze into the face of his dearest childhood friend, and spat with full venom, “Fuck you, John.”

John roared. The world disappeared. Arthur knew nothing but grief, terrible devouring grief as he strained for the final echoes of his daughter calling for him. Unanswered. 

“Shame.”

Kayne perched atop the mutilated carcass of a herald, busily braiding the gore-soaked yellow ribbons trailing from its costume—or what was left of it.

“Shame. Shame shame shame shame shame. That was a good one, Canary. Really. The ol’ childhood friends bit? Whoo,” he tossed an arm over his chest in false dramatics. “Very touching. How else to explain the, mmmm, let’s say natural intimacy of your presence? The last one where you tried playing the ‘help me I’m new to town’ shtick? He got out of that one lickety split. This one though—how long was that, one week? If it wasn’t for your utter lack of experience with Massachusetts winters, you might have skated by for another few days. Or not. I’d rate it a 7/10, at any rate. Oopsie!”

John did not endeavor a reply. Kayne abandoned the braid, kicked the carcass’s two halves aside, and strolled up to the unfathomable presence that was the King in Yellow. 

“Awww, are you pouting? Too upset for a ‘Begone!’” he lowered his voice in mock imitation. “Or, even a ‘shut up, Kayne.’”

“Shut up, Kayne,” John moaned.

“Aha!” crowed the bloodstained god. “ There’s the old lemon sourpuss. So, what will it be this time? I have to say, I’ve got a few ideas myself for what you could try. Always wanted to see you and Artie as cowboys. Strangely never something that came up in all of the countless universes you exist in.”

John did not reply. His tentacles—or what the mortal eye would perceive as tentacles—writhed in agitation, undulating from within the billowing folds of his yellow cloak, less of a construct, more of an imagined reality, visual space translating the structure of an anoetic monstrosity, the reality-cracking incomprehensible might of a god atop his rightful throne in the Dreamlands. 

In the palm of his hands—human hands, hands willed into creation, into physicality— he cradled the unconscious body of Arthur Lester.

“He’s so small,” said John. “So…vulnerable.”

“Kinda cute, right? Like a scorpion,” Kayne said with some disinterest. He leaned against one of the tentacles, John too morose to push him away. “Although—that was you , wasn’t it? In your little clumsy duo? And good ol’ Artie was your faithful frog,” he snickered. “Paddling through the river of nightmares, full of faith that you wouldn’t sting. But sting you did. And yet! And yet!” he burst into a raucous cackle. “He forgave you, didn’t he? Over and over and over—didn’t he? Didn’t he?”

“Yes,” whispered John. His voice reverberated in an impossible chorus of dis-harmonic echoes. 

“Yes. He. Did.” Kayne enunciated. Because he just can’t help it, can he? Look at you. Look at you! The King in Yellow,” Kayne twirled as he did so, a crude imitation of the herald he’d dismembered only minutes ago. “Restored to your full power. One hundo percent John, and none of the drawbacks! A helpless voice no longer, oh no, you sir, have all the power you could possibly desire! And yet!” Another peal of laughter, this one sharper, crueler, than the last. “And YET! Here you are. Squeezing yourself into this small man’s small life. How many more turns around will you go before you realize that it’s just not going to work, Goldie?” 

“It will,” John insisted, more to himself than in reply. “If I had just… made him forget about the blanket—”

“Ah, the blanket. See, that’s the weird thing about memories. They just. Won’t stay entirely forgotten! Now won’t they? Trying to erase the root of his pain with the sort-of-wife by NIXING her from his reality entirely? Now let me ask you, what were you going to do about explaining where the kiddo came from, hm? Arthur certainly didn’t pop her out himself.”

“I—I was going to work that out.”

“Sure you would have, champ. “Or maybe…” His tone took on a simpering quality. “Maybe you just can’t face the fact that whatever dream you give him—whatever paradise you create—he’s just too stubborn to accept it. He’ll Sherlock his way out! Rat in a maze, as they say. And each time he’ll hate you. Just. A little. More.”

“That’s ENOUGH!”

John screamed. The enormity of his semi-corporeal form shuddered, shedding nauseating rolls of shadow that doused the plateau in a thick black fog, his many many eyes alight in yellow flame.

“You—you—you knew this would happen! You knew when you gave everything back  I—”

Kayne shrugged. He stood untouched by the fog, his very presence clearing a wide circle around him as he evaluated John with a too-wide grin. “You’ve been tamed, Johnnie boy. It happens to the best of wolves. You’ve ever seen a Pekinese return to the pack?” he guffawed. “What is it they say? To be loved is to be changed. Dangerously. Permanently.”

John remained silent. Time had no meaning here, not for gods, not for mortals. For seconds, hours, years, as Kayne stood smirkingly by, he stared down at Arthur, the full force of his attention bathing the scarred limbs, the clean suit, the overgrown hair, in a warm glow. 

“Oh, Arthur,” he murmured, half plea, half croon. “Please. Stop fighting me. Just be safe. Be happy. No more horrors. No more darkness. No more pain. Live a beautiful dream. And stay with me.”

“OoooOOH, the drama! What WILL he do next folks?” Kayne interrupted with jazz hands. “Well! Gotta skadoodle, but it’s been fun! See ya, Troll. I’ll be back to hear how the next disaster goes. And the next. And the next.” He walked off into the black mist, the cleared space around him closing behind his retreating scarlet footprints. His voice faded into a mocking echo: “And the next. And the next. And the next…”

Chapter Text

“You’re lying to me.”

John’s reply was an irritated grunt, somewhere between a growl and a cough as he swallowed a forkful of hashbrowns. 

“N’mnot.”

“Yes you are. Stop horking down your breakfast,” Arthur shoved the plate aside, leaning across the table to make deliberate eye contact. John’s warm brown eyes, usually shadowed by his glowering brow and loose locks of thick hair, darted aside. 

Arthur sighed and tapped a nimble rhythm against the salt shaker. “You’re a terrible liar and I’m not bloody blind. I know you’re hiding something.”

John swallowed mid-chew, clearing his throat uncomfortably. The tense silence drew out, both of them only peripherally aware of the clamoring conversations, the shouted orders, the hectic to and fro from the kitchen as the diner’s morning rush buzzed around their isolated booth. 

“I—” he began, then trailed off and began again. “I…”

“Cat got your tongue?” a familiar voice chortled, and Parker came to sit beside him, laden with pancakes and coffee. “Not to worry, your attorney has arrived.” Parker narrowed his eyes and returned Arthur’s penetrating stare in mock austerity, interlacing his fingers. 

“Now Mr. Lester, what gives you the right to interrogate my client in such a way? Surely you are aware that in so public of a place, you are violating his right to speak in confidence. Not to mention assaulting him with that ugly glower of yours.”

Arthur scowled and leaned back. 

“Fuck off, Parker.”

“Oh? With such violent language I’m afraid my client will have to press charges,” he clapped a hand on John’s shoulder. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” mumbled John, and forked chunks of omelette into his mouth. 

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Spare me. Parker, he’s lying about something and you know damn well what happened last time he kept something from us. We’re supposed to be a team, ” Arthur finished with some pointed emphasis as he jabbed a finger at John, who seemed very invested in a smudge on the table. 

Parker cast a glance at John and cocked his head at Arthur. “Is a man not allowed his secrets? I could remind you that a certain someone didn’t tell us he was married until a solid year into our little enterprise.”

“That’s different,” Arthur said quickly, and protested as Parker raised a smug eyebrow. “It is! Bella and I—”

“Or that you have a child,” interjected a fourth voice, and Noel slipped in beside Arthur. “Or that you composed a good half of the songs they play on the radio—ah over here doll,” he caught the attention of a waitress with an easygoing wave. “I’ll have black coffee and the Texan Surprise. Bacon, over easy, whole grain, and only pleasant surprises from you.” 

He winked, and the woman’s face blushed a furious scarlet as she scribbled everything down. 

“You certainly took your time getting here,” Arthur grumbled as soon as she’d left. “Did you go out of your way to flirt with every woman upstate?”

“Nah, upstaters don’t waltz with us salt-of-the-earthers,” Noel said with the twinge of a laugh in his voice. “Although I did perform a lovely tango with a heckler in the lower east side. Fellow seemed to think I was up to no good.”

“To no fault of your own, and certainly having nothing to do with the fact that you’re a shifty cop,” Parker teased. “Lower east side, eh? Following up on that lead we found last week?”

Noel shrugged with a loose smile. “Just some mild surveillance. Thought I’d poke around, see if that address would pull any shady characters.”

“Like you?” John muttered and Noel guffawed.

“This guy,” he shook his head. “What’s with the puppy-eyes? Ah,” he smirked at Arthur’s glare. “The ol’ chew out. So what was it this time?”

“Domestic spat,” said Parker. “As usual.”

Arthur, his face growing more incredulous with every jab, glowered at them all and sulked over his mug. 

“I don’t understand why I’m the one being criticized for seeking some goddamn honesty in this group.”

“Because, Artie,” Parker gave him a smile, and this one was genuine, understanding, gentler at the edges. “Trust isn’t about complete transparency. It’s about faith. John has your back just as much as we do. That doesn’t change just because he’s entitled to a little privacy.”

“Now order something solid for that poor scarecrow you call a body, and let’s get cracking,” said Noel. “The caffeine-and-nothing special? Again?”

Arthur sighed, actively avoiding the very pointed I told you so , look John threw at him.

The table soon overflowed with plates, mugs, and papers. Parker pulled a folder out from his coat, splaying out new clues he’d picked up from the past few days: a suspicious receipt, an eyewitness statement, a promising newspaper clipping. Noel filled them in with notes taken during his surveillance that morning. 

“No one matching the description,” he mused between mouthfuls of Texan Surprise. “But I did spot a bloke who could be the cousin. Came down the street like he had a conscience tailing him. Didn’t enter the apartment, but hesitated at the entrance. Fiddled in his pockets and moved on. I followed him as far as the power plant—evidently, he works there.”

“Interesting,” said Arthur. He had his eyes trained on a notepad in front of him, scrawling chicken scratch concept maps. “That must have something to do with the blackout prior to the disappearance—seemed too convenient to be a coincidence. John, where’s that permit?”

John sifted through the growing mess and yanked out a sheet of carbon paper. 

“Here.”

Arthur perused it and added a snarled scribble to his notes. 

“May 11th,” he mused out loud. “Our Mr. Fairchild is approved for an electrical permit, given that he is the property manager and has a right to install new wiring in his building. May 14th, a power outage sweeps a block containing one of Mr. Fairchild’s properties—which alone remains unaffected. May 17th, Mr. Fairchild disappears without a trace. Neither his secretary nor his wife, both of whom he holds, er, intimate confidence with, can ascertain his whereabouts after he left his office building precisely at 5:15 PM.”

All four of them lapsed into silence, working through the strange holes in the case.

“Why would a hoity toit like him bother to apply for the license himself?” Noel queried. “Big man working in a big office. Owns half a dozen properties. A secretary on one arm, loyal wife on the other. 2.5 children. A man who is used to convenience. He would have hired somebody if he needed work done.”

“Right,” said John. “And we found paperwork dated last year showing that he did just that when the circuits in his personal residence needed repairing—didn’t we Arthur?”

“Yes,” Arthur affirmed. He had a deep furrow in his brow, concentration razor sharp as he contemplated the indecipherable scrawls on his notepad. “So there was no reason for him to apply for the permit unless he was working on something in secret. Making specific changes that he couldn’t risk anybody else knowing about.”

“And now we know his cousin works at the power plant,” Parker added. “Which means the blackout was most definitely not a coincidence. But no robberies,” he flipped through his own notebook. “Nothing reported stolen, no murder, no crimes, not so much as candy stolen from a baby. So what was the point of knocking the power?”

They exchanged theories for another hour, their table gradually looking more and more like a crime scene itself—evidence and breakfast and pens and mugs and ketchup bottles all swimming in a madness that spilled over into their laps, their conversation no better as their theories collapsed in on themselves in repetitive circles. The hours passed. 

“Sorry boys,” their waitress came up to them with an apologetic smile. “We’re closing briefly to prep for lunch.” 

“Thanks, doll. We’ll get out of your hair,’” Noel said breezily. 

The four of them gathered their things, careful to swap relevant files and distribute them appropriately among the four of them—then they stepped out into the afternoon, stretching and blinking in the sunlight. 

“Can’t thank you boys enough for all your hard work,” said Noel as they waited for a cab. “It’s only a matter of time before this one shakes loose, like all the others. Consulting you three is the best decision the NYPD has ever made—not that they know it.”

“Yeah, about that,” Parker noted drily. “Do you think you’ll be giving us the credit for this one for once?”

Noel’s demeanor shifted to one of genuine apology, the serious air that came with his profession cutting through the layers of lackadaisical charm. 

“I’m sorry lads. It’s selfish, I know. I wish the ‘ol captain was more open to consulting outside of the force. Aside from rightfully giving you a decent payout, there’s…”

Parker’s face took on a bitter cast but Arthur laid a hand on his elbow.

“It’s alright, Noel. We understand. Our reputation is decent enough without the extra publicity and so long as we get compensated, that’s all that matters.” 

“Alright,” Noel smiled. “But at the very least, I can get you boys into my office after hours for our next work session. No need to risk dripping bacon grease on the evidence,” he chuckled. 

Parker nodded and said, “We should plan our next meeting and figure out how we’re gonna get the cousin to talk. He seems crucial in all this.”

“Maybe we could pretend we’re Jehova’s Witnesses. Show up on his doorstep and ask the typical invasive questions,” Arthur suggested in a deadpan and John snorted. 

“Or our good detective here,” Parker clicked his tongue. “Could pull his weight a bit and nab us a couple of uniforms. Have us scare the fellow into squealing.”

“Not gonna happen, bud.”

“Gas leak,” offered John.

“Urgent telegram.”

“Nosy neighbor.”

“Visiting distant relative. Cousin’s cousin’s cousin.” 

A sly grin crossed Noel’s face.

“Or we could always—”

“We’re not forming a barbershop quartet.”

Noel shrugged with a sly grin, as if to say not yet . 

“It’s only inevitable. We’ve got ourselves a bass,” he patted John. “A tenor,” a jab at Parker, “A baritone,” indicating himself, “And,” his eyebrows wiggled at Arthur. “Our leading musical genius.”

“Fuck, no,” Arthur protested. “Piano is one thing; I don’t sing.”

“Me neither,” Parker’s lip curled in distaste. 

“I wouldn’t mind,” John said after a beat. “So long as we don’t sing something too humiliating. Maybe if we’re bad enough we could torture him into giving us information.

Noel was still laughing by the time John, Arthur, and Parker got into a taxi and peeled away.

The three of them returned to their office. It was a narrow space, previously a realtor’s office, sitting atop the third floor of an old crumbling building on an old crumbling street. After relocating from Arkham, they’d had to downsize significantly (not that they had much to downsize from in the first place) and were nearly shoulder to shoulder with each other as they got back to work pinning up material on the case board. 

Arthur took five steps into the adjacent room that also served as Parker’s living space to make some tea at a kitchenette while John and Parker got busy separating their dead ends clues from their more promising leads.

 “And when we blow this one wide open,” Parker continued a complaint that had drawn out all the way throughout the taxi ride and up the stairs. “What do you think’s gonna happen? His smug mug in the papers, talking everyone through the clever steps that we took to solve it.”

“At least we get a check for it,” Arthur shrugged. “And he’s honest, he doesn’t steal our work and run. He actually credits us. I’m sure he would publicly if he wouldn’t get fired for it.”

“Lousy detective,” Parker muttered as he scanned through a personnel list nicked long ago from the municipal office. “If he was actually good at his job, he wouldn’t need us.”

“And if we could find regular clients, we wouldn’t need him,” John said lowly. 

“I know you weren’t keen on the move,” Parker acknowledged his sour tone. “But I still believe it’ll pay off. Arkham was too small for us—the cases we received had little range past ‘stalk my cheating husband wife,’ or ‘I lost my cat six months ago.’” At least here, we get to work with real cases.”

“Parker my friend,” Arthur commented lighty. “You take the crown for quickest to change his tune.”

Parker scoffed, but smiled in defeat.

“I promise Artie,” he thumped him on the back. “This will pay off. We’ll get more and more higher profile cases, work our way up, get a proper place of business, and then you’ll be able to move your girls up here to the big city. No more long weekend commutes. Maybe a quaint place upstate near the park. I know how much your little one loves ducks.”

“She does love ducks,” Arthur agreed. He turned away so Parker wouldn’t see the strain to his smile, the squint around his eyes as he mustered the effort to say, “Thanks Parker. I appreciate you saying that.” 

When evening fell, after a hasty stovetop meal of canned beans and soup followed by another long paperwork sifting session, John and Arthur left the office and walked a few streets down to John’s place. 

They returned home. It was strange how quickly Arthur had adopted the familiarity of using that phrase—home, not in reference to the lovely apartment in a different city where his wife and daughter slept, but here—a tiny studio rented above a bodega in the lower west side. A space he shared with John… who was he kidding. A space that he had invaded . John, who already had so little, had generously allowed him into his home and Arthur had burrowed like some kind of parasite, like an earworm, devouring space and pity and—

They stepped into the flat. John immediately went to the washroom, no more than a closet outfitted with the bare necessities. Arthur collapsed on the couch by the window—he was so exhausted he could do no more than shrug off his coat before he landed face-first into the cushions. He was feeling lower and lower on energy these days, and his left side ached. He flexed his left hand and foot, just to make sure he could. Sometimes he woke up to find them completely numb and had to flail them about before he could get any feeling in them. He thought idly if he might be having a prolonged stroke. He wondered, even more passively, if he should see a doctor about it.

That’s just what his family needed. A sick crippled father, a deadbeat husband, a useless burden. Just as he was an interloper here, with John. 

His dark thoughts spiraled, low and seductive. He was a sorry excuse for an investigator, nothing more than a rain cloud in their quartet. The rest of them didn’t need him, not really—they just strung him along for the sake of it, like a mascot, like a child. He thought of Parker’s irritatingly kind tone that morning, telling him that they had his back. 

That reminded him of the argument. Of the fact that John had lied to him.

The second John stepped out of the washroom Arthur shot up and accosted him with a piercing stare.

“John.”

“Arthur?” John picked up Arthur’s coat in a crumpled heap on the floor, and hung it up alongside his on a rack. 

“You know what I’m going to bring up.” 

John stiffened. His large hands, surprisingly gentle as he dusted off the fabric, trembled ever so slightly. 

Seeing this, Arthur’s chest twinged and he exhaled long and slow, leaning his forehead into his hand.

“Look—John, you’re my best friend.”

“I am?” The shocked tone alone startled Arthur into a smile, but it was the look on his friend’s face—the wide-eyed owlish expression, mouth slightly agape, that made Arthur burst into laughter. John’s face was a hard one, angry at default with the kind of harsh angles you expected of someone who had weathered a vicious life. He kept his dark hair long and loose when it wasn’t tied back. He towered above most people, and had a thick solid build that spoke of survival rather than vanity. In public, few dared to question him or even cross his path. This came in handy during the intimidation tactics that Parker was partial too (and often abused). 

All this just made moments like these, when he was caught off guard, all the more ridiculous. Now observing him half-shadowed in the darkened room, Arthur thought John looked a lot like a Frankenstenian creature, a large lumbering clueless thing brought to life with awe.  

“Yes, of course. Well, you and Parker.” 

Arthur didn’t fail to notice the slight fall of John’s face, the way he turned back to his task of fidgeting with the coats. Quickly he added, “John, I care about you. Very much. I haven’t known you for very long but I sometimes feel as if we’ve known each other for,” he gestured, searching for the words. “For lifetimes. I don’t know. I don’t know why I do but… I trust you.”

John grew very still. Arthur continued, “You and Parker may be my best friends but you’re my closest confidante. You—you opened your home to me John, you’ve seen the ugliest sides of me and have been nothing but generous and embracing—”

John turned, eyes downcast. Arthur wasn’t sure why he looked so morose. Why he looked like Arthur was telling him the exact opposite of what he was trying to convey. 

He had similar problems with Bella. Of feeling something he couldn’t put into words—gratitude for her companionship, admiration, respect, and affection—but not being able to capture that in a phrase that made sense, not “thank you” or “I appreciate you” or “why do you do it.” All he’d ever been able to do was aggravate her, or worse, make her look exactly like what John’s face was doing now—like he’d dropped her somehow, broken her in his clumsy failures at communicating. 

It was so much easier with Faroe. He looked at Faroe and felt nothing else but overwhelming adoration, a love that neither the highest heavens nor the deepest oceans could possibly contain, a love so unconditional, pure, and simple that everything made sense—everything felt right. 

Looking now at John, Arthur once again struggled with putting his words together. The familiar self loathing writhed in the pit of his stomach, telling him he was fucking it up, fucking it all up just like he had with Bella because he was Arthur Lester, incapable of having any kind of good thing without ruining it entirely . 

It was bad enough with Bella. He couldn’t do this with John too. 

“A—all I’m trying to say is—”

“Arthur, stop.”

John approached the couch. He sank down beside Arthur, not quite looking at him.

“I know what you’re trying to say. I know I’m…” John stopped and tried again. “I know I haven’t always been forthcoming with you. And that can be frustrating. I know it was a shock when you found out about my past—about prison and everything I did to get there. But you understand why I didn’t tell you.”

“I do. I was angry at first I admit but… I do.”

John took a breath and said, “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Arthur’s eyes welled with tears.

“John…”

“You are,” John said, fervently. “You saved me. You taught me to want more than what I had during that time. When I... did things to people in my anger and lust for power. You made me want to be human—not a criminal. A better man. To change. I never thought I could do that before I met you.”

What do you see in me ? What could you possibly see in a screw up like me?

“You made that decision yourself,” said Arthur. “You decided to change for the better. To leave that life behind. I’m proud of you.”

John smiled down at his folded hands.

“This morning. When you got angry. You asked me about the stranger I was talking to last night. The one who walked in while we were sleeping.”

“Yes.”

“And I told you it didn’t matter. That he was nobody.”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t lying. He really doesn’t matter. He—you could say he’s someone from my past. But it doesn’t matter and he won’t be bothering you or Parker or Noel or the investigation. He’s nobody.”

Arthur considered this. Considered John.

“Okay. I’ll drop it,” he finally said. John’s shoulders visibly sagged in relief.

“John, it’s not that I don’t trust you. I just don’t think I could stand the thought of you deliberately keeping something from me after everything we’ve been through. After how… vulnerable I’ve been with you and my own shame. If I trust you entirely, I only hope that you can do the same for me.”

John nodded slowly. 

“That being said Arthur—I really think you should go back. Back to your family.”

Arthur recoiled.

“What?”

“It’s not that I don’t want you here,” John clarified. “I know you mentioned feeling like a burden, but you’re not . Sometimes I feel selfish enjoying this, knowing you’re here, that we can keep each other company. But you don’t belong here with me. You belong with your real family. Bella. Faroe.” He spoke the syllables carefully, like they were marbles and not names.  

Arthur opened his mouth, then closed it, let out a long sigh, and seemed to deflate, hunching over in recognition of a point made. 

“I’m only saying this because I care about you too,” John said as he patted his back. “You’ll be happier with them than you could ever be in my world. If you really trust me, then… just know that that’s all I want. For you to be happy. ”

You’re a burden to him. Parasite .

“Likewise,” Arthur managed a smile. “I’ll be out of your space soon. I’ll talk to Bella. I’m due for a visit to see Faroe anyways.”

John nodded. Arthur nodded. They both nodded, awkwardly. Then Arthur got up, mumbling about getting ready for bed and John pulled out the spare cot from the closet. 

Chapter Text

Arthur is an idiot. 

John knows this factually. It is a truth weighed heavily into the hand that he presses over Arthur’s eyes as his most beloved friend tosses and moans in agony. 

Why. Why insist on torment. Why spit out the offering in his mouth, why return to the dark? 

The dream around them, this bubble of a reality, is a sculpted masterpiece, John’s divine fingertips imprinted into every detail, every plucked memory tuned to a piano wire precision. This is Arthur’s orchestra, John as conductor, and what a magnificent symphony it is. He has never given mortals such intricate gifts as these before.

Arthur should want for nothing. He should live richly, with satisfaction, supping of sweet delights, of the daily mundanities of a life without death, without pain. 

Except Arthur does not live with his family, no, he lives with John. And Arthur does not bask in the sunlight nor savor the taste of his meals, he starves for no goddamn reason. And he does not sleep easy. And he does not rest. No, Arthur fights . 

Arthur cries out, in fear, in pain—and John once again clamps a hand over his eyelids, drawing out the nightmare. It flicks out of Arthur’s tear ducts, his nostrils, his open mouth, as a pearly writhing mass, bloated like a maggot, which John catches, then crushes into nothing in his fist.

These dreams are pathetic—not John’s concoction, he would never manufacture such tawdry pests. These excuses for nightmares are human-made all over, clumsy fractured echoes, dreams within dreams, Arthur’s subconscious mind bucking under his control like a belligerent mule.

“Yield,” he commands. “ Yield .”

They keep coming. They are Arthur’s alone. 

“Stop it,” John growls. “You fucking moron, stop torturing yourself. Forget it all.”

But Arthur is an idiot, because he’s too clever to forget. 

John sees another nightmare leaking from Arthur’s ears—Arthur’s damn ears , he needs those, for his music—and John eats that one whole, unhinges his jaw and scoops it, slithering, down his gullet. It tastes of rust, cold like snow.

John squeezes and kills and devours until Arthur’s breathing slows. John looms over him, a sentry in the dark, waiting to pounce on the next horror, but exhaustion steals Arthur’s wretched mind and he, at last, drifts into a deep sleep, silent and still.

“Finally,” John mutters, tenderly. He wipes away the cold sweat on that oh-so-familiar cheek. “This is so fucking stressful, Arthur.” 

But this is familiar and John, in a dark secret place he refuses to acknowledge, aches for that familiarity, the hunting and the survival and pulling Arthur from the brink. 

Arthur lies on a cot in John’s fourth-floor apartment. Arthur lies in the monstrous palm of the King in Yellow. Arthur Lester, the most precious human soul in the Dreamlands, sleeps. Arthur Lester, an insignificant troubled man in New York City, sleeps.

Arthur sleeps. John watches. This too, is familiar.

When Arthur awoke to John’s voice, he thought he’d overslept. 

But when he cracked a bleary eye, and spotted a stranger in the apartment, an unfamiliar sneer on an unfamiliar face, he lay as still as possible and pretended to sleep.

He listened. John attempted to speak in a hush, but John’s voice was not built for whispering. It carried rumbling and clear, enough for Arthur to overhear half of an argument.

“You can’t be here,” John growled, his voice outraged more than Arthur had ever heard it. There was something else too, a twinge of an emotion Arthur couldn’t quite detect. 

“Oh? Oho? And why is that, Goldilocks? Is this not America? Land of the free ?”

The voice felt familiar, but Arthur knew he’d never heard it. This voice did not whisper, in fact nearly carried down the hall and made Arthur wonder if the neighbors would be disturbed—a thought that definitely crossed John’s mind too, as he emitted a frustrated grunt. Arthur heard the scuffle of hands on clothes, John trying to evict this unwelcome visitor from the apartment.

“Shut up, you’ll wake him up—”

“Which one?” the stranger asked. “The log on the cot or the frog in your hand?”

“I don’t—get out!” John snarled. Then he gasped. Arthur wasn’t sure why until he felt a cold wet hand on his face.

“Don’t touch him!”

“Tsktsk,” said the voice. “As skin and bones as ever. What do you feed him in here?”

Arthur kept his eyes jammed shut, steadied his breathing, and strained, listening for the moment when he’d need to assist John, when he could use the element of surprise to his advantage—except John didn’t usually need his help. Every hostile encounter they’d faced together had been a brain and brawn collaboration of John swinging where Arthur directed, Arthur weaving in and out and between the fight to strategically place their targets in the path of John’s towering body. Surely he didn’t need his help now. 

But John had gasped. John never gasped. And, Arthur realized now with dread, that unfamiliar emotion in John’s voice had been fear . 

Arthur could smell iron in the liquid trailing from the stranger’s hand. A slow tingle of terror trickled down his spine. 

“Get your hands—”

The click of John abruptly slamming his teeth shut frightened Arthur more than the cruel laugh that tore itself from the stranger’s throat.

“Or what? No, no, seriously, I’m curious. Or you’ll do what? Me John, me big smelly ape, me meat and bone, meat and bone. Meat. Bone,” barked the stranger in a crude imitation of John’s gravelly voice. “Ohhhhh. Oh, you small small teeny weeny hybrid THING! Look at you. You were in the head of a human for so long you actually think like one. You think you are one. How… delicious.”

There was a thoughtful silence.

“What do you want?” John asked, lowly.

“What do I want? Oh nothing, nothing, nothing,” the strange voice warbleed. “I did say no price, didn’t I? No strings attached? No takesy backsies. No refunds!” followed by a guttural hyena cackle.

The hand returned. It poked, prodded, smearing that wet horrible smell all over his face. Arthur resisted the impulse to twitch. To scream. 

“No, Johnster, I don’t want anything. Nothing you can offer, anyways. Just spare your ol’ benefactor the pleasure of enjoying the show I paid for .”

Then the voice disappeared. No footsteps, no creak of the door. Just silence. 

Arthur lay, unmoving. He listened to John’s heavy breathing.

After some time, he heard John enter the washroom, turn on the tap, then tiptoe to his side. He lay still and limp as John gently held his neck and wiped his face with a warm wet towel. He thought of nights carrying Faroe into her room, cradling her neck in the exact same way so she would not wake.

It took four trips back and forth to the washroom before John was finished. Arthur heard the thumps of wet cloth, the crinkling of a bag, and heavy footsteps leaving the apartment. Distantly, Arthur heard the slam of the trash chute down the hall before John returned. 

He listened to the creaks of John settling in his bed. He listened to the hum of the radiator, to the buzzing of an insect trapped on the windowsill, to the passing of cars commuting in the waning night. To John’s snores. 

He listened to birdsong heralding the dawn. When the darkness behind his eyelids lightened from a black to a gray, he rose in the pale morning, walked to the washroom, and looked at himself in the mirror. 

His face was clean. Not a smudge remained. He checked the bin. The mirror. The sink.

Only when he spotted the tiniest red streak on the underside of the ceramic did he confirm that it hadn’t been a dream. 

Arthur waited. John woke, muttered a “G’mornirthur,” and washed up. Their morning routine commenced as normal. They caught a taxi to the office, then another to the diner. 

After the pleasantries, after they sat face to face across from each other in the booth, after having sent Parker off to order pancakes and coffee, did Arthur finally lean in and ask, “John, who the fuck was that last night?”  

Arthur felt the tightrope tension of their friendship sway underneath him. He watched John’s eyes widen in surprise, soften with dismay, then lower to his plate. 

“Nobody.” 

“John.”

John raised his eyes. They were honey-brown in the sunlight, but somehow cold and distant, like he was staring through Arthur and not at him.

“Nobody, Arthur.”

Mr. Fairchild had faked his death. Or attempted to.

The papers headlined it for a week: Mr. Abram Fairchild, owner of Fairchild Properties, had coerced his cousin into setting a power outage in the east end, so that he could tamper with the electrical wiring in his property—with plans to set off a fire. Mr. Fairchild had intended on burning down his own building, undeniably placing his residents’ lives in danger not to mention destroying all they owned, then passing off the source of the fire to a malfunctioning breaker. 

Good Mr. Fairchild, altruistic family man with 2.5 children, would have been on a convenient stroll through the neighborhood to check up on his property. Good Mr. Fairchild, would have seen the fire, and by all eyewitness accounts, rushed heroically into the flames to save who he could. Good Mr. Fairchild would have perished in this attempt. 

All this, says the cousin, would have gone according to plan if Mr. Fairchild hadn’t vanished without a trace before actually enacting it. The cousin was tasked with lighting the fire—tied to a chair in a basement, he told Arthur, Noel, John, and Parker (especially Parker’s bloodthirsty glare) everything about the long hours spent waiting, peering through the street-level window and waiting for a signal that never came. The cousin had another cousin who worked in a morgue—this was how they found the body in the closet, of the same build and height as good Mr. Fairchild. 

“I was s’posed to drag it all sneaky-like,” said the cousin. “Up to the fourth floor, into one of those empty rooms. Made it look like Abe ran in looking for some innocents to save. And then I was s’posed to come down here, start the fire near the breaker,” he indicated the large dilapidated box embedded in the brick. “Catch up some dry tinder then get the hell out of dodge.”

“How did you know the fire would have caught?” Arthur asked thoughtfully. “Surely there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t snuff itself out.”

“I’m good with fires,” said the cousin with an offended sniff. “Always have been. ‘S the reason why Abe asked me to do this.”

“And what was in it for you?” Parked asked as he leaned in with a menacing crack of his fists. The cousin gulped and leaned back as far as his chair would allow.

“Abe’s loaded. He’s the only one in the family to have made it, crawled his way up and made a big shot of himself. I wanted a slice of that pie. He promised I could have it, seeing as he would’n be needin’ the company anymore after he faked his death.”

“Where was he going to go?” asked Noel.

The cousin shrugged.

“D’know. Maybe to run off with another side piece. It wasn’ just his secretary you know, Abe was always a real lady’s man.”

John stepped forward, his hardened criminal’s face set to a menacing glower.

“And where is he now?” he gruffed.

“D’know,” the cousins squeaked. “I swear, I swear! Abe barely told me anything! I don’ even know where he was coming from or why he wanted this!”

He flinched as John stepped closer, eyes narrowed.

“He’s telling the truth,” John said after a moment. “I can tell.”

“Damn,” Noel breathed as he ran a weary hand through his hair. “Not that this isn’t helpful, but the chief won’t take kindly to a mad arsonist on the loose.”

“I’m the arsonist,” said the cousin defensively. “Abe’s the brain guy.”

“Yes, yes,” Noel flapped a hand. “We’ll make sure ‘self-proclaimed pyromaniac’ shines bright and red on your record.”

Noel brought this information forward (first to reporters and then to his captain, Arthur noted with some amusement) and the newspapers plastered Mr. Abram Fairchild’s face on the front page as a city-wide manhunt ensued.

“Gotta smoke him out,” Parker said vehemently, as they all sat around Noel’s office in the precinct. It was a late night, all four of them having taken to the habit of coming in after hours and leaving before dawn. “This man is clearly willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. This isn’t a simple missing person; people’s lives are at stake.”

“Yeah,” Noel said. He had it the worst of them all, having to pull full shifts in the precinct as well as these all-nighters. He looked exhausted, all charm run thin. “I’m well aware, Pete. The captain has media pressure on him now. He’s got his best guys on the case. They’ve already managed to find a travel agency that confirmed spotting ‘ol Abe’s face; said he came in weeks ago to purchase a ticket on The Queen Boudica. First class, no less. It left for Ireland yesterday, but not before the boys scoured it and its passengers from top to bottom. No dice.”

“So he didn’t make it to his escape plan,” Arthur mused. “Something went wrong. Hasn’t returned home, no sightings near any of his buildings. No cousin or cousin’s cousin has heard from him since he vanished. Nor his wife…”

Arthur looked as tired as Noel. John knew that Arthur had taken to staying up as late as possible these days, lying in his cot with his eyes trained on the door. John also stayed up, watching him. 

“He couldn’t have disappeared into thin air,” Parker shook his head. He was nearly nose-to-nose with a large police sketch of Mr. Fairchild, as if the portrait could somehow give him the answers. “If I was a lunatic desperate enough to burn down a building to leave everything behind, where would I go?”

“And why?” Noel continued. “Not a bad life he had there. A stable job, a sort of stable family. Why run away from it all?”

Arthur stared silently out a window. He was doing that a lot more, John noticed.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Parker finally sighed and fell back into Noel’s office chair. “I don’t get this guy at all.”

“Maybe he felt trapped,” Arthur said quietly. The other three all turned to look at him. 

“How so, Artie?”

Arthur turned. “Oh I don’t know,” he said with dripping sarcasm. “Maybe his peachy life wasn’t so perfect at all. Maybe he came home night after night feeling like he was living something fake, like he was a fraud pretending to be a good man. Maybe he got tired of lying to his wife and plastering on a smile for the kids. Maybe, good Mr. Fairchild, exhausted himself trying to be something he wasn’t. Maybe he found something.”

Arthur turned back to the window. “Something dangerous. Something that made him feel alive again.”

Silence.

“We should get going,” said John. “Long day of surveillance tomorrow. We should be well rested.”

“Yes,” Parker agreed slowly. “Let’s… wrap it up for today.”

They organized their things and filed out one by one. Noel came behind Arthur and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“Look friend,” he said with a warm genuine smile. “I think this case might be getting into your head a little, yeah? This guy’s a real shitbag and disappearing acts are the most frustrating ones. Why don’t you take a little vacation? Go see your girls and spend one weekend without thinking about criminals. It might do you some good.”

“Agreed,” said John. “You could be on the first train to Arkham tomorrow morning.”

“That’ll be a nice surprise,” Parker said with noted caution. “For your little one. How old is she now?”

“Four,” said Arthur. “She’s four. And it’s good to know that none of you bloody want me here.”

He stalked out ahead of them all. They watched him leave, three brows creased in concern.

Arthur left that morning. 

John was glad. After seeing him off at the train station, he came back home and rolled up Arthur’s cot. Arthur’s toothbrush, Arthur’s mug, those awful canned beans he liked so much, all went in the closet with it. By the time he was finished, it was like nobody else had ever lived here at all. 

“Good,” said John to himself. “This is good.”

Even so, John woke early the following Monday and deep cleaned the apartment. Just in case Arthur wanted to come back. Just in case he only needed a weekend to get his head right with his family.

Except Arthur didn’t come back.

“Finally,” John muttered as he ate a solitary meal that night. “This is how it should be.”

Arthur and Bella and Faroe. 

John tried not to wonder what Arthur was doing—what he talked about with Bella and if it was different than what he talked about with John. He tried not to think about how Arthur’s left arm always ached when the sun went down, and whether the pain was manageable or what he ate for dinner, if he ate at all, or who was going to protect him from his nightmares. He allowed himself a shiver of glee that Bella couldn’t siphon them out the way John could, that she couldn’t literally eat the troubles plaguing her husband’s mind. 

He tried not to think about Kayne knocking on Arthur’s door.

“He wanted a show,” he muttered to himself as he tossed and turned. “Some show this is.”

No, he couldn’t picture Kayne bothering to stick around long enough to watch Arthur taking his daughter on walks or doing the dishes. If anything, sending Arthur away was probably the best solution to that particular problem. Kayne might even get bored enough to leave them alone. Forever. 

Maybe Arthur will visit around the holidays , John thought happily. 

John wondered if Arthur played the piano again. He lay awake at night contemplating a warm thought of Arthur tapping out a merry tune as Faroe danced. He quashed the image the minute he began to visualize himself there, standing next to Arthur, laughing. 

“He’s not happy here,” he said out loud when the longing grew too strong. “He wasn’t happy with you. He was never happy with you.”

Yes. John settled on that truth. All that mattered was Arthur’s happiness, and John had brought him nothing but misery from the moment they met. They needed to stay apart, for this to work. For Arthur to keep dreaming. 

And now, John knew, now, in this sanctuary built from Arthur’s memories, he also had the space to figure out who he wanted to be. What he was without Arthur, his potential in a normal human life. 

Every day, he joined Parker, Noel, or both to perform sweeps of the city. They interrogated every person who knew Mr. Abram Fairchild remotely—his mailman, the maid who came in once a week, the deaf old woman who lived next door, his cousin’s cousin’s cousin.

They talked to his kids. Thirteen and seven years old, they both acted much older than they were. One conversation with the wife explained why: she was a paranoid wreck, unable to utter a sentence without circling back to her husband’s affairs.

“I knew, the moment I married him; I saw his shifty eyes glancing at my sister and I just knew, but he promised he’d take care of me and like a stupid fool I believed him,” she groaned in a tremulous voice. She had clearly been drinking; she reeked of rum.

They gleaned as much as they could from this motley of sparse interviews—which ended up not being much information at all.

“Damn the private fellow,” Parker spat during one of their stakeouts. They had taken to surveying various Fairchild properties, spending long cramped hours watching passerby. 

“He’s bound to pop up. Even rats need oxygen,” Noel stated in a deadpan. He dosed with his seat pushed back and hat over his face, John taking a shift by his side with the binoculars.

“... Do you think—” Parker began and John and Noel both insisted, “No.”

“It’s just—”

“He’s with his family,” John said in a firm voice. “He wouldn’t be much good here anyways. He hates stakeouts.”

“That he does,” Parker chuckled. “He fidgets like a hell demon. I don’t know. I was just thinking we might need a fresh set of eyes on this.”

“His eyes are as stale as yours, Pete,” came Noel’s muffled retort. “If anything, we’re saving the poor man the frustration. He’s got enough to worry about as it is.”

After another unsuccessful stakeout, John returned with Parker to the office in low spirits. They both had a brief discussion about the case, circling frustratingly back to the same impediments, then lapsed into a silence over mugs of Irish coffee.

“How’s it been Johhny, since your roommate ran off?” Parker asked with a small smile. “The solitary life treating you well?”

“Yes,” John lied. He paused. He recalled a conversation—not Arthur’s memory, but his own. 

You look like you’ve hit bedrock, friend .

“...Parker,” John began tentatively. “How do you handle being alone?”

“How do you mean?” Parker asked as he chucked another shot in his mug.

“I mean… humans—people seem to do it all the time. Mr. Fairchild had people around him, but he also seemed lonely in his own way. And people—people know how to be alone. Lots of them live without someone by their side at all times and it doesn’t seem to bother them. How do they do it?”

Parker chortled.

“Eh—as it happens John, people do die of loneliness. We’re all dying of it, in a way. I expect that’s what poor Artie’s tussling with—marriages can be lonely as well. As for how to handle it—” Parker scratched his head. “People do it in different ways. Some don’t and that’s why they set fire to buildings, you know?”

Parker must have seen the confused pause on John’s face because he laughed. 

“Ahh…I sometimes forget that you’re not quite an average schmoe. That your past gave you experiences nobody else has,” Parker took a thoughtful sip. “I can’t understand all of what you’ve been through. But I too know what it’s like to have experiences that make you different.”

“Like what happened today?”

A slur, a passing syllable on the street, but one that had caused Parker’s face to tighten. Noel had turned with a menacing glare but the heckler had long since passed. John didn’t understand what the word had meant, but he remembered Arthur telling him similar stories about how people sometimes treated Parker when they went out in public. It didn’t matter what the words meant when they all said the same thing: you don’t belong here. You’re inferior, because of where you came from, because of your face, because of your skin. 

Parker bobbed a nod. 

“Yep. Thing is, my family’s been in this country longer than a lot of these yahoos. My grandfather broke his back over the railroads that carried their trumpety asses over the Mississippi. But that’s not what they see when they look at me, they just see someone they can brand as different. And that can be lonely.” Parker grinned at John. “Sound familiar?”

John sat in contemplation, then nodded. 

“I sometimes feel like… a monster,” he said. “In Arthur’s world. Your world. This world. Like I’m… an intruder. And I’ve hurt people. I’ve—I’m not proud of my past. But I want to change.” John looked at his calloused hands. “I’m trying to change, at least. I’m trying. Do you think that’s possible?”

Parker leaned forward and said, “People can look at you and make assumptions about where you’re from. About what you’ve done. That doesn’t mean they’re right. Don’t ever let their opinions define you. You’re a good man, John, like me, like Artie, like,” he grimaced slightly, “Like Noel. And like all good men, you’re still trying to figure out what that means. You have failed. You will fail. But the failure doesn’t matter. It’s the picking yourself up and slapping yourself off that does. The trying. Ya know?”

He knocked back his drink and stood with a loud clap.

“Right then. I always feel refreshed after a good life chat. Want to take another crack at it?”

“Parker,” said John. “I want to be a human like you.”

“That’s enough whiskey for you,” Parker laughed and tossed him a case file. 

Chapter Text

Three knocks interrupted John’s dinner. When he wrenched open the door, revealing Arthur slumped against his frame, John broke into a delighted smile.

“Arthur!” he cried and stepped forward, but stopped when he spied the unkempt hair, the bruise-dark eye bags, the disheveled clothing, tie slung carelessly around the neck and shirt buttons open down to the sternum. Not to mention the strong reek of strong drink. 

“John,” Arthur grinned sloppily, no real mirth, all teeth and voice bitter as his breath. “Good news—” 

He stumbled into the apartment, John stepping aside as Arthur all but crash landed onto the couch. 

“Good—good news—I’m no longer a married man.” He hiccuped and burst into hoarse laughter.

“What?”

John approached Arthur cautiously, hands up as if calming a rabid street dog.

“You—” Arthur rocked back and forth, smiling too wide. “You—you were right, this was good. I needed that, I needed—see, Faroe is sooo big now,” he held up a trembling hand up to his knee. “She’s thisss tall, she’s—I bought shoes, they didn’t fit—she tried to wear them anyways, she was soooo happy John—pink bows—her little ankles all blistered and Bella had to give them away—” he cackled. “Pink bows and white leather and—guessed her shoe size— what a waste…”

“You’re drunk,” John said redundantly. He headed for the kitchen. “You need water.”

“I need,” said Arthur as he wrung his nimble fingers. “I need—a piano—I need—celebrate! We should celebrate! John! Bella—turns out we’re much more alike than—she said—and Daniel! Daniel was there, helping her, said I was “good for nothing,” Arthur lowered his voice in imitation. “That I didn’t deserve her—he’s right,” Arthur leaned heavily over one knee and pointed at John. “Bella is a goddamn gift, she’s brilliant, so clever, so lovely, anyone would be lucky to—I was lucky. Faroe!” His eyes shot up to the ceiling. “Oohh, my Faroe and her little growing feet! Pink bows, John!”

He toppled back, limp like a ragdoll. 

“Drink,” John commanded as he tipped Arthur’s chin back and poured water into his gaping mouth. “You’re not making any sense.”

Arthur tried to protest but spluttered as John continued to pour. He gulped obediently until the glass was empty.

“I say—” Arthur coughed. “I am making perfect sense, in fact, nothing else has made more sense in my entire fucking life! She wants a divorce! The papers—” he burst into another peal of dark laughter. “The papers were already there! Tried to make it work and the fighting the—nights—-the nights were the worst. Came home and papers all lined up on the table—Daniel knows a lawyer—and a bloody priest too! A priest! At a divorce! A priest and a divorce lawyer walk into a bar—” he giggled, then hiccuped, then fell silent. 

“Go to sleep,” John said. “We can talk about this when you’re sober.”

“I am as sober as I’ll ever be,” Arthur insisted with his chin on his chest. “When I get this anvil out of my head, we’ll talk about that.”

“Sounds good,” John heaved Arthur up and frog marched him to the washroom. He splashed water onto his face and helped ease Arthur out of his clothes, stained with sweat and alcohol and who knew what else.

John, midway through folding Arthur’s suspenders, froze. Arthur had reached out and interlaced their fingers, inspecting their clasped hands like he had discovered some alien specimen. 

“This…” Arthur frowned. “Did you always have two hands?”

“Yes, Arthur.”

Arthur frowned petulantly. Infuriatingly. Looking into the lines of Arthur’s face, John wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry: Arthur, warm and flushed in the light of an exposed lightbulb, sitting wispy-haired on the edge of the sink, tears crusted in his moustache, morbid curiosity in his wide brown eyes. So precious. John fought the desire to hug him—no, to engulf him, swallow everything from the beating heart to that sharp damned brain, and plunge it into a dark harbor where nothing, nothing, would ever cause him pain again. 

The angles of the washroom, its shadows and vertices, flickered. The King in Yellow gazed at Arthur, curled in the basin of his transient palm. 

Oh—this wasn’t enough. There was nowhere to hide in the brokenness of Arthur’s memories—nowhere where the hurt wouldn’t find him. An earthquake tremored across the Dreamlands as despair flooded an ancient god. A passing truck rattled the windowsill. 

Arthur, unbalanced, leaned too far and knocked over John’s toothbrush. 

“Sorry,” he slurred. John bent to pick it up and brushed against Arthur’s chin as he came up. Arthur’s cold long fingers abruptly gripped him by the cheek. 

“John,” Arthur peered closer at him. His voice turned low, soft. “John, what’s wrong with your face? It should be all,” he flapped his hand over his head in vague explanation. “Not a face. I can see you, is that strange?”

“Not at all.”

Arthur blinked. He smiled; the King in Yellow shivered. Oh, oh.  

“I can see, John.”

“Yes.”

“I can see you.”

“Yes.”

Arthur slumped onto John’s broad shoulder. John sighed. He slung Arthur into his arms and carried him to his bed. He remembered something Parker had told him about what happened to people when they were drunk, and made sure to turn Arthur onto his side with a wastepaper basket by the bedside. Just in case. 

 “You’re my best friend,” Arthur mumbled into the pillow. 

“You’ve told me.”

“No, you are. Parker he—” Arthur frowned. “Parker’s far away. Very far away.”

“He’s a few streets down, Arthur.”

“You’re right here.” 

Arthur reached out and grabbed John’s hand again. He squinted at the mismatch, his slender artist fingers against John’s thick toughened ones. 

“Your hand should look like mine,” he finally said. “You’re right here. You should always be right here.”

John watched Arthur drift off, hand still tangled in his. He waited. 

A nightmare bloomed down Arthur’s face. 

“Fuck,” John sighed. 

They had the decency not to badger him about it.

The three of them cut down the jibs, softened their tones, and treaded gently around him. Like he was sick. Or deranged. 

He knew they meant well. He tried not to let it bother him; after all he was sick in a way, wasn’t he? That’s why he had failed. That’s why he had made his daughter cry, why he’d wasted the best years of his wife’s life. Ex-wife. Arthur knew there was something deeply, fundamentally, wrong with him, to inflict this much hurt on people he loved. He could lap up love, suck it up greedily from his friends and his family and John—but try to give it back and he broke them with his clumsy inadequate hands. Whenever he closed his eyes, he could still see the curve of Bella’s neck, dark curls framing her elegant face twisted in bitterness and regret as she watched him leave again. He had turned, once, at the top of the stairway, suitcase in hand—he had wanted to tell her that he was sorry—that he really did care about this beautiful dream of a family they had tried to build—that he wished he could give her everything she had looked for in him and hadn’t found. But she had already closed the door and he had stared at the contours of the wood, the shiny brass handle, until they were seared in his memory like a scar. 

Bella’s face and that infernal door and Faroe asleep in the moonlight, oblivious to him abandoning her again—all of it haunted the inner darkness of his eyelids and he spent long insomniac nights staring at the ceiling while John snored. 

He spent long insomniac days hunting Mr. Fairchild. 

Noel said that his precinct had largely given up. His captain had ordered them to prioritize other cases, as Mr. Fairchild’s trail grew colder and colder—three months had passed since his disappearance with hardly a whiff of a clue. 

Even Parker had moved on—he spent most of his time occupied with another case, an incident of robbery at a small antique store in Chinatown. His scant Mandarin helped enormously with communicating with the clients and neighbors, but this also meant there was little John or Arthur could do to help, aside from accompanying him on his investigations.

“No need to trail after me,” Parker told them with a dismissive wave. “Your scary mugs look more like criminals than the ones trying to catch ‘em.” He surveyed John and Arthur sitting hunched side by side on the couch, then chuckled. “You ugly bastards. Nah, the clients are frightened as it is, no reason to intimidate them more.”

“Good,” said Arthur as he glowered over a case file. “More time to work on the Fairchild case.”

“...Sure,” said Parker. He pulled on his hat and coat, making pointed eye contact with John. “Or? You could take a bit of a breather. Get some fresh air and a waffle. Maybe visit that music shop that caught your eye the other day, eh? What say you, Johnny?”

“Oh—oh yes!” John nodded in an enthusiastic monotone. “Yes—let’s have a day out, Arthur. I’ve been needing a break.”

“I’ve been needing Fairchild in cuffs,” Arthur snapped. “I’m perfectly capable of working on this alone if you’re so keen on getting your day off.”

John scowled. Parker clucked his tongue. 

“Well. Then don’t work too hard,” he stepped to Arthur and laid a hand on his shoulder. Arthur tensed ever so slightly. “I’ll wrap things up early today. How about we grab a pint later? At that old place with the piano you’re in love with. I’m sure some booze and tunes will shake something loose.”

“Booze and tunes,” Arthur said in a dangerously low voice, and swiped Parker’s hand off, “Won’t catch a criminal.”

Parker sighed. He shared another glance with John, opened his mouth to say something more, then closed it and made a quick exit. 

“Arthur,” said John. “You’re not being very nice.”

“Oh, aren’t I?” Arthur spat with venomous sarcasm. “I am ever so sorry for not meeting your standards, your majesty.”

John’s thundercloud of a brow darkened. “I don’t understand,” he said in a strained rumble. “I don’t understand why you’re—Arthur, it’s not the end of the world. I know this isn’t—how you wished it had turned out, but you did all you could. At least they’re still a part of your life. You said she’ll let you visit Faroe whenever you like. And you said yourself that it’s better this way.”

Arthur didn’t respond. His hair, which he usually kept neat and coiffed away from his face, had grown longer over the weeks and fell in an unkempt mop over his face as he bent over the paper-strewn coffee table. 

John continued, “It could be worse, you know. You still get to watch her grow up.” When Arthur still didn’t respond, John huffed and said forcefully, “If you stopped feeling sorry for yourself for half a second you’d see how lucky you are. You don’t know how much worse it could be. They could be—”

“They could be WHAT John?” Arthur roared. He stood abruptly, nearly knocking the table over. John, large as he was, flinched back as Arthur loomed over him, eyes glittering with a cold impassioned fury. The hard gaunt contours of his face—the face of someone not to fuck with indeed—blazed upon John like a star, like a supernova. 

“Don’t you DARE lecture me like you know anything about what this is like. You’ve never had a family—you couldn’t possibly know what it’s like to lose one—”

Arthur choked. John’s hand had shot up, quick as an instinct, and seized Arthur by the collar. John stood and with little effort, twisted them about and forced Arthur down onto the couch. 

Arthur, gasping for breath, felt a manic knot of nostalgia and glee rise into his chest. The last time John had raised a hand against him was during that desperate month when they’d first met, when Arthur had been the hunter, John the prey. When they’d reluctantly joined forces, when they’d spent a week handcuffed to each other, escaping side by side as fugitives, arguing and clashing and hating each other every waking second. Arthur never would have guessed that this is what it would lead to: partners, best friends, peace and quiet and goddamn well intentioned domestic advice. 

All wrong. This. This was familiar. John’s hand was a violent one, and that violence belonged to Arthur— yes, he felt ownership over the firm clench of John’s left hand near-crushing Arthur’s windpipe, yes, Arthur kicked and struggled and all the while something inexplicable deep within him flooded with relief over the familiar, something he could finally understand about his twisted life—him and John, struggling with each other. 

“FUCK YOU—” John shouted as his right hand came down to shove Arthur’s shoulder  down into the cushions. Arthur flared both legs up in a wild bid for John’s face or abdomen, but he only connected with air. John’s hands were digging through his shirt into his skin, bruising and cutting with dull fingernails. He snarled, “You’re being a difficult PRICK—I’m trying to HELP YOU—I don’t know loss?! I don’t know what it’s like to have a family?! YOU’RE my—” 

Arthur’s kneecap connected with John’s jaw with a sharp crack. John keeled backwards and Arthur took that opportunity to tackle him, bringing him down hard onto the rickety coffee table, which splintered under their weight. 

They tore at each other, gripping hair and clothing and skin, Arthur mauling with a rabid intensity, John repelling and restraining with heavy-handed force. Arthur was the first to tire, movements slowing enough for John to get on top of him and hold him down. 

“Done yet?” John asked drily with both hands pinning down Arthur’s arms. 

“You—” Arthur writhed. “You—fuck you John—”

This wasn’t supposed to feel right. Sweating and pain—the smell of blood—bruises blooming across his torso—John, an obstacle, John’s voice ringing in his ears as adrenaline coursed through Arthur’s razorwire body. For the first time since he could remember, Arthur felt completely alive. 

“Get off—” Arthur wrenched himself aside and John relented. With whatever dignity he could summon, Arthur fixed his collar, seized his coat, and headed for the door. 

“I’m getting some air,” he growled. “Away from you.”

John sighed in exasperation, loudly, then grabbed his own coat and followed. 

“You can’t stop me from leaving too. And if we happen to walk in the same direction then—”

“FINE,” Arthur’s voice ricocheted through their stairwell. 

They both stepped into the autumn chill, John trailing ten feet behind. Arthur didn’t look where he was going—he brushed past passersby and kept his hands jammed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched as he picked a direction and walked aimlessly without direction. Twilight was sinking over the city, the usual entourage of business owners closing for the day, business owners opening for the night, customers and couples and castaway vagabonds all casting long shadows down the asphalt. 

“Arthur!” At some point he nearly walked into oncoming traffic, so focused on keeping one foot moving in front of the other—John snatched Arthur by the sleeve at the last second as a taxi made a sharp turn around the curb with a rubbery screech.

“Let go,” Arthur mumbled. He rolled his shoulder but John held on.

“Not if you’re going to keep being an idiot,” John shook his head. “Arthur, I know you’re disappointed but why are you grieving this much—what did I do wrong—why do you still feel this way—how do I fix you?” With every question John’s tone grew softer and more plaintive until his voice practically broke. 

“What the fuck,” Arthur muttered and manually pried John’s fingers off his coat, “are you talking about? I’m fine. Go home.”

But John wasn’t looking at him. John was looking at something just over Arthur’s shoulder, eyes wide in pure horror. Arthur whipped about but all he saw was a crowd of pedestrians crossing the street, a sea of coats and colors and blurring faces.

“What?” Arthur searched John’s face, still aghast. “What is it?”

“N-nothing.”

“Liar,” Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “Just like in the diner. You’re lying to me, what did you see?”

“Let’s go home,” John said suddenly and placing his bulk behind Arthur, nudged him down the street. “We can talk about this later.”

“What?”

Somebody screamed. Arthur sidestepped around John to see a crowd gathering on the other side of the street—a black plume rising from the window of an apartment building as people shouted and shrieked.

“Fire! There’s a fire!”

The door of the building flung open as a stream of residents came running out, clutching rags and shirts to their faces. Some carried pets or children, others meager possessions. One man ambled out in a dazed way, a dinner napkin still tied around his neck. The plume turned blacker and thicker with each second, wafting its acrid smell across the block. 

“Arthur—” 

Arthur kept his gaze fixed, not on the evacuees, nor the growing blaze, nor the chaos of the crowd—his eyes were set on a man standing on the roof of the burning apartment. Mr. Fairchild, far above, stared down at the street below then turned away from the precipice out of sight. 

“Arthur!”

Arthur ran. A voice within him—the voice he usually followed, the one that spoke with good sense and logic—was saying something, pulling him back, but he didn’t listen. As he ran towards the fire, Arthur came to the conclusion that nothing made sense anymore, not even his own fallible mind. His world was a toy palace of people and places he knew and yet did not recognize—his friends and family were strangers, his own body was wrong somehow, always aching on the left side, too smooth, too whole, out of place. He could not set down roots for love nor peace in this half-life, each hour spent like he was waiting to wake up. The only thing that truly made sense to him was this rage. 

Mr. Fairchild needed to be punished.

Arthur dove into the crowd and shoved people aside in a blind desperation. An elbow flew into his face and he hardly noticed as bodies on bodies pinned the tail of his coat and pulled it clean from his shoulders. He fought his way forward for what felt like an eternity—the crowd thickening with the smell of ash, his mind a red dizzy whirl of single-minded obsession, people looking less like people and more like featureless mannequins to push and topple aside.

He made it through. One foot in front of the other, panicked shouts mere accompaniment to the ringing in his ears. Arthur faced the open door of the burning building. Already he could feel the heat scalding his face, the lobby’s interior obscured by a gray miasma of opaque smoke. He thought idly about heavenly clouds depicted in stained glass church windows, Daniel’s voice reading aloud verses of hellfire. 

“Don’t,” said John. Arthur turned. John stood behind him, brow furrowed in frustration. Yes, good old angry John. Arthur felt a complicated affection wash through his chest. 

“He abandoned his family,” Arthur said. Maybe it was the fumes, maybe the crowd, but his head throbbed like something was bursting through his skull. He spoke quietly, rationally. “He’s a monster, John.”

“This wasn’t…” John reached a desperate hand out to Arthur. “This wasn’t what I—please come home. I keep asking you to come home, why won’t you come home?”

A mother holding an infant in the crook of her arm stepped forward from the anxious masses. She gazed at Arthur with large pleading eyes and said, “Listen to your friend, it’s no use running in there.” An elderly man behind her nodded fervently saying, “It’s too dangerous, you could get badly hurt.”

“Don’t be stupid, son.” 

“Let others handle it.” 

“Remember? You have so much left to live for.”

The voices escalated, strangers’ hands reaching out from around John to grab at Arthur, beckoning him away. 

Arthur stared up at the roof. Mr. Fairchild was nowhere to be seen. 

What was he doing? It all suddenly struck him as ridiculous. Parker was coming back in the evening. Tomorrow, he and John were supposed to have breakfast with Noel. Just a train ride away, Faroe was waiting for him to buy her new shoes. 

Arthur stepped away. John’s face sagged into visible relief.

A hand surged out of the crowd. It clutched Arthur tight about the wrist, like an iron shackle. Arthur looked down the length of the arm and met a face peering just behind John, sallow skin, an unnaturally wide grin, eyes glittering with sheer glee.

“He’s getting away,” hissed a familiar voice. 

In the space of a heartbeat, John gasped and turned. In the space of a heartbeat, Arthur snapped back to himself, wrenched himself free, and dashed into the building. 

Then the world shattered. 

That’s not how it happened. 

For John so loved the world that he broke it. 

Mr. Fairchild disappeared. Parker and I never found him.

For John so loved the world that he doused the flames. He froze every living creature in place. Hearts ceased to beat, time fell apart like soft putty. Dreams of memories of people, of pigeons, of wind, of sunshine, trembled in a standstill. 

You got it all wrong. 

“Shut up,” John growled. He could fix this. He only had to put out the fire. Erase, control, rewind—but it was too late, a conductor could not also be the stage—something cracked under the unnatural logic of his alterations and the symphony dissolved into utter discord. The King in Yellow held still in enraptured horror as Arthur Lester unspooled all around him. 

There was never a fire. It was fraud, nothing more. Why did you have to make it so complicated?

“Shut up.”

Why Noel and not Oscar?

“SHUT UP.”

“Geez louise,” Kayne said as he dug a pinky in one ear. “The subconscious is just. So. Loud! Isn’t it? So naggy naggy, whine whine.” 

He kicked a man next to him, who crumbled into sand. 

“Well! That’s that! You gave it the ol’ college try Johnny boy, but I did you a favor. This one is DONEZO. Good luck with putting humpty dumpty back together again.” He swooped into an exaggerated bow and vanished. 

John hardly noticed, concentrating as he never had before. The apartment was whole, then a blackened skeleton, then covered in icicles. It wasn’t an apartment at all, but a farmhouse. A hospital. An orphanage. A sickly orange sunset struggled across the horizon then darkened to a bruise-purple.

Arthur was not merely a mind, he was meat and fibers and electric chemicals racing between those fibers. So goddamn animal. The King in Yellow clasped two divine hands around Arthur’s trembling frame, febrile and drenched in sweat. Arthur’s soul was too stubborn for his own good and so was his body—Arthur pushed a final furious push and purged the cancerous intrusion of this reality, sensations winking out one by one. The smell of smoke vanished as did the cool autumn, the distant hum of traffic, the outline of skyscrapers. People blinked out of existence. 

A district away, Detective Charlie Dowd turned to dust. A few blocks further down, so did Peter Yang. Arkham faded as a breath on glass, and New York crumpled like a popup book construction. 

Only Arthur remained, frozen mid-sprint with one step in a doorway, one step out. Only John remained, watching him.

I despise you.

The King in Yellow screamed and a fissure swallowed half of Carcosa. 

Haven’t you learned? 

John was melting. He could feel this curated body—this face, built for Arthur’s eyes, Arthur’s world, he had worked so hard —sloughing away. 

I’ll keep fighting. I’ll never stop fighting. 

“FINE!” John bellowed. 

He, Arthur, and the doorway, the last remnants of this beautiful dream, all collapsed. 

Arthur opened his eyes to utter darkness. He could not feel his left hand. In his right, he clenched a cold piece of metal—he flicked his thumb and the lighter clicked to life.

“Ahead of you, is nothing. And behind you, is nothing. Keep walking.”

Arthur put one foot in front of the other.

“What is this?”

“What you wanted.”

His footsteps made no sound. The air did not smell of anything, was not fresh nor stale. He heard nothing. Felt nothing. 

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere.”

Arthur walked. John’s presence weighed heavily within him. Arthur could almost feel him, warm like an ember, filling the lobotomy hole in his ravaged mind. 

This was bliss. This was hell. A wave of nausea sent Arthur stumbling. 

“I lost them all again.”

John did not answer. 

“Monster.”

With relief, with devastation, Arthur Lester wept.