Chapter Text
An abyssal nothingness, devoid of light and substance — that was where he lay now, dormant and teeming with an ungodly amount of wrath, madness and… something else. It waltzed on the tip of his tongue, as Kayne did with his twisted obsession, that was Arthur, on the day of wrath before his plan collapsed in on itself. Flat-lined by the very object of his desires that made his heart sing and struck the chords of his body in all the right places. He resided in the place that never saw the light of day, and that he never thought he would see again, where the fruit of his loins, and nothing more, had banished him forevermore.
Kayne did not consider himself to have any friends, even those of whom he was bound to by blood were mere kindred and never crossed anything closer than that. Despite this, he was never truly alone until now. Toying with mortals was his speciality; they were his playthings, and he was their puppeteer, forcing them to dance around on ethereal strings as he watched them flail and suffer by his own hand, whispering things in their heads that would lead them to commit atrocities in his footsteps, or drive them to utter madness, purely for his own devilish entertainment. The crawling chaos is what they called him, and chaos is exactly what he wrung for tens of thousands of years. But that all came to a crashing halt when Arthur Lester came around.
Lillith, his daughter, was many things in Kayne's mind, none of which were kind or of use to him. Cunning, determined, and gritty would describe the song in her heart that played before her father inevitably came crashing down on her hands, striking the piano keys to a resounding cease with the bash of several wrong notes. She couldn't escape him, and he couldn't stomach even the idea of her, but she bent that to her advantage. If she had learnt so much unwilling knowledge about him, and he, terrible father that he was, endeavoured to trap and silence her for eternity and couldn't fathom the fact that she could outsmart him, perhaps it would have failed. The circumstances befell, however, exactly as Lillith had orchestrated; she had created something he couldn't resist. And even trapped in this nightmare realm, lost in this abyss devoid of anything but intangible and transcendental darkness, Kayne still clung to the lossless hope that Arthur would one day return to him.
On the other side of the coin, however, was Arthur, waiting to be swept up by the archangel of sleep, but instead laid restless, only gifted by the entity that took control over his eyes whispering words that almost came off as sweet nothings and mindless ramblings into his ears, swirling gentle circles into his chest with his thumb as he did so, the skin of it catching on the stitches that sprawled across his stomach.
"Arthur, what's wrong?" the voice in his head asked, gingerly.
"Do you ever wonder what happened to Kayne?" The detective's voice rang low as he spoke, almost whispered despite them being the only ones in the room — the entire building, even, provided nobody had been working a late night shift in their neighbouring offices.
Tentative was John, the entity nestled inside Arthur's audacious mind, as he followed up his question with an unsatisfactory answer. "No, not really. I suppose I'm just happy to be done with him and his antics now. He really was a mouthful. Although I guess not anymore since we have his jawbone now, kept in a jar on our desk, almost like a trophy," John chuckled at even the thought of it. "We really earned it after everything he put us through, huh, Arthur?"
"More like a specimen," Arthur spat, turning over so that he now leaned on John's hand and hugged himself with his own for warmth, juxtaposing his usual position before he slept. "It freaks me out, how we still have that, even after everything. Feels like some sort of sick joke from The Manager."
A beat of silence lay thick in the air before John piped up, "You tore it off, remember?"
"I know that, and I know that he probably deserved it, but… I don't know, it still feels weird to hold on to it. To see it every day, almost like he's still with us." A shiver washed over Arthur's body as he spoke.
"But he's not, Arthur. We trapped him."
"But what if we didn't? What if there's a way he can get out? Lillith found a way—"
"Lillith is much more intelligent than Kayne; she made it clear as much. He won't find a way out. He's trapped there forever, and he deserves it. Now go to sleep, Arthur."
"But how can you be so sure? And, does he… deserve it though?"
"Arthur, he tore you limb from limb, made wings out of the skin of thousands of versions of you and tried to kill Azathoth and end all of existence, what the fuck are you on about?"
"I forgave you. For the um…" his eyelids flickered for a moment, and a lump formed in the back of his throat, which he quickly swallowed down, "bone cathedral, I forgave you. What's the difference?"
"What's the differe—" John interjects, "Arthur, what the fuck is wrong with you? Snap out of it. Kayne wanted to kill everyone, including everyone you love, and end the world. Why should he deserve a different fate? If anything, he should've been killed, but you know how that plan turned out thanks to your sense of misdirection."
"Our," Arthur corrected. "You're not escaping the blame anytime soon, mister. Not under my watch. And you can't, in good faith or conscience, compare the atrocities you've committed without considering all of the factors and acknowledging the reparations done in light of them. We've all made mistakes. The only difference is that you and I have atoned for ours, whereas Kayne never did. Or rather, never had the chance to."
"Never had the chance? Arthur, are you hearing yourself?" The entity sneered.
"Loud and clear. If you don't think even someone as cruel as Kayne can change, or that he has the potential of being forgiven for his barbarities, then you, my friend, have learnt the wrong lesson from me," Arthur said, earning a scoff from John, before he continued. "My apologies for that. We should delve further into the ethics of forgiveness and moral quandaries another day," Arthur's words slurred as he spoke, and he could only thank the ungodly hour that was 3 AM, which frazzled his mind to a degree in which his brain short-circuited and his mouth moved faster than his thoughts. It was clear that he had lost the plot. "Circling back to my original point, however, what do you think happened to him?"
"He's gone, Arthur. And yeah, I guess I do need to sharpen up on my humanity skills because apparently not feeling empathy for a literal bloodthirsty psychopath who killed his own daughter is wrong, according to your standards."
Disgruntled, Arthur sighed and replied with, "When you put it like that, I don't sound too dissimilar to Kayne, and neither do you." His words carried a particular bite in them now that left a sour taste in John’s mouth, if he had one.
Ouch.
"I— look. I don't know, okay? Maybe…" John hesitates.
Arthur was right; they were both guilty of such horrible acts of savagery and neglect, which all the more made it difficult to take the moral high ground in this fight. The entity considered himself eternally lucky that Arthur had forgiven him for his sins, perhaps only because he himself was fighting his own demons at the same time, and therefore wasn't painted as innocent either. Either way, he didn't take it for granted and was unwaveringly grateful for Arthur's kindness, however guilt-ridden and haphazard it may be, given the circumstances they found themselves in when he felt compelled to forgive him without question.
"Maybe he doesn't deserve the worst, okay, fine." John lowered his voice, as if to speak under his breath, if he could, "Or maybe I deserved it too, but I had you to forgive me." John could have sworn he felt Arthur's heart pick up at his mellowed words, but he resumed talking at a regular volume without addressing it, "Regardless, he's gone now, I'm sure of it. And it certainly won't do you any good, staying up late worrying about what he's up to or whether he'll come back. He won't. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm rather overdue for my beauty sleep." John imitated a yawn, which led to Arthur actually doing so.
"You can't sleep, John," the detective pointed out.
"I know, but that won't stop me from trying," the entity laughed, and Arthur followed his lead, though his mouth was quickly sewn shut as he hearkened back to Kayne, wondering what he would be up to in the nightmare realm alone, and if he could truly be forgiven or not.
After a rather bewildering conversation, Arthur's racing mind managed to slow down enough to drift into slumber. But what awaited him in the precipice of darkness of his dreams was a tantalising mass of chaos and destruction beyond his human comprehension, that arrived in the form of a familiar foe.
He awoke, lost among the fog that dusted the abyss with a deep, wispy grey, almost like thunderstorm clouds, in every corner. There seemed to be no end to it; the darkness seemed to reign in this realm of existence, looming over you until you're on your knees, choking on its grip, begging to breathe fresh air again.
Arthur seemed to have the bare bones of clothes on, ragged and ripped in every corner, stripped of his dignity as well as his knowledge of what lurked in the depths. They did, however, beckon him further into the darkness, a hand materialised out of shadow and mist emerged from the fog and curled its index finger in and out. In a hypnotic trance, Arthur asked no further questions and followed its call, which only rendered him more and more confused with each step.
"John?" the detective called out to his friend tucked away in his head, but to no avail. Echoes reverberated his voice back to him; it was only the darkness that could hear him now.
Suddenly, a force grazed his abdomen, the cold sensation on his dewy skin jarring to behold. Arthur snapped his head behind him, eyes wide and darting around, but there was nothing there. Was it all in his imagination? Was his mind playing tricks on him in this hell-scape of a dream? That theory was quickly dismissed when it struck him again, this time a claw resembling that of a hand coiled around his neck, scratching the tender skin on his collarbone with its nails. He flinched at the touch, teeth bared as he clenched his mouth shut, jolting his body away from wherever the hand came from, but it was no use.
Another hand emerged and ran a deft finger down Arthur's body, from his nose bridge, pausing on his lips, down to his chest, which it spread the rest of its fingers over, palm resting over his heart before it continued downwards. When it reached the garden of hair that bloomed over his abdomen, it swirled around a spot on his right hip, the detective's skin warming around the hand's touch, before it punctured the skin with its talon-like nail. Arthur winced, clearly taken aback before attempting to bat it away, but it would not retreat. Instead, the hand edged deeper into his skin, blood oozing out of the hole it had created. Arthur shrieked, and his knees gave in. The sound of his knees clunking against the floor reverberated around the room, echoed by the whispers of the night.
The hand finally retracted, and blood began pouring out of him, but it didn't show him any mercy or signs of stopping. Moving to the other side, the skin underneath his armpit was now pierced with the talons, followed by painful groans of agony drawn from Arthur's mouth. His body was shaken, but not before the hand withdrew its finger from Arthur's side and scratched long and hard with every nail across his torso, leaving deep marks carved into his skin, marking him forevermore. A soft kiss was then planted on his quivering lips, a metallic tinge lingered on his tongue, before the mystical entity fully receded.
Before he had any time to gather his thoughts or guesses as to who puppeteered this cruel masquerade, a coin dropped on the floor in front of him. Spinning endlessly, Arthur's pupils fixed on the mesmerising motion, before it sped up and transformed into its final form in that of a doll. Its archaic features disconcerted Arthur, and as the twirling eventually came to a halt, he analysed it further. The decrepit features of it made it difficult to read, but he could just about make out mismatched buttons in place of eyes and rough, uneven stitching on the ripped clothes that dressed up its waxy figure. The mouth was made up of a line across the face, messily etched in, along with several vertical lines across, acting as if it were sewn shut. There was even hair poking out from the top of the head, a mousy brown not dissimilar from Arthur's. Perhaps the most harrowing factor, however, was that two pins were stuck in either side of the body, in the exact same position as Arthur's injuries.
This wasn't a mistake. No, this was purposeful. A sick and twisted game that he refused to entertain.
He clutched his wounds, swearing under his breath as he rattled his brain trying to figure out what was going on and why. And why him, of all people? There were millions of others that this invisible being could get its hands on. What was so special about some British detective who was in far too deep to ever return to his original state and who had seen far too much evil and supernatural circumstances for a lifetime? Who would do this to him, and who, in their right mind, would enjoy doing so?
Wait.
A cackle erupted from the deep, bouncing between his ears, before he remembered the words that never left his mind from the first moment he heard them: "It was a lure, my love."
No, no, no, no…