howtheyshine | SPRING BREEAKKKKK;

He's in the dark. He's in the dark again. A pocket of alive-darkness that he can feel the edges of, he can feel the void that waits.

Well hello there, Yellowhead. We haven't been formally introduced. I'm....

Call me Carmichael.

The laugh that bubbles through the name makes Yellow's soul creep.

You're Kayne.

A silence ripples outward from the nothing-space the voice takes up, a silence deeper than the emptiness of John's unoccupied body. Yel-- Edwin, Edwin curls in on himself, tightening into a tiny knot of spectral energy.

He said the wrong thing, he said the wrong thing, he's going to get hurt--

And how, my little poppet, did you know that.

I-I...

Actually. Know what? Doesn't matter. Sorry to pull the plug on that little experiment so abruptly, but see, I made a deal with your better half--

John!

He can't stop himself. He realizes how stupid the flare of hope is a moment later, when that oppressive empty cold bleak dead cold silent dark silent dark comes creeping back up between him and the voice of Kayne.

I made a deal with him to get him back to Arthur, which means you needed to clear the way.

Of course, I can't be bothered to babysit you.

So you've got a couple of options, here, kid.

Well, two. Which is more like one. Unless you want to go back to the Dark World, in which case--

No-- No, please, I don't care what you want, I'll do it, just--

Okay, okay, Jeeee-sus, stop groveling. It took John a few good centuries to get to that point.

Yellow goes quiet, cowed.

There's this guy I want you to meet. He's like the worst version of Arthur got all the color sucked out of it and given eternal life.

Wh... What?

Well, technically you did meet him. I guess now he gets a chance to meet you, since he's so fucking eager to lick the feet of a god.

The unhinged laughter rings in Yel-- Edwin, Edwin, Edwin's ears as he feels the world get abruptly smaller and his senses get stripped back to shadows.

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The sentimentality was nauseating.

Of course he'd loved Addison, with all his heart and more. That was why it mattered that he had sacrificed her, to prove to the gods his willingness to their cause, that he was worth their attention and was willing to pay to follow their cause. To be worthy of the power they could, had, did offer him.

But the thing is... they weren't necessarily clever. Not in the ways that mattered.

"John, was it?" he drawls, and it's a warning, a glint in the dark. "Your brother's name." He gives a small gasp, and the mocking derision he breathes into it does not reach past the wall. "You don't happen to be referring to the same John that Arthur was just crying about?" His voice slows, dangerous like the shadow beneath a boat. The rustle of bushes before the wolf leaps from behind them. "Because I seem to recall him saying John was back."

Oh. Oh no. Edwin says nothing to that, withdraws as much as he can into the already-limited space he's been given to occupy. He can't let Larson hurt John, he won't, and until he can figure out how to navigate that iron wall maybe the best way to protect John and Arthur is silence.

"Oh, Edwin," he drawls, and his tone is aching (from how hard he's trying not to sound utterly delighted). "Your majesty, I must apologise most profusely. You saw how Arthur was insulting me in my own house, he was disrespecting the life I worked so hard for, he was threatening me with violence I knew he would follow through on, until my legacy was nothing more than blood under his fingernails. If I had known he had somehow come into possession of your other half..."

He lets out a long, tremulous sigh, because he is fucking exhausted and this migraine is still pounding like his brain is going to melt out his ears even with all his defenses.

"I'm afraid we may have seen the last of him."

[No.]

The word bursts out, sudden and absolute. A mix of defiance and certainty.

[He'll protect Arthur, he can...]

John can heal him. Even without a body of his own, even if he can't use everything he has access to.

Everything he has access to.

Access. Access Edwin now has, too.

He can feel it like an echo, the pain in Larson's head. Tentatively, very very carefully, he tries to ease it away.

The sudden outburst makes him flinch as his head throbs, making him grunt quietly with the displeasure of it.

He was rapidly starting to wonder how much pathetic drivel he would have to spout to get this thing to play along.

Larson takes a breath, to try and calm himself down - and notices immediately when his headache vanishes.

Well.

"Your highness, did you just... heal me?"

Very warily: [Yes.]

The elation that lights through him is entirely genuine, even if it's tinted with a more lurid pleasure. Thank the gods-- no, no. Thank the King in Yellow for blessing him with this sliver of power, that he can certainly turn around to doing his bidding sooner or later.

"Iä, iä, H'aaztre," he all but groans, the worship too real to keep wholly behind the curtain. "The Unspeakable One, the Feaster from Afar, Great Prince of the Old Ones. I am your humble servant."

All at once he misses Hunter so intensely he would cry if he had any ability to do it.

There's an ache, a helplessness, a hopeless fatigue, the sense of being unheard and unheeded in a way he hasn't felt since he first had a conscious thought outside of the Dark World.

[That's not who I am. That's not me.]

Larson knows so much, though. He knows so much. He can't let the man near John or Arthur, but maybe, maybe he can use Larson's knowledge to help himself.

"Perhaps not yet, your highness. You are, after all, by your own admission, only half of the god you used to be."

He pushes himself to his feet again, and a sudden wave of exhaustion hits him so hard that his head spins, and for a moment his hands grip the desk white-knuckled until it passes.

Migraine free he might be, but the King's presence in his body was still a... difficult thing to adjust to. Frankly it was a miracle he'd survived for so long in his mere presence; perhaps there was some truth to its admission.

"But for now, my liege - while I cannot speak to the depths of pleasure that is being chosen by you as your personal vessel in this mortal realm... even your most loyal servants do require rest. Perhaps in the morning we can reconvene, and begin to... to organise the best way in which to reunite you with your... better. Half."

His better half. That's right. The Arthur who knows him, who loves him, is not the one that's here. The Arthur that's here is the one who made and hates him, even if he doesn't know that. There's no one here who cares, no one here who's even aware of his existence.

In this world, in this place, he's not the King. He's not Edwin. He's just... Yellow.

[You're weaker than Arthur.] It's quiet, vicious, tired. [Rest if you need to rest.]

Larson is silent for a few moments.

"A word of advice, your majesty," he says, and this, this is cold.

But again, different: Arthur's is a knife slipped between two ribs, sharp and immediately clear. Larson's is the click of a hammer, of the gun pressed to the back of the head.

"For all you may know about humanity and madness - you are in my world now. So I would suggest that if you want your other half back as badly as you seem to... you will respect me. Or I will see fit to show you what humanity is capable of doing to gods that don't fulfil their part of a bargain."

[What bargain?]

It's the tone of a cornered cat, the hiss of an animal willing to do whatever damage it has to, either to itself or its enemy if it means coming out alive.

[I don't want him back. I never said I did. His name is John, he's his own person, he's not part of the King in Yellow any more.]

"Why, of course! How could I forget?" Back to smug and easy, almost harmless. If it hadn't been for everything else.

"Our bargain - I help you find John again, safe and sound, reunited. And you can help me with a... just a small issue, really, a trifling matter for someone of your- half-infinite power. A matter of succession within my family's order that needs seeing to."

[...I'll help you if you leave him alone.]

"Wonderful! I'm glad we can be on the same page. Your majesty," he adds like an afterthought. "But, now that we have that sorted, I do require my rest."

He's so tired and overdrawn by this presence, now, he barely has the urge to bother with any of his usual ablutions. He just wants to find his bed and pass out.

Edwin stays quiet. He stays quiet as Larson does what he has the energy for, stays quiet as the man settles under his blankets and slides into that invisibly vulnerable place that humans go when they sleep.

He stays quiet, and tries to remember the details of Larson's estate, and recites poetry silently to the dark.

SPRING BREEAKKKKK;

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