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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Cloud City, Chapter One - a Malevolent AU

You could put it off until we’re inside. I wouldn’t want to use you up too fast tonight.

“No, I can’t risk missing anything. Do it.”

As you wish.

And then that familiar pain, the burning power of sharing his nerves and his brain and his eyes, and it’s always too much, always so much, and he stands still and breathes steadily and waits for the worst of it to pass. In the beginning, he’d lose precious minutes after Hastur gave him sight, but these days, he manages to keep his head on straight.

Now, Arthur sees what’s real. This is not like humans see. This is Hastur’s sight, and nothing is hidden.

AO3 || Masterpost

-------

The sun never rises in Cloud City. Arthur supposes it must have, once, just practically speaking, but not in his lifetime.

He stares at the city from his 40th-floor office, pondering the darkened windows, the distant clouds, the foolish bargains and dire deals. It’s all rounded tower-tops and gleaming angles, bronze both real and fake, clearly once intended to shine in the sun.

It sure as hell won’t shine now. Arthur knows the truth of it, anyway: it’s secretly gross inside, slimy where unseen.

Like him.

The lack of sun keeps it palatable, he thinks. He wouldn’t know what to do with that much light, burning down on everybody and revealing everything.

Are you ready, Arthur?

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” says Arthur, and straightens his tie. “Wonder what they found this time?”

Whatever it is, I expect it to be connected.

“Not this, again. Your pet theory. Murder, hijacked? You still haven’t explained that.”

I’m hoping I don’t have to. I’m hoping I’m wrong.

“You, hoping you’re wrong?” Arthur says, and dons his fedora. “That’s new. Must be my birthday. I should go place a bet on the ponies after Yang finishes beating us up.”

Very funny. Protections check, Arthur. You’re not ripe enough to harvest just yet.

Arthur checks himself quickly and expertly, touching his rings, pinching (and wincing) at the onyx taper that sits, sharp and unpleasant, in his earlobe. Even the sprig of rosemary hidden inside his lapel is secure. “Am I acceptable?”

No, but it’ll do.

“Funny.” Arthur checks his gun. Each bullet chamber tingles as it should, and he clicks the cylinder back into place and tucks the gun in its holster. "So what’ll be Yang’s excuse today, you think?"

Something inane and personal. I don’t trust him, Arthur.

"He either wants to fuck me or kill me," Arthur says, and reaches for the door. "Probably the latter.”

No. He wants something else.

“Right. He’s always grabbing and searching me because he wants to take me to the opera.”

I guarantee you that is not what he wants, either.

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Sure. Whatever his deal is, we’ll charge through it."

Headfirst, as always.

"Hastur, really—is there any other way to be?" Arthur says, and closes the door. Behind him, it automatically locks, and the low rumble of the usual wards marks the place secure.

Arthur is a private investigator, and the coppers only call him in when things have well and truly hit the fan. Of late, even with help from the witches, there have been a lot of messy fans.

There are a lot of murders in Cloud City these days. Arthur even has to take fewer private clients, with as much as the coppers need him. It was getting so a guy couldn’t get a cup of coffee without risking his life.

(It was still better here than any other city Arthur had ever heard of, protected as it was by the witches—and certainly better than the surrounding, endless Wastes. Arthur wants to see the world, and always has; but he can’t risk letting his daughter’s murderer off the hook, and Hastur has at least learned that the killer is still here somewhere. So, Arthur will never leave, deadly coffee-runs or no.)

The fact is that the coppers need him. With his weird Summon, Arthur is the best. They know it. He knows it. Nobody enjoys the situation much.

The street is cordoned off, police and murmurs and flashing lights scaring away the gawkers. Yang waits by the entrance to the murder scene, surrounded by yellow tape and wearing a scowl fit for a dethroned king.

Arthur and Yang… do not get along. Yang acts as though Arthur is responsible for all the woes in the world, and that plays out in frequent searches, bullying, and invasive questions. So weird, that guy. On paper, Arthur would’ve thought they’d get along. Both of them had been orphaned after Dagon’s Mass Summon wrecked half the town. Both of them had clawed their way up from nothing to a life and a reputation. Both had lousy luck with love, too—he’d heard Yang’s last lover had been found down by the docks, missing his head and filled with squirming things no one could name.

Well, Arthur’s last lover had died alone from a bullet-wound to the gut, so. Protections or no, Cloud City isn’t kind to its people, innocent or not.

The second Arthur comes near, Yang zeroes in. “You took your time,” he snaps.

“No more than usual,” Arthur replies. “Wouldn’t want to step all over your precious toes, anyway.”

“Shut your yap and put on your eyes. We need you.” Yang turns on his heel and marches through the door like an honor guard who hates the honor.

“He didn’t even search us. Must be bad today.”

I don’t trust that man, says Hastur.

“He’s just an ass. You know that.”

He’s obsessed with you. He manages to be at every damn crime scene they call you to.

“He’s a police detective, Hastur. That’s literally what puts cheese on his table.”

Don’t turn your back.

“So you’ve said for the past five years, friend, and yet nothing has happened.”

It will.

“Sure.” Arthur takes a breath. “Ready?”

You could put it off until we’re inside. I wouldn’t want to use you up too fast tonight.

“No, I can’t risk missing anything. Do it.”

As you wish.

Now, Arthur sees what’s real. This is not like humans see. This is Hastur’s sight, and nothing is hidden.

With his own eyes, these walls are drear and the shadows thick, and he’d be lucky to spot so much as a paint-splattered footprint in the mess of ichor and rain and spilled, dead magick, clumsily dropped by incautious Contractors. With Hastur’s sight, Arthur sees every lingering breath of every fucking thing that ever walked this street. He sees echoes of bodies past, of souls that once floated through—currents on the wind of powers and wills and wishes, hints of the dark things wrought here by begging and blood.

He sees the bugs, too, the weird smudges of rot, the strangeness of old and putrid flesh scraped along surfaces. It’s been like that a lot lately. He crushes an insect near his foot.

Then, he sees the more recent passage of something strange, and without thinking, he follows that inside, rather than following Yang.

No one has ever told Arthur what his eyes do when Hastur hooks into them, using Arthur’s soul to fuel Hastur’s sight, but it must be really something, because people tend not to take it in stride. “Oh, fuck!” shouts some officer who must be new.

“Shut up,” Yang snaps, watching Arthur surge by. “Let him work.”

Whatever Yang’s problem with Arthur is, at least he knows Arthur has the goods.

Arthur focuses. He has limited time to use this. His soul is still strong, still there, complete, quite solid—but it is also mortal, and Hastur’s gift carries a cost.

He follows the trail that caught him outside—not footprints, exactly, but a sort of repeated smear, like a bleeding body lifted and dropped repeatedly along the ground. He walks past the corpse they called him in to see (aware of it, yes, but compartmentalized until later, when he can deal with it), and down a hall.

A locked door is in the way. He kicks.

Right before his foot connects, a little zip of power races down his spine and through his leg, a minor magick of strengthening and force. The door smashes open, banging against the inner wall.

Taking me for granted, Arthur? Hastur sounds amused.

“Just getting where I’ve got to go, friend,” says Arthur, already halfway down the hall. His vision is still steady, still Hastur’s. Still perfect. Gods, he loves this, wishes he could see like this all the time. It’s not possible, of course; leaving this on would kill him in a couple of days. But if he could, he would.

The trail leads him through a maze of rooms, past damp places where pipes burst long ago during the Reclamation, and then, it leads him down.

Past the deeper tunnels, where police will not go, where people somehow lived in hiding before the Reclamation freed everyone from the Fire of Y.

Past the ruined sewers, which work in mysterious ways, and into which no one with a working brain would dive.

Past sparking, exploded outlets where surges of electricity and magick grapple for shared space. Arthur is in witch territory now. The smears lead past vats of glowing things—floating pieces of Summons, all that remain after their Contracts failed. Past the quiet, still rooms where wraiths are bound, unable to simply flood the streets outside and cause havoc. And past—

There are bugs. So many bugs. Gross ones, wriggling ones, worms and fetid things. They fall from the ceiling and slick up the walls, sounding vaguely like stirred pasta, and Arthur’s stomach turns as he hunches his shoulders and secures his hat and somehow keeps going.

Careful, Arthur, says Hastur, who cares because Arthur isn’t ready to harvest, and their Contract has not yet been fulfilled.

“I know, I know,” Arthur mutters, unafraid because he has Hastur, following the glowing, splattered smears at a run. Which is why he damn near trips on the second body before he sees it.

Even dead bodies have energy, drifting and unraveling wisps of things that used to be life, but this? This body has none. Even with Hastur’s sight, it barely registers. Arthur gasps, unable to stop his forward momentum.

Yang is right behind him, and grabs his shoulders to pull him away before he can trip on the damn thing. “Fucking hell! A body?” Yang shouts.

A bug skitters over Arthur’s shoe, and he kicks it off. He stares at the body, and tries to shrug off Yang’s grip. “John, what the fuck?” he says, using the pseudonym because Summon names were sacrosanct.

It’s been supernaturally rotted. This corpse is hours old, yet it evinces decades of moldering. A pause. I’ve never seen this before.

And that, from a being older than the universe, is a worrying sentence.

“Well, shit,” says Arthur as Yang yanks him away.

Arthur has to maintain Hastur’s sight much longer than is safe.

His sprig of rosemary already went up in a little scented puff of warning—he’s long past the halfway mark of safely channeling Hastur’s power. Unfortunately, he can’t turn it off. The coppers can’t see what he does, and they’re freaked out—all over the place, staggered, stunned, spooked and almost useless, because nobody comes down here below the corpse-tunnels, past where humans used to live and now nothing does.

The witch they brought in to help is grim. She shares no opinion, avoids Arthur entirely (but they nearly always do), and mixes the witch paint they’ll need to use so that the coppers can see the clues, too.

“But how did the body get down here?” Yang keeps demanding.

The path Arthur picked clearly hadn’t been used before he came through, busting doors and taking names. Except it had, somehow, and whoever used it had left quite a trail behind. Arthur’s eyes hurt, and his head hurts, and he can’t stop yet. “John says that stuff is ethereal hemolymph. Basically whatever souls lose when they bleed.”

Yang is fucking pale. “Souls don’t bleed.”

“John says they do when the damage is bad enough.”

Yang shakes his head, informs Arther he loves his mother in a carnal fashion, and stomps off to oversee clue gathering. The essence of Yang—his soul, his anger, his history, his thoughts—streams behind him like smoke in water, colorful and smeared. Arthur feels like that essence is all over him at this point. A bug crawls near his shoe, and he squashes it.

Arthur’s eyes… ache. They throb with his heart; and he sees so much, too much, every-much, and his head feels like it’s tearing. “John, I… I can’t do this much longer.”

Almost there, Arthur. You can take it. Hastur purrs, talking like that, as if Arthur’s pain through Hastur’s power is such a lovely thing.

Nothing like a reminder I’ve made a deal with a devil, Arthur thinks, but steels himself to continue. It’s not like he deserves any better. It’s not like he’s even going to fight when it comes time for Harvest.

“Help,” says one of the coppers, who can’t figure out just where to put the witch-paint down.

Arthur has to show them, has to lead them to every single spot—has to demonstrate every splatter, describe every splash. The witch-paint reacts immediately against these smears only he can see, flaring nightmare-green and visible to all. He’s almost done when they have a terrible surprise: whatever those stains do when exposed with paint is too much for the witch who made it. Out of nowhere, she screams.

Arthur spins. Through Hastur’s sight, he sees... it’s something green, all over her, through her, wrapping around like sentient smoke, if smoke could be foul. He takes a step toward her, then she falls, limp, with blood streaming from her eyes. “Fuck me!” he says, and nearly backs up against the wall before remembering it’s covered in bugs.

Witches are powerful. Far more powerful than anyone else in the city. That shouldn’t have happened.

They need a stronger witch, says Hastur as though this was nothing.

“Fuck,” says Arthur again.

Yang is yelling, and everyone is scrambling, because now, it’s a problem. Arthur’s headache is worse. “You could’ve fucking warned her!” says Yang as though he did it on purpose.

“I didn’t know that would happen!” Arthur snaps, which is fair—Hastur is so unlike any other Summon that Arthur’s scale for 'powerful' is skewed. “It’s never happened before!”

“Well, it happened this time. It’s practically fucking assault,” Yang says.

And then a horrible thing happens: one of Arthur’s rings cracks, pops, and falls off his hand.

He gasps, staring at the pieces. That means he’s hit his limit. That means they’ve used so much of Hastur’s magick today that his body can take no more without harm; the ring just took the excess, barely channeling it away. “John!”

You’ve done enough, Hastur soothes. Let it go.

Arthur does, receiving dark and muddled human sight with relief, slumping forward. His head pounds like he’s hungover, except he isn’t, and didn’t even get the fun part of feeling drunk. “Fuck,” he mutters. It takes a full year to attune a ring. They’re expensive. And he feels like shit. He groans.

“What, you’re already done?” Yang says, standing too close, like always.

“Fuck you,” mutters Arthur, gripping his head, waiting for his heart to slow.

“Did you at least get all of them?”

“All of… the stains? Yeah.”

“Sure you didn’t leave any out because it hurt your widdle head to keep going?” Yang says.

Arthur hisses through his teeth.

Arthur. He’s just pushing your buttons. He wants something from you. Let it go.

“We’ll see what Asenath thinks when she gets here,” says Yang. “I am taking her recommendation. If you missed any, this might be it for you, Lester.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you called Asenath?”

“Of course I did,” says Yang, low and vicious.

Arthur rubs his head. The wooziness isn’t going away. He can hear Asenath at the other side of the tunnel, fussing over the downed witch. “Great,” he mutters. “Just great.”

It’s going to be fine. She knows you didn’t do anything wrong.

“John, she fucking hates me,” Arthur says.

“Can’t blame her,” says Yang, standing way too close.

His head throbs. “Yeah, yeah.”

Arthur. Focus. You don’t have time to be an idiot about this. Just answer Asenath’s questions and get us out of here.

That won’t be easy. It’s not like Asenath has ever liked him, and their discussions always devolve into insults. He swears it’s like she takes his presence personally. “Sure. I can handle that. Right.”

Yang grips his arm as though to keep him from running away. “Just in case you aren’t cooperative.”

Arthur can’t do this right now. “Yang,” he says, slowly. “Back off..”

Instead, Yang leans in so close his lips brush Arthur’s ear, and says in a low tone, “Or. You’ll. What?”

And for no reason at all, that’s it.

Yang has hounded him for five fucking years, always in his face, always at every crime scene Arthur’s called to, and what the fuck is his problem, anyway?

Arthur snaps.

With absolutely no sense of self-preservation and in front of a room full of witnesses, he spins around and punches Yang in the face.

(chapter two)

#malevolent #malevolent big bang 2023 #malevolent fanfic #arthur lester #hastur malevolent #malevolent au #cloud city fic #parker yang #asenath waite #trans asenath waite #trans woman

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Cloud City, Chapter Thirteen - a Malevolent AU

Parker touches his cheek. “Few more days. I’ll make them good.”

“Good?” says Arthur, very tiny. “I just want to hurt John.”

“You will.” Parker’s tone is vicious. “But you don’t have to hurt, too. Come on. I’ll treat you like a king until it’s time—and when it is time, it won’t fucking hurt. You have my word.”

It’s a lie. Arthur knows it’s a lie. He sniffles. “Okay."

TW: major character death

AO3 || Masterpost

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Arthur waits, sitting against the wall by the window, head back. He isn’t sure how Parker found which building he was in, but he’s not hugely surprised when Parker arrives.

The door creaks. Parker stands in the opening, taking in this room; the mirror, the table. Taking in the fact that Arthur has used his tie to knot his left hand to the leg of the table.

“What the fuck is this?” says Parker.

“Where Asenath told me to go. Hi.”

Parker’s approach is slow and cautious. Of course it is; this screams trap. “So what did Asenath tell you when she let you go?”

“She said the ritual we’re trying to stop is yours.”

“Did she.” Parker hasn’t even crossed half the room.

“Yeah. Got me real worked up over it, too.”

“Obviously. You went pretty nuts at the end there.”

“Oh, no, that came after. I went nuts because that’s when I found out what John did.”

“Ahhhh,” Parker breathes. “That makes sense. No wonder you lost it.”

“I couldn’t—” Arthur’s voice breaks, and he takes a moment to look away.

His left hand suddenly tries to get loose. It yanks, jerking against the table, but that's old wood, and heavy, and it makes no progress.

“Quit it!” Arthur snarls. “You’re getting what’s fucking coming to you!”

“Wow,” says Parker. “Wow.” He straightens. “What the hell happened to you?”

“You know what,” says Arthur, gasping.

Parker crouches in front of him. Reaches up; thumbs his tears away. “This really messed you up, huh?”

“My daughter,” Arthur whimpers.

Parker’s shoulders lose tension. “All right. So what’s your actual plan here?”

“The one I told him? Luring you in. The actual one? Trapping his ass. I meant it, Parker. I’m dying either way. I can feel it.”

“Shit,” says Parker, looking him up and down.

“I don’t… I don’t care anymore,” says Arthur. “But I won’t let him have me after everything.”

“Funny,” says Parker.

“What's funny?” says Arthur.

Parker tilts his head. “After all that, he didn’t tell you who did kill your daughter?”

Arthur stares.

Arthur! Don’t listen to this!

“No,” says Arthur slowly. “He did not.”

“Figures,” says Parker with a shrug. “If you mean it, then… just come with me. I’ll make it better.” He reaches into his jacket and takes out a strange piece of twine; even in Arthur’s failing vision, it glows a sickly green. “This’ll stop him from acting. You sure about this?”

“I’m sure.”

No! No! Arthur, you idiot! That’s real! I can’t fight that! Arthur! Ar-

Parker ties it around his left wrist, tight; it’s scratchy.

And Hastur goes silent, voice cut off.

Arthur exhales, head down. Very softly, he starts to cry.

“You sure you want to do this?” says Parker.

“I’m dying anyway. You think I don’t know? It’s over for me. Maybe I just…”

“It won’t hurt,” lies Parker, who’s always been good at lying, and takes out his pocket knife to cut Arthur’s tie from the table. “Got a few more things to prepare before it’s ready, but… if it helps, you’re not damning the world.”

Arthur laughs weakly. “That room was pretty awful.”

“Yeah, that was on me,” says Parker. “This close to His ascension, it’s gonna be messy. But listen: that’s because He wasn’t here to clean it up.”

Arthur’s untied. He’s free. He could move any way he wants. He doesn’t move. “Clean it up?”

“Arthur… you think I’d serve some weird rot-god? That’s what they fed you, and you think I’d do that? Me?”

“Yeah, it didn't add up,” says Arthur. “But I don’t understand.”

Parker lifts him. “Come on. To your feet. He’s going to fix it, Arthur. That’s what He’s going to do.”

Arthur knows his eyes are wide. He doesn’t have to try to fake anything. “How? I won’t see it. Tell me. How?”

“No, you won’t see it.” Parker looks regretful. “I’d hoped it wasn’t you. I really did. Thought I could keep you.”

“Keep me? What, like a budgie?”

Parker snorts. “Come on, pal, you’d at least be equivalent to keeping a rat.”

Arthur’s laugh is unplanned. He wipes his eyes. “Sure. So tell the rat what he’ll be missing.”

Parker looks intense. “Freedom. From all of this. The gods, Contracts, all that shit. He’s going to bring the Dreamlands to us—fuck, you don’t know what that is.”

“Sort of? Asenath tried to explain, but she went way over my head.”

“I can believe that,” says Parker dismissively. “Think you can walk?”

“Almost. Her stupid mirror hurt a lot more to use than I expected.”

Parker touches his ruined earlobe, and Arthur winces. “That’s ugly.”

“Feels ugly,” says Arthur. “Hurts.”

Parker leans in slowly and—as though this weren’t creepy in the slightest—licks Arthur’s torn earlobe.

Arthur inhales.

“Thought you’d like that,” says Parker. “Yeah. He’s fixing it. No more gloom in the sky. No more fear from the Wastes or the water. It’s gonna be rough for a few years. You have to destroy the bad before you can build the good, you know? Like tearing down an old building.”

“So that’s what I saw in that room,” says Arthur.

“Yeah. That’s what that was—but He’s not here, so He couldn’t fix it.”

Arthur exhales, head down.

Parker touches his cheek. “Few more days. I’ll make them good.”

“Good?” says Arthur, very tiny. “I just want to hurt John.”

It’s a lie. Arthur knows it’s a lie. He sniffles. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Come on, Arthur,” says Parker, as tender as he ever has, and holds out his arms.

“Thank you,” Arthur whispers, and leans into him, breathing into his neck, returning his embrace.

Parker gasps.

Arthur’s shoulders shake. He straightens, crying, and steps back, wobbling badly.

Parker stares down at the dagger in his stomach.

They’re both still, other than Arthur’s quiet sniffles. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“That…” Parker steps back unsteadily, as though about to fall over. “It’s so sharp, I didn’t even feel it go in. Feeling it now, though.” He looks up. His eyes are wide; it’s the first time Arthur has ever seen fear in them, in five years. “Why?”

“You know, I almost didn’t?” says Arthur. “I meant what I said. He betrayed me. I’m furious at him. And I want to believe what you said.”

“I didn’t lie!” says Parker.

“I know. You told what you believe. But you know what did it? Do you?” Arthur wipes his face on his sleeve. “You know who killed her, don’t you? The way you asked that. You know, too. And you kept it from me just as much as he did.”

Parker sways. Dark blood—too dark—spills down his front, staining him, pouring on the floor like a bottle of overturned oil. “Yeah,” he says, and now he sounds angry. “Of course I fucking know.” And he falls to his knees, splattering his weird blood.

“So you both fucking betrayed me,” says Arthur. “And so this is what I chose.”

“You don’t know what—” Parker coughs, and a bubble of blood pops from his mouth, staining his face, dripping everywhere. “You don’t know what you’ve done. It all has to keep going now! All of it! We’re fucking slaves, puppets for their entertainment!”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” says Arthur. “Both of you told me you needed me to save the world.” His lips are tight. “Maybe I don’t think a world where a little girl gets murdered and the murderer is let go so her fucking dad can be manipulated is a world worth saving.”

Parker stares. His mouth works. And he laughs.

It’s wet, unsteady, and he’s already swaying. Dark veins like some horrible fungus have poked out from beneath his collar, climbing his face, sliding from beneath his sleeves to cover his hands.

Arthur’s breath quickens.

Parker goes down on all fours, breathing wetly, dripping so much blood. “Figures,” he says, and looks up. “I’d pick the one son of a bitch so stupid that he doesn’t even know he…” Parker falls over. He thuds onto the floor and lies completely still. His exhale is his last; the black veins continue to grow, distending his skin, and their rope-twisting sound is the only thing that remains.

Arthur tries to step toward the door and can’t. He overbalances, flails to avoid touching Parker, and falls back onto his ass, gasping.

He’s sobbing. He can feel his heart stuttering. The Contract, he supposes, is probably safe, given what Hastur said, but he’ll never see it done. He doesn’t want to die in silence. Not alone. Not after everything. “Did that banish you?” he says. “Did… did this thing do that?” It would figure. He sobs again. It just would figure. Weakly, he works at the twine on his left wrist.

He lacks the strength to just snap it, so he chews it. Whatever’s on it makes his mouth slightly numb, but teeth work, and it finally comes loose. He expects to tune in to Hastur yelling, to a rant in progress, but he does not. The silence… "Hastur?" he says, tiny.

His left hand rises and caresses his cheek. I'm here, Arthur. I’m here.

Arthur grips that hand with his own and cries on it, clutches it to himself.

Hastur lets him, stroking his cheek with fingertips. There, there. Arthur… I’m very impressed.

Arthur laughs thickly. “Sure.”

You’re dying. You know that, don’t you? He sounds warm. Gentle. Calming.

It’s a kindness, that tone, and one Arthur does not feel he deserves. He makes a small sound.

I do enjoy those little whimpers of yours, Hastur says, pulling his hand away. I thought they were distracting in the very beginning, but they’ve grown on me.

“Good for you,” Arthur says, searching for his handkerchief.

Arthur. I am about to do a very necessary thing. Brace yourself. You can weather it.

“Huh?” says Arthur, wiping his eyes. “Weather what?”

This. Y' mgahnnn nglui!

Arthur’s whole body jolts.

He feels like he did the one time he touched a lamp cord that wasn’t properly shielded; feels like he did when he got shot, three years ago, right in the side. That jolt, that punch of force strong enough to knock a man off his feet, that burning tingle racing through his veins, and he can’t even cry out.

Y' mgahnnn nglui!

The floor shakes, rumbling as if with an approaching train.

Y' mgahnnn nglui!

The air changes, the pressure shifts; Arthur’s ears pop, painfully, and then his good eye flickers dark.

He cries out.

Is this Harvesting? Is that what this is? This doesn’t feel like being poured out like holy wine, but maybe this is preparation. Maybe this is necessary.

He knows it’s deserved.

Arthur can’t even breathe in, can't move or make a sound. All he can do is endure.

HAI MGAHNNN!

It all stops, just stops. Arthur's panting is loud.

Then his sight flickers back, both eyes suddenly working, filled with golden light. Slowly, he turns his head.

The mirror is ablaze. It’s so bright his eyes water, briefly blinding, but he can’t stop staring, can’t stop trying to see, and he blinks at it, one hand raised against the glare.

There’s some… place… through that mirror.

He can’t see it right. It’s like it’s more than three dimensions; gold and black seem to be the primary colors, and there is a depth to it, a weird feeling like if he somehow could step into that mirror, he’d fall and fall forever and never stop.

“Hello, Arthur Lester,” says a voice he knows, a voice he's lived with for five years, but it’s no longer coming from his head.

It’s coming from the mirror.

“What?” Arthur whispers.

“It’s good to see you with my own eyes. My, we have some work to do, don’t we?” And what comes into view is—

What he sees is—

It can’t fit in the mirror. It’s too big, too much. It can’t fit in his mind. It’s too big, too much; it’s more than anything he’s ever seen, its upper half humanoid, its lower a mass of writhing black tentacles. It wears a gleaming yellow cloak, brilliant and beautiful, and its face is covered with a white mask.

And it is—

That is a god. Arthur knows. Has never seen one before, and it doesn’t matter. He knows: he is staring at the King in Yellow, and he cannot look away.

“My little detective,” says the voice, which rumbles under Arthur’s hands and knees with every syllable (and his left hand feels it, too, but he can’t parse that now). “It’s time to go.”

Art by by luneatic-art on Tumblr.

[ID illustration: A drawing of Arthur and the King in Yellow.

The King is coming out of a golden mirror that sits in a corner of a dusty, bare room.

Black tentacles are sprouting from the mirror and slithering towards Arthur, who is sitting on the ground and recoiling.

He has his hand up in front of his face as if to brace himself, and the King in Yellow’s giant form looms over him. A tall window illuminates the room in a harsh green glow.

At Arthur’s feet rests a bloodied dagger.

/End ID]

“This can’t… you’re… Hastur?” Arthur whimpers.

And it’s that laugh, and it has never sounded so wicked and so eager and so dark. “Oh, Arthur… yes. It’s me.”

“Can’t… where is… how can you be this?” And in spite of the shock of his soul and his mind, a tiny tendril of rage lifts its head. “You lied again?”

That laugh. He could drown in that laugh, or pull it over him and sleep safe, or hurl it at his enemies to make them explode. Arthur cries out.

“Arthur… I lied to you. I did. And now, I am no longer. You’ve done well. You stopped my brother from his foolish plan. The makers and jugglers of the universe celebrate your uncertain victory. You’ve won some interesting bets! I am very pleased with you.”

Arthur stares. It’s becoming harder to think the longer he does; the King fills his thoughts, shoves them aside to make room for himself.

The King—Hastur—holds out one enormous black hand. “I am the King in Yellow, Arthur—and it’s time to fulfill our Contract.”

Arthur can’t blink, can’t look away from that mask, and so doesn’t notice the tentacles sliding out of the mirror like curling mist. Doesn’t notice until they grab him, around his ankles, around his waist. He cries out and panics, struggling. “No! Wait! Wait!”

“Shhh,” says Hastur, says the King in Yellow, slowly sliding him nearer. “I told you I’d arranged everything. Don't you want to know who took your daughter's life?”

Arthur freezes. Even now, in this moment, this takes precedence over all. “Who? Who did it?”

“You did.”

The words make no sense. He stares. He laughs, sharply, then falls silent again “Wh… wh… what? What?”

“You killed your daughter, Arthur. You didn’t mean to; it was an accident. But it. Was. You.”

No. No, this can’t be happening.

Memory flashes—

That night, that horrible night, case gone to shit, bad guys off on a technicality. They’d done a drive-by, shot up his office, and after a long and fruitless day trying to deal with cops and damages, he’d gone to Jack’s Bar and gotten fucking drunk.

He’d wished Bella was alive to take the kid for a few days. He wished he had anyone to lean on, anyone he could ask for help, but he didn’t. He didn’t.

And he was so fucking drunk as he got home that the quick tap of running feet almost didn’t get through, but it did, and he panicked.

Those punks, those criminals, coming at him because it was his testimony that nearly got them hanged, which meant someone had told them where he lived though that was off the books, and rage joined the fear in his head.

And he raced into the apartment and closed doors and windows, and was that them pounding on the door or his heart pounding his head? And there was a fight, a firefight, a bad one.

Neighbors called the police.

He had no idea how long it lasted. Probably only moments; he couldn’t tell.

And by the time it was over, it no longer mattered. He’d managed to shoot none of them. They’d managed to shoot his kitchen, his living room, his huge, heavy radio.

They’d managed to shoot his daughter.

In her bed, asleep. Clean through, not even time for her to wake up and struggle.

And Arthur—

The sharp flash of memory, unnatural, in a wave, rising like Dagon’s sea, Hastur doing this somehow—

Screamed and screamed, clutching his girl, wouldn’t even let anyone take her to try to help, because why bother? She was cold when he found her, so it had happened early enough on that she…

She lay there, and he hadn’t known.

She died because of him, because of his involvement in this case, and—

“We don’t have any way to know who shot her,” they told him, and they wouldn’t listen, and he screamed and clutched his child and yelled in the police station and yelled at the morgue, and the bad guys got away, and—

" What do you mean, they all had alibis?"

It hadn’t been them, hadn’t been the men he assumed, but someone had shot his daughter.

And no human could ever tell him who.

So.

So he—

And so he had—

Arthur gasps as though he hasn’t breathed in years, and finds himself held in the air before the mirror, face to face with a god.

With his god.

“This will hurt,” says Hastur, “but then… I’m fairly sure you want it to.”

That night.

Panic that night, hearing (he can see them now, as if from a million other eyes) just some stupid teenagers running down the street.

Panic, hiding in his apartment, heart pounding, incredibly drunk.

Hearing neighbors overhead, just talking, maybe dropping something heavy.

Remembering earlier that day, ducking in terror as they shot his old office, remembering the spray of wood chips from his desk hitting his face, hitting the wall, remembering the terror of nearly being murdered.

And panicking.

Panicking and shooting.

Panic.

Certain they were here, Certain they were coming for him. Too drunk to see, to aim. Him shooting his radio, him shooting his fridge, him shooting through his ugly living room sofa.

Continuing to fire—click, click, click—after the bullets ran out, because in his head, THEY were here again to take his life.

They weren’t.

And he did not stop until Yang and the others came, shaking him, shouting at him, trying to hold him back as he remembered his daughter and ran to her room.

Arthur sobs.

It was there, in his head. All of it was. He’d forgotten. Maybe he’d even forgotten on purpose.

He couldn’t live with this.

Hastur lets him sob, tentacles through the mirror, holding Arthur off the ground, stroking his sweat-damp hair.

Hastur had known.

So had Yang.

No wonder they hadn’t told him. They couldn’t use him if he’d known.

Arthur’s whole body shakes with weeping. “My girl… my little girl…”

“It was an accident, Arthur. Preventable… but an accident.”

He doesn’t care if it was. He’s done. This is done, more than he’s ever been. “Do it,” he manages.

“Hmm?” says Hastur, and one tentacle touches under his chin to lift his face.

“Do it!” Arthur screams, and spits at him.

It goes through the mirror, but misses Hastur’s masked face, falling to the void below. “Do what, Arthur Lester, murderer?”

Arthur feels like his heart is in his throat. He can barely talk. “Do it! Harvest me! Get it over with!”

“Is that what you wish?” says Hastur, and he sounds so gleeful, like this is exactly what he planned.

Why? Why? He already has the right, “Yes!”

“Then I so fulfill our Contract, Arthur: I will not give you what you want.”

“Wh… what…”

“‘Make them suffer,’” Hastur hisses, repeating Arthur’s words from his Contract so long ago. “‘I don’t care who they were. Find them. Make them pay. Make it slow. Make it long. That’s what I want.’”

Arthur stares at him.

“I will not give you the death you crave. In fact…I will prevent it,” says Hastur. “Thus, I fulfill our Contract.”

And Arthur can feel the whispers of power like unseen tentacles, sliding over and around and through them both, sliding out of his soul, and knows it is true. Their Contract is fulfilled. “No,” Arthur whimpers. “No! Do it! Don’t… you can’t leave me alive!”

“As if I would so willingly waste you. I like you, Arthur—for which you won’t be grateful for a very long time.” That laugh, so much more outside of him, shakes his bones, and Hastur draws him nearer. “Justice must be done, after all. There will be roses… but not on your grave.”

“Please,” Arthur whispers.

“No. You have been laid bare. I will take you unto myself and remake you as I will.”

He fills Arthur’s vision, fills Arthur’s mind, and Arthur can’t think, can’t recall why he demanded something that isn’t happening, but he knows this isn’t what he wants, and he tries to struggle, like a fish in a net.

“Shhh,” Hastur says, and adds more tentacles.

Arthur is worn out. He stops struggling, panting. He can’t think. He can’t see beyond the god. His anger and the god seem to be all that is left inside him, outside him, anywhere.

“Fear not, Arthur. In time, you will love me. You, Arthur Lester, are forever mine.”

Arthur is carried through the mirror, and trembles as he crosses worlds, as he travels further than he even knew it was possible to go. Hastur fills his vision and his mind. He calms.

“Good boy,” rumbles the King as the last of his limbs pull back through that mirror like cloth through a keyhole.

Like shutting off a light, it flickers back to dull gray, not quite silver. The mirror trembles. All on its own, it shakes, and falls forward. The Black Mirror lands face-down in Asenath’s empty shrine, and it shatters into a billion pieces, and for just one moment, each and every reflective piece echoes the sound of cruel laughter. Then, there is only silence.

(Artwork for this fic)

#malevolent #malevolent big bang 2023 #malevolent fanfic #arthur lester #hastur malevolent #malevolent au #cloud city fic #parker yang #asenath waite #trans asenath waite #trans woman

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Cloud City, Chapter Seven - a Malevolent AU

Why did it have to be his eyes?

Funny; he hadn’t expected the blindness. Of all the horrors he’d imagined, prepared himself for prior to his Contract, he really hadn’t thought his sight would go first. That felt like being trapped, somehow. It felt like being cheated.

Arthur’s heart aches.

AO3 || Masterpost

----

It’s a quick walk to the final murder site. This would be the seventy-seventh victim, the one before the seventy-eighth, which happened… yesterday? The day before? Before his life lit itself on fire and jumped off the roof.

“I don’t like to argue with witches,” says Parker, “but I feel like we’re wasting time.”

“Yeah, well. It’s my time to waste.” Arthur can’t make it sound less bitter.

“Sorry.” Parker’s volume drops.

Arthur shrugs. “I knew the deal. Long as John does what he promised, I don’t care.”

A lie. He cares now. He no longer actively wants to die.

Apparently, visiting murder scenes was the perfect time for his brain to start mulling. He finds himself wondering if Hastur leaking into him is why everybody finds him fuckable all of a sudden. That’s an unpleasant thought.

He also finds himself wondering why he no longer feels like revenge, then death, is his only option. Is this strange desire to continue betraying his daughter?

No; it’s not. He hadn’t even realized he’d changed until it seemed Hastur betrayed him. Hadn’t realized until Hastur took over, took his eye, took his hand. He’s begun to enjoy living again, and isn’t even sure when that happened.

(Asenath helped, though. She genuinely did.)

When he’d made his Contract… had he made a mistake? No. Just thinking about Faroe’s murderer fills him with such sickness. No, he hadn’t made a mistake. He just… hadn’t fully understood the cost.

Easy, Arthur. You aren’t breathing right.

He isn’t breathing at all. Arthur exhales with a whoosh.

“In here.” Grouchily, Parker opens the final door, snapping yet more police tape.

And with no warning, Hastur fills Arthur’s sight.

The last ring on his right hand pops, stinging, a terrible feeling, but he can barely pay attention. This room is… this room…

The room is filth. Not filthy. Filth. There is a difference.

The rot, the stench, the nastiness and horror, it’s all too much, too gross, and the smell of it coats his tongue and his throat. There are bugs everywhere in here, crawling in and out of the walls, swimming through the carpet fibers like reeds, buzzing in the dead light bulbs, dripping with little click-scurry sounds from the faucets—

Arthur stumbles back outside and falls to his knees, retching.

And Parker apparently sees none of it. “Arthur! What the fuck? Arthur!”

Arthur throws up in the street. Nothing but acid, but it comes up, anyway.

Easy, Arthur. This is because of who is trying to come through. I know who it is, now.

Arthur makes a gagging sound. There’s nothing left to vomit.

I know which god, but we need to go back in there so we can identify the priest. They left etheric resonance. They must have been in a rush. This is precisely what we were hoping for: a sloppy scene.

“Arthur!”

“I’m okay,” Arthur gasps, gulping the comparatively fresh air of the street this close to the ocean. “I’m okay.”

“Sure, you are,” says Parker, trying to pull him to his feet.

“This is what’s coming through?” he manages.

Yes. The Great Old One coming through heralds these things: rot, perversion, corruption.

Fuck. Fuck. This thing can't be loosed on the world. He has to stop it from happening. Fuck. “Sorry,” gasps Arthur. “Filth. In there. Rot.”

“Filth?” Parker sounds completely confused. He looks at the room, then back to Arthur. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s horrible,” Arthur gasps.

Parker is silent.

“Have to go back in.”

“Uh… you sure about that?”

“Didn’t find the resonance yet.” He has to. Has to solve this. Has to get to the bottom of this. Has to find the human who’s willingly channeling this horror. He feels like he’s drowning.

Arthur. I need you.

He will find the resonance of the human who did this.

The room looks so normal from one point of view. Empty. Ordinary. Whitewashed walls, a threadbare carpet, rife with that chemical smell of a place often cleaned and used by too many people. Beneath that is the truth, and with more of Hastur’s vision, the first ring on his left hand pops.

There are weird spirit-maggots here, and old food here, and flesh left to fester blue and green. There is stench that defies reason, and stains that rip logic into tiny, miserable shreds. A detritus, spread throughout, like something gooey exploded, like someone took old, blotchy meat and chopped it into pepper-sized flakes, then sneezed on them to scatter them everywhere. There are smears, as if whatever spread it moved in one direction as it spewed.

At last, through it, under it, he can see the resonance of the human who chose to be involved with this horror. The spiritual fingerprint, unmistakable, unique. At last.

The second ring on his left hand pops.

Arthur heaves again, and finally ends up outside on the sidewalk, gulping fresh air. He is crying.

Hastur gives back his human sight. What’s left of it. Arthur can see through his right eye, but it’s… blindered. Framed in shadow.

Arthur makes a sound. Even he’s not sure what it is. A sob? Maybe?

Easy. This is good. You found the signature. We can take it back to Asenath and find the fool doing this.

“Why… why did it…” Arthur is heaving again.

“Arthur?” Parker puts his hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

Arthur swallows. “Asenath,” he chokes. “I need… I got… a resonance. Can… I can identify the person. Asenath needs it.”

“No,” says Parker.

That takes a moment to parse. “What?”

“You got a resonance? You know who did this? Then we’re going to the precinct.”

We don’t need to make a damned police report! We need to go back to Asenath!

“Parker, I… I need the witch.”

“No, you fucking don’t.”

“But—” Arthur groans. “Fuck, I’m gonna be sick again.”

“You actually got it?” says Parker, low. “You’re sure you got the etheric resonance.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“Fuck,” says Parker quietly.

“Lucky me,” Arthur murmured.

“Come on.” Parker pulls him to his feet.

Arthur. We don’t know who we can trust. This is a bad idea.

Too big. It was too big. Arthur heaves again, empty stomach rebelling. “John, I don’t know… what the fuck you think I can do alone, but—”

You can trust me. That’s what you can do.

Arthur swallows around the lump in his throat.

“I got you,” says Parker, manhandling him toward the car.

Arthur feels weak as a kitten. He tries to pull back, but it does no good. “No. Parker, I need Asenath.”

“I’ll call her. You’ve got information. I can’t let you go. It’s my hands or cuffs. Your choice.”

Great. Just great.

Did he really want to fight Parker?

Arthur isn’t sure he can. That room… the awfulness in that room… He's not even fully standing on his own feet.

Hastur sighs. I understand. Your human frailty is… a thing I forget, sometimes. I forgive you.

“Oh, what the fuck?” Arthur mutters, thinking he’s a lot more frail because of Hastur, but he doesn’t have the energy to argue. He is all but carried, hitching tears he cannot fight, shuddering and more than half-blind.

Why did it have to be his eyes?

How long would he live in darkness, once Hastur had it all? He can’t imagine days of it, weeks, months, years. Then again, it won’t be years. It won’t even be weeks, at the rate this was happening. “Maybe it’s good it’s going so fast,” he says, which probably makes no sense.

“Sure,” says Parker in the tone one used to comfort a crazy person.

Arthur lets Parker strap him in, and sits in the car seat, silent.

Hastur sighs. I did spoil you, I suppose.

“John, I can’t…”

Shh. It’s all right. I don’t blame you. You’re only human, after all. And, bizarrely, his left hand lifts to wipe away his tears.

Arthur has no space in his head to understand this strangeness. He lets it happen, says nothing as Parker drives toward the police station, lets Hastur’s hand grant small comfort in a world growing cruelly dark.

(chapter eight)

#malevolent #malevolent big bang 2023 #malevolent fanfic #arthur lester #hastur malevolent #malevolent au #cloud city fic #parker yang #asenath waite #trans woman #trans asenath waite

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Cloud City, Chapter Twelve - a Malevolent AU

You are taking the biggest fucking risk.

“The biggest fucking risk, Hastur, was choosing to trust you after I learned what you did.”

Hastur is silent.

“I still hate you for it,” Arthur says. “But… I trust you. I’m making that choice. And now, I need you to make that choice, too."

AO3 || Masterpost

-------

And south they go, again. It’s deeply weird for the city to be so empty even before they get to the flood zone. Arthur is beyond nervous. He keeps playing with the strap of his bag. He clenches and unclenches his fist. He keeps forgetting to breathe.

Asenath skitters ahead, but not too far—shockingly red in the normal gloom of the city, maybe even glowing a little in the dark of the night. He could almost swear he sees afterimages around her—trails of that red, kissing the air, then evaporating like smoke. Or maybe his remaining eye is just busted, and he’s not seeing anything, really.

Or maybe she’s doing that to ensure he can see.

He wonders if it’s costing her. He wonders if she’s running out of whatever remaining power is here. He wonders…

Arthur? Breathe. You stopped again.

Arthur exhales with a woosh.

This is not good for you. Let’s try this: tell me a story.

“What?” says Arthur. Whatever the witches did, it’s more than just keeping people home. Not a single light shines in any window; there’s not a voice, not a hint of cooking food. For a moment, he wonders if anyone is even conscious.

Hastur reaches across and grips his right wrist. You are old enough—you were here when Dagon’s ritual failed, yes?

Boy, is that turning the clock back. “Yes.”

Tell me about it. How old were you?

Asenath keeps skittering along, heading apparently straight for the sea; it’s still many blocks away.

Fuck it. “I was two.”

What did you know about it?

“Not much, other than it’s the reason I lost my parents.”

You never talk about them.

Arthur swallows. “That’s because they killed themselves. I really don’t like to talk about it.”

I can imagine not, but I’d like to hear about it now.

“Fine. Who else am I ever going to tell?” His throat tightens again. “They weren’t involved with that Dagon mess, but they were among the people who lost everything when it went so wrong.”

Yes… as I recall, a Mass Summoning?

“Yeah. They never work. Summoning one great being into multiple people? It never works. Always goes wrong.”

You sound very sure of that.

“I am. My parents tried it four years later. It’s how they died.”

The bugdog makes a sad, buzzy flutter.

Why would they do such a thing?

Arthur sighs. This section of the city has been abandoned all of Arthur’s life, but it's worse than further north where things are simply boarded up. The windows here are entirely covered with some kind of mold, fuzzy and green. The doors are completely missing, and he knows better than to go anywhere near those openings.

Probably there are no monsters squatting there. But if there are, they’d get him—and ocean-monsters are so much worse than monsters from the Wastes. At least if they’re from the Wastes, they’ll just kill you and eat you. Things from the sea keep you, and though you’re never seen again, it won’t be long until someone with your face and something else’s heritage comes shambling into the city, smiling and smelling of fish.

Asenath has reached the lowest point in the street where an old, ruined sign sits at the crossroads—just a pole and a couple of boards, painted, narrowed at one end to say what and which way.

She takes a moment to let him catch up. Talking, apparently, slowed him down. Or maybe he slowed because he’s just afraid. “Because they were desperate, and we had nothing but debt. I do remember that.”

Tell me.

Arthur sighs. “When that stupid Mass Summon went wrong—one god into fifty-five people? Please—it didn’t just kill them. It did… something to the ocean. But you know that.”

Tell me anyway.

Asenath peers up at him.

“You’re so ugly, you're cute, you know that?”

Flap-flap-flap. She wriggles her rear at him this time, then turns right, heading west along the street, only one block of buildings out of sight of the water.

Hastur waits.

Arthur sighs. “So those people tried their Mass Summon. Fuck if I know why. They failed, and when they did, it’s like the ocean itself got mad at them. It rose… it wasn’t a wave, but just… swallowing, engulfing, taking the city.”

Flap-flap.

“Yeah, I guess you were part of that resistance, weren’t you?” he says to her. “I know the witches saved us; did… something that calmed the sea, that maybe appeased the god behind it, or whatever. The ocean rose up there—” he points back the way they came—“all the way to eighteenth street. When it retreated back down again, not a single living thing was left in any of the buildings. Even the people who’d gotten onto their roofs disappeared.”

Quite horrible.

“Am I wrong? You guys saved us, right?” Arthur says to Asenath.

The bug-dog somehow looks absolutely pleased with itself, then scurries on.

Arthur follows.

And your parents?

“Won’t let that go, huh? Well. they lost everything. Their business was down here somewhere—I have no idea where. I’m not even sure what it was, but I do know that when the waters went back down, they had nothing. They got into debt; whatever they did for a living apparently was so damn specialized they couldn’t start again. Dad tried to get work, and so did mom, but… everyone was struggling to do that. I mean, it threw everything off. Shipping was fucked. We were cut off now by not just the Wastes, but the sea—and it had never exactly been friendly.”

So they chose Summoning to save themselves?

“Neither of them could… manage a Summon on their own, so they talked about it. Planned it out. They were going to dual Summon, then use whatever power they got to pull us out of the hole. Well. Like I said. Those never work.”

And so you were orphaned.

“Yeah. So I was orphaned.” Arthur shrugs. “Had all kinds of plans before that. Even wanted to be a sailor. Crazy, I know.”

Do I hear longing in your voice, Arthur?

Asenath took a left, heading down again down an alley.

“I wanted to see the world,” Arthur admits, following her.

A very dangerous career, Hastur purrs.

Why that pleased him, Arthur has no idea. “Well. Sailing was the best way to do it. See lots of cities and lands. Get out of this place.”

Do you still want to see the world, Arthur?

“I’ll never see the world now, so what does it matter?”

It matters.

“Sure.”

Would you, if you could?

“Hastur, I deserve jack shit. But if I could… I would. I’d go further than I even knew it was possible to go.”

Asenath stops. Ahead of her is a single door at the end of the alley. Unnervingly, the wall isn’t that high; beyond it, Arthur hears the weird, surging shush of sea on shore, and though he knows he’s safe, he shudders at the thought of how close he is to things that could take him.

The bugdog does its whispery, wing-chatter bark.

The door is locked. “Figures,” says Arthur, and picks it. “How the hell is Parker going to find this place?”

Oh, he’ll find you.

“Ominous.” The door opens, and Arthur is briefly dizzied.

It doesn’t open onto the beach. Instead, he’s facing a wide, dust-mote-filled room—high ceilings, distressed wood floors, and brick walls like a warehouse. The only things in here seem to be at the far end by the single, tall window: a long wooden table with a few odds and ends on it, and a tall, gilt-framed mirror.

Why, witch… you do have a black mirror!

A sharp, rude set of flaps.

I certainly am. This simplifies everything.

Chitter-flap.

Hastur laughs, low and wicked. Oh, I think I’ll be doing that no matter how this turns out, don’t you?

Arthur sighs. “Focus.”

Mmm… yes. This is it. Close the door behind us.

Arthur does with a gulp. “Is that where he’s going to come through? Should I lock it?”

Hard to say. We’re on the opposite side of the city now—by the docks, near the Lake. When he comes—and he will come, when he knows where you are—he could choose any number of avenues.

Arthur looks out the window. It’s covered in grimy film, and he can make out no details, but a surprising amount of light still enters; he can clearly see the room, the table, the mirror. The things on the table. “What are those?”

Flap-flap-flap.

Tools. You’re going to have to do some magick.

Arthur reaches up and touches the onyx taper in his earlobe. He’s down to his last protection; his last barrier between Hastur just burning him out, like a used piston. “How did those rings work, anyway? They weren’t attuned to me.”

They were attuned to me.

“To… to you? What did you do, have them on standby?”

They were a gift. You’re getting distracted.

“Sure.” He looks at the mirror, then at the bugdog.

Asenath’s little spirit-bug is looking�� faded. If he squints, he can see through her to the boards.

“Oh, no,” says Arthur, breathing fast. “Oh, no! Oh, no!”

Shhh, Arthur, calm down.

“Fuck! She’s dying again! Fuck!”

Arthur, this is a piece. It was never going to last. It’s going to go join the rest of her in the Wood. Calm down, or you’ll waste all the effort she put into leaving this here for you.

Arthur stops as if slapped. “I can’t keep losing people tonight. I can’t.”

Arthur, that—

“I can’t!” Arthur yells it, bending at the waist, putting his whole being into the words.

The bugdog flies up to eye-level. Here, lit by the window, she is definitely see-through, and it’s dizzying to watch her hovering there. Arthur stares.

She licks his nose.

He laughs, or maybe cries, or something else, wiping his face, wiping his eyes. “You sure?”

A whispery, weird bark.

Arthur sniffles and straightens. “Okay, okay. Okay.” He reaches and just rubs the top of her head with his finger.

Are you? says Hastur, sounding very dubious. That’s all it took?

“Can you get that her not suffering matters to me?” says Arthur. “She’s… she’s really all right with this. So I guess I will be, too.”

You poor thing. Yes, indeed, she is.

“Roses on my grave, remember.”

I remember. A low, weird purr in that voice.

Arthur ignores it. “Talk me through this. How do we show Parker where we are?”

Arthur, we don’t have a plan yet.

“I do.”

A pause. Do you.

“I do.”

Well?

“I’m not telling you what it is because he can hear you, and I need you to… react honestly.”

Another pause. So you expect me to be upset. Arthur, that isn’t making me terribly confident in this plan.

“Too bad. That’s all you get.”

Asenath lands. Her wings buzz. And Arthur knows, without a doubt, that she is laughing at Hastur.

Arthur laughs, too. He blows his nose. And then he’s done. There's no more time for self-pity. He's getting what he deserves, after all. “Show me what to do.”

Are you sure?

“Yeah. I had my fucking cry. Let’s get this bastard before he hurts anyone else.”

Hastur’s hand touches his lips again, and Arthur startles. Remarkable.

“Will you stop being weird and tell me what to do?”

As you wish. On the table, you will find a feather, a living frog, three small diamonds, a complete fish skeleton, and a knife.

“Oh, this is gonna be fun,” Arthur mutters, and doesn’t mean that at all.

Asenath’s spell works. After it’s all done, and the frog—decorated wildly with diamonds and bones and Arthur’s blood—leaps into the mirror and disappears, Arthur is almost unsurprised to see its dark surface shimmer like a puddle in the rain as it reveals Parker's office.

Parker, on the other hand, looks stunned. He’s staring directly at them; seated at his desk, phone to his ear, dressed for a normal day of work and not murders and rot-gods. On his desk are piles of paper and a couple of boxes of evidence, odds and ends in small bags, and two coffee mugs, one fresh, the other looking unpleasantly old.

Arthur has spent time in that office. He knows its smells, knows the weird little bump in the carpet that makes it a pain to move the chair around, knows exactly how the electric lights sound overhead as they flicker. He’ll never be there again. Of all the things he’s saying goodbye to today, this one, he’s just fine losing.

“What the fuck?” Parker says, standing.

Arthur knows he’s quite the sight. His taper blew out toward the end of the spell; blood patterns that side of his face, and he’s seated on the floor. He can barely move. “Hi, Parker.”

Parker’s mouth is open, but his eyes are active; he’s clearly trying to figure out where Arthur is. “How are you doing this?”

“Favor. Last favor, from Asenath, before you fucking killed her.”

“She struck first, Arthur,” he says.

Arthur doesn’t believe him. “Probably,” he says with a shrug.

“Where the hell are you?”

“That’s why I’m reaching out.” He starts to lift his hand to his ear, seems to think better of it, drops it. “I’m done.”

Parker goes pale. “Done? Are you—fuck, you’re injured. What happened?”

Arthur wishes he could believe that fuck was on his behalf and not some wicked god’s. He sighs slowly. “John knows who killed my daughter.”

“Good?” says Parker, slowly. “Where are you, asshole?”

“He’s known for five fucking years.”

Parker stares.

Arthur, says Hastur. What are you doing?

“The whole time?” says Parker.

“The whole time. Within the first week.”

Parker stops looking at the room and looks at him instead. “You look real fucked up.”

“I am.”

“What happened?” His eyes narrow. “You go to all the trouble of fucking escaping, and here you are, doing whatever this is?”

“I’m done, Parker.”

“You said that,” he says slowly.

Arthur shakes his head. “I’m tired. I… John hurt me. He…” His voice cracks. None of this part has to be faked. “He fucking… I can’t do this.”

Arthur…

“Do what?”

“Let him win. Let him get me. He set some stupid shit up so whoever killed my daughter will get caught no matter what,” Arthur says, “but he still hasn’t told me who it is.”

Parker looks deeply wary. “How… would he have…”

“I don’t know. I was unconscious, okay?”

“Fuck,” says Parker, low. “So he’s really powerful, then.”

“He serves that fucking King in Yellow. The one who made people kill themselves.”

Arthur. Hastur’s tone is warning. I know you have a plan, but this—

Parker has gone so very still. Then he does something Arthur doesn’t expect: he smiles. “That explains a whole hell of a lot.”

“Does it? Great. I’m done.”

“You said that. What do you mean by it?”

“He. Lied. About my daughter’s murderer. Fuck him. I won’t do it. He protects his ass with whatever that setup is, but then he strings me along for five years? No. No.” Arthur’s louder, and his voice is haggard, rough. “He doesn’t get to Harvest me after what he’s done.”

Hastur inhales. Tell me this is the plan, Arthur. This is part of your plan.

Parker’s eyes lid. “Really.”

“I fucking mean it. The one thing that matters to me, the one gods-damned thing, and he….”

Arthur!

“Where. Are. You.”

“You know the warehouses on the strip between the Lake and the Ocean? I’m in one of those. John’s told me a lot of weird things about what you want to do. So has Asenath. I have one question, Parker: if you do it, if I let you do whatever this is… will it hurt him?”

Arthur!

“Will it hurt… your Summon?” says Parker, and he’s not able to hide his delight, he’s already grabbing things from his desk, he’s snatching his jacket. “Oh, yeah. It’ll hurt him. Bad. Especially now that we know who he serves.”

“Fine. Then come get me. I don’t care.”

Arthur! Fucking… Arthur! Will you listen to me?

“Which warehouse?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t… I don’t have the strength to go back down.”

That gets him upset. “Shit. I’m coming. Shit.” Anger flashes over his face. “You better not be fully fucked up. You better not, Arthur.”

Arthur shrugs.

“You can walk? The asshole doesn’t have the rest of your body, right?”

“Just the eye and the hand. I’m just… I’m tired. I haven’t eaten. This magick thing? This favor from Asenath? It took it out of me. I’m not good with magick, you know that.”

“Okay. Okay.” Parker calms a little. “I’m coming. Don’t you fucking move. I’ll find you.” And he leaves.

Arthur finally releases the will keeping that connection open, and falls onto his back with a sigh.

The frog hops back out, shakes off the feather and bones and jewels, and hops off into the gloom. Arthur can’t be bothered to watch.

Arthur, what the fuck was that? He’ll bring backup!

“No, he won’t. There is no backup right now.”

How the hell do you know that?

“Did you see what was on his desk? City map. He had pins where the witch streets were—and I recognized the colors he was using.”

And?

“Green means under control, problem solved. Yellow means in progress. Red means emergency, not enough officers, or maybe none at all. Guess what, Hastur? All but one witch street was red.” Arthur grins at the ceiling. “Anybody he has is already out there, and I don’t think he’s going to take time to go around picking people up.”

You are taking the biggest fucking risk.

“The biggest fucking risk, Hastur, was choosing to trust you after I learned what you did.”

Hastur is silent.

“I still hate you for it,” Arthur says. “But… I trust you. I’m making that choice. And now, I need you to make that choice, too.”

To trust you.

“This is going to be ugly. Trust me. That’s all.”

Hastur sighs. If this doesn’t work—

“Curtains. I know. I know.”

Asenath toddles over. Her little bug form is almost completely invisible now, only legs, spots, and parts of the face visible. She presses her cold nose to his cheek.

To his surprise, he can touch her, and does, stroking her buggy back for a moment. “I know. You’ve got to go. It’s all right. You’ve done… everything. Thank you. Not just for this. For all of it. Thank you, Asenath. You can rest now.”

She makes a little sound— whispery, oddly sweet—and touches her nose to his cheek one more time. Then she’s gone. Just gone.

He feels the absence. Maybe he’s crazy, and the true loss of someone that special doesn’t really make a difference, but he swears he feels it. The world’s lesser without her. He’s sure. He hopes the stupid goat god (or whatever the Mother is) appreciates what it just gained.

Arthur sighs. “He’ll be here in about twenty minutes. Can you wake me in ten?”

Sure, Arthur. I can do that.

“Trusting you.” And he’s out. He’s out the moment he closes his eyes, and he absolutely does not dream.

(chapter thirteen)

#malevolent #malevolent big bang 2023 #malevolent fanfic #arthur lester #hastur malevolent #malevolent au #cloud city fic #parker yang #asenath waite #trans asenath waite #trans woman

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Cloud City, Chapter Eleven - a Malevolent AU

He feels Hastur on his lips and under his tongue, behind his eyes and so very careful not to knock Arthur out of his own body because if he is too much himself, he would.

And then it’s gone, and Arthur is gasping, and somehow on his knees, and the bugdog is licking his face with concern and making weird little whimpering buzzing sounds. “Got a kiss after all,” he blurts, laughs weakly, and hangs his head to keep from passing out.

AO3 || Masterpost

-------

They go south toward the water. They go south because no one in their right mind would. This is blocks past Arthur’s apartment building. Not even criminals hide in this place, and Arthur is all too aware that if they find anything alive down here, it will be a monster.

Talk to me, Arthur, Hastur says as Arthur jogs. You’ve been quiet for too long.

Arthur snorts. “Too long, eh?”

Except when asleep, you’re never this silent. Sometimes, not even then.

“Ha,” says Arthur unsteadily, and keeps jogging.

The ocean is in sight now, and the air has gone humid and briny, salty and fishy, unpleasant and still. Every building is boarded up from windows to doors, at least facing the street.

Arthur’s steps sound so damn loud. “Well,” he says. “I guess it doesn’t really matter that I suck so bad at understanding anyone or anything, since I’m about to die.”

Really? says Hastur, dry. That’s where you’re going with this?

Arthur turns down an alley, finally off the main street, and leans against the wall. “Hastur. In the last two days, everything I knew about the universe, my co-workers, my friendly enemies, and my own body has been ripped away, set on fire, and glued back together in a language I don’t fucking speak. You know, I could use a minute?”

Ah, Hastur says.

“Yeah,” Arthur says, and sits right on the ground.

They’re going to be searching for you.

“I know. I know I have to confront him. I know I have to use the dagger on him. I know all of it. I just need a minute, okay?”

Okay.

And so Arthur takes his minute. He takes his minute, and makes it more, just sitting in a silence he has always shunned—a silence he’d been sure was filled with sounds of his daughter, with lies from his parents, with Bella’s soft Don’t leave me before Arthur did, trying to chase down the guy who’d shot her.

And he’s right: it is. But it has more, too.

It has doubts about every arm’s-length relationship he’s ever had. About half the cases he was on, which he’d solved with the same reasoning and instinct that so misled him here. It has questions about Hastur, and their relationship, and what it means that Hastur—an inhuman spirit who will pour all Arthur is out like holy wine—is the only person who actually knows him.

It hits Arthur then that he’s known Hastur longer than his daughter was alive, and that’s the one that undoes him.

He weeps.

Of course, it starts to rain. It doesn’t all land on him, there in the alley. The eaves far above keep much of the water away, and the gutters that still work rush and roar on either side, bleeding the sky into the sea.

He just has to get it out. Just has to sob right past, to let this poison of emotion and terrible thoughts spill, spit it up like bad food he shouldn’t have eaten.

Arthur, Hastur says.

Arthur’s not sure how long it’s been. It’s getting dark. “Yeah?”

You need to eat. The last thing you need to do is pass out while fighting for the survival of humanity.

Arthur chokes a laugh. “Asenath did her thing, remember? I'm fine."

For a while, you'll be fine. You had coffee fifteen hours ago, then you threw up. Asenath helped, but you need food.

Arthur sighs. “How can so much be happening so quickly?”

From my point of view, it’s all been too fast.

Arthur snorts. “Yeah, sure. You can just Contract again.”

Arthur—

“I know, I know. It’s hard to find someone who can host your magnificence, but trust me. It won’t be your last time on Earth.” He sniffles, then pulls out his handkerchief to blow his nose.

You, on the verge of losing everything, murmurs Hastur, offering comfort to me.

“Some of us try not to be an asshole. Take notes,” says Arthur, and stands.

A truly unique human.

“Sure. What’s our plan?”

Now that it’s getting dark, we’ll sneak back to Asenath’s. We know who it is now. We can find a way to track him.

“Can we, though?”

It’s that or trying to find him on our own.

“He could be fucking anywhere.”

Looking for you, no doubt.

“We could set a trap. Call him. I’m bait.”

And he’d show up with so many people we’d never get away. No. It’s hunt or be hunted.

“Fine. But they’ll be watching Asenath’s.” Lower: “Assuming she got away.”

In ordinary circumstances, they’d never know what happened. You simply were there, then vanished. But in this case… I’m fairly sure they know who took your place in the cell.

So yet another impossible threshold was being crossed tonight, it seemed: “Are you saying the coppers are going to go up against the witches?”

I am.

“That… that is gonna go really badly.”

Yes, it is.

“Will it stop if I take out Parker?”

I don’t know, but I do know the police won’t win.

“Fine,” says Arthur, peeking out of the alleyway. The street is quiet and dark; apart from pattering rain, there isn’t a voice, a radio, a dog. “Good as it’s going to get,” Arthur says, and begins the slow climb back up the long hill toward the populated areas.

Toward the witch’s street.

It’s blocked off.

From two blocks down, Arthur stares. All six police cars the city owns are here, pulled up in such a way as to prevent easy access to or egress from the street. From Arthur’s position, he can’t really see what’s going on beyond the cars. What he can see is not good.

There are sparks of light. A flickering, like flame. Smoke rises from several buildings, right and left. Listening hard, he can hear muffled gunshots, as if inside the buildings.

“Shit,” he whispers.

They acted faster than I expected, says Hastur.

“Makes sense,” Arthur murmurs. “If I remember what Parker said. When their Defiler comes into my body, the eye and the hand somehow won’t be his. They don’t want to risk making their horrible rot god angry by letting you get more body parts first.”

We need to leave. We don’t know where Parker lives, do we?

“Not a clue. Don’t have a way to find out, either.”

What do you want to do?

Arthur thinks. “Back to the station.”

Closer to the danger?

“Only an idiot would go, right?”

That doesn’t make this sound like the wiser choice.

“I think what we need to do is stake the place out, watch for Parker, and follow him home.”

Admittedly… that’s not a bad idea. If we can remain undetected.

“We’ve done it before.”

Never with quite so much at stake, or with such handicaps.

Arthur’s body isn’t working right. He can't seem to catch his breath; his hand trembles, and he feels weak. “So I’ll be counting on you paying attention.”

I am.

“Then we’ve got this.”

Exercising caution, they made their way toward the station. Arthur avoids all main streets; it is easier to creep around now that the unseen sun has set. Cloud City is dark at night, unnaturally so, made worse by Arthur’s failing sight.

It feels oddly claustrophobic, even though he is hardly trapped; he keeps having to stop and breathe, just breathe, reassuring himself the world had not closed in, that he is still free. “I hate this,” he whispers.

It’s almost over, Arthur.

One way or another. “Yeah.”

You can do it.

“I have to. So I will.” And he will. “Just another ten blocks.”

Slow. We can do this, Arthur. I believe in you.

How strangely reassuring that is. “Thanks.” And in the dark, Arthur sneaks on.

They’re nearly to the precinct when it happens.

A weird snapping-fluttering sound. Wings flapping, maybe, but without feathers; like a gigantic bug, but not buzzing; it almost sounds like paper.

Could it be from the Wastes? Some new and horrifying insect? Arthur waves his hand over his head, trying to make whatever the fuck that is go away.

Oh, no, Hastur whispers, and Arthur stops.

Before them lands a… creature. It reminds Arthur of his childhood, before they moved here—a sudden and sharp recollection of a picture book, of full-color images of little red bugs, cute and covered in spots.

He’d forgotten. It’s been so long—so many years since he was outside this city, in a place he hardly recalls, and almost seems like a dream. But this thing is… sort of like that?

It’s round like a dinner plate and about the same size; a lovely, cheerful red, shocking in the gloom, with big black spots at random. The wings are what made that paper-flapping sound—they’re clear, delicate, almost like a veil. It has six little legs like black wires, bent and active, letting it scurry from side to side.

But the face is not a bug’s face. It’s some sort of weird, squished dog—bulging eyes, dangling tongue, black nose pressed into its flat, beige cheeks.

Arthur stares.

I’m so sorry, Asenath.

“Asenath?” Arthur blurts.

The bugdog flutters.

“Wh… what, the coppers turned you into a bug?”

The bugdog is laughing at him. It’s not a voiced sound; he can’t even tell what’s making those rapid, happy clicks, but he absolutely knows what that sound is.

“Hastur,” Arthur says warily.

Hastur sighs. This is a piece. A slice. Like a lock of hair, cut off but still bearing the original’s DNA.

“What’s DNA?”

Hastur pauses, then changes tack. This is what remains of Asenath on this mortal plane. And then they both—Summon and bugdog—give Arthur a moment to parse what that means.

He does. He leans on the alley wall; it seems too hard to stand. “You? They killed you?”

The wings flap. There are words in the sound, but Arthur can’t make them out.

Hastur can. He. Not they. She was completely fine until Yang got involved.

Flap-flap-flap.

Even then, it was close... but they’d murdered another person tonight after we got away, bringing the number to seventy-nine.

Flap-flap-flap.

This was too much—more power channeled than she could channel. She knew she’d lose, so she chose to split herself.

“Oh,” Arthur whispers.

Flap-flap-flap. He could almost understand—

Their fight destroyed the station. Yang doesn’t have a proper coven anymore; she’s very proud of the mess she made.

“What?” And Arthur turns on his heel and runs.

Arthur, wait!

Arthur is not waiting. He stops in front of a door and kicks.

The moment before his heel connects, power zips through his body (and his heart stutters, hurts), but the door slams open, lock broken, and he runs inside.

His last ring pops. The last one. That was it. Arthur doesn’t even comment.

Arthur, what the fuck? says Hastur.

He got Asenath killed! He’s dying anyway! It doesn’t matter! Nothing matters! “Do your fucking worst!” Arthur snarls at him, at everything, racing past dummies and tables of fabric, heading for the stairs.

He takes them at a run.

Arthur, what are you doing?

He doesn’t answer, gasping heavily. His body fights him, struggles, but he doesn’t stop until he gets to the roof.

Arthur bursts through that door and doubles over, panting. Behind him, the bugdog flutters with great curiosity before apparently making a guess, and it flits over to the edge of the roof looking north. That’s where Arthur is going. He’s gasping still, but doesn’t care, because from up here, he can perfectly see what remains.

The station is on fire.

It’s largely destroyed; rubble litters the street on all sides of it, entire walls gone, roof caved in. There are no bodies, but Arthur isn’t sure he could see them if there were. This is enough: the place was brought down, and it sure looks like it blew out from the inside.

He stares at it. He wonders how many coppers died. He wonders what will happen to the city now. “Are all the witches dead?” says Arthur.

Flap-flap-flap.

No. In their own homes, they can neither be taken, nor harmed; Asenath thinks the officers sent there were intended to die, to be gotten out of the way, perhaps to grant him more power.

“That means he doesn’t think he needs their help from this point out,” says Arthur. “Are we sure he hasn’t hit eighty-one murders?”

Flap-flap-flap.

If he’d done all eighty-one, with that amount of power, you wouldn’t have been able to hide.

So that is terrifying. “What… what do we do?”

Flap-flap-flap.

No.

Flap-flap-flap!

No. That’s fucking stupid.

“Give me a vote, idiot,” says Arthur.

Hastur’s low growl makes him shiver a little. She suggests heading to a hidden shrine of hers and using the tools she has there to draw Parker to you. It’s a bad idea, and we’re not going to do it.

Arthur looks at the bugdog.

It flaps at him, wings so fast, they’re a blur.

It’s too much. “Asenath really is dead?”

Flap-flap-flap.

His heart hurts. “Are you in the Dark World?”

Flap.

No. “With the… the Mother?”

Flap-flap-flap!

Joyful, that scuttling, and of course, it would be. “Good for you,” Arthur says around the lump in his throat. “You earned it.”

Flap-flap!

Heck yeah, she did. “Your mouse going to be okay?”

A happy little series of flaps.

She says her sisters have Gertrude, and all is well, and you are not to grieve.

Right. Easy-peasy.

So he’d made another mistake. His life was all mistakes right now; he couldn’t trust his decisions, even the ones that he made to try to avoid hurting someone. What the fuck, why not say it? “I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you.”

The bugdog skitters over, climbs onto his foot, and presses its weird dog-face to his shin.

Forgiveness? Pity? Agreement? It’s all there, and it nearly does him in again.

Arthur wipes his eyes, then looks toward the station. Flames lick out the ruined roof; there’s no sign of life at all, which strikes him as odd. No firefighters; no rescue workers.

He looks around. This building is only six stories and does not show him behind or over the skyscrapers, but he still can see a lot—up and down the street, through various apartment blocks, all the dark fronts of stores. There’s no one. Not even a curious gawker. “Where—” His voice cracks, and he clears it. “Where is everybody?”

Flap-flap-flap.

Inside. The witches know what we do this night; they have cast a city-wide spell to keep everyone inside.

“City-wide? I don’t feel anything.”

You have me.

Arthur snorts.

No, Arthur, Hastur says, amused, warm, terrifying. You have me. And then, he—

For a moment, Arthur can’t breathe because Hastur is.

Hastur fills. Hastur already was, but whatever he does now, Arthur feels him in every cell and every vein, flowing like blood through his whole body, sitting like fat under his skin, singing like thoughts in his brain, bearing his weight, strengthening his bones, under every single fingernail and at the root of every hair.

He feels Hastur on his lips and under his tongue, behind his eyes and so very careful not to knock Arthur out of his own body because if he is too much himself, he would.

So. Not a normal Summon. Four hundred years to find someone who could handle him. Servant of the King in Yellow. Arthur is willing to bet that’s more like right hand man of the King in Yellow, but he can’t bring himself to say it.

It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Only one thing does: he has to confront the ex-lover who’s walking around with the power of many murders he wields like a club, and has to find a way to kill him.

That, and he can’t trust his decisions. That’s so fucking clear; not one thing he’s chosen of late was right, and with so much on the line, he’s not sure he can risk blowing another one. “Tell me my options,” he says to his strange companions.

Flap-flap-flap.

Hastur growls.

“Say it,” says Arthur. “I can almost understand her, anyway.”

You—well. Good for you, says Hastur. Pity we didn’t figure that out years ago; I could have attuned you to great magicks.

“Hastur, you’re fucking stalling.”

Hastur sighs. Very well. She says she has a Black Mirror. I disbelieve this statement; there are none left in the world.

Asenath chitters at him angrily.

Yes, well. Hastur huffs. Through it, you can communicate with Parker, wherever the hell he is right now, and draw him to you into a trap she proposes we set up.

“Okay,” says Arthur, trying not to pass judgment yet. “And your plan?”

We track him down, hunt him, and slit his throat from behind.

“Track him down… somewhere in the city.”

He’s looking for you. He’ll be staking out your office and other places you’re known to hang out. Dryly: Finally, a valid excuse to go to Jack’s Bar.

“Very funny,” Arthur mutters. “Meanwhile, he’s getting ready to do more murders and get to full power, right? Do my chances go up or down while he does that?”

They are the same.

Asenath disagrees, wings whirring.

No, says Hastur. They are the same.

Arthur does not think they are the same, given that Hastur already said eighty-one murders would make Parker too powerful to avoid.

Still; even with this, he’s more of the stakeout type—more the kind who’d prefer to sneak behind his prey and gut him, much prefer to do this without having to meet Parker’s gaze. He'd rather do it Hastur's way—so. Since that’s where his heart falls… “We do it Asenath’s way.”

Hastur’s surprise is palpable. What?

“Asenath’s way.”

Apparently, the bugdog is surprised, too. It skitters in a circle, weirdly almost dancing, then pauses to wriggle its rear end. At Hastur, Arthur is sure. He laughs.

Arthur, this is a bad idea.

“Why?”

Because he’ll simply show up with whatever’s left of his coven and overpower you.

Flap-flap-flap.

Arthur understands. “Not if we set the trap right.”

Arthur…

“The risks are huge the other way, too,” Arthur says. “I’m weakened. All my rings are gone—even the weird ones in that bag, which shouldn’t have worked. All I’ve got is my onyx taper, at this point. If I’m going to get a shot at this, I can’t rely on the luck of my past. I can’t just… assume I’ll overpower him, or outlast him, or whatever else. He’s horrifyingly strong. I’m fucking not that. A trap is the best bet.”

You don’t actually mean that, do you? says Hastur, who has always known when Arthur tried to lie.

“No,” says Arthur. “That makes it more important that that’s what we do.”

Arthur…

“No. I suck at all of this. I’ve misjudged everyone and everything. My gut says to do your thing, so we’re going to do hers.”

You are… ridiculous.

“Sure. Whatever. Where are we going, Asenath?”

Willful.

“You’re the one who picked me.” And Arthur does not add and is choosing not to shove me out of my body because surely that impression was wrong. Summons can’t do that.

(Maybe this Summon can.)

(Thinking about it will only fuck him up, so he doesn’t.)

The bugdog buzzes, then skitters for the stairs.

Arthur doesn’t hesitate to follow.

(chapter twelve)

#malevolent #malevolent big bang 2023 #malevolent fanfic #arthur lester #hastur malevolent #malevolent au #cloud city fic #parker yang #asenath waite #trans asenath waite #trans woman

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Cloud City, Chapter Ten - a Malevolent AU

Parker, thinks Arthur, because it is Parker, because Parker’s never been nice, and after today’s little episode they were over, but he was a detective, he’d solved murders, he was one of the good guys, and now...

AO3 || Masterpost

--------

Arthur stays low, creeping on stocking feet. Asenath was right—behind him, through that right-hand door, he hears voices chatting and phones ringing. In front of him is quiet. Too quiet.

His concern had been that some other prisoner might rat him out, but there is no one in the other cells. Which is… odd. He can't fathom what it means.

There’s another door at the end of the hall, locked. Happily, his lock picks are in his bag, and it only takes about forty seconds to open to reveal a storage room. If there’s no exit through here, he’s fucked, and he knows it, but what other choice does he have? Arthur closes the door behind him, quiet as anything, and looks.

There’s light further down and to the left. Maybe a window?

Voices suddenly rise behind him, as if the door to the station proper opened. Someone is coming down that hall.

"Shit," he whispers.

Easy, says Hastur. They’re coming to fetch something from evidence, which is where you are.

“They keep evidence near lockup?” Arthur whispers, already hurrying between shelves, trying to find a place to hide in the dark.

I never said they were smart. Ahead, the shelves end. Turn left. The lighting is shit in here. If you press yourself between the last filing cabinet and the wall, you should remain unseen.

“How do you know this?” Arthur whispers.

Not my first time in this building.

Just how much had Hastur gotten up to when Arthur was out?

The door opens.

Move! Hastur hisses.

Arthur can't make out what they're saying as he rushes, finding the filing cabinets against the wall. There is just enough room—just—for him to push himself between the wall and the final cabinet, but it is far from comfortable.

Arthur does not like confined spaces. He breathes through his mouth, trying not to panic, not to give himself away.

“You sure it’s over there?” says one copper.

“Sure. I put it there myself," says the other.

He knows their voices. That’s Acey (Adam Araszkiewicz, but nobody calls him that), and he’s nice. The other guy is Dutton, who can be a prick, but at least he’s always fair.

“Sick of this,” mutters Dutton, and then comes the sound of boxes being opened and paperwork rummaged through.

They are not looking for paperwork, Hastur whispers slowly.

“Ugh,” said the Dutton. “Better not open that.”

“Lemme see. Asshole, that’s not the right one,” saus Acey. More shuffling, papery sounds, boxes being dropped on the floor. Arthur frowns. It doesn't sound like they're being… careful. Maybe that's the wrong word, but—

A box tumbles from between the shelves and falls, spilling its contents of evidence and who knows what else, sliding papers all over the floor.

No one moves to pick it up.

This isn’t right, Hastur murmurs. Take out the glass of Leng. I haven’t had a chance to properly train you to use it, but your base skill should be enough to at least make use of its power.

Arthur can’t ask him what the fuck he’s talking about. He gives himself the middle finger (knowing damn well Hastur will understand the intended target), then very carefully pulls out the heavy piece of glass.

Hold it up to my eye. Good.

This feels so stupid.

Oh, Arthur, Hastur breathes. She was right.

Instinctively, Arthur reangles the glass so he’s looking through it instead of Hastur. For a moment, it's just blur, like trying to see through frosted glass; then suddenly, he sees. Through the shelves. Close-up and clear, as though he’s standing right in front of them.

The coppers have abandoned their uniforms.

They’re naked. Something that looks a lot like blood is drying all over them in with runes or letters Arthur doesn’t know, and both of them are—

He starts to shake. Both of their throats are cut, clean through. Neither should be walking around. Neither should be talking.

They don't move like dead things, which Arthur had seen as a child, staggering in from the Wastes, and never wanted to see again. They just moved like themselves, and that somehow makes it all worse. Acey kicks another box over. “Fuck it. He’ll just have to come in here and find it himself.”

“I don’t really wanna go back out there with him in the mood he’s in,” mutters Dutton.

“He’ll be pissed if we take too long, either way,” says Acey.

“Pissed, I can handle. Murderous? Not so great. Come on. It just got misfiled, is all.”

They move to the next shelf—which Arthur sees through just as easily, thanks to that glass—and continue roughly searching. It's obvious neither man cares any longer what is where, or if evidence stays with paperwork, or anything else. They're acting like none of it will ever matter again.

Arthur. I can’t see.

Hastur could always see through his eyes before.

This isn't the same way I can see through the eye I’ve taken. It’s like trying to peer through a dirty window. I need the glass of Leng.

Arthur stiffens.

No, I’m not reading your thoughts, Arthur. I just know you very, very well. Please let me see. Arthur’s left hand waits, open, for the glass of Leng, as though that hand belongs to someone else.

Which it does. Jaw tight, Arthur hands it over.

Thank you. I know how hard being silent is for you. Hastur sounds amused.

Arthur flips him off again.

“There it fucking is! Told you it was just misfiled,” says Dutton.

“Where, let me—wrong hand, jackass.”

“What?”

Hastur holds out the glass.

So this will be a proper partnership. Arthur takes the glass and looks.

Both men are bent over a box, uncaring as to their nudity and the brown flakes of blood peppering the carpet around them, staring at a severed hand in a stained bag.

“It’s gotta be,” says Dutton.

“No, this one’s all—look, it was fucking fingerprinted. This isn’t the cousin’s.”

“Damn it.”

“Keep looking. Maybe one of the other hands’ll be connected enough to use.”

Arthur’s thighs are beginning to cramp.

Steady. They need the right hand because it will be a body part connected to their next murder victim.

Arthur tenses.

Calm. You can’t prevent anything. It’s done.

Arthur isn't sure about that.

More boxes fly. The coppers are angry now, Acey dumping boxes on the floor, Dutton just kicking them with abandon. The mess they are making is unbelievable, and at this point, there is no denying they have no plans to pick it up.

They don't think there will be a need to pick it up. Rot-gods must not need police departments.

Arthur slips a little. His crouch is unsustainable.

Steady! Hastur whispers.

“Godsdamn it, snaps Acey, flinging his painted arms in the air. “Where the hell is it?”

“You don’t think somebody took it, do you?” says Dutton.

“Who the hell would take it? How would anybody know it was here? Use your damn head,” says Acey, as mean as Arthur has ever heard him be.

The door opens. “There a problem?” says Parker, and walks right in.

Parker.

Parker walks right in, nude, painted. Parker walks right in and scowls not as a man who is surprised to find coworkers engaged in weirdness, but just as an annoyed superior, dealing with incompetence.

Parker. It is Parker. It is—

Hastur’s left hand reaches across Arthur’s chest as though keeping him back, as though holding him together. Arthur needs it. He has forgotten how to breathe.

“Uh,” says Dutton.

“You haven’t found the fist.”

“Uh,” Dutton says again.

“We found a fist,” says Acey, then seems to realize levity won’t fly and shrinks into himself.

“Wasn’t filed right,” Dutton mutters at Parker’s knees (Parker? It is Parker? How could it be—)

“Sure.”

“Look, we’ll find it,” Dutton says, gesturing. “It’s gotta be in one of the—”

Parker grips Dutton around his torn throat and lifts him with the ease of a coffee mug. Leverage? Doesn’t matter. Physics? Doesn’t matter, and it is Parker, and his scowl is the same.

“Shit,” says Acey.

Hastur does not whisper steady or anything else, and Arthur knows why, and realizes with a deeply unpleasant shock he finally believes his Summon. Parker can hear him. Parker has been after something the whole time. Arthur would make a good vehicle, and Parker has kept an eye on him ever since Arthur got his Summon, which showed he’d make a good vehicle. Parker had known that seventy-eight murders mattered on the way to eighty-one when Arthur hadn’t told him that. Parker is—

With the same casual strength Parker’s shown in glimpses, he tosses Dutton, who hits the wall with a bad crunch and slides to the floor.

“So,” says Parker. “I’m trying to follow the logic here. We are down to days of usability for the vehicle, and you two fuckheads are in here saying you can’t find the fist.”

Arthur's heart hurts, sharp and terrible.

“We will!” says Acey, hands up.

“In time?” says Parker. “Because I can fucking tell you He’s going to be pissed already, down one eye and one hand.”

He. The Defiler.

“We got it,” Dutton gripes, sounding like a whole-ass butcher shop as he clambers to his feet with horrible, wet, cracking sounds, snapping his back straight again, locking his head back in place. The fingers were last, bending back the right way, curving and snicking.

“You better. You’ve got one more hour, then I’m fucking sacrificing you both and sending in Tormay and Sims.”

Acey groans. “Come on, Yang, don’t be an ass.”

“We. Are out. Of time. Get it together,” Parker growls (a tone Arthur has heard so many times, so many ways), and marches back out.

Cursing, Dutton starts searching again, but more slowly.

“Where could it have been misfiled?” Acey mutters. “Maybe first name instead of last name, or…”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” says Dutton, holding up another stained bag, and they both laugh.

“‘F’ for ‘fist!’” Acey laughs as they head for the door. “What fucking idiot…”

“Gotta go punch ‘em in the nuts for it, whoever it was,” Dutton agrees.

“‘N’ for ‘nut-punch!’” says Acey, and still laughing, they leave.

The door closes.

Arthur stops trying and slides onto his ass, still squished between cabinet and wall, feeling like maybe he can’t think, or stand, or function.

I’m sorry, Arthur, says Hastur.

Some part of Arthur knows that is a concession on Hastur’s part. That he has every right to say, I told you so, and might have even done so on a normal day.

It is a concession to the fact that Arthur is not okay. An admission to Arthur’s pain. (Maybe the last five years affected Hastur, too. Maybe it really was more than just a Contract. Maybe—)

We need to go, Arthur.

“They,” Arthur whispers, and swallows. “Don’t we need to stop them? In here? Whatever they’re doing?”

Without you here, whatever they do is pointless, Hastur says. We need to get you far away, at least for the next few hours. After that…

“His throat wasn’t cut,” Arthur whispers.

A pause. No. It wasn’t.

“Parker’s throat wasn’t cut,” Arthur says again.

Arthur. Focus. You need to get out of here.

“And they obviously considered him in charge,” says Arthur.

Hastur sighs.

“So,” says Arthur. “So.”

The window is up and to the left. You may have to move something underneath it to reach it, but if we go now, we should be able to get out before they start whatever they’re doing.

“So I need to use the knife,” says Arthur, who has not moved, who feels dangerously close to hysterical laughter.

If we are here when they start the ceremony, Arthur, we could be trapped. They’re using the Revelations of Gla’aki. The place will be locked down. Arthur, we need to go.

“So I’ll just fuck him up with the knife,” Arthur says a little too loudly. “No problem. That’ll solve everything, and just serve me right, because why the fuck would somebody decent have been interested in me, anyway, and when I have ever made a good choice ever in my life, right? Right?”

Hastur sighs. Arthur. I appreciate your painful introspection, but we need to go.

“Do I leave her here?” says Arthur, finally beginning to shift forward. “I mean, hey, maybe I’m wrong about her, too! Hell, maybe I’m wrong about everything! Maybe my daughter wasn’t even real. Maybe I’m not. Maybe I was conjured from junk on the bottom of someone’s shoe, or something, and all my memories are a lie!”

Arthur. You’re getting loud.

Arthur shuts up, but makes no effort to leave. The cabinet is on the right. Hastur can’t grab it to pull them forward. Arthur. Take a moment. Close your eyes. Breathe.

Arthur makes one small sound.

Let Asenath fulfill her choice. Otherwise, you make her potential sacrifice pointless.

Arthur is silent.

You’re still all right, Hastur says, smoothly. We’re going to leave this place and not give them the chance to call the Defiler into your body. Then we will act before they can regain the upper hand.

Arthur is silent.

You will save so many little girls with this, Arthur. Like your daughter.

“That’s a fucking low blow,” Arthur finally murmurs.

I do not plan for us to die here because of his betrayal, Hastur says. Instead, I wish to see him pay for it.

Arthur is silent for a long moment. “Thank you for not saying, ‘I told you so.’”

This… goes beyond gentle teasing, says Hastur, and then added something odd, as if to himself. I regret that at the end, you must be lost, Arthur. I’d prefer otherwise.

Arthur wipes his eyes. “Well,” he whispers. “Spilled milk.”

Spilled milk. Indeed.

Arthur finally squeezes loose. It takes him a minute to lift and move some still-full filing boxes under the window without making noise, but he manages. Beyond the tiniest squeak when the window opens, he is silent as he pulls himself up, wriggles through, and falls out into the alley below.

(chapter eleven)

#malevolent #malevolent big bang 2023 #malevolent fanfic #arthur lester #hastur malevolent #malevolent au #cloud city fic #parker yang #asenath waite #trans asenath waite #trans woman

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Cloud City, Chapter Nine - a Malevolent AU

“You fuck,” Arthur says quietly, again not recognizing his own voice. “How could you do this to me?”

Hastur sighs. You can be so smart, sometimes. And others… it’s like you’ve pulled the plug on your own intelligence.

AO3 || Masterpost

--------

So here they are, again: in a jail cell, on a board for a bed, confined. Here they are again, except everything has changed.

Everything with Parker changed (twice over, given what just happened, and that guy can go to hell).

Everything with Hastur changed (badly, because Hastur knows who, and knew all along, and never said).

Everything with Asenath changed (and that one tastes of regret, because if Arthur hadn’t been so prickly, they could’ve… at least seen where it would go).

Arthur knows he’s dying. The gods picked him, and he’s a lousy horse in this race. His vision is going. Some horrifying rot-god is coming. He’s in jail. He has an etheric resonance no one can use.

And Hastur knows who, and knew all along, and never said

“You fuck,” Arthur says quietly, again not recognizing his own voice. “How could you do this to me?”

Hastur sighs. You can be so smart, sometimes. And others… it’s like you’re holding your intelligence underwater to drown it.

“I asked you a question, you son of a bitch,” Arthur said, low, and wiped his eyes. “What the fuck did I ever do to you that you’d do this to me?”

I didn’t do it to you, Arthur.

“You did. You know what I need.”

I know that if I had given you the name, and triggered my Contract, I’d be obligated to Harvest you—and then I’d lose my eyes in this world.

Arthur resists that logic and stares at the ceiling. “You know this means everything to me. You know that!”

And if I’d fulfilled the Contract, Hastur says, sounding very, very patient, I would be gone, and no one would know what the Defiler was doing, and the world would be fucked.

“Fuck it anyway.” Arthur wipes his eyes again. Damn things won’t stop leaking.

You don’t mean that. It’s about as gentle as Hastur gets, that tone.

“Right,” Arthur says. “Sure. Sure. So tell me this, then. How are we going to get revenge on my daughter’s killer when I’m fucking dying, and locked away, and you don’t even seem too fucking concerned about any of it?”

Two reasons. One, because Asenath is going to get us out.

“You know that?”

I do.

“Why?”

She wants us to win.

Arthur swallows. “Did Asenath murder my daughter?”

No, Arthur. Why would you ask that?

“Because it has to be someone in my life. Did Parker murder my daughter?”

No, Arthur. And it doesn’t have to be someone in your life.

“It does, because you knew who they were before you agreed to a Contract, so I already knew them, and you could already tell whoever the fuck they were. Is my daughter’s murderer in the police station?”

Hastur sighs. Yes.

He hadn’t expected that. “What? Wh… what? What?”

They’re here.

“Who?”

Arthur. If I tell you, and you confront them, you may not survive the encounter. Worse, if I tell you, the Contract is triggered, and I will have to Harvest you.

“Maybe I want to be Harvested, how about that?” Arthur lies at the top of his lungs. “How about that?”

No, you don’t. Hastur’s tone can go even gentler, now, it seems, and it is… beyond infuriating, because it makes Arthur feel like a fussing child. You don’t want to die anymore. Oddly enough, I believe you’re angry with me about that, too.

“So what if I am?” Arthur shouts.

Hastur sighs. I understand your anger. I will not try to steer you from it—but might I suggest not yelling everything as though I stood upon a mountain peak some distance from yours?

“I will YELL if I WANT to YELL for as LONG—”

Even if it means alerting the murderer?

Arthur inhales. “What the fuck does that mean? Alerting the murderer? To what? They’re already here!”

Yes, but they don’t know about you. They don’t know who you are, how you're connected to that innocent little girl. If you keep this up, they could find out. There are records. There are people to ask just what your deal is. You’re making a scene, which creates curiosity.

Arthur rolls over to face the wall, curls his arm, and presses his face against it, so now only his left eye is free and he can see nothing. Hastur is right; he knows Hastur is right. That doesn’t make it better. Quietly, he begins to cry. “You knew.”

Arthur, said Hastur, softly. I’m sorry things have gone this way. This isn’t how I would have chosen to do it; much of this was outside my control. A servant of the King in Yellow doesn’t give orders. They take them—and there was much I did not know.

Arthur laughs wetly. “That’s not my experience.”

What?

“If there’s one thing you do all the fucking time, Hastur, it’s give orders. Bet your master just loves that.”

Hastur laughs, too. Well. I suppose I can be… imperious.

“You’re a bossy little bitch, is what you are,” Arthur says, sniffling, but he’s smiling now. He wipes his face again. “I don’t know if I can do this. It’s too much for me. I mean… I know I’m good at climbing over things that are too much, but this one… this one might be too much for me.”

There is a pause. Arthur. Do you believe me to be self-sacrificial?

Well, that one’s easy. Arthur snorts. “No.”

Then believe me when I say I have set things in motion to ensure justice is done. I have no intention of dying thanks to a failed Contract. No, I will not tell you what those things are. I will not tell you how, either—except to remind you that I have had to take control of your body three times while you were unconscious.

It just figures Hastur was dicking around while Arthur was at his most helpless. “Are you telling me the truth?”

I am. I don’t know how to convince you, but I am. I have no reason to lie about this—my own survival is tied to it.

“So,” Arthur says softly. “So even if I die doing this, that motherfucker gets what’s coming to them?”

That is correct. You are… The left hand rises and touches his mouth, a surprisingly tender movement that Arthur has no idea how to interpret. Stubborn. Willful.

“Those are the same thing,” says Arthur.

They are not. One insists on going its own way, regardless of reason or proof. The other turns away from suggestions merely to be contrary.

Arthur snorts. “You’re contrary.”

As I said.

Arthur rolls his eyes, but manages a small smile.

I took steps. My Contract will be fulfilled. Your daughter’s killer will be brought to justice.

“Even if I don’t get to see it.”

How else could I ensure I would live, with you running into firefights and leaping down wells?

“I only jumped down a well once.”

It was still rather startling.

Arthur laughs wetly and wipes his face again. “Okay, Hastur. I get it. On some level. But on another, I hate you for this. You get that, right?”

Because you feel I lied to you.

“No, because I feel you used me. Used… my daughter. But I forgive you for the rest.”

Then hush. Get some rest if you can. She'll be here when she can.

Arthur’s left hand is stroking his hair. It really feels like someone else, like he isn’t actually alone in this cell, and that…

It is so weird.

It is so comforting.

He hates that it's comforting. “I’m still mad at you,” he mumbles.

I know, Hastur says.

“Thank you.”

For?

“Making sure about that guy.”

Justice will be served.

“Yeah. I feel like I can rest. Because of that.” And it is true.

Arthur believes him. Whatever else Hastur may be, he is self-serving, not self-sacrificing; if Hastur says he’s ensured the Contract will be fulfilled even if Arthur dies, then it will be fulfilled.

Arthur doesn’t want to ask how. He wants to imagine scenarios, magickal traps, torment brought from beyond Outer Darkness to here. He hopes the King in Yellow gave Hastur such tools as to make it hurt.

He falls asleep, and Hastur continues to pet his hair all the way into the dark.

“Psst,” says Asenath in his ear, her hand over his mouth.

He jumps pretty badly. Had his left arm been in his control, he might have elbowed her in the face.

But it is not, and she knows it is not, and she looks absolutely puckish as he turns around. Her hand is gently scented with some kind of flower Arthur can’t name, and the part of his brain that makes connections wonders if that scent is everywhere else. “Careful there,” she whispers, finally releasing him. “You’re a lot of things, but ‘quiet’ isn’t one of them.”

“I am, so,” he whispers back, and rolls over to full face her.

She’s very close.

His eye is… not great. It’s cloudy; shadowed. He’s pretty sure it isn’t actually that dark in here. He swallows. “Are we getting out?”

“You are,” Asenath whispers. “Guard comes by to check on you every damn hour—next check is in a few minutes. There’s got to be a body in the cell.”

He stares. “They could hurt you if they find out what you did.”

She shrugs. “They can do whatever they want. I’ll defend myself with prejudice.”

“I don’t envy them, in that case,” he whispers—and then recalls her smile from earlier. He recalls her resignation. “You’re not… done, are you?” he whispers, leaning even closer.

“Done?”

It might be lavender. He’s never smelled lavender, but the word feels right. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.”

“No,” she says, relenting a little. “I’m not ‘done.’ I’d like this to be over so I can go back to teaching Gertrude how to read Cyrillic. I’d like you to win. Earth’s not perfect, Arthur Lester, but it’s pretty nice, and I’m not ready to give it up yet.”

It’s a nice speech. He hopes it’s the truth as he sits up. “What do we do?”

She holds up his bag. “We are both really lucky you left this in the room when you stormed out. They never found it.”

“Oh, gods,” said Arthur, who’d completely forgotten. “What would they have done with it?”

“I doubt your tools would be anywhere near this place anymore.”

“So you really think someone who wants the Defiler here… is here.”

“I know they are. There were bad protections on your cell, boss. Someone with a lot of power is here, right now, hiding right under my damn nose, and it took me a hot minute to get the door open.”

“You.”

“Me. Like I said—even I can’t do much against the specific amount of power they’ve gathered, and they’re channeling on top of that.”

“The Defiler is empowering them already?”

“Yes. Same as the King in Yellow’s been trying to work down here, too.”

“The King in Yellow drives people crazy,” Arthur says quietly.

“And the Defiler drives people to murder, rape, destroy. It’s not the same—and it’s not that surprising that exposure to something as inconceivable as a Great Old One can break a human mind. We’re teeny, Arthur Lester. The thing to remember is madness doesn’t necessarily mean wickedness. It just sort of... frees whatever's already inside you.”

“Are you defending the King in Yellow?” Arthur says.

She shrugs. “I’m playing politics.”

Ha.

Arthur had forgotten he was there. “So much cocksucking the last few days, I swear,” Arthur mutters at them both.

“A wise woman picks her battles,” says Asenath primly, and they are so close, they could kiss.

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t grab. She doesn’t push.

Arthur swallows. “When… when do I go?”

“Seven and a half minutes,” she says, an oddly specific number that generates more questions than it answers.

“You sure you’re going to stay? What if they just… lean in and shoot you?”

“Why, Arthur Lester,” says Asenath with a slow smile. “Are you concerned for my safety?”

“Of course I am!” he hisses. “What kind of a question is that?”

Her smile is like it was before: sad, knowing, fond, resigned. “A few hours ago, darling, you hated my guts.”

“No, I…” Arthur sighs. “I thought you hated me. I thought everyone hated me.”

She tilts her head. “Why?”

“Because I hate me.” He’s not looking at her now. “Never mind. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

She puts her hand over his. “It sounds to me like you’re saying some painful things.”

“Maybe.” He sighs.

“Hey.” She grins. “It’s not all bad. You’re going to get closure. You know how rare that is?”

“How rare?” he says, and they’re close, but he doesn’t turn his face away, and he smiles just a little.

“I see it maybe once every couple of lifetimes. Often less.” She hasn’t taken her hand away, either; her skin is warmer than his, and that maybe-lavender scent seems to gentle the air of the jail. “I’m glad you’re getting it. You deserve it.” She finally takes her hand back.

He misses the touch and reacts. “Sorry we never—” he starts to say.

“Shh.” She pats his cheek once. “No regrets. They do no good. Listen: when the guard is gone, I am going to let you out. Go left—not right, though that’s toward the exit. Something awful is happening here, Arthur Lester. You need to get out through the back. Find a window. Do not get caught.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” He wants to touch her. He does not. She’s right: No regrets, and this is good, right now. Fucking it up with could'a-been is only going to distract them both. “Thank you.”

“Succeed, then thank me. Or… well. You can pass the thanks on to Hastur. He’ll get them to me, no matter where I am at the end of this.”

Arthur isn’t sure if that’s a joke, but it strikes him incredibly, morbidly funny, and he starts snickering. “Sure. He’ll see to my posthumous wishes.”

“Asshole owes you that much.”

“You know what? He does owe me that much. You hear that, Hastur? I want fucking roses on my grave. None of that cheap carnation shit. Real red roses, you hear?”

Sure.

That sets Arthur off again, and the last minute in this cell is spent leaning against Asenath, both of them snickering silently, and he is on the edge of tears, but doesn’t cross into them. No matter what. he’s going to die, but it’s somehow okay.

It’s okay.

“It’s time,” Asenath whispers, wiping her eyes.

“Thank you.”

She winks. Then, Asenath does magick.

She holds out her hands to either side, bent at the elbows, looking up. Her eyes go solid black, as if filling with some unknown liquid; she feels so foreign to him, this pose like something on one of those Egyptian statues they have at the museum. The jail cell thrums; it almost hurts, and Arthur inhales through his teeth.

And here comes Dawes—just one of the coppers, nose still pleasingly fucked up from Arthur’s earlier attempt to escape—peering through the bars, studying Arthur, his eyes shadowed.

Arthur sits on his little board-bed. Asenath kneels in front of him, eyes gone completely black, wearing a warm and satisfied smile, her arms still out and up as though she’s welcoming the sun.

Whatever Dawes sees isn’t any of this, and he just nods to himself and goes back the other way.

Arthur releases the breath he was holding.

She waits the door closes out there to stop—her eyes shifting back to brown, her arms lowering. She hands him his bag. Her smile is wicked. “Give ‘em hell.”

“Be safe,” he whispers, and tries the cell door. It opens.

Are you ready?

“Everybody dies, Hastur,” Arthur whispers, slipping through. “I’m just lucky enough to have made my peace with it first.”

Lucky. Indeed, you are.

Why Hastur purred that is beyond him, but it doesn’t matter now. Shoes in his hand so he’s quiet as possible, Arthur sneaks left down the hall, hoping to meet no one he’ll have to kill.

(chapter ten)

#malevolent #malevolent big bang 2023 #malevolent fanfic #arthur lester #hastur malevolent #malevolent au #cloud city fic #parker yang #asenath waite #trans asenath waite #trans woman

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Cloud City, Chapter Five - a Malevolent AU

Feeling like prey isn’t new, but it is terrible.

AO3 || Masterpost

-------

Witches obey no officers. They follow no city law. More to the point, no one can make them.

Only women—for whatever value of that word, regardless of biology—can be witches. Their deal is with an Esoteric whose name is never spoken, and it’s very different from being a Contractor. No one’s soul gets eaten. There does not seem to be a Summon. They dedicate themselves to this Lord of the Wood for the rest of their lives, and are bound by unknown rules, but they also never lose body parts.

They have power. A lot of it. On the other hand, they don’t use it to rule anything. They don’t hold office. They don’t have so much as a community bake sale coordinator.

Why? Who knows? Arthur has heard their Esoteric referred to as The Black Goat, and as The Great Mother, but obviously, those are not her name. She’s inaccessible to anyone who is, internally, a man, so he will never know. He’s more concerned about how independent they are, because right now, he needs their help.

Even among witches, Asenath Waite is a whole situation.

They say she’s older than dirt. They say she has more power (and a more direct line to the Mother) than any other witch. They say she was a witch before the Reckoning, when the Esoterics somehow came into reality and freed Earth from the grip of the Fire of Y that held it before.

That’s impossible, of course. How could there be witches before the gods came?

Still. She acts like someone who was here before the world grew safe in cloud and consecration, and Arthur has never gotten along with her.

“You look like you ate a bad pickle,” Parker observes.

Arthur sighs and crushes a bug creating along the door. “Asenath is a bitch.”

“She sure is.” Parker makes a turn.

Arthur is pouting. He knows he’s pouting. He can’t seem to help it. “She’s caused me nothing but trouble.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Really compassionate, there.”

Parker snorts. “You haven’t been too nice to her, either.”

“Nice! I’ve been a gentleman.”

“You called her a bitch to her face.” Parker slows for the next turn. There aren’t a lot of cars in the city; however they were made in the past was lost in the Fire of Y, and there are no new ones. All that still exist are maintained by magick, and Parker drives with caution.

“Well, she was being a bitch,” Arthur says, casually.

Hastur laughs.

She was, though.

They’d met after his daughter’s murder. Met when she’d come on the case, briefly, and given him the most pitying look he’d ever seen in his life, and that look had gotten under his skin like nobody’s business.

He’d tried to hit her. He remembers that. It did not work. He also remembers waking twenty minutes later on the floor, in a puddle of his own spit.

And mere months after that, after he had his Contract and was regularly running into her in the line of work, it all just got tense and difficult. Come to think of it, it mirrored his relationship with Parker in a lot of ways: too much focus, too much intense observation. She challenged everything he said, escalating into arguments. She insisted on verifying his conclusions every damn time, slowing cases down and leaving Arthur feeling tense and untrusted.

But she never pushed the way Parker did. And when he thinks about it, her comments and quips had helped him think harder, work smarter, refine his methods—not just feel bad, which Parker’s had always done.

Confusing as fuck. All of it was confusing as fuck.

This will be fine. I’m glad it’s Asenath. She’s powerful.

“Not you, too,” Arthur mutters. “Ganging up, now?”

“What’s he saying?”

I’m saying you’re being a baby.

“Ugh. Nothing.”

Parker chuckles. “I’d give a lot of money to know what the hell that guy says to you. The faces you make, Arthur.”

Arthur rolls his eyes.

He hears me. She can hear me, too.

Arthur snorts. “Sure, John.”

“What now?”

“He thinks everyone can hear him, all of a sudden. Or maybe they always did, and everybody just lied in a vast conspiracy going back hundreds of years.”

There’s no need for sarcasm.

Parker gives him an odd glance, hands primly at ten and two on the wheel. “What? Maybe whatever hit the jail drove him crazy, too.”

“A crazy Summon? Yikes. Can’t even imagine it.”

“That would be pretty bad,” says Parker, and turns down Asenath’s street.

Witch streets are largely all the same: lined by trees no one can name, free of litter and invaders from the Wastes, clean and smelling of fresh bread and scented soaps and candles.

They also cast weird pillars of shadow into the air like black towers, and Arthur doesn’t know why—though he did dream once that each dark pillar was somehow the leg of a gargantuan goat. The subconscious mind is a funny thing.

Asenath’s brownstone is halfway down on the left, and it is unremarkable. Six steps lead up to her door, each flanked by a small potted plant. The bell looks absolutely ordinary. Arthur is sure it is not at all ordinary. “Do we really have to use Asenath?”

“Your Summon is weird,” says Parker, casually. “If we’re not dealing with the best of witches, I wouldn’t trust what she has to say.”

He has a point. “Fair, I guess," says Arthur, and rings the bell.

It bites his finger.

“Ow! Fuck!” he says, shaking it.

Ha ha ha! Hastur chortles at him.

"Fuck you," Arthur says, just as Asenath answers.

She is tall, Asenath. She never really looks like she remembered to brush her chin-length black hair, or shave her dark beard, or iron her clothes. “Well,” she says, leaning on the door frame, one hand above her head. Her chipped nails are black today; so are her coveralls. “Fancy seeing you again so soon.” And she pauses. “So It’s finally happened. Got hungry, did he?”

Arthur really hates that she’s taller than he is. Lots of people are taller, but Asenath makes him feel it. “Asenath,” says Arthur, trying to keep it calm, trying to ignore the fact that she can clearly see Hastur’s been gaining body parts. “We need help.”

“So he said on the phone. Well, out with it. If I’m going to send you away with your tail between your legs—” She looks him up and down just a pinch too slowly, which is both familiar and annoying—“I might as well give you the full treatment.”

“Fuck, at least hear us out first,” Arthur all but spits.

“Thanks,” says Parker, like none of that was rude, and doffs his hat. “Ma’am. Appreciate you seeing us.”

“Sure.” She sounds unmoved.

“Gods forbid anyone but you have important things to do,” says Arthur before he can help himself.

Ignore him. He’s sore about the particulars of his Contract finally playing out.

And to Arthur’s absolute shock, Asenath answers. “Not playing the game anymore?”

It’s that serious, Daughter of the Wood.

“It better be. You are hardly the type of thing I welcome inside my home. Down the hall. Last door on the left. Wouldn’t advise lingering. I have projects on the fire.”

“What?” says Arthur, shocked.

“What?” says Parker, looking lost.

“She’s talking to my Summon.” Arthur is flummoxed. “She… she’s actually talking to my Summon.”

Asenath rolls her eyes. “If you’re going to panic about every little thing you don’t understand, Arthur Lester—”

“I’m not panicking!” Arthur says, trying (and failing) to recall everything his Summon has ever said in her presence.

“In. Now. Not you.”

It’s Parker’s turn to look shocked. “Why not?”

“You’re neither a vehicle for a Summon, nor particularly shielded against magick. If you came in, you’d hear weird scraping noises like a bow on an unstrung violin, and you’d see colors that make you go mad. Stay on the stoop, Yang. I’ll bring him back out in one piece, don’t you worry.”

“Oh.” Parker looks a little spooked. “Sure.”

“We’ll be just a minute,” Asenath says sweetly, and closes the door in his face. “Better?”

Yes. Thank you.

“Arthur Lester. I said down the hall.” Her tone is warning.

Arthur glares.

She gestures.

Arthur stalks where directed.

It’s a wide hallway with doors on either side. Between the doors hang numerous portraits—landscapes, Hastur has told him, depicting other worlds with startling accuracy. Arthur’s been curious about them before. Right now, he wishes he could set them on fire.

“You weren’t kidding,” says Asenath. “He is in quite a mood. Practically stalking like an angry cat.”

Well. The last day has been difficult, and I have spoiled him.

“Your prerogative, I suppose.”

“Fuck you both. I’m right here,” mutters Arthur.

“You sure are, honey,” says Asenath, and opens the final door.

This bedroom has been converted to a lab. The furniture is gone, replaced with a large wooden frame in the center that looks ready to hold a person and is painted with rusty stains. Tables line the walls; on them rests apparatuses of metal and glass, bubbling things and squeaking things, a pot that seems to be singing to itself, and a small cage in which a mouse sits in the center of a web like a spider.

The mouse eyes Arthur like it’s hungry.

“Uh,” he says.

“Ignore Gertrude. Talk.”

Right. “So… my Summon says that…”

The number has nearly been reached.

“Seventy-eight. I know—but we still haven’t located the vehicle.”

“She knew about this nine-times-nine number already?” Arthur says, and is ignored.

I believe the vehicle has been found—and so does your patron. The Mother decided it was time to send through some tools.

Asenath goes very still. “What? She what?”

I’m afraid the deliverers were killed.

“So that’s what happened to my sisters,” she says softly. “Damn. I suppose our enemy got the tools, too?”

That’s your cue, Arthur. Show her what we received.

“You owe me a lot of answers, John,” Arthur snaps, and opens his bag.

“You’re trying to tell me the Mother would actually send—” Asenath stops.

Arthur is holding the large teardrop.

Asenath does a thing he never would have imagined: she takes a step back. “Are you fucking crazy? Put it back!”

Hastur laughs darkly. Do as she says, Arthur.

Arthur does, frowning. “Why are you afraid of that?”

“Shit. You should not have been fine holding that,” says Asenath, and her eyes narrow. Then she leans in.

Arthur leans back.

“Oh. Oh, dear,” she says.

Witch, Hastur warns.

“This isn’t personal, Arthur Lester,” says Asenath, quite sadly, as if with regret.

And it feels for all the world like a boot kicks him right in the brain.

When he comes to, several things are happening all at once, and they all suck.

One: he’s on his back, and his left hand is around Asenath’s throat.

Two: Asenath is on top of him, and her fingers are pointed right at his eyes so close he can’t even focus on the tips.

Three: Hastur is growling away in some language Arthur has never heard in his life, but sounds like someone dumped an alphabet in the street and then ran it over.

Four: Asenath is very erect, and pressing into his thigh.

Something is stopping Asenath from stabbing his eyes, and it isn’t a physical something. It’s the magick Hastur is casting through him right now. His right hand hurts. His fingers. He runs his thumb along them and discovers three of his new rings have busted.

But… that makes no sense. They’re not attuned to him. They can’t protect him. They shouldn’t have reacted at all to whatever Hastur just did, and—

She’s pushing. Her fingers are closer to his eyes.

Well, Arthur knows what to do here. He tightens his core, does an expert twist and heave, and hurls her over his head with gusto.

Yes, Arthur!

No time for praise. Arthur spins, pushing through dizziness, and pulls out his gun. “What the fuck was that about?” His gun-hand shakes. His everything shakes. Whatever Hastur did drained him, and his breaths are ragged.

Asenath lies there where he threw her, panting and glaring daggers.

“What the fuck, Asenath?” Arthur says again.

She sighs, sits up, and demurely adjusts the crotch of her coveralls. “First of all, I apologize for that. Bodies react to power in weird ways.”

“Go to hell!”

“Second of all, congratulations: you’ve damned us all.”

“What? How?” says Arthur.

No, says Hastur with the kind of strained patience that comes from repeated argument. I can handle this.

“By hand-delivering the vehicle? I knew you were arrogant, but this goes beyond the pale, Hastur.”

“She knows your name?” Arthur blurts and is ignored.

No. Hastur’s growl is terrible, a deep and painful rumble. Arthur isn’t the vehicle. He’s mine.

“He’s housing you, he just handled a glass from Leng without ill effect, and you think he’s not the one they’re after?”

“Okay, so here’s what’s going to happen,” interrupts Arthur, who is beyond done, whose fingers hurt and sport new red lines where the protective rings exploded, who is afraid and confused and angry and absolutely does not like being pushed around. “Either you two chucklefucks tell me what’s going on, or I come to the conclusion that you’re full of shit, this supposed world-ending issue doesn’t exist, and I walk out the door to go play police hostage for the rest of the day. Got it?”

Asenath snorts.

Hastur sighs. Arthur…

“Do you have any control over him at all?” Asenath says dryly.

What I have is an understanding.

“What you have is the perfect vehicle for invasion, and you’re apparently determined to deliver him in gift-wrap and a box.”

Arthur doesn’t bluff. “Right, we’re done.” He heads for the door.

Asenath holds up her hand. “Peace, Arthur Lester. I’ll answer you—if for no other reason than the off-chance you’ll be smarter about this than Hastur.”

Arthur frowns. “How do you know my Summon’s name, first off?”

“Oh, honey. I know a lot more than that.” Asenath stands, clearly unconcerned about his gun or his opinion. “Good throw, by the way. If we all survive this, I might hire you to teach me how to do that.”

He scoffs. “Like you’d ever need to physically fight.”

“You’d be surprised, Arthur Lester. Also… it might be fun.” She cocks her hip, planting her hand on her waist, and she taps her fingers in a pointed way even he can’t miss.

He stares. Either he’s seeing things, or Asenath Waite, premiere witch of Cloud City, is flirting with him after trying to kill him.

“Um,” he said after a moment. “How about we delay talk of hiring and wrestling until I trust you not to try to kill me again? Which is probably never?”

“Oh, relax. I won’t try again. I had one chance to pull it off, but I’ve lost the element of surprise. He’d stop me.”

“He’d stop you?” Arthur swallows. “Hastur could genuinely hold his ground against you? That wasn’t a fluke?”

“In your body, honey? Yes, he could.”

Arthur stares again. “But my body isn’t… I can barely do minor magicks, even with his help.” Except for the police station, which he isn’t ready to think about, and whatever just happened, which he also isn’t ready to think about. “Why would you want me dead?”

“Because you’ll likely be used as a vehicle for a Great Old One sometime in the next month,” she says. “Which is a pity, because I’ve always liked you.”

Arthur made a face at her. “Like hell you have.”

She rolls her eyes dramatically. “Dense!”

I told you.

Arthur was still trying to figure out what she’d said he’d be used for. “A great one? Vehicle? Explain.”

Ah, Arthur…

Asenath leans against the wall, arms crossed. “Has he told you anything? I assumed he had. You’re so cocky it just sort of made sense you were walking around with privileged information. Made me just want to…” She makes a sort of pinching motion he’s not sure he wants to interpret.

“Has everybody gone crazy today?” he mutters.

Asenath sighs dramatically. “Really, Hastur? You left this up to me to explain?”

I enjoy his happiness. None of this will make him happy.

“What?” says Arthur.

She stares. “You’re an ass, Hastur,” says Asenath,

Arthur rubs the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Okay, this is a lot. Let’s try explaining things like you would to a normal person.”

“Honey, you are far from normal,” she says, and walks to the other side of the room, where a green chalk-board hangs on the wall. “You’re a perfect vehicle. Or did you think just anyone could take Hastur inside and not blow the hell up?”

“I… what? He’s a Summon! People make Contracts all the damn time! You’re not making any sense!”

“Right, well. I am about to give you a lesson in how the world actually works, Arthur Lester. Am I allowed to handle chalk? Or is that too scary for you?”

Arthur’s gun-hand is steady again. “Pretty sure I can shoot you before whatever you start finishes working, so sure. Knock yourself out.”

Asenath rolls her eyes, but picks up the chalk. “We’ll start with the basics. This is our universe.” She draws a circle.

“Doesn’t look very big,” says Arthur.

She eyes him. “Is he always just… gumming on the point before spitting it out again, or…”

Hastur chuckles. Give him time. When his wits are about him, he cannot be matched.

Arthur definitely does not feel like he’s matching anything right now. “Thanks, I guess.”

She draws a long, wide rectangle at the bottom of the board. “Here we have the Dark World. That’s where you go when you die, sweetie.”

“What, really?” he blurts.

“Where did you think you went?” she says.

“Hell?” he suggests.

She tilts her head. “What, not Heaven?”

“Sure, if I ever meet anyone who deserves to go there.”

Not even your daughter? says Hastur.

And if he had not said that with sweet curiosity—If he had not wondered it in the way he wondered about all the things in Arthur’s world when they first joined, innocence in deep bass—Arthur would have lost it.

But Hastur wasn’t trying to hurt him with this; it was a real question, non-aggressive. Arthur takes a breath before answering. “I kind of hoped she was reborn. Got a better chance, a second chance, with a better set of parents.”

Asenath looks stricken. “Honey…”

Go on, witch.

She hesitates.

“Go on,” Arthur confirms in a voice like broken glass. “I’m fine.”

She exhales. “As you wish, Arthur Lester. Here.” Her next shape begins at the bottom of the universe circle: a huge, wide ellipse on its narrow end, curving up to the top of the board and sealing the universe off. “This is the Dreamlands.”

“The what?”

“Everything in reality that’s still connected to your universe, but outside it. Other worlds. Other timelines. That sort of thing.”

Arthur’s eyes are wide. “Why is it called the Dreamlands?”

“It literally is formed from the dreams of living things—especially humans.” She scribbles on both sides of the Dreamlands—jagged lines, sharp and violent. “And these places? Are Outer Darkness. These aren’t reality. These are closer to the Dreaming One Who Must Not Be Named, to the places that are not. The beings that exist there—using ‘exist’ loosely, mind—can’t come into our universe, though they sure as fuck want to.”

Arthur is silent for a moment. “The gods who saved us from the Fire of Y?”

“Yes. Gods. And things that are more than gods.”

“More than gods?”

“Much more. Gods are minor league, Arthur Lester.”

Arthur needs to sit down. He needs to sit down very badly, but he doesn’t want to seem weak. “They came here before. Why do they want to come here, and why can’t they again?”

“Good questions. As for why there want to, well! We’re just fascinating. There’s nothing like us out there, in the Dreamlands or anywhere else. They love nothing more than to play with human lives—give us power and see what happens, or siphon off our dreams and memories and experiences to spice up their own. They’ll even take us whole, if they can get us into the Dreamlands alive.”

Feeling like prey isn’t new, but it is terrible. “And what… how does all of this apply to our situation?”

“Well, you have a Contract. That ties directly to here.” She indicates the Dreamlands. “The Outer Gods and Great Old Ones—the beings in Outer Darkness—can’t come here for one simple reason: they’re too big. They’d destroy it just by stepping into the place. Think fat man, silk stocking. Shreds everywhere, irreparable.”

“But they got here before.”

“Once. Reality can’t handle it more than once. They can, however, get to the Dreamlands—that’s plenty big enough—and from there, servants of theirs can come to our world through Contracts.”

“Summons. Spirits.”

“Mmm… that’s not really the best term? But sure. ‘Spirits.’”

Arthur shakes his head. “But I don’t understand. What happened with the Reclamation? The Fire of Y? Because they came and saved us, didn’t they?”

“Oh, hell, we’re getting into the deep stuff now,” says Asenath. “Okay.” She fiddles with the chalk. “So… the whole situation that I’ve described to you here is how it’s always been, with one major exception: there were no Contracts. A few of us were able to… channel those beings who are gods and greater than gods, finding powers in a world without them, but basically? Humans ruled the roost.”

He feels like he’s not understanding words again. “Humans did?”

“They did it with technology,” says Asenath. “The same kind of shit that built your buddy’s car out there. They even had machines that could fly.”

“Get the fuck out.”

“They did, Arthur Lester. I was in some of them.” She sighs. “Those were the days. Ain’t nobody heading to Milan now for polenta and a lovely glass of Brunello di Montalcino, I’ll tell you that.”

He stares at her.

Asenath clears her throat. “The problem is that humans are… bad… at running the world. They nearly blew it up.”

“Blew it… blew it up?”

“They had a war. Every major country involved. Nearly forty million people dead.”

Arthur makes a choked sound. “Bullshit. There aren’t that many people in the whole world.”

“Not now, there aren’t. The second world war took care of that. Hold on, honey.” She conjures a chair from nowhere, like she pulled it out of the air, then reaches around him to put it behind him.

He sits in it without protest, gun pointing at the floor. “Hastur?”

She is telling the truth, complete and unvarnished.

Arthur keeps swallowing. “A war that big… happened twice?”

“The second time was just about curtains for everybody.” Asenath conjures a second chair and sits across from him, so close that his right knee goes between hers, and she closes her legs on him as if to keep him from falling over.

It’s grounding. He’s grateful. “What happened?”

“They invented a kind of bomb. It went under the codename Project Y.”

He startles. “The Fire of Y?”

She sighs. “That would have already been bad enough on its own—but then someone got involved. An Outer God.”

He swallows audibly. “For what purpose?”

“Boredom? Who the fuck knows? I’m sure as hell not gonna ask him. But he taught them how to make it worse. It was city-wide destruction when humans made it. Then he taught them, and they found a way to unmake the world. Before they used that special bomb, the casualties were already around seventy-five million.”

“Sev- You can’t expect me to believe—”

“After they used it—enhanced by that Outer God—the death-toll climbed over two billion.”

Arthur feels like he might have just left his skin behind on the floor. That many people even existed at one time? And they… died at one time? "Two billion?"

“Didn’t you ever wonder about the tunnels? Where people lived before the Reclamation? They were trying to survive Project Y.”

“But… but that doesn’t…”

“It poisoned the air and the sky. It ruined the soil so even anything that grew was slowly killing you to eat it. Everyone was dying. Even us. Even we who had been faithful. If it had been allowed to play out on its own, there would be no one left.”

“Us? We? You’re saying you—”

“We cried to the Mother Goddess. What else could we do?” Asenath shrugs like it’s nothing, like she’s not casually admitting to the rumors of being older than dirt, of being older than Reclamation and Contracts and Esoteric interference. “She answered. Though… the cost was pretty high.”

“Hastur?” he whispers.

She tells the truth, whole and unvarnished.

“Okay,” says Arthur, who is not okay, in a very tiny voice.

“A lot of us had to sacrifice ourselves,” she says. “I volunteered, but was refused. The Mother Goddess chose who would go and who would stay.”

“Go? Go to the Dark World?”

“Go to The Wood. To her. It’s complicated, and I don’t want to get into it. I was one of the ones chosen to stay and keep watching to ensure that fucked-up mess never happens again. The Old Ones and Outer Gods like humans, Arthur Lester. They don’t want us wiped out—and we came perilously close to that by our own hand, with only a little bit of help. Even Project Y was telling. That Outer God may have taught us how to enhance it, but we were the ones who pushed the button.”

And then maybe Asenath can tell that Arthur is at his limit, because she falls silent and lets him think.

He’s processing. Trying.

He has questions.

He wants those questions to matter. “Okay,” he finally says. “Assuming you’re telling the truth—”

“Which I am,” she says.

“Assuming that,” he says. “First: you said that if those Outer Gods come here, they’ll destroy the world just… because they’re basically too much for it. So why is one trying to come through?”

The corners of her lips quirk. “I didn’t tell you one was.”

“You might as well have, between what you said and what Hastur said. Not to mention you said I’m a vehicle for this thing, somehow. You still need to explain that.”

“Well, fuck me sideways and call me Shirley,” says Asenath. “There's the smart guy I've run into over the last few years.”

I told you.

“Quit it,” says Arthur, cheeks a little red. “Well?”

“First, it’s a Great Old One trying to come through, not an Outer God.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Power and self-regulation. The Outer Gods are so much larger than we can even conceive, Arthur Lester. We’re practically microscopic to them, and we wouldn’t be able to do a damned thing to stop one coming through. The one who fucked with Project Y couldn’t come here, either—he had to do it all through dreams, sending messages. He just wanted to see what would happen. On the other hand, Great Old Ones are just small enough to enjoy playing with us like finger puppets, and the Great Old One trying to come through now doesn’t actually care if they destroy everything, anyway.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they wouldn’t be trying. Great Old Ones don’t have the power to make themselves small enough to walk our world. Them coming through would automatically mean curtains.”

“And they're a… a god?”

“You know, like Cthulhu, or Ghisguth, or the King in Yellow—”

“The King in Yellow!” Arthur blurts. “He’s one of those things? Is he the one trying to come through?”

She gives him an odd look.

“What?” he says.

Her expression is keen, peering. Almost as if she’s trying to see what he’s thinking. “Hmm,” she says.

Stay on topic, witch, says Hastur.

“Sure,” she says. “On topic.”

“So it is the King in Yellow?” says Arthur.

“No,” she finally says. “The threat we’re discussing is not him. He wants to preserve humans—notoriously, some might say. He wouldn’t be trying to do this.”

“How can you be sure? There’ve been incidents. Weird things. People going crazy, chanting his name.”

“That just means someone channeled his power, Arthur Lester, like I channel the Great Mother’s. His power drives people mad just by proximity; but I promise you, he’s not trying to come through. If he’s channeling power here, then he’s trying to find a way to stop the one who’s coming through.”

Arthur has a sudden guess. “Does he have servants?”

“Yes.” She’s watching him keenly again.

“Is Hastur one of his?”

Her face goes through a series of twitches. “You could say that.”

“So Hastur’s… really trying to save the world.”

No hesitation this time. “Yes.”

I told you.

“Tells me why you were so ready to suck him off, too,” Arthur shoots back.

Asenath chokes. Coughs. Smacks herself on the chest. “Arthur Lester, you’re going to be the death of me.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “So which god is it, then?”

“Don’t know, and that's why we haven't been able to stop them. All we do know is they’re gathering power through those connected murders, and looking for a vehicle—someone who can actually handle the indwelling of a Great Old One without immediately exploding. You’re the first I’ve met in over four hundred years who could do that, Arthur Lester.”

He stares again. “That can’t be right.”

“It is.”

“I’m not even that magickal.”

“It has nothing to do with magick. It’s something about your soul, your essence. Who you are.”

“How can you tell? Just because I handled a piece of glass?”

“A piece of glass which should have immediately overwhelmed your mind, showing you all of reality at once, and snapping you like a twig.”

Arthur’s eyes are huge. “Hastur, you didn’t warn me!”

I knew you could do it.

“Fucking hell. And you think—wait. Wait. This is such a risk because they don’t need a Contract to make a vehicle, do they? They can force this on somebody.”

Her eyes lid. “Keep being smart like that and I’m going to make you late to your little police date.”

Arthur needs a moment.

Asenath had made comments exactly like this one many times over the past five years, too, but Arthur had always interpreted them as some form of threat. It wasn’t a threat. Though why she would be at all interested…“The fuck is going on?” he mutters, rubbing his face. “Never mind. Answer the damn question.”

“No, they don’t need a Contract—that’s why they’re gathering power. It will get around the protections the gods themselves put in place to keep this very thing from happening, which involve Contracts. If they did this to you, Arthur Lester, you wouldn’t be a Contractor with choice and voice and body. You’d be a bag. A sack. That god will fill you. Just fill you up, more and more, pouring themself into your being until you are gone, and only they remain.”

He tastes bile. “Fuck. Why? Why would this god do this, if it’s curtains?”

“Selfishness. Whoever this is doesn’t care that nobody else would ever get to play with humans again. They just want to do what they want.”

“Fuck. And you really think I’m a key to this?”

It’s not you. You’re Contracted. They can’t use you.

“They might. They’re playing with more power than I have right now.”

“More? More than you?”

“With the sacrifices they’ve done? With the theft of power from all these connected murders? Yeah. Even I couldn’t do much to stop it.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Find the primary priest. Kill the primary priest. The power collected is tied to them. Kill them, and it dissipates.”

“How do I find the primary priest?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” she says, leaning back in her chair. “We don’t even know which god it is yet, and so can’t find the priest because we don’t know what to look for.”

“Can’t cast a broad net, huh?”

“Been doing that. Hasn’t worked.”

Arthur reaches into his bag and pulls out the dagger. “I don’t suppose this is useful.”

“Fuck,” says Asenath leaning back so sharply her chair creaks. “Okay, that is scary. Put that the fuck away.”

He does. “So it’s special.”

“Uh, yeah. That’ll cut soul and body. You’ll sever their connection to their god. Ah—that thing shouldn’t be in this dimension at all. The Mother must have faith in you, Arthur Lester.”

He stares. “In me?”

“She must.”

“I… don’t know her.”

“She knows you. She knows us all.”

“Right,” says Arthur weakly. “That’s… nice, but it isn’t relevant. Hastur, you said you had a way to find our enemy, remember? That’s why we’re here.”

Yes. I’ve been gathering clues, Arthur—and we are going to use your idiot police friend out there to make this happen. There are several murder scenes you were not called in to see. We need to see them. I caught an edge of etheric resonance in yesterday’s murder; if I can find more, I’ll be able to piece together something identifiable. Either the priest, or at the very least, the god involved.

“Do you know which murder scenes?”

No, but Asenath does.

“Spoil-sport. I was going to do a big reveal.” She leans away from her seat and pulls a sheet of paper out from under Gertrude’s cage, then handles it over.

Six addresses. He could work with this. Concrete steps. “Why these six?”

“Because the victims are connected,” she says. “That’s how the power of these murders can be smushed together—the victims are related, or in love, or dire hate. Something entangling.”

I licked my lips. “Asenath,” he says. “What you just told me about gods, the Dark World, all of it—why is it a secret?”

“Who says it’s a secret?” She bats her eyelashes.

He just glares at her.

Her smile is tired. “The gods don’t want it known.”

“Why?”

“What would you have done with your life if you’d known it?”

That’s not what he’d expected. “I don’t know. I… don’t really like the idea of being preyed on in this way. Hey—what does Harvesting even mean, given all of this?”

“Everything you are—memories, emotions, all of it—gets reduced to its essence and fed to your Summon. You’re going to be poured out in the Dreamlands like holy wine. Sorry.”

Is that better or worse than just being eaten? He doesn’t know. “I still would have done it, for what I’ve been promised.”

“Then I guess you’re on the right path.”

Arthur thinks he can stand. He’s not sure he wants to. He feels like he’d be walking back out a completely different person. “So… we really came here to tell me what was going on, is what it is.”

I knew you wouldn’t believe me.

“No, I wouldn’t have. Sorry.” Arthur leans on his thighs and exhales again. “So we go to the murder scenes, gather clues, somehow weave a resonance. Then we go on a manhunt for whoever this priest is.”

“I’ll help you find them. Once you have that resonance, bring it to me. Be careful. We’re all pretty sure the police have been compromised.”

“By… servants of a god determined to destroy everything?”

“Whoever they are, they think they’re going to be rewarded. And yes. The police have kept us at arm’s length lately for too many murders. Someone is on the inside. Don’t let on what you know to anyone.”

Not even the idiot on the stoop. Even if he’s innocent—which I personally doubt—he could blab to the wrong person.

Arthur decides to get some of his own back. “Hastur’s jealous of Yang.”

“You know, I’m picking that up,” she says, deadpan. “Any given reason?”

“He sucked my dick.”

This time, it’s Hastur who’s making choked noises, like words have failed him.

Asenath laughs. Shakes her head. “Okay, that’s funny.” And her smile turns crooked. “We could make him jealous again.”

Arthur realizes her legs are still pinning his knee. “Are… you really hitting on me?”

“I’m apologizing to you.”

“By hitting on me.”

She shrugs. Her five-o-clock shadow seems darker in this bedroom, but it just serves to bring out the playfulness in her eyes, the redness of her lips. “I’ve hit on you for years, but it only led to arguments. I sort of figured you weren’t into dicks. Turns out you are. You’re just dumb.”

Arthur laughs this time. He doesn’t move his leg. “I won’t argue about being dumb. I thought you hated me.”

She shakes her head. “I’d have fucking cursed you if I did.”

“Nice.”

“Honest.”

“You’re all ancient and whatever, and you still couldn’t figure out how to flirt with me?”

She sighs. “Arthur Lester… you were broken when we met. After your loss, and you got your Summon, you took jobs for the police hoping someone would shoot you in the head. What I was trying to do was making you mad so you’d feel alive.”

It had done that. He stares at her.

“Then I realized I liked doing that, and kept it up. Maybe it helped?” she says.

“It… it did. But I…” This was unfair. Five years of absolute isolation apart from Hastur, and suddenly… this. “What’s gotten into everybody? Shit timing, Asenath.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m dying.”

“Everybody is.”

He stares.

She’s not grabbing at him. It’s nice, actually. She’s not pushing.

(Parker pushed. Arthur decides not to think about it.)

He likes that she isn’t pushing. “If we survive, I don’t know. Let’s talk. Maybe I’m curious what hundreds of years of experience could be like.”

“Maybe I just want to sit and have some tea with you. Let the guy who thought I hated him get to know me when I’m not poking him with a pencil.”

Really not pushing. And he really likes that. “Maybe.”

She holds his gaze for just a moment longer, then finally stands. “Find the resonance. I’ll use it to create a tracker.”

He stands, too, and tries not to think about Parker.

Parker pushes.

(Don’t think about it.)

Parker doesn’t seem to take hints that could be no.

(Don’t think about it.)

It’s not a problem, it’s fine, it’s… not worth thinking about right now. “Sure.”

“Don’t eat him too fast, Hastur.”

I’m afraid I no longer have control over that. I’m leaking through.

She looks sad. “Well. Best of luck, then. Find them. Stab them.”

“I can manage that,” says Arthur, and heads down the hall.

(chapter six)

#malevolent #malevolent big bang 2023 #malevolent fanfic #arthur lester #hastur malevolent #malevolent au #cloud city fic #parker yang #asenath waite #trans asenath waite #trans woman

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Cloud City, Chapter Two - a Malevolent AU

That growl again. I saw something, Arthur. I saw something with that second body that we need to follow up.

Arthur frowns. “Okay. We’ll go after it tomorrow, when I’m released.”

Am I going to have to take over? Hastur says, and it is a threat.

AO3 || Masterpost

-------

Spending the night in lock-up is actually pretty nice, and Arthur’s happy to take it.

He doesn’t have to file anything. Doesn’t have to take care of anyone, or fill out paperwork, or face off with Yang or Asenath. He can just lie in the dark on a prison bed—a board, suspended by chains from the cinderblock wall, not comfortable, but at least private—and talk to no one.

If only there were no more bugs. There have been so many over the past month. He smashes another under the window, scraping it off on the cinderblock. “Ugh.”

What the hell were you thinking? Hastur demands for the fifth time. Hastur is fucking mad, of course, but that just makes it all funny.

“Pissing him off,” says Arthur, also for the fifth time, holding the raw steak they gave him to his swollen eye. Physically, he’s miserable. In every other way? He’s elated. He does not regret punching Yang. “That’s what he gets,” Arthur mutters. “Fucking kissing my ear, or whatever that was.”

Arthur! We do not have time for this shit! We do not have time to be here.

Arthur laughs weakly. “Sure we do. Why wouldn’t we?”

That growl again. I saw something, Arthur. I saw something with that second body that we need to follow up.

Arthur frowns. “Okay. We’ll go after it tomorrow, when I’m released.”

Am I going to have to take over? Hastur says, and it is a threat.

Hastur can. Arthur’s Contract allows Hastur to control his body for brief periods if necessary for survival. Arthur agreed when they made their Contract because he wanted to keep living long enough to find her killer. Hastur suggested it because he also wanted Arthur to keep living—at least until he’s ready for Harvest.

He’s done it three times already. Each time, Arthur was unconscious, either through magickal or ordinary cold-cocked means. Arthur had been going to die. Necessary for survival triggered. But that can’t possibly apply to this situation. “Are you serious?”

I am serious, Hastur warns.

Arthur sighs. “John… come on, that’s not necessary.”

Oh, isn’t it?

“No, you asshole. Besides, they wouldn’t let you out even if you were speaking through my mouth,” Arthur says. “Whatever’s going on can handle a few hours on ice while Yang nurses his big-boy bruise.”

You fool. It’s rare Hastur insults him like this, and Arthur can’t help but feel a little concerned.

“It’s a night in a jail cell, Hastur,” Arthur says, using his real name in an attempt to redirect the wrath. “We’ve done it before.”

Not in the middle of something like this.

Arthur sighs and flips the steak over, pressing the cool side to his face. “And it’s the middle of… what, exactly? You still haven’t explained to me what you think is going on with the recent murders.”

You still don’t believe me.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you. You’ve never lied, and you’ve rarely been wrong.”

I have never been wrong.

Arthur sighs. “Well, if you want me to fully buy into this hijacked deaths thing, you’re going to need to give me more to go on. What does it even mean? Who could possibly be doing it? What are they getting out of it? What does murder even provide? How do you know it’s being stolen?”

Hastur sighs, too. You’re finally asking the right questions, but at the wrong time. We have to hurry. I’m taking control.

Arthur really hadn’t thought he’d do it. “No, wai—”

His mouth stops working.

Completely without his input, he stands. He squeezes the steak, tearing it, getting blood on his hands, then goes to the bars and grips them. Power runs from his heart to his shoulders and into his palms, and the blood burns until the bars begin to vibrate.

Another of his rings cracks and falls with a pop. The bars are gone. Just gone. At Arthur’s feet is (he thinks) a pile of something like sand, but Hastur doesn’t look down there, so Arthur must rely on peripheral vision. He can’t do anything but watch as his body walks right for the exit in front of other prisoners and the whole world.

What was that? What the fuck was that? Hastur has never shown power like that before. This is more magick than Arthur can do, and he can’t cry out, can’t communicate his horror. They’ve surpassed the safe limit twice in one night. There will be a cost. What the hell is Hastur thinking?

There is no way he can recover legally after this. Why are you doing this? Stop!

To his amazement, Hastur hears him—and responds. Because, Arthur, of the number. Since this began, there have been clusters of nine deaths. Nine at a time, the victims connected, and nine is the ultimate number of power. We’re getting perilously close to the number of power turned inside itself—nine times nine.

What? Nine? What the fuck are you—why didn’t you tell me this? He’s feeling dizzy now, disconnected. Fading. He knows he’s going to black out, and Hastur will be on his own. Oh, fuck, don’t hurt anybody. This is gonna get my license pulled as it is.

Hastur’s sigh is heavy. You’re really that concerned about a piece of paper?

Fucking spirits. About not getting arrested on sight? About being able to walk freely around my godsdamned city? Yes, you moron! I know I’m your first Contract and you’re still not fully familiar with humans, but we can’t just do this and get away with it!

Fine. I will ensure you are viewed as innocent for the sake of your… tender soul.

Hastur says that like he’s salivating for it, and Arthur (who is trying to fight this, but pointlessly, like pulling a rope that isn’t tied to anything) has nothing to say.

They stop right at the door to the cell area, right in view of the officers on duty tonight, and then—whatever words Hastur speak have weight, syllables like cinder blocks. Like too many victims tied up and thrown into the Lake, Arthur is dragged down.

But not before he sees the wardens go mad.

They went mad. They shuddered and pulled their guns, twitching, eyes rolling like poisoned cows, already frothing. They—

Arthur wakes with a gasp and sits straight up.

Location flickers into sight like an old bulb twisted back into working. This place reeks. It’s a dirty gulch, smelling like old fish, filled with rubble, shadowed by the only bridge leading out of Cloud City and into the Wastes.

There are bugs all over him, crawling, tickling. He frantically wipes them off, gasping. “Hastur!” he cries, because what the actual fuck?

He has one ring left. The third ring splintered and was lost somewhere along the way. What the hell had he done? “What the fuck, Hastur?” he says this time, scrambling up, and nearly immediately falls again. He’s never been this dizzy, this… off. Breathing hard, he goes down on all fours, and that’s when he realizes he can’t feel his left hand. “What?” he whispers, lifting it, staring at it.

Good evening.

“Evening!” This has to be panic. That’s why he feels so… so… “It was fucking two in the morning! Where the hell are we? Is that the bridge? Are we outside the city? Are you crazy?” That’s the bridge. That’s the bridge into the Wastes. He’s in arm’s reach of some of the worst monsters that survived the Fire of Y, that sometimes come lurching into the city past the witch’s protections, that eat people screaming, that stalk and hide and ravage and infect.

He’s breathing very fast. Too fast. Maybe that’s why he’s dizzy. Maybe that’s why he can’t feel his left hand.

We are where we need to be. Get up.

Arthur tries. “I’m not doing it because you said to,” he manages, and stands. His left hand is still numb. He shakes it out. “Are you fucking insane? We’ll get eaten out here!”

Pick up the bag at your feet, and we can go home.

“No, we can’t go home. You fucking broke us out of jail, and you…” Arthur swallows. He remembers. That memory can’t be accurate. It can’t. “You… what did you do?”

What I had to. Arthur, pick up the bag.

“No,” says Arthur. “You did something to them. You… you cast true magick through me.” Which was impossible. Summons couldn’t do that.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. We’ve been casting small magicks together for five years. But Hastur can’t keep his smugness hidden.

Arthur shakes. “No, we have not. Not like that. That was great magick. You broke their minds. You’re a Summon. You can’t do that.”

Of course, you’re right—I can’t, so obviously, I didn’t. Pick up the bag, Arthur.

Arthur looks down.

It’s a worn, water-ruined leather satchel with an oddly elaborate brass clasp. It’s also still hooked on the bony arm of whoever died while carrying it—half-buried in silt (which means it floods where Arthur is standing) and thoroughly cleaned of skin and flesh.

Arthur is shaking badly. His left hand is still numb. “Hastur,” he says. “Explain this.”

Pick up the bag, Arthur.

“I won’t pick up your fucking bag unless you answer my fucking question.”

Do I need to take over again?

“You won’t.”

Oh, won’t I?

Arthur swallows. His mouth is dry. His eyes hurt. His body feels so weak—but he is courageous in what he knows. “No, you won’t. I can tell you’ve already gone too far, too hard, and unless you want to blow up because I die before our Contract’s fulfilled, you won’t do it again so soon.”

True. But that doesn’t mean I have no options. Assuming, of course, that you are correct about great magick cast through your sorry little form.

What is happening? This is not normal. “What the fuck did you do?” he whispers.

Saved your life. Pick up the bag, Arthur.

Arthur wipes his face with his right hand and discovers tears.

Is he panicking? He’s panicking. Scared. This is… this breaks all the rules. Summons can’t do this. They can’t cast major magick through Contractors, no matter how adept the Contractor is—and Arthur’s not adept. It’s why he went for a Summon in the first place. He’d needed power. “What’s in the bag?” he manages.

Answers.

“How do you know?”

Because it was carried by the person who was the target of the second murder.

“What?”

That second death was unfortunate; a mistake. They were rotted, I believe, to prevent us from identifying them. Fortunately for us, I know… workarounds, and tracked this poor sod here.

“What?” Arthur says again. “You said you’d never seen anything like that corpse before. How do you know all this?”

Silence.

Had Hastur… lied?

Summons couldn’t lie, either. Arthur begins to shake. Overhead, thunder peals. Rain begins pattering down, dropping like ice onto his head. Arthur looks around. “Fuck you, you asshole, you lost my hat.”

Arthur. The tone has changed; it’s urgent now. We need to move, unless you want to be caught in the same rush of tainted water that so helpfully flensed this witness.

“I can’t use your sight right now. I can’t see what killed him.”

The flood did. She was running, and afraid, and slipped and fell down here and broke her leg. She was caught when the tainted waters came—which we will be too, if you don’t fucking move.

Water was bad around Cloud City. The Lake was bad. The ocean was bad. They were all filled with things that eat, big ones in the ocean and small ones in the lake, and Arthur does not care to repeat this poor fool’s slow and painful fate. “Fine.” He grabs the bag. “My left hand might be broken, or something. It’s not working. We’ll need to see a medimancer.”

We don’t need to see a medimancer.

“Sure. Asshole.”

Climb, Arthur.

Arthur is still shaking. His left hand won’t grip right—though it does grip, and that is important, because it’s not easy to climb out from this ditch.

Thunder peals.

Arthur slides back down several feet, rocks and rubble avalanching down around him. A bug crawls on his face, and he sputters, swiping at it, nearly losing his grip as he tries to get it off.

Arthur.

“Fuck you,” says Arthur to Hastur, to the bug, to the Wastes, and climbs again. “If you hadn’t—” he hisses as something sharp slices his right hand—“ridden me like a damn donkey, you could help me out of here. But no, you had to go… violate natural law and ruin my life in the process.”

Hastur laughs at him.

It’s not a sound Arthur has ever grown used to, though by gods, he has tried; it’s dark, deep, undeniably cruel—but Hastur’s never laughed at him before. Hastur’s never… turned on him, behaved in such a strange way.

It shouldn’t even be possible. This feels like an upside-down world, like a nightmare, like it can’t be real.

Below, gray water trickles through the ditch. It sounds strange, like it’s clacking, like it’s secretly made of crab claws.

Arthur, says Hastur, evenly, I only did what I did to give you a plausible reason for escape. When you are asked, you can tell them this: you were released, and you don’t know why. It wasn’t in your control. You weren’t there when things went to hell. Clearly, they let you go because of the madness.

Can’t be happening. What even is happening? “They’ll think I’m responsible.”

They wouldn’t even connect you to the incident. You have no such power.

No one has such power. Except someone clearly does, because it happened.

Mud and rock tumble all around him, splashing into the ominous water. “You’ve put a bullseye on me, and you won’t even admit what you did?” Arthur grabs the top of the ditch. It crumbles in his hand, leaving him clenching useless mud, and he falls. He shouts—

And his left hand lunges without his permission and digs into the top of the ditch, holding on like a harpoon.

Arthur dangles, gasping. Below him, clacking water rises, devouring anything it meets.

Arthur!

“You… you’re controlling my hand!”

Yes, I am, and we are fucking slipping. Get it together!

Arthur manages to swing his right arm up, and again grips the top of the gulch. The soil crumbles, mud caving, and again, he starts to fall.

A new hand comes out of nowhere to grip his wrist like vise, tight, strong, and it heaves. Arthur is pulled up out of the ditch with such force that he and Yang both go down, sprawled.

A bug crawls over his hand. Arthur shakes it off.

They lie there for a moment, breathing. “Wh… what…” Arthur manages. “How did you…”

“The body. Is it down there?” says Yang, glaring up at him, still gripping Arthur’s wrist, keeping Arthur pinned to his chest.

How the fuck did he know that? Hastur growls.

“It was eaten,” says Arthur.

“Fuck. Did you see anything?”

“I haven’t recovered from yesterday,” says Arthur, which isn’t a lie. “I didn’t see much.”

“Fuck,” Yang says again, and rests his head back on the ground.

Arthur rolls off him, panting at the eternally dark sky. “Where’d you come from?”

“Got an anonymous tip about a body under the bridge. Lucky me, I got assigned to go look into it. Bigger question is, what the fuck are you doing here?”

Careful, Arthur.

Arthur sighs. “After they let me out, my Summon said he had a lead. He led me all the fucking way out here.”

“No taxi would bring you this close to the Wastes. How did you get here?”

He wasn’t wrong. Yang didn’t miss much.

Arthur has no answer. He’s got no clue how he got here. Had he walked? Had Hastur broken some other impossible rule and flown him here? He has no memories after everyone in the jail went mad. So, he lies. “Tell that to the taxi who dropped me off. Tipped him and everything. I wasn’t in time to save whoever the fuck that was down there, though.”

Yang goes up on one arm and eyes him. His hat’s fallen off; his dark hair is thick and mussed, and the hint of beard on his cheeks makes his scowl sharper. “Got an even bigger question. Why aren’t you still in jail?”

“They let me out.”

“They let you out?"

Arthur. We cannot afford to go back to jail. We need to get back home.

Sure. Easy peasy. “They. Let. Me. Out. Why is this so hard to believe? I assumed you’d dropped the charges.”

“I did not drop the charges. I wanted you where I could keep a damn eye on you for once. Why did they let you out?”

“You didn’t drop the—fuck’s sake, Yang, I didn’t even hit you hard!”

Yang’s eyes narrow. “Answer the damn question, or you’re going back in cuffs.”

Arthur!

Were they really having this conversation on the edge of the Wastes? Absolutely anything could come lurching out of the dark, hungry, slathering, mind-breaking, but here they were, lying on the ground by a carnivorous flood, arguing nonsense. “They didn’t give me a reason, Yang. I was just glad they did. My Summon’s like a dog with a bone when he’s got a clue, and we’re in the middle of a case.”

“Your Summon. John.”

“Yeah.”

“Where did he get a clue?”

Arthur snorts. “Fucker hasn’t told me.”

Yang looks disgusted. “Really? Your Contract was so sloppy you can’t demand answers?”

“I wasn’t exactly in a good place when I made that Contract, Yang. You damn well know that.” He did, too. Yang had been assigned to her case. Had dealt with Arthur at his lowest, clutching his dead daughter’s body, insensible and screaming. Yang fucking knew.

Yang’s expression goes neutral. “Yeah. I do,” he concedes, and struggles to his feet. Then he offers his hand.

Arthur stares up at him. “You’re kidding.”

“You want a hand up or not? You look like shit, and it’s gonna rain. You’ll get soaked.”

Get soaked. Walk. We’ll take a cab when we get closer to the city. Don’t do this.

With perfect timing, thunder peals, rolling through the canyons of the city, dancing out into the Wastes as if to summon death.

If Hastur had wanted obedience from Arthur, he should have done anything other than what he did tonight. He should have answered questions. He should have at least apologized. He shouldn’t have scared Arthur shitless and then laughed at him.

Arthur takes Yang’s hand.

Yang is stronger than he looks. He pulls Arthur up for the second time in five minutes, and he pulls him close—closer than he should, damn near face to face, and holds him there for a moment too long before letting go.

Arthur! Turn around and walk away! We don’t have time for this!

“Am I reading this right? You’re offering me a ride back?” says Arthur.

“Yeah.” Yang looks him up and down. “You’d have no luck hitching with anybody else. The fuck did you do, drag yourself here?”

Arthur hasn’t gotten a good look at himself, but he feels beat-up, and his shirt sticks to him in a way that makes him think he might have bled under it. “Maybe. Why are you offering?”

Yang shakes his head. “To keep you where I can see you. Come on, Lester. Let’s go.”

Yang has not asked about the bag. Arthur does not volunteer about the bag.

They walk to Yang’s car—a little black two-door with POLICE in worn letters on the sides—and drive away from the Wastes.

(chapter three)

#malevolent #malevolent big bang 2023 #malevolent fanfic #arthur lester #hastur malevolent #malevolent au #cloud city fic #parker yang #asenath waite #trans asenath waite #trans woman

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