Surrogate: A Malevolent Podcast Fanfic
The King in Yellow has a plan.
The first part works, and Arthur Lester is broken.
The second half blows up in his face. John has gone mad, and Hastur’s adopted daughter is upset, but that’s not all.
It turns out a certain Outer God wasn’t done watching that show, and when he arrives with director’s notes, not even the King in Yellow can refuse him.
AO3
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This fic is fluffy AND dark?
I took the Emotions Box and dumped the whole thing in without a hint of self-restraint.
CONTENT WARNING: It includes one of John and Arthur’s absolute lowest points, and though not explicit, he suffers from suicidal ideation. He does not act on it, but it’s there.
Proceed with caution.
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Faroe is a year and a half old, and she must sit on his lap to reach the keys of the piano.
She plays a low F sharp.
“Yes! Now… here. This comes next.” He plays the next few notes an octave above middle C, high and sparkling.
His voice is deep, and it is terrible, but she is not afraid.
She giggles, and—slowly—mimics it, two octaves lower. F sharp, G, F sharp, D—and after a trepidatious moment, the final F sharp.
“Very good! I’m so proud of you. My smart little girl. You’re so good. Who’s my little girl?”
A giggle, such a tiny sound, like her throat hasn’t even finished developing, and she is simply too young to be self-conscious. “Dadah.”
She’s playing the low notes. He’s playing the high ones. Is there meaning to this? Some hidden portent?
No. It simply happened that way, and he does not know if he should try to find reason in it.
She is remarkable. “Such a good girl. I’m very proud of you, Faroe.”
“Love you, dadah.”
#
Faroe is two years old, and trying to sing.
She has a range of about six notes (fitting for her developmental stage—he’s checked), but she hits them with an accuracy unusual for her age.
It’s not precise, of course. She skips from note to note as lightly as a hummingbird between flowers, never firmly landing on any, but brushing close enough to share the sweetness.
“Faroe, my darling. Such a good girl.”
“I love you, daddy.”
Maybe the fucking human was right not to have let go of this.
She truly is remarkable. Continually surprising in her cleverness, and her ridiculous humor, and her effusive love.
Regardless, her skills and self change nothing.
Faroe’s specialness only emphasizes how much Arthur Lester deserves what’s coming.
#
Faroe is two and a half, and who could have guessed how she’d take to the harp?
Confining her to one instrument was such a human thing to do, and he hadn’t even considered it. At his prompting, she tries them all.
Wind instruments, she doesn’t care for.
Percussion, she enjoys while inventing uncoordinated dances, but does not like to play.
Brass is much the same as wind.
Piano is all right. She shows talent, but no joy.
But string—oh, string.
Anything with strings, she loves, and embraces, and becomes in some sweet way he cannot define, but must be human magic: her small, clumsy movements going smooth, her tiny, pudgy fingers caressing with grace far beyond her years.
She would have absolutely been considered a prodigy among the short-sighted humans. She will be so much more than that now.
Curious, that he finds himself making plans for her beyond the end of this plan. If all goes as originally conceived, she won’t even be alive to—
“Daddy, look,” she says, and catches the harp strings with each succeeding finger as easily as she breathes, tiny digits curling to pull sound toward herself like muses gather dreams.
Remarkable.
If her father was anything like this, perhaps he could understand the Piece’s... reluctance.
But of course, no. He had seen into Arthur Lester, down to his core, and found him only distasteful.
“Daddy?”
“You’re doing so well, my darling. I’m very pleased with you.”
Her smile carries a weight he’d never imagined. For him, she plays some more, an uncomplicated and unsullied worship, given freely with no expectation of remittance.
She checks as she does to make sure he is watching, and it is in this brief, mortal moment that Hastur realizes he’s fallen in love.
#
This was not the plan.
He watches her play among his dancers, those sharp and terrible creations—watches her bound without fear between them because she has never been hurt, never known pain beyond the negligible bump or scrape.
That is according to plan.
She is healthy and lovely, and absorbing knowledge at a rate his study has shown him is unusual for humans, even at her developmental stage.
That, too, is according to plan.
But he no longer wishes to finish the plan as intended.
Is this what the Piece went through? This… illogical abandonment of principle and pride?
Perhaps.
Though he still could not see why. Faroe was worth some flexibility. Arthur was not. What a disgusting creature for the Piece to have latched—
“Daddy, are you watching?” she calls, darting between sharp and stone-hard dancers, who would be dangerous for anyone who had not grown up among them.
“Always, my dear,” he says, and it is true.
So the plan must change.
The result could still be the same.
He is a god, and absolutely has the right to change his mind.
#
Faroe is three years old, and the timing could not be more perfect.
He's been leaving clues for Arthur over the past year, burning hints, plastering Arthur’s life with reminders of what he’d lost and what he’d done.
An unending stream of them, merciless, too subtle to dismiss.
And with constant pressure, there’d formed a crack in that ugly human psyche.
Seemingly nothing. Left alone, it would heal.
Unless one applied a wedge just so, and then hit.
It was crucial to act before she grew much older, before she became too self-aware to demand penance from strangers. Crucial to act when she still lacked the ability to analyze, to question (beyond the endlessly-repeated “Why?” which he had decided was more to hold his attention than to gather knowledge).
Crucial, to do this before she could develop too much empathy. The Piece’s human was nothing if not pitiful, and he would not risk the plan going sour over that.
“We have guests. I need you on your best behavior, darling. Will you make me proud?” he says to her, unbothered by her wriggles, by her curiosity, by her constant personal quest to see if she can climb out of his tentacles (she cannot).
“Yes, daddy!” she agrees, which has to be enough.
They are here.
#
It wasn’t hard to bring them. A little pressure here, a few disposable cultists there, and the Piece and his thing are arrived.
The Piece is worried. Has been for a few months now, certain that something is very wrong with Arthur, but he cannot identify the cause.
They step into the dark, those two—Arthur Lester frowning at gloom he cannot see, John Doe narrating as usual.
The King has chosen a room they do not know, a place John would never recognize, because this plan has been in the works for years, this particular moment envisioned many times, and it has to be just right.
He waits until they’re too far in to turn around.
Come too far to run, to leap back through the silent, slowly closing door.
Too far to do anything but receive.
“Hello, Arthur,” says the King in Yellow, and steps forward in a bloom of light like the heavens opened to augur him.
It is everything he wanted and more.
Arthur’s horror—delayed, because Hastur chose the right day, and Arthur’s sanity is already trembling and painful.
The Piece’s rage—immediate and tinged with terror, because he knows that this setup will have no flaws, errors, or ways to escape.
Arthur tries to shoot him.
Cute.
“Now, is that necessary? I merely want to talk,” says the King in Yellow, and extends his reach to simply take the gun from him.
He might have broken Arthur’s hand. Well, humans are fragile.
The screaming is annoying, though, because it catches her attention.
“What’s wrong with that man?” she says, her voice quavering in the way it does when she’s becoming upset.
And Arthur hears her.
The gasp, the freeze. Beautiful.
“This is a bad man,” says the King in Yellow. “There he is, do you see him? He is very bad. What do we do when we have been bad, Faroe?”
He uses her name on purpose.
That isn’t enough, though. That isn’t nails in the proverbial coffin.
Not that it's a coffin he’s going for. This is a wedge, designed to split.
“What?” says Arthur in a tiny, weak voice.
The Piece has, to the King’s pleasure, gone silent in shock.
Good. That will make this even easier.
“We say sorry,” says Faroe, dutifully, the mental exercise pulling her, fortunately, away from looming empathy.
Arthur? whispers the Piece.
Hastur lets Faroe down.
Slowly. Taking his time. Ensuring the Piece sees how comfortable with him she is, how utterly at ease, because he will tell Arthur.
She… she’s… in his arms, Arthur, the Piece says, slipping by habit into describing things for the blind fool. She's not even afraid.
Yes. Perfect.
She looks… about three, maybe four? I can’t tell. Health blooms in her cheeks. She wears… his yellow, a sort of… single, wrapped uniform, comfortable and loose, along with yellow flower barrettes in her hair. Oh, Arthur—she’s coming closer.
“I can’t,” whispers Arthur, which could mean anything, and then he falls to his knees.
Just bang, right down, sure to bloom those fragile joints blue and yellow within the hour.
How many reminders did it take to bring Arthur to this place? How much effort from the King’s agents? It was all worth it, because it worked.
This is the moment.
He has sown those seeds, and now, he will harvest. “Go on, Arthur. Apologize to my little girl. That is what we do when we are bad, is it not?”
Arthur, she… The Piece runs out of words.
Regretful, that Arthur Lester is physically healthier than he was the last time they met. This might have just killed him, before. Oh, well.
“Faroe?” he whispers.
“Yes, I am,” she says, confident, not quite mature enough to read his defeated body language, his stricken face, his pallor so drained that he looks a little like blue-veined cheese.
“Go on, Arthur,” Hastur says, his pleased rumble filling the room, packing itself into the silences. “You owe her an apology.”
“Faroe,” whispers Arthur, and makes the tiniest move.
“If you touch her, you will be very sad at what happens next,” Hastur warns.
Because that is what he had planned.
Because—
Because.
He can still say it. He doesn’t have to mean it.
Arthur clenches his fists and does not touch. “Faroe?”
“Yes,” she says.
He makes one, broken-sounding sob.
“You should say sorry,” she instructs him. “Since you were bad.”
And… there.
Right there. It’s not an audible thing. It’s not visual. But oh… there it is.
Three years in the making.
More than that in the planning.
Right there, the moment of a mortal mind going snap.
Arthur? Arthur!
The Piece felt it, too.
Good. Hopefully, that would speed this along.
“Faroe,” whispers Arthur Lester. “I’m s… I’m sorry, Faroe.” His breath comes fast, shallow, and wet. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry!” He covers his face with his good hand, and he is sobbing now, if that is even the word—vocalized sounds on every exhale, high, pained—more pained than those he made with a broken leg, if Hastur remembers clearly.
Which he does.
“I’m sorry, Faroe! I’m sorry, Faroe!”
Arthur! Fuck, Arthur! Arthur!
It’s a little much for Faroe.
She doesn’t know what to do. Her distress is rising, and that’s according to plan, to the original plan, which Hastur is now struggling to follow. She’s beginning to cry a little—damned empathy, combined with confusion, maybe fear.
He can comfort her after. It’s all so close. “Now, John,” he croons, and he is chiding, gentle, firm. “You know that’s a waste of energy, don’t you?”
The Piece ignores him. Arthur! Arthur!
Faroe reaches up and pats Arthur’s face. “You said sorry. It’s okay, now. It’s okay.”
He startles badly, so badly he almost falls over, but lowers his hand.
He can’t see her. He still stares in her direction, as if caught in a wondering horror beyond imagination.
“I forgive you,” she says, because that’s what she’s been taught to do.
Then absolutely done with this overwhelming scene, she turns around and skips back to Hastur.
To her dad, even if he’s not her father.
He gathers her up, relishing her fearlessness, her familiarity, and lets her squirm through his loose tentacles like her own personal playground.
Arthur is quiet.
Kneeling still, his hands limp at his sides. His head is down.
Oh… oh, it is satisfying. Every inch as much as he’d hoped.
Arthur! Fuck, Arthur, don’t do this! Arthur!
“Are you ready to come home, John?” says Hastur, almost gently.
Silence.
He sighs. Stupid stubborn Piece.
“Daddy,” whispers Faroe, which isn’t much of a whisper. “He looks weird. He’s weird. Why is he weird?”
“Well, Faroe, he’s done a lot of bad things.” There’s no point to this if he’s not going to rub it in. “But maybe now he can do a good one. What do you think? Should he do that?”
“He should be good,” she says, thoughtfully, and then returns to wriggling through his limbs for fun.
“The good thing would be to let go, wouldn’t it?” says Hastur.
Arthur agrees.
Of course he does. He’s thinking… well.
Arthur has no plans to live much longer after this is done—but even this low, he doesn't want to drag John with him.
Hastur will grant him a single point for that.
Time for the finale. “John,” Hastur says, warm. “Come home. There will be no punishment. Come on, now. You’ve been released. Can’t you feel it?”
Arthur!
The left hand rises, feels along Arthur’s unresponsive face.
Hastur sighs. This is the only part he couldn’t fully plan out. “John. It’s time.”
No response.
Really? Really?
Maybe he didn’t understand his toy had broken. “If you stay in him, you’re going back to the Dark World.”
Finally, he gets a response: Good.
What? “Excuse me?”
Good.
The left hand slides over Arthur, as if making sure his organs have stayed inside.
Arthur hasn’t moved at all beyond breathing.
Arthur. Talk to me, Arthur.
Right. Now it was time for some nails. Hastur tickles Faroe.
She giggles—that free, wild sound only small humans seem able to produce.
Arthur slowly curls down over himself, wrapping himself tightly with his right arm, head completely down. “She’s happy?”
What? Yes, she’s happy. Arthur!
“John,” says Hastur. “I have done you the courtesy of using your… chosen name. He’s already released you. Do I need to take you? I’d hoped to spare you the indignity.”
The sound that comes from the Piece, then… isn’t right.
It’s not a sound Hastur can immediately place. It isn’t a growl (the Piece lacks the vocal cords). It isn’t a roar.
It’s some kind of… groan.
He doesn’t know how to interpret it.
Kill me! John demands. Because if you don’t…
“If I don’t… what?” says Hastur, sounding calm.
He isn’t calm.
This part isn’t in the plan. This is where the Piece should realize his vehicle is broken, and—
The left hand keeps roaming, sliding up to wipe away the constant flow of tears, even thumbing away snot (ew!).
As if care of Arthur Lester matters more than dignity.
Arthur, he whispers.
“John,” Arthur whispers. “I’m sorry.”
It was her birthday, or something today, right? the Piece says. You’ve been fucked for months, but today… you’ve been moving like you’re already made of broken glass. That’s why he picked today, isn’t it?
“She’d be… she’d be… eleven, John. I…”
I’ve got you, Arthur. The left hand cups Arthur's downturned face.
“I know.” It’s barely audible. “I’m sorry. I… I think I’m done.”
Arthur, no. Arthur, no! Arthur!
“Excuse me,” says Hastur. “We were in the middle of a conversation.”
Fuck YOU! the Piece suddenly bellows. What have you done? How dare you? How dare you?
From within the folds comes a tiny, shocked gasp. “He said a bad word,” Faroe whispers loudly.
Oh… Hastur is so proud.
She heard the Piece! The minimal magic training he’s given her worked! She heard it!
“He said a bad word,” Faroe says, louder, because she hadn’t got the expected response.
“You’re quite correct, my darling.” Hastur shifts his limbs enough to lift her free, head popping out of writhing, black tubes. “What should he do, then?”
“Say sorry,” she says, automatically, which is even better, because now there might be a second—
John Doe laughs.
It is a… strange laugh.
Wild, unhinged, too far, like electric shocks in the guise of sound.
Instinct makes Hastur pull Faroe back into himself, hiding her between his many limbs.
Oh, go ahead, says the Piece. Go ahead, use her again. Do anything you want. It won’t matter.
“Excuse me?” Definitely not going according to plan.
The left hand slides over Arthur’s face again, his lips, his eyes. Arthur turns his head away, but the hand turns it back, gently cupping his jaw. Arthur. I’ve got you.
“I…”
I know. You’re done. Arthur… it’s all right. You have my permission.
Arthur exhales like he hadn’t breathed this whole time, and turns his face toward that hand. “Thank you.”
They just came to some weird suicide pact, right in front of him, without so much as a by-your-leave.
“So I have to just take you, then?” says Hastur, sharp.
Go ahead.
He’s too accepting of it. “You think to resist?” Hastur scoffs.
Not at all. I intend to make every deal with every demon I can find. I intend to gather every syllable of forbidden magic and cursed spell I can earn. I intend to hover and hide and hone in vengeance until to come near me is to be cut. I will destroy you for what you’ve done to him.
Well.
Right, so.
Um.
It's just a human. “Fool,” says Hastur, sounding a lot more sure than he is. “I’ll simply keep you isolated until you calm down.”
Go ahead. I can do a lot on my own, isolated, with nothing to risk.
“Nothing to risk but yourself.”
You already destroyed the part of me that matters.
This was getting ridiculous. “Then perhaps I’ll send you to the Dark World instead—apart from him, separate. He kills himself, he’s going a different path than you—you know this. And I’ll simply fetch you after a few thousand years.”
Go ahead. We both know what happens to beings who go down to death with only vengeance as their fire.
At last, Hastur growls.
He’s tried not to do that, not to frighten Faroe; he knows the sound scares her, and it does so now. She stops playing, goes still, emits a tiny, frightened gasp.
“I am not angry at you, Faroe,” he says, low. “You’re all right. Stay hidden, all right?”
“Okay, daddy,” she whispers, but she is still afraid of him.
Afraid of him because of them.
The fucking Piece. “How dare you defy me like this? You think you’re going to win anything? You think I can’t outlast you, overpower you, wear you down like a stone in the sea?”
I think you broke what was mine, and I am going to make you pay even if it takes me until the end of time.
Drama. It couldn’t be anything el-
“Okay, okay, cheese and crackers, rock and a hard place, we get it,” says a new voice, and a thing appears in the middle of the room.
That is an Outer God.
Hastur stumbles back, too shocked to think clearly, physically buffeted by the presence this thing brings.
An Outer God in the form of a human, an Outer God standing right there like the suddenness of a created sun, burning everything near.
What? How? Why?
It's wearing a suit identical to Arthur’s except rumpled, somehow giving the impression that it was out carousing until all hours.
It is barefoot, and its feet leave red, smoking prints.
Outer Gods bring chaos. Outer Gods bring death. Outer Gods bring carnage.
Faroe. Of them all, she is in most danger.
Whatever it wants here, it can have it, and Hastur does not hesitate further.
He tries to take her away.
And… he can’t.
Can’t.
He tries again, harder.
It comes with a weird zap, like his attempt to access his own power has been short-circuited, and that has never happened to Hastur before.
The Outer God has to be doing this.
Faroe. Faroe. He has to protect her.
“Well, this isn’t ideal,” says the Outer God, striding right over to Arthur and the Piece as though they’re the most interesting thing in the room—and as though the King in Yellow, the Shepherd God, doesn’t even exist.
Absurdly, Hastur is offended.
“Lemme see, lemme see. Oh, oh, there we go,” says the being in an utter mockery of tenderness, and tilts Arthur’s face up.
Arthur doesn’t respond. Whatever is in him that would have responded cracked about ten minutes ago, and he lets the Outer God do whatever, tilting his face from side to side.
Kayne, growls John, familiar, dismissive, and Hastur is completely confused.
“Well, fuck,” says Kayne. “You broke him. You fucking octopus. You broke him!”
What?
Kayne, go the fuck away if you’re not going to help me hurt him, says the Piece as though addressing this being wasn’t the maddest thing Hastur has ever seen.
It should fill the Piece with terror. What the fuck was happening?
Hastur tries to leave again.
No good.
He tries to just… put her away, to slide her into a tiny pocket dimension.
He can’t even open one.
Unfamiliar feeling is speeding his own breath now, so unfamiliar that it takes him a moment to realize what it is.
Is he dying?
No. This is fear.
Actual fear.
He keeps Faroe hidden deep in himself, as protected as he can.
Kayne—the Outer God—turns slowly to look at him.
And the unfamiliar feeling spikes.
He was wrong. This isn’t fear. This is terror. Debilitating, weakening—
“Oh, you don’t know terror yet,” says this Kayne (that can’t be his real name, the fuck kind of name is that), and turns back to the Piece and his broken toy. “See,” says Kayne. “This is why I stopped after the music box in Carcosa. Didn’t want this to happen. Well… fuck.”
John makes a low, angry noise. You want some chaos? Something to watch? I’ll give it to you! Give me the power to hurt him. Do it now.
Kayne snorts. “The effective way to do that is to kill her, fuck her up, rip her to pieces, and that’ll hurt your guy a lot more than it would him, even now.”
Hastur's breath catches.
So... his plan seems to have well and truly blown up in his face, though why it did—
“Oh, you think so, squid for brains?” says Kayne, turning to look at him again (and Hastur wishes he would not because every time he does it’s like switching out his ichor for bitterly cold helium). “You fucking cephalopod. I won't even give you the courtesy of saying cuttlefish because they are smart.”
Hastur makes one small, lost noise.
Give me the power, growls John.
“No, no, no. I was watching this. I wasn’t done.” And the Outer God begins pacing.
Released, Arthur slumps back down again.
Hastur peeks at him. Arthur is… waiting. Waiting to die. Waiting until he’s sure Faroe won’t see, hear, experience anything that might upset her, that might even give her so much as a bad dream.
Even now, at a point so low he might as well have dug it with his face, Arthur is considering Faroe’s welfare above his desperate need to just end.
Fine. It's deserving of another point, at least.
“You fuckers killed Iroh,” says Kayne, still pacing.
“What?” says Hastur.
“Four books down to three, all because of this. Ugh! I. Was. Watching. That.” And suddenly, so suddenly, so fast Hastur cannot see him move, Kayne is right there, right in front of his face, disparate heights be damned, and one of Kayne’s hands has pierced through his arms to just brush Faroe with his fingertips.
Ichor sprays.
Hastur flails, because now he has to protect her from his wounds (she’s mortal, so mortal, it would burn), because this monster has damaged him so quickly and with such ease that if he’d wanted to kill her, he could have, and Hastur wouldn’t even have been able to do anything to stop it.
Kayne starts pacing again, one arm dripping with Hastur’s black, hissing blood, leaving stains along the floor that send up rising smoke. “Right. Okay. How do we fix this, babes? What do you think? We could wipe it and do a full reboot, but I don’t wanna. That takes too long, and I really don’t have that kind of patience.”
Hastur is healing, yes. He is.
Slower than he should be.
Faroe has picked up on his terror, and she begins to cry. “Daddy?”
Oh. Oh, no. No, this is worse. This is worse than—
Kayne is right in his ear, lips brushing the cowl. “Than anything? No, we haven’t even gotten near that yet. Better not upset her. I’m not in the mood for the sound of babies screaming.”
Hastur makes one, low sound. “Faroe, it’s… I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
“Daddy,” she whimpers, unable to see or hear what’s going on, merely responding to his fear, his tension.
“Try harder,” Kayne, and pinches the end right off one of Hastur’s many arms.
The pain is—
Hastur is not used to pain.
He’s had pain, sure. Sometimes. Way in the past of forever, when he was still new, and pecking orders had yet to be established. More recently, when the Piece was torn away.
This isn’t pain like that.
He is surprised into a roar.
Faroe screams.
She’s three. All she knows is her daddy is upset.
He has to rein this in. Protect her. Keep her sa-
She’s gone.
“No.” Hastur bellows, searching himself. “No!”
Faroe Lester Yellow is in Kayne’s arms.
“No!” Hastur roars, and lunges.
Right into some unseen barrier he cannot pass, and it is immediately obvious she can’t hear him anymore.
She’s hyperventilating, clearly confused, staring up at Kayne.
“Well, look at you! What a big girl you are,” he says with such a warm, kind voice, with such a warm, kind smile that of course she responds, focuses on him, begins to calm, because what else would she know to do? “Hello, MacGuffin," he says.
“Hi,” she says, still tear-streaked. “I’m not MacGuffin. I’m Faroe.”
“Faroe! You sure you’re not a MacGuffin?”
And it’s perfect delivery and perfect play, and Faroe giggles, swapping emotions the way small humans can. “Nooo, I’m Faroe!”
Kayne laughs, and oh, it’s warm and sweet, and oh, his hand on her back is sharp and long and darkening and filling with terrible power. “Oooh, I get it now. Faruffin, nice to meet you!”
That gets another giggle. “I’m not a Faruffin!”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” says Kayne teases, and his long, blackened fingertips on her back have begun to glow a terrible purple that leaves afterimages.
Hastur is hurling himself against the barrier with such force that he’s completely torn out the floor, exposing pipes and bedrock.
He can’t get through.
He can’t be heard.
He can’t. He can’t. He can’t.
And then two things happen at once.
Do it, says John, low and virulent, tightly holding Arthur’s other arm as if to keep him from just falling apart.
That is already shocking, but the second thing is even more.
“Kayne.”
It’s barely there.
Almost inaudible.
Arthur's face is turned toward the sound of his daughter’s voice. “Please. Please don’t hurt her.”
Kayne turns to look at him.
It’s even quieter this time, like a memory of sound. “Please.”
Kayne beams. “Well, fry me for dinner and call me baloney! We may not need to go salted earth, after all. Hey, Faruffin?”
More giggling. “I’m not Faruffin.”
“Sure. Know what just happened? Your daddy fell asleep, and oh, no! He had a bad dream.”
She gasps. “Oh, no!”
“You know what bad dreams are like, don’t you?”
Faroe takes that so solemnly. “Uh-huh.”
Hastur freezes, gasping. He’s exacerbated the wounds, and ichor hisses as it drops from his limbs.
“You know what he needs?” says Kayne like he’s playing a game, keeping her attention like a bauble on a string. “He needs to get his surrogate ass in gear so he doesn’t blow his audition for his new starring role! What do you think?”
What?
Faroe is struggling with this one. “You said a bad word,” she finally says, focusing on the part she could understand.
Kayne kisses her forehead.
He does it looking Hastur in the eye.
He does it with such unblinking, unyielding warning.
Faroe sighs, wriggles. Uncomfortable. Unsure. “Put me down.”
“Is that how we ask for things?” says Kayne, holding her close, gaze locked onto Hastur. “Uncle Arthur was polite. He said please.”
“Please put me down,” she says.
“Hear that?” says Kayne. “Hastur. What do we say when we want something?”
Hastur has never said “please” in his life.
Not beyond teaching her to do it, or teaching rebellious fools to beg.
Is that what he is now? A rebellious fool? “P… Please.”
“Eh,” says Kayne, loosening his grip so she slides right onto her feet. “C plus. Go on, Faruffin—your daddy needs some love.”
She can do that. She was raised in that, overflows in that, and if she sees him like this—
Hastur manifests an illusion.
Looks normal and welcoming as she runs for him, makes no sound as he cauterizes his own wounds so he doesn’t burn her with ichor, gives no indication of pain as he cooks off the spilling of himself before it can do her harm.
“Daddy!” she pronounces, and hurls herself into his many arms. “You had a bad dream!”
“I did,” he says, sounding calm, keeping the limbs he cannot repair back and out of reach. “But everything’s okay now. I have you.”
There’s a slight tremor in his voice.
“Better,” says Kayne. “B minus. Oh, but let’s get back to the interesting part.” He turns to Arthur.
Hastur is bizarrely insulted again, even in the midst of the worst horror he’s ever known.
Kayne crouches before Arthur, touches his chin, tilts his head up. “Say it again, Arthur. What you just said.”
Why? Seeing if his blasted mind could retain anything? Just to fuck with everybody? Hastur doubts Arthur will even—
“Please don’t hurt her,” Arthur says. “Please.”
Kayne sighs.
It is such a sound, too long, weirdly pleased. “How about that? It seems all hope is not lost, gentlemen. Hulu’s bought the rights.”
Hastur’s not sure he heard that right. “What?”
“Cartoon Network got in there for a bit, but that was all, you know, fuck the Fox executives, and who wants that? Predictable. No, no, no. No.”
Kayne, John growls.
“Quiet, Snippet.”
“Please.” It’s not even a whisper. “Not her.”
Hastur never thought he’d find himself agreeing with the Piece’s disgusting human.
Kayne snorts. “You’re lucky she’s so young. Some folks love messing with children, but me? No, thanks. They just don’t… feel it all, yet. Can’t understand what’s happening to them. Lack that special flavoring that comes with knowledge of inevitable doom. I fucking hate kids. They taste like oatmeal. Without salt.”
Arthur’s eyes are still leaking. He swallows. “Kayne, please.”
“I heard you the first time. No more speaking unless spoken to.” Kayne pats his cheek, stands, and claps his hands, sharp. “Here’s what we’re going to do: miniseries.”
What are you talking about? rumbles John. I need to hurt him.
“Shush. Ya boy is almost gone, but not quite. And you know what’s going to keep him around?”
Faroe vanishes from Hastur’s arms again.
And Kayne has one hand raised, one finger up, at Hastur, who suddenly knows if he doesn’t play whatever role he’s been assigned, he won’t get her back at all.
Faroe is in Arthur’s arms.
He didn’t even move to hold her. Kayne just did that.
“Daddy!” Faroe cries in startlement, pulling away from him.
Arthur lets her go.
Kayne goes down to her eye-level, on his knees, and holds her shoulders. “Hey, now, sweetheart! Easy, there. Aren’t you a good girl?”
“Yes,” she says, and wipes her face in her sleeve.
“That man needs a friend,” says Kayne. “He doesn’t have any. Isn’t that sad?”
“But… he’s weird.”
“He is weird! Wouldn’t that make you even gooder to be a friend to someone who doesn’t have any? I bet it would make your daddy super proud.”
She looks toward Hastur with such hope of approval.
Kayne turns his head all the way around like a fucking owl and smiles at him.
It’s so much threat couched in a mortal, human face that Hastur briefly cannot breathe.
He has no choice but to go along. “That would… be good. Yes, Faroe. It’s good to be…” What does Kayne want? “Friends to the… weird man.”
“His name is Uncle Arthur,” Kayne slides her over to Arthur again, lifts Arthur’s good arm, wraps it around her.
She’s stiff, uncomfortable, but trying. She reaches up and pats his cheek. “Hi.”
Arthur loses it.
It’s ugly crying, and suddenly he’s clutching her, even with his broken right hand.
Faroe is…
She’s badly startled, fully out of her depth.
But she doesn’t cry. She wants to make her daddy proud.
Hastur is proud.
He’s also terrified.
Faroe pats Arthur on the head. “Hey,” she says. “It’s okay. Hey, guess what?” And she starts to sing.
It’s the little lullaby Hastur has sung to her since she was first recreated from dust and memories.
A lullaby he’d never taught to her, but she’s smart, and so, he did not have to.
“Sleep my baby on my bosom,
Warm and cozy will it prove.
Round thee father’s arms are folding,
in his heart a father’s love.”
Oh…
It works. Arthur’s horrible sounds slow and quiet. His breath still hitches, but suddenly, he’s rocking her, and he’s singing, too.
“There shall no one come to harm thee.
Naught shall ever break thy rest.
Sleep, my darling babe in quiet;
sleep on m… father’s gentle breast.”
They sound good together, horrifyingly good together, and something deep in Hastur feels like it’s twisting.
“Gross,” says Kayne, and walks toward Hastur.
He cannot move. Cannot pull back. Knows no spell that would keep him safe .
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” says Kayne, crunching over ruined floor. “You hate him.” Arthur. “He hates you.” The Piece growls in agreement. “Thanks to this shit, he also hates her.” The Piece hates Faroe? “And Arthur’s just fucked, but only mostly.”
“He said bad words,” Faroe whispers to Arthur.
Arthur makes a sound that could be a broken laugh. “He did.”
“You know what I hate?” says Kayne. “Found family. It’s all forgiving, and loving past differences, and closer than a brother, and all that shit. But you know what I don’t hate?”
Silence, apart from Arthur’s still hitching breaths.
“I axed you a question,” says Kayne, light and sweet.
“What do you not hate?” Hastur manages, unable to take his eyes from Faroe.
“Forced family.” Kayne’s smile is terrible. It is supernova. It is world-wide plague. It is extinction and the finality of galactic collapse. “Everyone grinding in misery, suffocating, unable to escape or find relief or reach consensus. Everyone desperate to get away, willing to do whatever—leap over the side and drown, marry the wicked baron, whatever—but they can’t. Hey, Faruffin! Come here. I need to say sorry.”
She kisses Arthur’s cheek, makes a face at how wet it is, then heads right for Kayne, her little sandals slapping.
Why, Hastur thinks, did he never teach her of danger? Why did he keep her so safe, always protected, unaware of and unprepared for the realities of the universe?
“Love,” says Kayne. “It makes you stupid as fuck, didn’t you know? Oh, Faroe, I did it again! I said bad words. Aren’t I just awful?”
He does it with such exaggeration, with such faux warmth, that she giggles. “You should say sorry.”
“I’m sorry. I said bad words. Do you forgive me?”
“Yes!”
“Good girl. Now, run to your daddy.”
Which was pointed.
Which hurts Arthur all over again, and he flinches as though stabbed at the quick sound of her tiny feet racing away from him and toward another.
Wasn’t this happening because Arthur had broken? What the hell did Kayne want?
Hastur gathers her up. Hides her again. Knows it’s pointless, knows he can’t protect her.
There is nothing else he can do.
“You’re all going home together!” says Kayne. “All of you!”
What? snarls John. He’s back to touching Arthur with that hand, grounding, wiping at those unceasing tears.
“A miniseries works great at about six episodes, you feel me?” says Kayne. “So I think six years is a fair amount of time.”
For what? I’d sooner explode the fucking sun than go near him.
“Uh, did you even hear a word I said?” says Kayne. “That’s the point. Six years of absolute misery with each other until I decide whether to renew… or cancel with prejudice.”
“I don’t understand,” says Hastur.
“Heh. Maybe I’ll spice it up mid-way with more forcing. I’m thinking Larson and Yellow. What do you think, Snippet?”
What the fuck? No!
“Who?” says Hastur, baffled.
“That little sliver you’re missing?" Kayne says to Hastur. "The teeniest, tiniest bit? Don’t tell me you didn’t notice—that’d just be depressing! Oh, I stuck him in a century-old psychopath. He’ll be super spicy by the time he comes on board.”
Don’t you dare!
Kayne ignores him. “Arthur’s musical. You need music shit, right? Dancers, all of that? A composer?” says Kayne.
Were they still having the same conversation?
The slice—yes, Hastur had noticed, but it had happened when the Piece disappeared, so he’d assumed…
He can’t keep up with this. “I… I have a royal composer,” says Hastur.
“Oh, you’re right! Hnnng…” Kayne pretends to strain for a moment. “Welp, now you have a royal opening.”
“What? What?” Fuck. Hastur feels it, feels the shock of his people, feels the cries he cannot hear. Karloff is dead. “What?”
Composer? The Piece sounds furious. That’ll hurt him!
“I seem to be getting through to you people very slowly, so I’m going to dumb it down,” says Kayne. “I don’t give a fuck about the pretty little princess right now. She's no fun to play with at this age. However.”
He lets the pause stretch just enough, like sinew tightening around everyone’s hearts.
“She won’t be boring forever. And I can’t imagine what I might get up to if I don’t have something else to watch when that time comes. Get it? So Arthur has a new job making music for his arch nemesis. Snippet—you’re gonna have to fix him. I’m not invested enough to fuck around with that.”
What? says John.
“You, Hastur, my ugly little decapodiform, are going to have to make space for all of that to happen. You’re going to have to do it while Snippet over here plots your death, ‘cause he doesn’t seem the forgiving type to me.”
“Is that supposed to frighten me?” says Hastur, defaulting to a phrase he puts zero thought into because he’s so overwhelmed.
“It should. I suspect li’l Arthur’s welfare is the only thing standing between you and… well, lemme put it this way: I’m not the only one of my caliber drawn by the note John’s soul sang when you succeeded in your fucking stupid plan.”
More Outer Gods?
Hastur can’t feel them. They’re so far beyond his power, which has always felt like enough, that he can’t even tell they’re there.
He hadn’t known Kayne was there, either.
“Helpless is a good look on you! Yes. There are more. Gathering like vultures. Oh, we are all hungry for what he’s doing now—but lucky! I got here first. There are so many deals being dangled…” Kayne smacks his lips. “But mine is the only one that accounts for Arthur staying alive.”
John says nothing.
As if this is true.
As if he’s… hearing things Hastur cannot, offered only to him.
Stay with me, Arthur, he says instead, stroking Arthur’s face.
“Why?” Hastur demands, unable not to, so confused why something like Kayne would care about any of this.
“Dense! You’re nowhere near as fun as the other guy,” pronounces Kayne. “Still—you better hope John doesn’t just decide fuck it and take one of those offers. I suggest being nice to the human you loathe with all your being.”
Hastur looks at the Piece, then back. Arthur is back to limp, head down.
Hastur is repulsed.
Kayne’s not done. “And of course, if nobody does it right, she becomes the spin-off. Get it now? You want her happy and well and all that shit? You’re all going home together, one big forced family. You get to raise her together! As a village! There’ll even be days off!”
Hastur feels sick.
He can’t recall the last time he expunged, vomited, expelled.
He just might now.
Together?
He’ll have to share his daughter?
Kayne sighs, tilts his head back. “Ugh. Well. We’ll see if this is worth it. Make good, peons, I don’t have all century.”
And he’s gone.
Just gone, with no surge of power to indicate his departure, with nothing to tip anyone off whether he’s even still here.
But he must be.
What note does John’s soul sing?
I hate you, says John. This isn’t over. Not after what you did to him.
“We have bigger concerns, you fucking idiot,” says Hastur.
Tiny, from within his arms: “You said a bad word.”
Hastur trembles from curl to cowl. “I did, baby. I did. I’m sorry.”
Arthur. Did you understand what just happened now?
Hastur stares. He’s never heard his own voice so… tender.
Arthur takes a long moment to answer. “I had her. In my arms, I…”
She’s all right.
“She’s happy? Safe?”
Yes.
Arthur slumps.
But she won’t be if you… if we go.
Arthur has definitely not processed anything. “What?”
“Damn it,” Hastur mutters. Did Kayne mean it? He has to accept music from that? Arthur’s hand is broken. “Tell him to hold out his hand.”
No, says the Piece.
Hastur growls. “Karloff was obedient. Your Arthur’s going to have to learn.”
Karloff was a pompous, perverted ass, who’d sooner fuck a trumpet than compose anything of beauty.
Faroe pops out from Hastur’s arms. “Say sorry.”
John wants to hurt her.
Hastur inhales.
It is startling, frightening, sharp. John has fixated on her as the thing that broke Arthur, the wedge used to spread that crack and split him like a log.
And if she is hurt, Hastur will be, too.
That’s not rational. That will hurt Arthur more.
The Piece is not okay.
Somehow, when Arthur broke, the Piece broke with him.
How?
It shouldn’t have done that.
How?
“What is wrong with you?” Hastur says, evenly.
You really don’t get it? Really? Look at his face. Look at hers. They’re similar enough that you can use your imagination and apply his expression to her. I know you’re less than I am, practically stupid, but you can do that.
“Less!” scoffs Hastur. “What foolishness are you—” And he glances at Arthur’s face.
She does resemble him.
She’s healthy and he’s not, pristine and he’s not—but the base.
The base is the same.
And almost against his will, he pictures that hollow, blank, defeated look on Faroe’s face.
Hastur goes very still.
Faroe pats his arm. “Daddy. I’m hungry.”
She’s… she is not broken.
She—
“John, I don’t think I can do this,” Arthur says so quietly.
For her. I understand I’m not enough.
“John, that’s not what I—“
We’ll start there. If you go, she dies. That’s Kayne’s deal.
Finally, it’s gotten through. Arthur inhales.
And then he does something Hastur would have thought impossible: in every sense, internally and out, Arthur sits up.
“I won’t let him hurt her,” he says.
And it is… remarkable.
Damn it.
It’s like watching flowers bloom on a dead and broken branch.
Fuck.
Faroe is not used to her needs being delayed. “Daddy.”
Faroe is not broken.
Trying to think of what it would be like to see her done unto as Arthur…
Hastur is more afraid than he was when Kayne appeared. “Yes. Yes, we… should all have something to eat.” Fear like this isn’t natural to him. He doesn’t like it. He tries to focus on the practical. That damned hand—“Tell him to hold out his hand.”
I’m not doing anything for you. You want to do something, you fucking do it yourself.
“Hey.” Faroe frowns. “It is rude to use bad words.”
John is not okay.
Hastur doesn’t feel okay, either. “Arthur,” he says. “Hold out your hand so I can heal it.”
You’d think a simple command (with a reason given!) would be easy enough for him, but no. Like everything else, Arthur has to make this difficult.
Arthur ignores him completely.
Solid choice for his new composer. This would work out great. “Arthur!”
Ha! says the Piece, as though he’s won something.
Hastur wants to break more of him. “Arthur!”
“Not yet,” says Arthur.
“What?” Says Hastur.
“Not yet. I… the pain helps. I can’t… not yet,” Arthur says.
The hell did that mean? He wanted to suffer? “Arthur, Kayne has given you a job, which you will do. I need to repair your hand for it.”
Arthur doesn’t want the repair. He wants his broken hand to reflect how he feels inside.
“Daddy, I’m hungry,” says Faroe, who is too young to grasp delayed gratification.
“We are all leaving,” says Hastur. “Once Arthur’s hand is healed.”
For Faroe, Arthur submits. “Fine.” He raises it.
Every single thing was going to be a negotiation, wasn’t it? Disgusting.
Arthur. We’ll get through this, John soothes.
“We… we will,” says Arthur, showing nothing as Hastur works his hand, though Hastur knows it hurts tremendously. “She… she’s happy?”
She’s perfect, Arthur. And… if we do this, I think she might even be safe.
Arthur hangs his head again, though this looks like relief.
This plan had gone so wrong. “Why is an Outer God interested in you?”
Arthur. He’s interested in Arthur. And we don’t know because Kayne doesn’t know. Arthur’s a mystery.
What?
That thing?
Hideous, flawed, hypocritical?
How could—
He looks down at the tiny human in his arms.
At Faroe, who watches him expectantly, waiting to be swept away and given what she needs, trusting him with such intensity that it feels like she’s caught him in a spell.
Hastur looks at Arthur and absolutely cannot see any of that.
But Arthur bloomed after being broken.
But Arthur entangled with the Piece to the point of self-destruction.
But an Outer God is paying mind.
So maybe he was remarkable, too? Somehow?
Arthur? Arthur Lester?
Fuck.
“Macaroni,” says Faroe.
“Apples,” negotiates Hastur.
Faroe makes a face. “Macaroni and apples.”
“Eat your apples, I’ll give you some macaroni.”
Arthur makes a tiny sound. It might have been… a good sound. Which would make sense, because Faroe is adorable.
Which… Arthur cannot see. Ugh. He’s still blind. Hastur sighs. How is the stupid human supposed to compose anything blind? Is Hastur going to have to fix everything himself?
Faroe isn’t done. “And a cookie.” She looks positively sneaky.
“No cookies until dinner.”
“But I made friends,” says Faroe.
This was true. “One cookie.”
Arthur reaches with his right hand and grabs his left. “I need you.”
Eh?
John makes a low sound. I’m sorry, Arthur. I should’ve seen this coming. Should’ve… should’ve protected you, somehow.
“I… you are enough, John. You are enough.” Arthur's voice breaks.
John’s responding sound is… a sob?
Some terrible sound, rife with feelings Hastur has never had and does not want to experience.
Whatever disgusting thing is going on there, he will not be a part of it. “Come. Composer and Piece. As if we have any choice.” He opens a portal.
It is such a relief to be able to do that again. To feel his powers again.
Though now, after this, they feel so small.
He has a daughter to feed.
He has plans to remake.
He has six years to ensure she is safe from an Outer God.
That isn’t possible, as far as he knows.
There has to be a way.
“I get to watch her grow,” whispers Arthur. “Should I be grateful?”
He took her from you! The only thing you should have toward him is hate.
“No. I… I lost her with my own hands, John. I can’t hate someone else for that.”
Ugh. Hastur’s not listening to this. He goes through the portal.
Six years.
John is growling as Arthur follows, trusting John to guide him. More to your left. He’s going to pay for what he did to you.
“I don’t care,” says Arthur.
I do.
Was Hastur going to have to protect her from the other half of himself, too?
No. No.
If Arthur is actually remarkable, and the Outer God isn’t full of shit, then Arthur will sway the Piece.
Faroe might do it on her own, too.
She’s good at love. It’s uniquely human magic, and Hastur knows no defense.
“Daddy?” says Faroe. “Who’s Larson?”
He has no idea how to answer that.
Maybe Kayne was… right.
Maybe raising her together, with others to help, would be better for her.
It would hurt him.
But if she would benefit, then… so be it. “I hope you’re ready to answer that, John, because I have no fucking clue.”
Faroe sighs. “Daddy, you aren’t supposed to say the bad words, especial.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He hides her in his arms.
It’s all that he can do.
----------------
NOTES:
Ouch?
I don’t know. The bug bit my brain and I had to write it. My apologies.
Might I suggest this for something fully lighthearted to wash out your mouth, as needed?
What’s going to happen in six years? Oh… I have thoughts, but I decided to leave it open.
Does it count as found family if they’re forced? Kinda a difficult question, isn’t it?
The music Faroe is learning to play at the beginning is Faroe’s Music Box, composed by Harlan Guthrie. It’s part of CODA, the episode of the podcast that literally inspired this fic.
The lullaby Faroe sang to Arthur is here, with "mother" swapped for "father." It’s traditional Welsh, and honestly one of the loveliest things I’ve ever heard. Obviously, I’ve linked a big old orchestral version, but it works super-well in tiny voices, too.pain
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