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Parker always knew that if English told him about his past, he’d be drunk doing it.
It has to be said, he always pictured it in Arkham. Maybe in their back rooms. It would be the middle of the night, and maybe they’d just have gotten back from a long case. Or maybe they’d be back to back in bed, neither of them yet having found sleep.
Or maybe Arthur would shake him awake in the dead of night. With the feeling he has to tell someone immediately .
In any case. Arthur would reek of whiskey. Or bourbon. Or brandy.
The brand would be irrelevant. So long as the alcohol content could kill a horse.
Sometimes he pictured it this way: Arthur spending a couple weeks completely dry. Until something comes up. Something that hits him in a way Parker just can’t understand, even piecing together all the little details that make up whatever haunts Arthur Lester. And maybe Arthur would get angry. So angry that Parker couldn’t understand. And maybe he’d just crack right on open and spill his guts.
But that isn’t how they do things.
Wasn’t.
Talking through things is new.
Arthur still hates doing it.
It’s hard for him to express things like that. To put words to things that bother him. To his new limitations.
Maybe he just doesn’t like feeling weak when he needs more help with simple, daily tasks than he ever did before . Before Parker died. Before John fucking Doe, real and actual demon stole his fucking eyesight. Before he’d been tortured and starved and all manner or other things that Parker couldn’t have began to fathom… before he’d died and walked around some unforgiving hellscape where he’d been hunted for sport by hideous and horrible creatures for a few months before being spat back out into a morgue.
Which no one had been able to explain to him. Still.
So yeah, some part of him worries he’s gonna end up back there.
At least the big guy has promised him a fair few times that Arthur would chase after him if anything happened to him.
Come to think of it, that may have been a threat instead of a promise. A threat to not get himself killed doing something risky on a case.
Not that he’d want Arthur there with him.
But, you know.
It’s the thought that counts. And it’s a fucking grim thought that he could be back there all alone.
But yeah.
He sure hadn’t pictured Arthur baring his soul to him on a Tuesday afternoon in New York City.
Definitely hadn’t pictured it in a fine upstanding establishment such as the Anchor. Inn and tavern. The tables aren’t even sticky. And it’s well lit. Fucking unheard of for a bar.
Definitely hadn’t pictured it happening in broad daylight. Not with Jack sliding a glass of ginger ale towards Arthur whose head hangs low under the heavy burden of sleeplessness.
A plate of food shoved away from him, untouched.
Parker almost asks for it.
He’s hungry.
And he still isn’t making enough money to start splurging on food.
Maybe he was starting to make progress in that regard. But…
But… well, that’s how he ended up here.
Sitting in a nearly empty bar in the middle of the afternoon.
Not in their old apartment. Not in Massachusetts. Not in the middle of the night. And not alone.
No booze soaked breath in his ear while Arthur shakes him awake. Desperate to let someone else in on his grief.
Just… a phone call.
It had started with a case.
Not the first Arthur and John Doe had helped out with.
Not even the first that Arthur had been allowed back in on the legwork for.
It was good to get back into it.
Good for Arthur to get off his ass now and again.
Good for him to put that brain of his to use.
John still sometimes tries to urge Arthur away from the ones that can get… difficult.
Parker knows, from years of experience, that the last thing to do was to coddle Arthur. The best thing to do was that of basic, general safety.
The best thing to do is avoid cases that could see you dead.
Detective work isn’t easy.
It isn't safe.
But Parker likes to think he’s got a decent nose for sniffing out the more deadly ones.
He tries to avoid mobs. And cults. And corporate executives.
Tries.
Because of course, he’s got to pay the rent somehow.
And sometimes the corporations are the ones who will pay the big bucks for the private eyes. Discretion and all that.
Not that John’s discrete.
But.
This case shouldn't have been that.
It should have been a fairly standard missing person case. Not even a high risk victim.
No one high profile. No one in any trouble, as far as Parker could tell.
And the thing is, they found the guy. Alive and unharmed.
No PIs involved should have been hurt.
And yet. Somehow. Arthur and John had ended up in the fucking river.
Now, looking at English these days, might make a person think that if anyone got harmed by falling in a river, it would be the scrawny guy who was liable to faint if left standing too long.
But, no. English popped right back out of the river. Like an unwanted erection in math class.
Parker had been off talking to the guy’s sweetheart who was much relieved to find him alive and well. So he hadn’t seen it himself.
But John.
Didn’t.
He didn’t pop out of the river. He didn’t crawl out. He… didn’t come back up.
Parker tries not to feel too jealous that English had called Jack first.
But, Jack has a car. And the number of the doctor that keeps dragging Arthur back from the jaws of death.
Parker didn’t know how someone as slight as English could pull someone as tall and broad as John out of a fucking river. And he certainly doesn’t know how Arthur mustered up the strength to get him breathing again. And he doesn’t know how Arthur found him in the fucking river while actually fucking blind.
(That’s right , they’re gonna need to see about getting him a new cane now. Which will be more of a concern once they get him outside again…)
All he knows is he gets a garbled and panicked call as soon as he gets back to his apartment to start in on the paperwork. Arthur, babbling about John almost drowning. How he stopped breathing for a couple minutes. How he’s in the hospital and how much John hates hospitals. And how Arthur had managed to break a few of the big guy’s ribs in the process.
Of course, Parker had come as soon as he could.
Gave Arthur the space he needed to fall apart, but the support to make sure he wouldn't be alone.
Arthur had been fucking rattled.
In a way he never really lets himself be seen.
Arthur is always very …private about these things.
Which is how Parker has gone years and years of friendship, working together, and cohabitation without learning more than the basics about Arthur’s past.
He knows his parents committed suicide when Arthur was a kid.
He knew there’d been a woman. Once. And something about the way Arthur talked about her and their relationship plucked a chord of familiarity in his chest.
One that always made Parker a little more open to sharing some of what he hasn’t yet.
But… it just hadn’t come up.
And those weren’t the sorts of things he talked about with Arthur before.
He could now. Probably.
After all the demons and hellscapes and scrapes with death, Arthur would probably be more than capable of putting up with a little homosexuality.
Not to mention. He’s seen the way English and John act around each other. Even if their inclinations aren’t the same as his… well. It sure is different from a lot of friendships he’s seen.
He also has strong suspicions there might have been a child.
He doesn’t have any proof of that.
But Arthur isn’t hard to read.
And he knows the way Arthur gets when there’s a kid involved in a case. And how the number of cases with kids that had gone very wrong… well, those are the ones that found Parker combing the streets to make sure Arthur was just sleeping in an alley and not actually dead in one.
So. That’s three things.
And a fourth is that Arthur talks in his sleep.
And he’s heard the name Faroe more than once. On days that Arthur tends to look like he hadn’t slept a wink. On days that his hand ghosts over his flask more than his eyes focus on his work.
It’s a Tuesday in New York City.
It’s the sleepy time of the afternoon when the sun is casting everything in a hazy sort of comfortable heat. And the Anchor is nearly empty.
Jack shooed the last of the lunch crowd out when he finally coaxed Arthur out from John’s room. He’s supposed to be having a meal. His first in… too long.
Getting him down the stairs was half the reason Parker was called, he was pretty sure.
Arthur gets dizzy these days, when he doesn’t eat.
He gets dizzy regardless.
But, it’s worse when he doesn’t eat.
And he’s been too upset to eat since John nearly drowned.
Even more so when John got sick.
Chest infections are common after near drowning. His sister explained it to him once.
If you don’t get all the water out of the lungs, it’s bad news. And doing chest compressions along with rescue breathing tend to bust up the ribs. Which can lead to shallow breathing which can lead to more fluid in the lungs which can lead to infection. It isn’t pretty.
She drilled it in his head to make sure anyone he did rescue breathing on should go straight to the hospital when she taught him how to do it.
When he’d offered to teach Arthur when they’d started up their agency of two, Arthur had gone chalk pale and said he already knew how.
He hadn’t seen Arthur until the next morning. And he was looking pretty fucking rough.
Those were the bad old days.
At least now, Arthur had been keeping it together pretty well. Only drinking a couple times that Parker knew of, and never enough to lose his senses. Well, senses other than balance. That seems to go after one or two. But never enough to muddle his wit.
And it looked like Jack and John both were keeping an eye on that.
Good.
Good. Parker has never wanted to be responsible for that.
All he’d done was give Arthur another outlet, if he was willing. He could offer alternatives like cooking or baking or detective work or a friendly ear or some friendly chatter. But he wasn’t gonna be the one to pull Arthur away from the bottle.
It had mostly worked.
Over the years, Parker found Arthur in sticky bars less and less.
The flask never completely disappeared. But it hardly ever came out of wherever Arthur stashed the thing by the end.
And these days, he’d only seen Arthur have a drink or two at a time.
Yeah sometimes it was because he’d had a bad day.
But the difference was palpable.
Today. However.
Today, Arthur did ask for a drink. Once Jack had called him to play emotional and physical support. Try and get Arthur to have a real meal for the first time in days. Try to get him to get some real sleep. Not half curled around John who was waking them both up every couple minutes to cough up a fucking lung.
The doc said he’d be fine. Just keep him as comfortable as possible, keep him propped up so he could breathe a little better. Get him a pillow to hug when he had to clear his lungs so he’d have a little less strain on his ribs. And to call him if John got worse.
And yeah. He sounds like hell, but as far as Parker can tell, the big guy’s gonna be fine.
English, though….
Well. Jack had served him up a plate. All light food that Arthur, even after all his misadventures, usually was up for eating. Fish and rice and steamed veggies. And damn the man can cook.
He’s sure he could ask Jack for leftovers and be given them. But he won’t ask.
He’s here for English.
Who had taken a whiff of the plate and pushed it far away.
And he’d asked for a whisky instead.
Jack had poured him one. Reluctantly.
In a way that clearly said he was keeping an eye on Arthur, when Parker had flicked him a glance.
Parker doubts Arthur’s told Jack. About his drinking, that is. But, Jack knows what he’s about. And Parker respects him for that.
And Arthur had drained it.
And asked for another.
Jack had poured it but told him he wouldn’t get a third if he didn’t eat some food.
Arthur’s face shutters at that.
Old, familiar walls come up.
And Parker really thinks that’s the end of it.
That Arthur will pick at his food. Maybe enough that Jack will let him have another drink. Maybe he’ll trudge back up the stairs and curl up next to John again, no matter how anyone encourages him to give John some space so he can sleep better.
But he doesn’t.
Arthur starts to tremble.
Visibly.
Parker is damn fucking certain that Arthur’s been shaking since he pulled John out of the fucking river. But he’d only really been able to tell when he was letting Arthur lean on him on the way down the stairs when he’d been too lightheaded with the lack of food and rest to make it down on his own.
Now, though. From the stool next to him, he can see the whole of Arthur shaking. Tears start to gather in his eyes. And he doesn’t bother to blink them back.
Before, Parker wouldn’t have maybe scooted closer, but not touched. Because they didn’t acknowledge the few times Arthur teared up in front of him. Never.
Not once.
Now, he reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. And Arthur all but crashes into him.
Good thing they’re sat so close.
If he wasn’t so goddamn light, Parker thinks he’d have been knocked off his seat.
Fucking hell, they really gotta get more food into English.
And Arthur… well, he starts crying in earnest.
“Hey. Hey, Art, it’s okay. It’s okay. The big guy’s okay. Doc says he just needs to rest up. Sure we gotta keep an eye on him, but that doesn’t mean you gotta stay up with him all night. You’re running yourself ragged.” They don’t do this. And some part of his brain still sometimes likes to shout at him that maybe this isn’t actually Arthur.
But. He knows this is.
Because even if his reactions are a little… more than they were. There’s still the same patterns.
And he is good at patterns.
What other cases had Arthur upset?
A lot of them, at first.
All the ones with kids.
Especially the ones where the kid didn’t make it home safe at the end.
Even more so, the one where the bad guy didn’t get what they deserved.
But… But John isn’t a kid.
Is it just because he’d almost lost John?
No. No. They’ve been in mortal peril before, right?
And the doc said he’d be fine.
And if you can’t believe a doctor these days…
Maybe he should call his sister.
Art would trust her word even if he didn’t trust… whatever the guy’s name was. He’d taken a peek at John’s prescription. Gone with Arthur to pick it up. And now, Parker is decent at reading some pretty weird looking handwriting. After all. He’s got some pretty weird looking handwriting. But… all he’d been able to make out was Crumb Joe which he’s pretty fucking sure isn’t the name of a guy who graduated med school.
Not without getting laughed off the stage at graduation.
He’s said that out loud too, and John had actually laughed at that. Hard enough that he’d spent the better part of five minutes hacking up a lung, but, hey, it’d been nice to make him smile.
And it even got a tight smile out of Arthur. Who admitted that John had said the same thing last time the doc had written him a note.
But no.
Off track.
Arthur is full on sobbing in his arms and all.
Then he remembers.
Drowning .
They hadn’t gotten many of those.
Maybe just the once.
And… well.
It had been in the early days where Arthur was sleeping in alleys more nights than not. And Parker …well. That was before they’d shared an apartment. So. It’s not like he could confirm or anything.
But. Arthur was still showing up drunk half the time.
Back when Parker really was questioning his own judgment letting Arthur take cases.
But he’d almost never shown up too drunk to work. And he was still damn quick.
But after a case where a woman washed up having drowned. Well. He’d vanished a couple days.
That should have stuck out to him maybe. But. But, they’d solved the case. It hadn’t been an accident. And they did get someone behind bars before Arthur had vanished.
And they’d hardly known each other back then.
He didn’t think that much of it.
But… looking back.
Maybe he really hadn’t seen Arthur like that before.
And John had almost drowned.
Of course. He isn’t going to ask.
But.
Here, on this Tuesday afternoon…
On a day that should have been sleepily ordinary.
He doesn’t have to.
He isn’t woken up in the middle of the night.
They aren’t alone in their cramped apartment side by side in bed searching for sleep.
They are in the Anchor.
And Arthur’s untouched plate of dinner is shoved as far as it can be without risking sliding off the other side of the bar. And Jack is sliding a glass of ginger ale over the counter because Arthur’s breathing is starting to hitch differently and his face is slowly draining of what little color he’d managed to keep ahold of. And Parker is starting to remember some less than pleasant morning-afters of Arthur’s. But his friend is sobbing against him. And he isn’t going to let go.
Distantly Parker thinks maybe he should try and get Arthur away from the more public area of the Anchor. Get him to the back with the small sitting room with the couch and the fireplace.
Even on a warm day, the couch at least won’t go amiss and they can spare Arthur’s dignity if someone does try to enter the Anchor for a late lunch or early dinner.
And Parker doesn’t say a word. Because he knows how this goes.
Arthur will sob, he will sleep, and he’ll pull himself back together.
With or without a whole lot more whiskey.
With is the more likely option, or would have been in the past. Now, Parker is taking the brunt of Arthur’s lack of weight as it is.
It would be useless to try and coax out whatever is rattling around in his head.
That’s more likely to end with Arthur storming off.
“I… He wasn’t breathing.”
Parker can barely make out the words between the sobs.
He knows this, of course.
John wouldn’t be sitting there with broken ribs if Arthur hadn’t had to force his heart and lungs to work again.
He doesn’t blame the guy for being upset.
Arthur has always been a tender soul.
And if Parker had been the one to drag Arthur from a fucking river and keep him breathing… he’d be pretty fucked about it too.
But… that early case…
“I thought I… I was too late again .”
And fuck . That was already more than Parker ever expected to hear on that.
Parents, wife, or kid?
He doesn’t know how the parents did it. He doesn’t know what happened to the wife. And he doesn’t even have evidence of the kid.
Which… might be the answer in and of itself.
He knows English is good with kids.
In some distant muscle memory sort of way.
Knows that cases with kids hit him the hardest.
At least he’s mentioned the wife on occasion.
He’d told Parker very, very briefly about his parents.
No.
He tries to reign in his curiosity.
He’s got to keep Arthur steady right now.
Keep him from sliding right off the bar stool, like so many times before.
Nothing new here.
Except that he’s being cried on. And already Arthur’s spoken more than he expected.
“You weren’t too late. John’s upstairs. You were just with him. He’s sleeping now. And once we get some food in you, you should get some sleep yourself, okay?”
Jack leans across the bar to put his hand on Arthur’s back.
Further reassurance that he isn’t alone.
That Arthur isn’t alone in his fear. And that Parker isn’t alone holding up his friend.
“She was dead before I c- before I could call for help. They… they had. Told me how to breathe for her. But…”
Arthur breaks off, gasping for air.
Sobbing too hard to pull any in. Or maybe his distress is making it too thin for him.
God fucking knows Parker understands that feeling.
Happened to him plenty since his undeath.
Shell shock , his brain tries to remind him. But he still isn’t ready to apply that to himself.
Arthur, maybe these days.
Fuck, maybe even to John.
Parker tries to position Arthur so maybe he can have an easier time getting air. Sure, a lot of it might be in English’s head, but it can’t be helping that his face is buried in Parker’s shirt.
He wants to say something, but he doesn’t have the context.
She?
And fuck his stomach drops when he starts to piece together that this, this might be what they’ve been dancing around for years.
These are the eggshells that he’s been tiptoeing over and around.
These might be the answers he’s been looking for.
Trying not to look for.
The secrets that aren’t his to go poking for.
Because in doing so, it might actually kill his friend. He really had worried about that.
And looking at him now. With more support than he’s maybe ever had…
Fuck, Arthur looks bad . Still half starved overall. Drawn and pale from not eating for the last couple days.
Trembling top to toe, sobbing into his shirtfront with whiskey on his breath.
He could easily imagine Arthur giving up. Or his body giving in. And he holds him all the tighter. Trying to not let his thoughts get crowded out with the memory of Arthur telling him how he recklessly put his life on the line even just in the time that Parker was dead. And stacking those precariously on all the times that Parker was actually there for.
He flicks a glance up to Jack, to see if he knew any of this. But Jack gives his head a subtle shake. He doesn’t know either.
Parker can feel a little less left out knownowing Jack is in the dark too.
He drops his gaze to his friend once more.
He tries for a reassuring pat on his back or some such.
But… it spooks Arthur and he yanks himself away.
Fast enough that it sends him reeling.
Parker catches him by the shoulder before he can tumble off the other side of his stool.
His head bobs dizzily.
Whether from the booze or the lack of food or lack of sleep, Parker doesn’t know.
He steadies himself with a shaky hand on the bar. Or tries to, he’s swaying now, too. And even paler than before.
“I… could I have some ginger ale… please?” Voice thin and tight.
Jack slides the glass he's already poured towards him. Tapping it with his fingernail to help Arthur find it. “Slow sips, son.”
Parker fears they’re a little past what ginger ale can help.
Arthur takes a couple small sips, but sets the glass back down rapidly. Holding onto the bar like it might vanish from under his hands.
He doesn’t wipe the tears on his cheeks. Because that would mean letting go.
But he does compose himself.
The walls don’t come up, which is the shocking thing. But, Parker watches him put at least some of himself back together.
“Bella and I were married because her father learned she was… I didn’t love her. And she didn’t love me. But her father found out that… She died in childbirth. And I wasn’t there. I wasn’t allowed in, so I was at a bar getting drunk . Because our being together wasn’t right. I… I’m not glad she died. But I am glad she didn’t have to spend her life with a husband who didn’t love her like he should.”
Arthur pauses. Taking a couple shallow breaths that make Parker look around to see how easy it would be to try and haul him to the nearest bathroom if he has to.
Jack puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him still.
It’s… good.
Warm and grounding.
A reminder that he isn’t alone in this. That he isn’t the only one looking out for Arthur Lester anymore.
And more than that. That this is a professional bartender. And he can look after his own floors. All Parker has to do is be a listening ear.
And Parker shivers against it. Still unable to shake the chill of death even after months.
“But…” Arthur’s voice breaks. He swallows hard against tears and nausea and guilt . “My little girl. My Faroe .”
Hearing the name while Arthur is awake… Pierces him.
“She was all alone in the hospital for an hour . An hour without a single person who cared about her knowing she was alive. My wife… was dead. And …and the first time I held my daughter… I was drunk, and the only friend I’d had had given me a black eye.”
His teeth click together as he bites back another silent sob that shakes his frame.
Parker wants to reach out again, but fears Arthur would lurch off his stool at that.
Some things start falling into place. A hundred things about Arthur start making more sense.
But not everything.
Not yet.
“I failed her. I… The housekeeper, Tess, had the evening off. She reminded me. Told me she’d…”
Every word leeches even more color from Arthur’s face. Draining life and health and hope that Parker didn’t know he’d even had left after the week he’s been having.
“I hired her so I could work. I was a composer. And I… She told me she was leaving. That she’d put Faroe in the bath. That I should go and turn the water off…”
And Parker knows how this ends.
Even if Arthur doesn’t get the words out.
He knows Arthur.
He knows Arthur.
Knows the way he loses himself in a project. Knows the way he has to remind Arthur several times of something if he catches him deep in focus.
Knows the way he’ll forget to eat. Put off taking a piss. The way his back cracks like popping corn when he finally remembers to move.
Knows the queasy grief on his face whenever Parker brought up music in those early days.
“I… I must have heard her. I… I had my head so far up my ass I… I sat there. I don’t know how long. Playing the piano. And I didn’t… I heard water on the floor. I heard that before I even knew…” Arthur curls over himself. Slightly greasy curls brushing the bar. Tendons and veins and freckles standing out against his hands as they go white with the force of his grip.
“She was dead before I turned off the water. It was too late to get her breathing again.” It comes out in a rush. He makes a small sound in the back of his throat. A whimper, perhaps. “John’s ribs broke too. He… he wasn’t breathing. I… He wasn’t breathing. I thought I…” He breaks off with a queasy urk .
Jack’s moving before Parker can think. Pulling a bucket from beneath the bar and passing it to Parker who just gets it between Arthur’s lap and the whisky that’s coming right back up.
Arthur grabs onto the bucket by instinct alone, but starts listing off the stool until Parker gets an arm around him.
He dry heaves for a long time, sobbing all the while while Parker’s head spins with all he’s learned.
He knew it would be bad .
And hell, he’d been able to guess pieces of it.
Probably could have let himself piece more of it together if he’d let himself think about it.
But he’d known this was a pressure point, and that Arthur would fracture under it.
Like he’s been doing all fucking week.
Because John drowning on Arthur’s watch had hit too close to home. Even if Parker does think that maybe Tess should have known Arthur well enough to know not to leave a kid in a filling bathtub.
Kingdom could be coming and if Arthur Lester was working on something, he wouldn’t fucking notice. And anyone who knew him more than a fucking week should fucking know that why would someone leave a kid in the bath alone in the first place.
None of which he can say to Arthur, because after puking his fucking guts out, there is no way Arthur will be up for talking about this further. And there is no version of existence where he will be able to convince Arthur that he shouldn’t carry all the blame…
He holds him tight until Arthur starts to slump even further. Then he has to extract the bucket and get that out of the way so he can scoop Arthur into his arms. Because English is fucking done. Spent. Unable to hold himself up any longer.
Arthur’s head bobs dizzily again, and he makes half an effort to wipe at his mouth before Jack stops him, wiping at his face with a damp flannel before Arthur can soil his sleeve.
“Bring him through to the sitting room. I’ll make him some tea,” Jack tells him, softly. Free hand on Parker’s shoulder again. Warm. “You remember where it is?”
“Yes, sir,” Parker says. His friend is shivering against him. One hand fisted in his shirt trying to steady himself against whatever dizziness plagues him.
“I… I’m not good. I failed her. She died wondering why I didn’t save her. And John… He’s sick because of me. He… He wouldn’t have fallen in if not for me. I broke his fucking ribs. And now…”
Arthur breaks off with a low groan.
Parker would worry about his shirt, if there was absolutely nothing left in Arthur’s stomach by now.
“You saved him, Art. He’s alive because of you. You pulled him out. You got him breathing again. And that Crumb Joe says he's gonna make it. Nothing to worry about. Let’s just worry about getting you some rest. John wouldn’t like you to worry yourself sick over him.”
Arthur doesn’t respond.
Might have fainted.
Parker doesn’t know, but he wouldn’t be suprised.
When he settles down on the couch, he tucks his head on top of Arthur’s, holding him close.
Hoping that at the very least, he will wake up and know he’s not alone.