Chapter Text
“Turning in any time soon?”
Arthur could’ve sworn his heart jumped a few beats at the sudden appearance of his colleague beside him. The clinking of glass from his dropped equipment made him wince, before he turned to Parker.
“You know I still have a lot to do.” He said, the hint of grateful smile on his lips.
“Of course.” Parker sighed, turning away to pull his coat off his chair and tug it on. “Well, make it home before midnight.”
“Will do.”
“No, seriously,” Parker grinned, patting Arthur’s shoulder, “I hear odd things happen in the lab when it’s past witching hour.”
Arthur turned back to his work with a snort, rolling his eyes as Parker’s footsteps faded into the darkness. ‘Witching hour’ sounded like one of the ghost stories from his youth. The whispers exchanged between the older boys in the crackling light of the campfire, while Arthur listened from the side, enraptured.
In a way, his time at the boys brigade was similar to his work now. Having a task before him ignited a unique kind of fuel within him. He felt useful, normal even, doing something others would approve of. And if it meant a few more hours overtime, a few splinters or burns here and there, then it was worth it in the end.
As he methodically decanted each vial into the mixture, Arthur couldn’t help but recall the feeling of Parker’s hand on his shoulder. The fleeting warmth it had provided, which had bled through his thin shirt into his skin, before his shoulder grew cold and numb like the rest of his body. Parker was like that, even from the moment they’d met in the dreary Jack’s bar. Arthur had been half-conscious, only the uncomfortable dampness of his glass keeping him tethered to reality, when Parker had done a similar thing: slung a jovial arm over his shoulder as if they were lifelong friends, and started to talk.
It had turned out Parker needed volunteers for an experiment he was running, and with Parker’s charisma and Arthur’s current state of employment, he’d ended up agreeing. Eventually, Arthur had found an interest in science, to Parker’s delight, and so he’d been invited to be Parker’s partner.
For the most part, his job was simple. He’d picked up the measurements for most common medicines from observation and Parker’s extensive collection of books, so it was only a matter of mixing chemicals and pouring them into vials to be sold.
Arthur had felt, since he was a child, this need for a hand to guide him, to give him some warm and grief-less comfort, so much so that it had developed into a gnawing hunger for heat. A purpose, although temporary, satiated this in small doses, but it was in states like this, hours into his work, that he felt a flicker of pride in his chest.
There was a spark of a tremor in his pale hands as he measured the correct dosage of foxglove essence, but yet he squinted through the dim candlelight to read where the meniscus sat. A roar of a laugh escaped him as he rigorously poured it into his concoction. The medicine was complete.
He ran a hand through his hair, feeling a rush of colour in his cheeks, as he gave the beaker a quick swirl to mix its contents. The foxglove had turned the liquid a rich summer pink: the shade of fuchsia that rippled through flower meadows and tasted sweet like the summer breeze. There were soft wisps of the colour that lifted from the liquid, snaking out of the beaker like smoke. Arthur lowered it, not remembering it in Parker’s instructions, but his descriptions of the desired product were often vague at best, to Arthur’s detriment.
But his examining didn’t stop the colour from pouring out at a newly animated pace, magenta clouds beginning to bellow from the beaker like a volcano. Arthur startled, and the beaker fell to the stone floor, shattering. Now freed, the smoke grasped him in a blinding hug, making his eyes water and his lungs seize with every breath. He felt the pinpricks of glass beneath his fingertips, millions of nerves fusing into a singular blur of pain. The sting was like a lullaby, a nostalgic kind of feeling that was gentle when it pried the consciousness from his hands.