Chapter Text
“Right, now we can begin. It starts here-“ Arthur presses down on a key, “Middle C, right here. And then- here we have two notes played in thirds.” Faroe watched in awe as her father pressed the keys in perfect rhythm.
“Do the high part?” She whispered.
“Ah, no I’m afraid. This one might be too hard for you to play right hand. But hey, this is just to learn about the sheet music so it’s quite alright.” Faroe made a face, “Hey, we will see. now we get to measure 10, a crescendo- we get the main melody now, maybe if you focus you can play it, deal?”
Faroe smiled and nodded.
Arthur leaned back in the worn wooden chair at his desk. Taking a slow sip of his coffee, now lukewarm and stale in his mug. Mr.Gates had come into their office, crying and ranting about some beast that his cows were or turned into, or was going to kill his cows. The story kept changing whenever he got to the creature, then he would get quiet. Whispering and ranting on and on until Arthur pulled him out of it with another gentle question, which only served to fire him up more. He sat raving in their office for only half of an hour before he left, but that half hour was enough to cause much concern from the detectives. Arthur sighed, setting his mug on the table and crossing his arms,
Arthur sighed, “ Christ. He seemed so… terrified, wild?” Arthur said after a few moments of silence from him and john
“Clearly, Arthur the stack,” he paused, “…eugh… the handful of bills he gave us is crumpled, and sweaty.” John said, pulling his arm away from Arthur's and drumming his fingers against the heavy oak of their desk, something he did often while in thought, slipping into Arthur’s fingers like a glove and fidgeting with whatever he could get his hand on.
“I mean I would be sweating too if my cows barked at me.” Arthur frowned as he took another drink of his coffee, before standing and turning from the desk, walking to the kitchen.
“Growled.” John corrected lightheartedly.
“Ah, same thing.” Arthur smiled, before continuing. “So, we have never heard of this before, no?” He didn't give John the time to answer “Animals acting strange. Maybe a possession? But then again, why posess a cow in the middle of fucking nowhere?” He paused to adjust his hair, “So that leads me to think maybe it was some creature that’s not a cow at all.” Arthur paused to pour the rest of his coffee down the sink. “We should look in the bestiary’s for anything resembling evil cows… or whatever.”
“Or whatever? Arthur wake the hell up.”
Arthur sighed. It was just beginning to get light out, gates had called them at four and staggered into the office at five. Fair earlier than either John or Arthur liked to be awake.
“So we are taking the case then?” John asked as Arthur settled onto their couch, laying down on the worn leather, adjusting the pillow beneath his head.
“Well what choice do we have? Things aren’t getting any cheaper and we just finished a case, he wants our help, we might as well do our job. And besides, this one feels weird.”
“Weird?” John asked.
“Yeah, christ- I don’t know. It feels weird. There’s this tug, it’s stupid.but it’s a tug at the back of my mind, telling me that there’s something more. There’s something interesting about this case, other than a possible horrific creature. He mentioned something about a figure? Somehow it reminded me of cultists, and maybe I'm just overreacting but it's got me on edge,I don’t know. And why wouldn’t we take this case?
“Arthur, he gave us half our usual rate, in the form of crumple bills and the phone number of a friend who he’s staying with. I could barely read it when he scribbled it down. Sure it’s an interesting idea of a case, but I could also be the interesting idea of a guy who had too much bathtub moonshine.” John paused and waited for Arthur to object, when he didn't, John continued., “I’m not trying to discredit him, I’m just saying that we should think about it before looking into it. We should call his friend, and figure out some more information before we start really investigating. We don’t need to waste our own time, or his if all we won’t even find anything interesting.”
Arthur yawned, “Yes I suppose you're right.”
“So, you wanna call him?”
“Yes- but later. Give him some time to maybe sleep, it seems like he had quite a night.” Arthur shifted on the couch, stretching his arms.
“Later? Arthur time is valuable”
“You're only saying that because you know I want to take a nap and you don't want to be bored.” He teased
“Arthur the way he looked, he won’t be sleeping for a while. Real experience or not, it clearly affected him deeply. The least we could do is talk through it with him, maybe find some closure.”
“Fine, then give me some time to sleep” Arthur smiles as he rolles over on the couch, reaching to the ground for his quilt.
“Arthur you already had your coffee get up for fucks sake,” Johns hand smushed Arthur’s face, “We have shit to do. Get up. ”
“Christ John, shit to do? like what? We have no cases going on. We have no plans for the day. Besides, I could move to the table and you could write or something, your detective stories and whatnot.” Arthur bargained, it was a good bargain, but maybe not for today.
John offered instead, “How about we take a look at that bestiary we found, since we found it at the gravesite we have been far too busy, or tired- to take a good look at it. But now that the Evan’s case is over…” he trailed off.
Arhtur sat up, sensing that John was serious about not laying around all day. “The one written in Carcosan?” Arthur sat up, stretching his arms on the back of the couch and leaning his head back.
John let out a sigh.
“What the hell was that sigh for?” Arthur sat up.
“Arthur. That’s not a thing, carcosan is not a word, but yes” If john could smile, he would be. Arthur had a habit of making up words or names for creatures, or civilizations that had no work in English.
“Carcosan is a word,” Arthur smirked, “It’s the language ”.
“Arthur the language spoken in Carcosa had no name for itself because the people of Carcosa had no other language. It was simply speech. Simply the language of the king.” Neither of them were too serious about the argument, but it was one they had weekly.
“Yeah, well I’m not calling it the language of the king. So Carcosan it is.and Why do you care so much anyways”
John spoke in an exaggerated tone, as if Arthur was being unreasonable.“Oh forgive me for learning to have a bit of pride in carcosa, it was an amazing city., before…” his tone changed quickly as he trailed off.
“Before Kayne.” Arthur. Finished. They were both silent. In the last months, especially after separating from the king again, John had grown more fond of his past. He and Arthur for months had thought of the king as a merciless monster, set on destroying the minds of any human he wanted to, though now John had a different look to it. He couldn't change his past, so he couldn't let himself be imprisoned by it. He had come to think of his time as the king as a time of glory, not because of the torture he had put countless mortals though, but because of his love of art, music. Plays and poetry that he had settled into even more now, Carcosa was a city of art, before it was a city of madness.
“Arthur it’s alright-“ John started, before three knocks penetrated the quiet hum of the early morning.
“We didn’t have any clients for the day, did we?” Arthur asked as he stood, attempting to straighten his shirt out, John took over as Arthur looked down.
“No, nothing for the day, nobody even called, except Gates, of course. Although could be a walk in?”
“Right, right,” Arthur yawned, before quickly walking to the door and looking through. “Who is it?” He asked John
“Oh, officer Jameson.” John stated plainly. “Officer Jameson stands before our door in his police uniform, looking wrinkled and slightly unkempt. He seems to be sweating quite bad, either that or only his face got caught in a rainstorm.”
Arthur opened the door, “Goodmorning officer,” he said in a friendly voice, “how are you, you look a bit out of it if you don’t mind me saying”
“Ah, well, bit of- bit of wild things going down back at the morgue.” He stammered out shakily.
“I don’t suppose you need my help, if the ‘wild’ is what I think it is.” Arthur asked, tilting his head slightly.
“Actualy, yes. In- In a way, yes in a way. ” He has a slight midwestern accent, Arthur had heard in passing that he had become a cop in Chicago. Long ways from Chicago now, though Arthur had never asked.
“Arthur he’s sweating, his face is greasy, highlighting the crease between his eyebrows. He fails to make eye contact, instead opting to look at his hands, which he wrings out as he bites his lip. Arthur, something's weird, very weird.”
“Jameson, why don’t you come in?” Arthur offered.
“Why… Yes, why thank you Mr. Lester.”
“He walks past us, sitting down shakily at the desk, and letting out a sigh. He is shaken to his core about whatever he saw.”
“This is strange.” Arthur whispered, stating the obvious.
“You say something?” Jameson called, looking over his shoulder, eyes worried.
“No, no, sorry sorry just talking to myself” he calls back as he shuts the door, and turns to the desk.
“Strange, you could say that again. He saw something, something bad, I’m sure of it. Hopefully just some weird scar, hopefully a dead cultist…”
“Could I get you anything, tea, coffee, water?” Arthur asked.
Officer William Jameson was not close with Arthur, they had had a few conversations, mostly taking statements and exchanging evidence on cases where the law had to get involved. Although Jameson was one of the more pleasant officers Arthur and John had to deal with, one of the only ones that didn’t call him mouthpiece.
“Nah, nah I’m alright,” Jameson told Arthur.
“He’s clearly not. “
Arthur sat down across from him, they were both quiet for a while. “William. Why are you here?” He asked sternly.
He looked up, “Damn. Damn Arthur I just don’t understand how you do these things. You take the cases of ghosts and whatnot and you do perfectly fine. You have explained things that no man should see, things that shouldn’t even exist if I’m honest. “
“Well- look it takes lots of time to process these things and if you saw something and you're asking me for help, I would be more than happy to. Often there are very normal ways that something can seem otherworldly. I’m nearly certain you aren’t dealing with anything terribly dangerous.” Arthur offered as he smiled.
“He seems reassured, Arthur, at least in part,”
“Well- Arthur, Mr Lester. I'm asking you for some help for myself, but I’m here to get you on a case.”
“Is that so?” Arthur raised a brow.
“It is. I'm down here from the morgue. Had a family come in to see their daughter-”
“How old-” Arthur cut him off.
Jameson, confused, asked “What?”
“Just… how old.” Arthur took a breath
“Shes-” William began, “she's 20, is there something wrong-”
“No, no nothings wrong, continue"
“He looks puzzled,” John observes.
“Well, we have a.body, the family wants you to take a look at.”
“Alright.”
“Alright?”
“Alright, let's go.”