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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 11 months

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A Disproportionate Epilogue: A Malevolent Fanfic

Shub-Niggurath does not appreciate being woken from her rest by an unfit father.

AKA, The parts John and Arthur couldn't remember.

Takes place during A Disproportionate Response

(written with @sparklyandheroic)

AO3

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OH, YOU POOR THING, John hears, a mocking rebuttal to the attacker’s words, and then there is movement, the shocking jolt of magical transport, and his mind goes blank.

Dizzying, dazing, a sickening spin of pressure and pull as they fly through dimensional walls to land somewhere hard enough that they make a wet splat when they land.

Arthur grunts, then goes still.

John can’t see. He can’t see anything, and trying to focus Arthur’s eyes hurts in some ill-defined way that John can actually feel.

What is that presence? It’s thick, powerful; the air is still as the bottom of the sea, and he feels observed by innumerable eyes that shift and whisper at his every move.

The damned baby black goat sent them here, or caused them to be brought. Why? To die? To finish expirating where precious Faroe couldn’t see?

Arthur wouldn’t think that. What would Arthur think in this situation?

Whole, well, Arthur would think something stupid and born of human hope, defaulting (by choice, and yes, John knows he benefits) to the belief that help can be found.

Broken, dying, Arthur only breathes.

It’s bad breathing, wet, uneven. Sort of gulping, and some memory from being the King in Yellow and murdering for fun tells John that this is a shutting-down sound, that humans take shallow, gulping breaths when they’re about to die.

John makes his own sound. A ragged keen, a haggard cry, a wordless wail of looming agony.

He no longer cares what happens to him. What he has to do. Where they are, what it will mean. He has to try to mimic Arthur’s lost hope. There’s nothing else left.

H… help! Help us! Someone! Please!

EASY, BOYS , says a voice (a voice, a VOICE), and maybe there are two of them, or maybe there’s an echo, but even with such a gentle tone, they are too much.

Arthur’s ears bleed. Barely conscious, he cries out. “John?”

Arthur!

YOU WERE RIGHT. THEY ARE RATHER ENDEARING IN PERSON.

“Right?” says Kayne. “Totally weird.”

Kayne? The goatling sent them to Kayne?

But it doesn’t feel like Kayne. It feels much worse.

Whatever else it is, part of it is definitely Kayne. “Oh, oh, oh, will you look at those muscle fibers! Arthur Lester, I believe you could have a six-pack if you worked at it! Goodness gracious, you’re just full of hidden potential, you darling little wastrel, you.”

Arthur moans.

Arthur!

A huge, barely-gentle wave of power passes over them, and suddenly, John can see.

He can’t see well, but he can see Arthur. Arthur wears more blood than he circulates, and he’s nude, but not exposed, because his skin just… it just…

It drapes like a heavy, wet blanket past his waist, and John sobs.

John plucks at it weakly, Arthur’s left hand barely responsive. This can’t be shrugged off. This can’t be stitched. Not this time. He feels like he's losing his thoughts, like they're tumbling out the back of a truck.

BE CALM, LITTLE ONES. I DON’T HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR DISRUPTING MY PEACE TONIGHT.

And before John can react to any of that, something touches them.

John can feel it, power too great to wrap his mind around, touching their body with intentional caution so it does not crush and does not burn and does not ruin.

Arthur’s breathing evens out, and is no longer wet.

Arthur? Arthur! Arthur, wake up. Please, wake up.

ARE YOU CERTAIN YOU WANT THAT? WELL… YOU WON’T REMEMBER IT, ANYWAY, SO WHY NOT? I’LL KEEP HIS PAIN AT A NICE FOUR. THAT WAY, YOU CAN BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION.

It’s like they’re children, both of them, compared to her.

Maybe they are. He’s dying!

SWEET THING. NOT ANYMORE.

“Ooh, dibs,” says Kayne, and Arthur’s body jerks as though something tugged at him. John can’t feel the tug, but Arthur must because he moans. Then Kayne moans, too. Chewing. “Nope,” he says, messy, mouth full. “Human. Mystery not solved.”

Was he eating Arthur? What the fuck is wrong with you? John blurts.

“What…” Arthur manages, and begins to shudder. His four is, all things considered, a little higher on the pain scale than average, and his body is in shock.

Arthur! Arthur, lie still.

I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU, ARTHUR LESTER, says the voice, and it comes with power, and John can feel it cupping Arthur’s mind like a hand around a tiny stone. YOUR LIFE DANGLES BY A THREAD. YOU HAVE ONE LAST MOMENT TO SPEAK. WHAT DO YOU WISH TO SAY?

“Faroe,” Arthur sobs.

John feels a pang.

Envy? No. Guilt? Maybe. He doesn’t know, lacks the word for it, but it is not a good pang.

A LOVELY ANSWER.

“Faroe?” And bless his heart, exposed to the world and visible muscles squirting blood, Arthur tries to sit up. “Where is my daughter?”

Arthur! The fuck, lie down!

WHAT A STUBBORN HUMAN! I THINK PERHAPS HE SHOULD STAY ASLEEP AFTER ALL, DON’T YOU? And her power shifts, and something just touches Arthur’s eyes, and he goes limp.

“ETA… four minutes,” says Kayne.

FOUR MINUTES, THEN. JOHN… JOHN, WE HAVE A SITUATION, JOHN. I AM SUPPOSED TO BE RESTING FROM MY LABOR. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE RESTING IN YOUR LOVER. MY CHILD IS SUPPOSED TO BE CURLED AT HER FRIEND’S SIDE, NOT ASLEEP, FOR SHE WILL NEVER SLEEP, BUT GUARDING HER PEACEFUL DREAMS. INSTEAD, DO YOU SEE WHAT WE HAVE? AND ALL BECAUSE OF AN UNFIT FATHER.

Oh, John has a feeling what might be coming, and oh, he would not want to be in Hastur’s squirmy steps for anything tonight, and oh, maybe Arthur would live, and if Arthur lived, the rest didn’t matter, and he could parse what the fuck they meant by ‘lover’ another time, and he could help Arthur heal, and it would be okay.

HE’S QUITE FOCUSED, ISN’T HE?

“Boring, you ask me. Sixty seconds.”

NIBBLES LIKES HER VERY MUCH, YOU KNOW.

N… Nibbles?

IT’S A GOOD NAME, BESTOWED IN LOVE.

And Kayne cracks up.

It’s that bad laugh, the high and crazy laugh, the laugh that judders sanity like a bat hitting a barrel, and John cries out.

“Nibbles!” Kayne says. “Can you imagine? ‘Oh, no, here comes Nibbles! Oh no, our lives! Our lands! We must sacrifice to Nibbles! Our very souls are forfeit… to NIBBLES the Almighty!’ Ahahahaha!”

Kayne is right. That’s going to happen. Fuck, John hates him.

“Ten seconds!” Kayne cries, sounding absolutely thrilled.

WORD OF ADVICE? says the Black Goat of the Woods, the Mother Goddess, the Shupnikkurat. NEXT TIME THERE IS SUCH CRISIS, THE ONE YOU SHOULD ‘HOWL’ FOR IS NIBBLES.

What? Why? Why would? How would that? What?

And then Hastur arrives.

This was not the plan.

After punishing her, after reacting because Perse made his daughter cry, Hastur went to Faroe, was sniped by her tears, and found himself promising to bring Uncle Arthur back when he’d had no intention of doing that at all.

Arthur was gone. Probably dead. Not even his fault!

But Please, daddy! she’d sobbed, her eyes like limpid pools, and his hearts felt twisted, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d agreed.

Of course, he had no idea where Arthur went. It’s not like he could track him (he could have, if he’d bothered to mark him, but he hadn’t, and he won’t wrestle with that now). He’d have to launch an investigation, and follow clues, and -

And Nibbles, the worst pet that ever existed, butted him in the stomach as if trying to tell him to stop being stupid, and suddenly, Hastur knew where Arthur went.

Where he was taken.

Oh.

Oh, this was… this was bad.

Hastur knew how to get to The Woods. Every god knew how to get to The Woods. It was like knowing how to face the sun. You knew. You felt.

Why in the name of Dagon’s salty ass was Arthur there?

Hastur didn’t want to go. Obviously, Arthur was insane or dead at this point. In The Woods? That’s it. No matter how special a human he was (and Hastur caught that thought to execute it before it went too far), he was done.

But Faroe looked up at him and gripped his robe, and tears streaked her face and her eyes were red, and…

And he lost his mind and agreed to go to The Woods to find Arthur’s corpse.

Not his fault if Arthur is ruined. He could blame someone else, and she wouldn’t be mad at him, and all would be right with the world.

So Hastur comes to The Woods.

He has never been here before. Never dared.

(Never gone someplace where he was so outmatched. He isn’t that stupid.)

Never gone into the presence of the Mother Goddess, never even dreamed of getting involved with any of her business, but here he is, hosting her child and invading her territory without an invitation, and it is all Arthur’s fault.

Since it’s not actually an invasion, he tries to be… graceful.

Tries to enter with less pomp and circumstance than her offspring did at Faroe’s party.

Tries to just part the curtains, not tear the wall, not smash the windows as he had on his way to punish his foolish sibling.

He floats out of the sky, confronted with endless woods, with dark and shadowed land, and this close, can feel where John is (and his distress, both pleasing and confusingly upsetting), which must be where Arthur is, too.

He approaches slowly. Not attacking. Not aggressive. Not—

“Oooh, you are in so much trouble!” blurts Kayne, and Hastur’s smooth glide stutters to a shocked halt.

He’s frozen in the air, staring down.

Below is Arthur—less flayed than he’d been, still breathing (a shock) still sane (a bigger shock), very unconscious.

And below is John.

And below is Kayne.

And above around between throughout inside outside everywhere is Her.

And she speaks, and her voices are like many waters, drawing him under to drown. IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU CRAWLED IN. TAKE A SEAT. WE NEED TO HAVE A LITTLE TALK.

Hastur is frozen. He can’t even think to breathe. She’s waiting for him. She’s unhappy. He’s going to be destroyed.

Arthur’s fault Arthur’s fault this is ALL Arthur’s fault—

Even like this, he can’t miss the poetic irony as she raises her enormous tentacle (too fast, too strong, too big), snatches him out of the sky like a butterfly, and sits him down, hard, next to fucking Arthur Lester, in his nasty blood.

You! growls John. This is your fault!

“My fault?” Hastur snarls, shocked into responding. “It’s his fault!”

The only thing he did was exist, you narcissistic piece of offal!

“THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTINGGGG!” Kayne proclaims, every “g” hard and stuttered.

Hastur’s gone crazy. That’s what this is. He’s gone mad. “Is it my fault you two decided to go jaunting, unaccompanied? You knew the dangers.”

That’s not why we’re here!

“Then why are we here, Piece? Why is my court composer here?”

A sigh ripples through the air, punctuated with the clicking of a hundred tongues and what John assumes is motherly disapproval. YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHY YOUR COMPOSER IS HERE, HASTUR. YOU WERE AN UNFIT FATHER TONIGHT.

Hastur’s further insults die in his throat, clogging it like a dead squirrel.

Arthur groans. “John?”

Worst fucking timing—shh. I’m here.

“Fuck, it hurts…”

Good. That means you’re alive. I’ll take it. John’s voice cracks.

“I…” Hastur has to stop and try again. “I’m n… I would ne…”

YOU PUT MY CHILD IN DANGER TONIGHT ALONG WITH YOUR OWN. DID YOU THINK OF THAT, AS YOU LET YOUR SISTER—SO MUCH LESSER THAN YOU, SO EASY TO RESIST—HAVE HER WAY WITH THIS HUMAN?

No. No, Hastur had not.

His tentacles go limp, slowly, resting on the ground, even in Arthur’s blood. He had not thought of that. His ichor’s gone to ice again. All his hearts hurt.

DARLING LITTLE FAROE, says the voices, so sweet and gentle that anyone just listening would never picture a being who could pinch out the sun. SHE’S FRIENDS WITH MY OFFSPRING. WE’RE ALL VERY LUCKY SHE IS, BECAUSE THAT GIVES YOU A SECOND CHANCE.

Hastur can’t answer.

“Psst,” says Kayne. “I think you broke him.”

HARDLY. And the way she says that is no compliment. She says it as though she knows exactly how one such as Hastur would be broken. NIBBLES HAS ASKED ME, FOR FAROE’S SAKE, TO SPARE ARTHUR. TELL ME, HASTUR, DEAR… SHOULD I HAVE TO BE DOING THIS TONIGHT? SHOULD THIS FALL ONTO MY SHOULDERS?

Hastur’s brain seems to have stalled.

He fucked up. He can’t believe it went this wrong. It wasn’t even his fault.

It’s just Arthur Lester. Faroe would get over it. It shouldn’t matter. Why should this matter?

“Oh, it matters, sweet cheeks,” says Kayne, low. “Looks like you got so sucked into the show that you… forgot? So I’ll clarify… again. But Hastur… I don’t like to repeat myself. You’ll regret you made me do it. Capisce?”

“What?” says Hastur, shaking.

“If Arthur dies, I will be bored. Do you really want me bored? Do you?”

And this is a totally different angle than Nibbles being upset because Faroe is upset. This is a completely different angle than Shub-Niggurath’s issue with him, and Hastur isn’t sure he can take both. “This… This isn’t about…”

“You know what happens when I’m bored?”

And She is here, silently laughing, and Kayne is here, threatening and confusing, and Hastur can’t do this. He wants to flee.

Is this what people feel like when he drives them mad? It must be.

He can’t flee. “Faroe is… leave her out of your games!”

“Faroe?” Kayne laughs. “No, no, no, I was talking about Carcosa. I mean, I don’t like reruns, but I suppose I could… burn it this time instead?”

And the penny finally drops.

Hastur hadn’t known who did it. How could he? They’d come in stealth, come without warning, come without setting off any of the magical wards and alarms any reasonable god sets up about their home base.

Something had come and destroyed and murdered and ravaged and smeared, and left it empty, left no survivors to clean up after.

The children had all been struck down at once, instant. The adults… had been played with. Taken from their homes. Chased.

Now that he thinks about it, that was on brand, wasn’t it?

And Hastur had rebuilt. He’d refined. He’d offered and traded, made some deals and a lot of kidnappings, and repopulated his city at last. And his new worshipers (whether they wanted to or not) had cleaned it up and fixed it up with spit and polish and power, and it was lovely and his and right again.

And Hastur had been hunting for who did it. Because it was beyond an insult. It was breaking into someone’s home and killing the parakeets.

And after all that, it’s Kayne? Hastur’d had his attention even then? “Why would you do this to me?” he says, breathless.

Kayne laughs.

It’s the worst sound in the worlds, that laugh. Dismissive. Cutting. Over the top like a fucking flood, threatening to crush and drown. “You? You? No, no, you’re the dull one, remember? No, I did it because I was bored… waiting for them.” And he gestures at them.

At Arthur. Arthur Lester. Who, might, Hastur is beginning to feel, be the bane of his existence.

And if this were not Her realm and in Her presence, and if he had any reason to believe Faroe would be safe, he would descend on those two right now and make them pay for his lost, precious city.

John is uncharacteristically silent.

Arthur is still unconscious.

Hastur cannot bring himself to speak.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND, HASTUR? ARE YOU READY TO BEHAVE?

Kayne holds up his hands. “I am so good?”

YES, DEAR, NOW HUSH. I WASN’T TALKING TO YOU, says the dual-voiced Mother, briefly blocking out the sky.

“What do you want me to do, Great Mother?” Hastur whispers.

If Arthur lives, bargains John all of a sudden, I’ll do anything you want.

BOLD LITTLE THING, she says. BUT THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. HASTUR, I WOULD LIKE TO REST, AND DO NOT ENJOY BEING WOKEN IN THE NIGHT BY MY OFFSPRING’S DISTRESS, SO LET’S MAKE THIS… SIMPLE? FIRST, YOU WILL MARK HIM.

“I will not,” slips out before he can think, and Hastur claps his own tentacles over his face.

IF YOU DO NOT, I WILL JUDGE YOU AN UNFIT FATHER, H’AAZTRE.

That takes him a moment. “What?”

NIBBLES LIKES HER. I AM NOT PARTICULARLY CONCERNED WHO GETS THE TITLE OF ‘PET’ IN THIS CIRCUMSTANCE—BUT IF I HAVE TO TAKE FAROE FROM YOU, SHE WILL NOT BE RAISED… THE SAME WAY.

And Hastur makes a sound.

He cannot know it’s the same sound John made earlier on this very ground, terrified he’d lose Arthur.

“I’ve never threatened your children,” Hastur whispers.

I KNOW, DEAR. THAT IS THE REASON WE ARE TALKING.

Kayne says, “Instead of, like, finding out just how many pieces you can become until they finally lose sentience and drift away.”

SWEETIE? DON’T INTERRUPT AGAIN.

Kayne salutes, mimics zipping his lips, and tucks the imaginary key in his breast pocket.

I TIRE OF THIS CONVERSATION, she says. YOU WILL GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, HASTUR. THIS IS ALL VERY ENTERTAINING—I AGREE WITH KAYNE. (Who waves.) HOWEVER, I WILL NOT SEE MY CHILD IN DANGER FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR PRIDE. TAKE BETTER CARE OF YOUR THINGS. CARE FOR YOUR OWN TOYS. IF YOU DO NOT, I MAY DECIDE YOU AREN’T READY AFTER ALL TO PLAY KINGDOMS AND EMPIRES. I MAY DECIDE TO PUT YOU TO BETTER USE FOR A FEW THOUSAND YEARS. IF I HAVE TO BAIL YOU OUT AGAIN FOR SOMETHING YOU DID TO YOURSELF, HASTUR, YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE FROM ME. ARE WE CLEAR?

And it was all spoken so kindly and so huge, and so motherly and so dark, and Arthur groans (unable to understand) and his ears bleed some more, but she’s already healing him, reattaching his skin, barely requiring focus to do it, and Hastur shakes, and Hastur hates, and Hastur swallows.

“I understand,” he says.

She seems relieved. GO HOME. I’M TIRED OF THIS.

Arthur? says John.

HE’S HEALED ENOUGH. HE CAN DO THE REST ON HIS OWN.

“Humans can’t heal from this,” Hastur says bitterly. “Infection alone will kill him.”

NOT THIS ONE.

Not this one? Just what was so special about Arthur Fucking Lester, anyway?

And John must have been drinking bold juice tonight because he dares ask for more. What about his pain?

Kayne snickers, opens his mouth, catches a look from her, and re-zips his lips.

YOU CARE ABOUT HIS PAIN?

Do you want me to bear it, or something? I will! vows John.

SUCH A THOUGHTFUL LOVER. VERY WELL. I WILL SEND OINTMENTS WITH YOU. HAVE THEM APPLIED, AND HE WILL SUFFER LESS.

Kayne unzips his lips. “The purple one? Please? Pleeaase?”

Her sigh is… half for show. AS YOU WISH. NOW LEAVE. BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND.

She makes no further move to help them. Instead, with all her uncountable eyes, she watches Hastur move.

Move as though he’s an old human man, stiff and ungainly.

Move as though approaching Arthur turns his stomachs (it does), but he is gentle as he lifts him from the sticky, bloody mud.

Hastur doesn’t look at either of them. He opens a portal and simply leaves, head down, about as little pomp or circumstance as he’s ever produced in his life.

“I give it a week,” says Kayne.

NOW, HAVE MORE FAITH THAN THAT.

Kayne snorts. “I meant a week of self-control to just watch before I poke them.”

There is a smile in her voices. WHAT SHALL I DO WITH YOU, BLOODY TONGUE?

Kayne stretches his arms out and grins like he’s about to kick off a three-ringed circus. “Enjoy me, love me, and come like a freight train for the whole damn ride.”

Her laugh breaks two nearby stars, shatters a passing moon, and peppers their relative planets with flaming rain and meteors for the next two hundred years.

Hastur stays gentle as he magically cleans Arthur off. (Can’t have Faroe seeing him like this.)

He stays gentle as he expands Arthur’s room, because now he will need medical care, and nurses (like hell is Hastur going to apply any fucking ointments).

He stays gentle—through great effort—as he goes to wake Faroe, carrying her tenderly into Arthur’s room so she can see he’s all right.

“Uncle Arthur!”

“No, darling. You cannot hug him now. He is wounded.”

And the tears come again (and part of him knew they would, though he wanted gratitude, though he wanted joy), and she wants to run to Arthur and he will not let her, and—

Arthur raises his hand. His eyes are barely slitted open. And he smiles.

For her, he smiles. He’s in tremendous pain; there’s been no ointment applied yet, not yet, and this is long past a four on any pain scale. “Sweetheart, it’s all right.” (And Hastur must admit he is amazed, because Arthur sounds fine, sounds sleepy but fine, and the effort of will that requires is not to be ignored.) “We can hug tomorrow, okay? But I got hurt, and I need to sleep. Okay, sweetheart? Do what your—” He hitches here, voice cracking, just for a moment, and Hastur can see (and love) the pain in his eyes—“do what your daddy says.”

“Okay,” she says, sounding miserable, then turns around and clings to Hastur with all her tiny might.

He’s fine with this.

If he shoots a look of victory at Arthur over her small head, he’s also fine with that.

But Arthur doesn’t meet that look. He doesn’t look at Hastur at all. His gaze stays on Faroe, softened, almost happy in spite of his pain (what gall), and whatever will he summoned sputters out, and he falls asleep.

Get out, snarls John. You and your fucking plans—

Faroe doesn’t hear him. She’s crying.

“What?” says Hastur, low.

—think I don’t know you could have stopped this? You think just healing him after because she cried makes up for anything? You think I don’t know you let him be hurt? You think—

What the hell is he talking about? Has the Piece finally gone mad?

Hastur peeks, and realizes with a shock that John has absolutely no memory of where they just were.

It was wiped. Arthur doesn’t recall, either. In their minds, they went from being attacked to being in here. It was seamless.

Hastur shudders and leaves before John’s finished ranting. Tomorrow. He’ll deal with that fallout tomorrow.

Tonight, he is taking his daughter to bed.

He is sifting through the terror that he put her in danger, however accidentally.

He is singing to her until she rests (and Arthur’s voice is better, and he knows it is better, and it twists at something inside him), and this will all be cleaned up, and he will never speak of it again.

He won’t.

He’s fine.

He’s calm.

Faroe is asleep in twenty minutes.

By morning, the east wing of the palace is completely destroyed, and Hastur, who thought it would help, still does not feel better.

#malevolent #kiy malevolent #shub-niggurath #john malevolent #arthur malevolent #arthur lester #malevolent fic #malevolent fanfic #surrogate series

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