Archive of Our Own

Peter feels hit by a great wave of exhaustion stepping into the library of Miskatonic University. This was always more Arthur's department, sitting around with piles of dusty paper and combing through them for a single line of usable information. Peter always preferred the more active part of the job, talking to people and searching through buildings and occasional, heart-pumping interludes of action. Even thinking of why he's the one doing this only saps energy, grief draining purpose.

But for Arthur's sake, he presses forward. He'll simply count the hours spent here as another score against the thing that took his partner and tried to take his life.

"Excuse me," he says, arriving at the desk. The man behind it, as frail and dusty-looking as any antique tome under his charge, turns slowly, peering at him with detached disinterest.

"How may I help you?"

"I'm looking for any information you might have on something called 'Shub-Niggurath,'" Peter says, pulling a slip of paper from his pocket in anticipation of being asked to spell the name.

The old man's eyes light with interest, suspicious and sharp. "There is no material in the library regarding such a being."

Peter keeps his expression even, not showing his own suspicion at the man's reaction or the fact that he didn't say anything about it being a being. "I'm sorry to hear that. Would you happen to know where I might have better luck researching such a topic, Mr...?"

"Armitage. What do you want with Shub-Niggurath?"

"I'm a private investigator. It's relevant to a case."

The old man arches a brow. "I would advise you to abandon the case, then. You're the second private investigator to ask me about this topic in recent days."

Peter's heart skips, and he can't quite hide his interest, heartbeat teetering on a precipice of hope. "Oh? Would you mind disclosing who came here before me? I try to make a point of not taking on cases already assigned to other agencies, I find it's bad for professional relationships."

"A man by the name of Arthur Lester. The same one who was later wanted in connection to a murder. I'm sure you saw that story in the paper, several months ago."

All the breath gusts out of Peter like he's taken a blow to the stomach. He leans forward, letting some of the strain and desperation and heartache of the past months show through in his expression. "Mr. Armitage, I would be deeply obliged if you told me what exactly you helped Arthur with when he was here. Arthur was my partner, and I'm investigating his disappearance. This is the best lead I've had since he vanished."

Armitage regards him with assessment, before a minute tension leaks into him. "Very well. Come back to my office, that we may discuss the matter more privately."

"Thank you, Mr. Armitage," Peter breathes, practically staggering after the librarian.

-

The trail Armitage sets him on leads him out of Arkham, into the countryside and the more isolated towns that dot it. There's a trail of odd happenings that indicate some otherworldly influence, if not the thing that's stolen Arthur specifically, and Peter follows them in the absence of other leads. It doesn't feel exhilarating to learn how to follow those clues, as it usually does when he has to pick up some aspect of a missing person or suspect's life and learn on the job, picking up finer and finer details until he finds the one that unravels the whole mystery. This feels like watching Dante's descent into hell, with Arthur superimposed into the leading role.

He strikes paydirt again with a hospital. He's taken to carrying one of the few photographs he has of Arthur in his wallet, showing it whenever he was near a hospital or morgue in case he had turned up there unidentified. With confirmation of what manner of thing stole his partner and tried to kill Peter himself he had little hope of success. It's more the principle of the thing that keeps him at it. He didn't truly expect to succeed.

In fact, it comes as such a shock that when the pretty young nurse smiles and says, "Oh, that's our John Doe!" he nearly continues along his script for a denial, fumbling as he places the photo back in his wallet.

"You recognize him?" he asks after a moment of stuttering.

The nurse's face goes solemn. "Yes, he was brought in pretty badly injured. He was in a coma for a month, and then..."
"Then what?" he prompts, not quite as cautious as he usually is in missing persons investigations.

She shakes her head. "He was just gone one day. He must have woken up, but I don't know why he didn't call for one of the nurses or wait to be looked over. It ended up slipping my mind; an awful lot of strange things happened around then."

"Strange?"

Her forehead furrows thoughtfully. "Lots of things for the police, mostly. Harper's Hill is too quiet to give them much to do most days. Stranded motorists and kids breaking things, things like that. But there were a lot of break-ins, a lot of dangerous animals lurking around or attacking people, a few suspicious characters hanging around. But then..."

"Then?" he prods, because he can't not. The nurse gives him an uneasy, sideways look.

"I don't know that I should tell you this," she avers.

"Your John Doe is a friend of mine," Parker says. He's gotten good at infusing his desperation and grief into his voice; it gets an entirely different sort of response than his calm, professional tone. Not always a response he's comfortable with, but a response nonetheless. "My partner. Arthur. He's been missing for weeks, and this is the best lead I've had." Arthur's name is risky, with all the press, but it seems prudent to introduce into this particular conversation.

She nods cautiously. "Well, I suppose most of it is already in circulation with the gossips. Just don't spread it around, and don't tell anyone you heard it from me."

"I won't," he promises. He can build plenty from knowing what there is to find; people are more inclined to share with someone they think already has all their answers.

"A couple of officers were killed," she says, nothing performative about the grief on her face. "Collin and Mitchell. Mitchell washed up on the lakeshore eventually, but- well, it's a good thing he had his badge on him. They didn't let a single one of us see the body, just took him straight through the back to the morgue. It was all very hush-hush. They didn't find much, if they did an autopsy at all, but I know they only ever found part of him, and they told the family he had to be cremated. Broke his poor mother's heart. Catholic, you know."

"Of course," Parker says. It's more direct grief that he's really encountered yet. It's far too close to his own feelings. "And Collin?"

She shakes her head, face downturned. "He was out on the lake with Mitchell. They didn't come back, and neither did the boat. They called off the search after finding Mitchell; figured a burial at sea would be less of a burden to the family, and no one who saw Mitchell seems to think that Collin surviving is at all possible."

"Thank you for telling me," he says. Not even enough to bury; he supposes he was lucky. Even if he hadn't survived, it wouldn't have been nearly so horrific a death.

"They came around asking about John Doe. Arthur," she says. "I was his main nurse, and I told them I didn't think it could be him. I'm not sure he would've had the strength to aim a pistol after he left, much less... whatever it was that was done to Collin and Mitchell."

"You've been a great help," he says. "Thank you..."

"Lilly." She smiles, a bit subdued but bright as anything. "I hope you find him alright."

Parker smiles shakily back. "Thank you, Lilly. I hope so too."

-

A more intensive search around Harper's Hill turns up a few more tidbits, but nothing actionable. Not really. The fact that the thing that killed Arthur was evidently pursuing Amanda Cummings is a bit alarming, even as it's the best lead he's had about the thing's motivations. It took too long to place the name, and too long after that to pick up the trail.

Parker follows the creature's trail in fits and starts. He makes it all the way to the Elderwood Inn before stalling out. The hotel feels dangerous, in the way he's starting to recognize. He forges ahead, makes it all the way inside, and is stopped at the top of the stairs to the basement, certain down to his bones that if he descends, he's as good as dead.

He spends the entire trip back to Arkham cursing himself for a coward, but he can't bring himself to turn around. It would be the creature's home turf, he tells himself. Close enough, anyway. It'd be foolish, even if it was there.

Parker isn't even in Albany looking for the thing that killed Arthur. He's had to start picking up more regular work, to keep the lights on and finance his trips to investigate Arthur's disappearance. And he only notices anything at all because he hears his own name.

It's all the way up the street, a woman who isn't looking at him in the slightest. She's looking after a man, the man she called "Parker," walking up the street with his back to Parker.

It didn't just steal his health and his partner, it stole his name.

It's very difficult not to run after it and confront it right there. He can hardly shoot it in the middle of a street, and it would be an insult to Arthur's memory to draw undue attention by failing to put his skills to use in following it until they meet a more congenial place for murder.

It didn't take any great care with Arthur's body. It trips and weaves, like it still doesn't know how to steer despite having months to learn. It's skinny, underfed bordering on starved. There are scars, though from this far off Parker can't detect more than the discoloration of areas that were formerly uniform.

It's agonizing, waiting for the crowds to thin enough to close the gap between them. He doesn't know Albany like he knows Arkham, and it wears on him. In Arkham, he would know the moment they were approaching a likely alley, rather than having to draw abreast to begin evaluating them.

When he strikes, he strikes fast. He half-tackles it into an alley and slams it against the wall and rests his knife at Arthur's sad, scarred throat before it can react.

"Wh-who are you?" the monster stutters.

Parker grits his teeth in an almost-grin. "What, you don't remember trying to kill me?"

The face does something off and wrong. The eyes stay glued on Parker, steely and cold. The rest of the face contorts around them, falling into shock while the eyes stay fixed. "Parker?"

"You do remember me," he says. He doesn't have time to engage it in conversation, he's learned enough to know how limited his time is, but he can't help himself. "You've only been going by my name. How long has that been going on?" He means to bring his knife to bear against the ragged scar that evidences a previous attempt, but it's Arthur. It's not him, but it's his body, his voice. It's hard.

"You're alive?" It sounds just as disbelievingly overjoyed as Arthur did, the time a truly regrettable accident of timing led to Parker spending most of a day trapped in an apartment with characters shady enough for Arthur to have assume he must have been killed outright, and all that remained for Arthur to do was to bring the culprits to justice.

"No thanks to you." It doesn't react to the knife until the blade rests against its throat, freezing like it knows the danger it's in only at the physical stimulus. It's nothing that can truly damage it but, given the fact that Arthur's body is still staggering around with such an impressive collection of scars, it's evidently somewhat attached to the vessel.

"Parker I-I'm sorry. I'm so happy you're alive!"

Parker rolls his eyes. "You aren't him. You're just what killed him."

Arthur's face drops, eyes still uncanny islands of steely resolve. "What? No, Parker, it's me. What are you talking about?"

"You didn't even recognize me until I told you you should," Parker laughs bitterly. He shouldn't engage, he should just end it, but he wants so badly to hear some acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Foolish, to expect that from this, but he wants. He shifts his grip so he can slam it back against the wall again.

When it's done panting, head lolling a bit from a cracking impact with the wall, it says, "I recognized you as soon as I heard your voice."

"But you forgot my face?" He couldn't hold back the scornful skepticism if he wanted to.

It shrinks in on itself, a thoroughly Arthur mannerism. It didn't come out often, but when something hit on whatever trouble in his past brought him into their line of work instead of staying safely at home with his piano, Arthur always crumpled, and took a minute or two in safe surroundings to straighten himself out. "I can't see you."

"You're looking at me." Arthur's eyes track him when he moves, solemn and cruel no matter how it contorts Arthur's face.

"I'm Arthur," it says, though it doesn't sound quite sure. "But I'm not... I'm not alone."

A glance around shows no sign of cultists or bodyguards or whatever entourage a thing like this travels with, so Parker ignores the statement, glaring and leaning on the knife, summoning the courage to end this as he should have done the second he had it alone and pinned.

It swallows, murmurs, "Killing someone isn't the same as knowing them," and then carries on in a normal tone, eyes darting down as if chastened, "The thing that came out of the book did come into my body, you're right. And it did try to kill you. But I'm still here. He has- John has my eyes, a hand, and a foot, but my personality is entirely intact."

The steely eyes give the impression that Parker's expression is a sight to see, which he supposes it must be. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." It's an insult to Arthur's memory. He leans on the knife.

"No, don't!"

Parker has enough time to think it's strange to shout at him while not so much as twitching away from the knife, and as his vision fades out from the blow to his head, he considers for the first time that Arthur might be telling the truth.

-

"We can't just leave him," Arthur says, and Parker wonders who he's talking to. The throbbing ache in his skull obscures the details of their current case.

No one answers Arthur, but he carries on. "And I'm sure he'd be thrilled to find someone to use as leverage against us. You already tried to kill him twice."

"I don't care how hard you hit him, leaving him unconscious in an alley is close enough!"

"I'm not moving. You'll just have to make you peace with it."

"No, I'm not trying to get us killed! It's Parker. He wouldn't."

"You don't know him."

It's at about this point that Parker's aching brain starts to reconnect the pieces of prior events. He tries to feel for his weapons without moving, hoping that he's been left with his gun in its ankle holster or the switchblade strapped to his other thigh if nothing else. He's pretty sure they're all gone. He can feel his pants hiked up to his knees.

When he sits up woozily, Arthur- the thing in Arthur- stiffens. It doesn't quite look at him. It would be a good imitation of a blind man, looking in the right general direction but off by a bit, if not for how Arthur's eyes strain at the periphery to keep him in sight.

"Parker?" It makes him sick, how it sounds like Arthur. Sounds happy to see him. Like it knows it almost fooled him.

"You going to kill me or not?" He's sick of this conversation. There's a glass bottle in his periphery. If he overplays the stagger that brings him closer to both Arthur and the bottle, it doesn't say anything.

"Not," it says. "Parker, I promise I'm not lying to you."

"Neither am I." He snags the bottle and crashes it over its head before it can react. He isn't sure that it's unconscious, one of the hands twitching a bit, but he shoves the now-broken end of the bottle into its gut and stamps on the unbroken end of the glass.

He turns and flees. It still looks like Arthur. It's still Arthur's body. He doesn't want to see Arthur dead, even though he's known Arthur's dead all along.