Chapter Text
The streets are slick in the aftermath of the rain. And Parker Yang’s shoes threaten to lose their grip as he rounds the corner.
The time for silence and patience is over, and his mind is more than ready for the chase.
His body, however, is complaining just how many hours he’s been hunched in the backseat of the car he has been very graciously lent.
Someone really ought to tell Jack that PIs don’t tend to take the best care of cars.
Too many assholes trying to run them off the road. Amongst other things. (Including but not limited to an actual demon stealing the eyesight of his best friend and the both of them getting run off the road… all whilst Parker himself had been dead in a closet).
He’s gonna have to remember to clear out all his coffee cups after this.
But that doesn’t matter right now.
Because right now, he’s about a block behind the guy he’d been folded into that car for too many hours waiting for.
And this one’s personal.
He’s been trying to track him down for a solid two and a half months.
It took Arthur a good few days for his body to work through whatever drugs they gave him, and he acted off for a couple weeks after that. And John…
Well he finally got the cast off, so that’s something. But he’s still leaning on a cane these days when he’s on his feet too long.
Parker almost slips again.
Fuck, he needs new shoes.
He’d finally started to save up a little cash before these bastards had wiped out his investigative partners.
Not that he’s doing this for the money.
He would like to put his very worn out sole through the nose of anyone who lays a finger on Arthur Lester.
And John Doe. He supposes he’s getting fond of the guy.
Hard not to.
He’s …oddly endearing.
Once he more or less got over the whole being murdered thing.
He is. Over it, that is. Or, he is enough.
He might still wake up in a cold sweat about it some days. (All his sweats are cold since he apparently doesn’t have body heat anymore. Which… might be a little hard to explain the next time he has sex, not just getting sucked off in the bathroom stall of a club, but that’s a problem for future Parker.)
But, he is genuinely starting to like the guy.
It’s hard not to when he sees the way he’s looking out for English.
Parker isn’t gonna forget finding Arthur and John drugged as all fuck. Tied up and bleeding in the gang’s basement.
Near sick with the guilt that they hadn’t apparently gotten all the gang members when they’d saved their client’s reputation from blackmail.
He should have fucking known that the fuckwads were still out there.
His feet pound on the pavement. Skidding through puddles. He almost loses his footing again when he rounds a corner.
He curses to himself.
Should have gone out with Arthur and John the night they got got. But he was still trying to scrape together enough money for rent.
Yeah, he knows he could have taken Arthur and John up on their offer to give him more of their profits, but fuck he’d feel guilty if he did.
They can’t stay in that inn forever. Or. Maybe they would.
It doesn’t matter. They’d gone out. He hadn’t. They got fucking drugged. Got carted off from the back alleyway when they’d stumbled out realizing something was wrong.
They’d been interrogated, and fucking hell they hadn’t sold Parker out.
Broke John’s leg, and bruised Arthur up something terrible. And the drugs had been no good to English, delicate as he is these days.
Not that he thought Arthur would. But… John. Well, that was another point in his favor.
In any case, the bartender at the place they were dining got worried. Apparently knew Jack too, so he called him up. And Jack and Parker and the other guy (Ben, if memory served) stormed in to rain hell down upon them.
And the last gang member, far as Parker can figure, is just…
There.
Parker’s grasping fingers catch the back of the bastard’s jacket.
No matter how little grip his shoes have.
He has a fist of the cheap suit jacket, and he fucking yanks.
Hard enough that he thinks he hears fabric rip.
Yeah, he has his gun. But he doesn’t want to deal with the paperwork.
Nor does he want to deal with the cops. He’s already gonna have enough work trying to convince them that this is the guy they’ve been trying to take down for months. Wanted criminal. Very bad.
Not just the fucker who wiped out his partners for a couple months, but an actual criminal doing bad things that the police definitely don’t like. He’s doing them a goddamn favor.
And in any case, a bullet hole isn’t personal enough.
“Hey, asshole!” He yells, and slugs him in the face.
He goes down like a bag of rocks. Small rocks.
Parker guesses this guy only escaped because he’s small and slippery. Hard to catch.
And Parker had a fucking hard time of it. He’s not built for sprinting.
Arthur can sprint. Or… could. Parker isn’t itching to find out if he could run without toppling over these days. But he has a bad feeling that sooner or later, they are gonna find out. And no matter the circumstances, he doesn’t think it will be pretty.
Parker bites back the temptation to kick his guy’s teeth in. Instead, he manhandles him to the nearest phone booth to call the police.
Much as he wants to tie him up and drop him in front of the station, he doesn’t think the local constabulary would be too thrilled about that either.
This is fine.
It’s good.
He feels a goddamn load lighter than he has in months.
He can deal with Arthur being pissed at him later.
And Arthur is gonna be pissed later. No doubts about that.
It doesn’t take nearly as much time nor effort as Parker fears to get the creep taken in.
Maybe the police knew this guy was no good. Maybe his gang members ratted him out. Parker doesn’t know.
But they only question him a little and only make him fill out a few pages of paperwork.
Which is about the best Parker can deal with because he hasn’t slept in at least 24 hours at this point and he badly needs a nap, another cup of coffee, breakfast, and to take a piss.
At this point he doesn’t even know what the most urgent one is.
He’s all but skipping when he reaches the Anchor.
The need for a piss and a shower may have won over all the others. He keeps a couple changes of clothes here these days, and Jack is a damn fine cook. And here is where he’ll find Arthur and John, in any case.
The Anchor bar and inn, run by Jack McLoughlin. Man who scooped Arthur off the street not once, but twice when he was gravely injured before he even knew him. Took one look at this scarred up skeleton and just had to make sure he was okay. (An urge Parker knows well). The second time John had showed up with him. Covered in blood. Mostly Arthur’s.
The place where John and Arthur have been staying for. Damn, how many months has it been? Less than six, he’s pretty sure. Probably five and change, if his math is right.
In any case. The two of them seem to have a near permanent room there, and the bartender has become a close friend.
Even took Parker in when he was sick and raving out of his mind about it.
He’s a good man.
And a better chef.
And fuck it. He just got the last asshole behind bars. If Jack doesn’t give him breakfast on the house, he will happily pay for some waffles. He wants waffles. Or pancakes. Or eggs.
Fuck he’d take just about anything right now. So long as there’s coffee.
But he’s in high spirits.
Honestly he feels high. On the lack of sleep and the adrenaline. And the sheer relief of it all.
Two and a half goddamn months.
And he finally got the fucking guy.
Sure, English is gonna be more than a little pissed about him going it alone, but Parker couldn’t care less right about now.
Parker lets himself in the back entrance. The one that goes opens to the kitchen and goes through a little living room with a fireplace . From there, he goes up the stairs to the inn area instead of on forwards to the bar.
He’s comfortable enough there that he doesn’t need to announce himself. It’s… nice.
It feels like home in a way he thought he left behind a long time ago.
A level of familiarity he thought he’d seen the last of with his dying breath.
His hand rises to his throat automatically.
But he lowers it swiftly.
He’s in a good mood and he doesn’t want to think about that now.
Especially not when he hasn’t got any answers about it.
He retrieves a spare suit from the back of the linen closet, and thinks, not for the first time, about asking Jack for a room here.
If he had a room, the rent would be less, he’d definitely be eating better, and his spare suit wouldn’t be so badly creased.
Hopefully the steam from the shower will help with that.
Thankfully the Anchor isn’t often housing overnight guests, so the bathroom is free.
He’s almost drunk on exhaustion when he’s finished his shower.
He feels good in the way that also means he might be about to collapse, but he doesn’t give a fuck.
Breakfast is on his mind. And he bounds down the stairs, well aware he will probably wake up incredibly sore whenever he gets around to actually getting some sleep.
Arthur and John are sat at the back kitchen table by the time he gets down there.
Part of him has to wonder if they were sitting there the whole time and he just missed them in his hurry, or if they just sleepily stumbled down there themselves.
He takes a brief second to study them.
Arthur doesn’t look properly awake yet. Whether he slept or not, well… that’s harder to tell. His curls aren’t tamed yet. …Or at least not untangled yet. Tamed isn’t really something Arthur manages often. (He thinks that might have something to do with John’s dislike of pomade, but Parker can’t judge him for that, because he’s pretty sure if a guy who looked half as nice as John asked him to give up pomade, he’d toss the tin out the window before the guy could undo his top button.) The longer hair isn’t exactly a fashionable look, but he knows Arthur isn’t exactly enthused about anyone coming at his head with sharp objects he can’t see these days.
He’d gone to the barber a couple months back, but the panic had taken at least an hour to fade after that and he hadn’t gone back.
Parker occasionally mentions that he used to cut his sister’s hair, back in the day, but so far Arthur hasn’t asked. And he gets the sense Arthur won’t take the hint. And even if Parker were to offer, there’s a good chance Arthur wouldn’t want to bother him about it.
He figures it’s Arthur’s call, it isn’t a bad look by any measure.
He isn’t holding his braille exercise book. Which means he probably did just wake up. Or maybe he just forgot where he put it, and hasn’t wanted to ask anyone to help him look for it.
What he has got is a cup of coffee. Which means the big guy has got to be worrying over him.
John doesn’t like it when Arthur drinks coffee. It tends to leave his heart pounding worse than usual. And it’s usually a clear sign that Arthur isn’t feeling great.
Which took some rewiring of Parker’s brain, since he knows Arthur leaned on it a whole lot more when he was still spending more nights in the bottle than sober in bed. Or that they’d been up way too long on a case.
“Hey there, English, save any of that coffee for me?” He says it with a smile loud enough that Arthur has to have heard it.
Arthur blinks away at least a little of his exhaustion and smiles broadly.
John blearily peers over the top of his newspaper.
Still a little surreal to see. Years and years you know a guy, and all it takes is dying for a spell to smile at you like he’s happy to see you.
There is a time when it would have made his knees weak, he thinks. But what they’ve got is better than any passing crush.
Not that Arthur had been cold. But… he’d been in a lot of pain and he'd been locking it away, trying uselessly to hide it instead of…
Well, it’s not exactly like they’ve talking about things. But they’ve gotten at least some of it out in the open.
And goddamn it does explain an awful fucking lot.
In any case. It’s made things easier.
Lighter.
Less secrets. Who knew?
And maybe it’s a little easier not to try to be a tough guy when you can’t see other people judging you.
“Parker!” The relief in Arthur’s tone. Relief and joy.
Like he’s still having to remind himself that Parker is really back.
And, Parker can’t blame him. Because he still has to pinch himself most mornings to remind himself that this is real and that he isn’t just hallucinating in the Dark World after getting his brain scrambled.
It’s gotten easier.
It has.
“What brings you here? Oh- yes of course there’s coffee. Here, let me pour you a cup.” Arthur stands, having to brace himself against the table for a moment, and Parker feels a familiar stab of anxiety as an even more familiar dizziness passes over Arthur’s face.
He shakes it off before Parker feels the need to intervene, but he slides John a sidelong glance, trying to gauge Arthur’s overall health today.
John looks pointedly at Arthur’s coffee mug as Arthur himself makes his way to the coffee pot.
He finds a mug in the cabinet effortlessly, but the coffee pot must be a little out of place. Maybe Jack borrowed it to top off a customer since Arthur poured his own cup.
“To the left, Arthur,” John calls around a yawn. His hair is also uncombed, and he wears a dressing gown and house slippers. Yeah, he must have only just rolled out of bed.
Arthur hums appreciatively.
“Parker stands in the doorway, leaning against it. His hair is wet, and he’s wearing his spare suit. He looks tired, Arthur. But he’s smiling. A wide and genuine smile.”
Yeah that took some getting used to. But he’s had months to get used to it.
“You were out on a case,” Arthur says, waggling a finger in Parker’s direction. Mildly hurt that he wasn’t invited.
And Parker tries to swallow back the smallest bit of guilt that Arthur will probably be less than thrilled by what he’d been up to.
Parker walks over to the table, and pulls up a chair across from John and Arthur. He sincerely hopes his stomach isn’t grumbling too loudly. He still doesn’t know how to ask for some food.
He knows Jack runs a fucking inn, but he feels odd bursting into his kitchen and demanding food, even if he fully intends to try to pay for it, although god knows that Jack probably won’t accept.
“Ah. See. I was. I was gonna tell you, but I only got the tip off last night and I… I was afraid that the big guy would try and come along, and see, his leg.” These are not his finest excuses. And he knows it. And Arthur knows it. And with every word, Arthur’s scowl grows.
Arthur doesn’t even know what he’s done, and already Arthur has decided that he doesn’t get milk-in-his-coffee privileges.
Fair enough. He takes the mug that Arthur almost slams down in front of him, and he helps himself to some of the milk in the refrigerator.
“Art, I swear. I would have told you…” He ends it weakly. This isn’t how he wanted this to go. “I got the guy. The last member of the gang that got you.”
He sees Arthur’s face go on a full on journey.
Relief to frustration to anger to relief and circling around to jealousy and frustration again.
John just huffs and fusses his paper. “Good.”
He can see the longing under that single word. Longing to have been involved. And Parker knows if John had been there, he would have snapped his leg again in that chase on those slick streets because John holds a fucking grudge, and he would have done anything to make the bastards that hurt Arthur suffer.
“You should have told me.”
Yeesh, Arthur’s tone is icy.
As cold as Parker himself runs these days.
“Art I…”
But Jack bursts in then. He’s shorter than Parker. Not by a whole lot, but that clear out makes him the shortest in the room.
He’s softer than Parker, too. Not that he doesn’t have some muscle on him. And Parker is wider. But Jack’s softer.
He’s strong, but not in the way that tearing down alleyways after criminals makes you strong. Strong in the way that staying on your feet and serving customers and scrubbing floors and countertops and carrying heavy trays makes a person strong. Not… like running for your life through a literal undead hellscape.
Although, hell, maybe Jack had done some boxing or some such.
Parker suspects that if he did, he doesn’t much anymore.
Enough to remember how to keep himself strong and enough that he can toss a drunk and violent bastard out on his ass if he needs to.
He finds himself drifting towards Arthur on that thought.
Not that Arthur’s done a whole lot of drinking these days. And he usually was the punching bag of someone he’d pissed off while drunk. Instead of the one to land the first blow.
Usually.
But not always.
And Parker knew Arthur often had a hand in instigating it.
Which is the same self destructive impulse he’s trying to nudge Arthur away from, but goddamn he’s picked up some bad habits from the big guy.
He should have told Arthur.
He knew that the moment he’d gotten the tip. The moment he’d borrowed Jack’s car.
He’s known the whole goddamn time.
“You got him?” He sounds way more excited than else in the goddamn room.
And, yeah, Parker gets it. But goddamn he’s fucking pleased.
He was hoping for some congratulations before Arthur started in snipping, but. Hey, fair enough. Parker knows he deserves it this time.
“You bet your ass I did. I told you I would, didn’t I?”
He had.
Sworn it up and down when he and Jack and Ben had been searching through every shithole a gang might have stashed a couple thorns in their side.
Using what Ben had caught of their abduction.
Said it whilst John screamed in the backseat of Jack’s car. Every time the car jostled his bad leg.
Said it while he’d held Arthur in his lap, watching him boneless and unnaturally still.
Said it while waiting the near 24 hours for Arthur to shake off the worst of the drugs in his system.
Said it when Arthur stumbled still mostly unconscious from his bedroom, and blearily asked what had happened.
Said it when Ben came back and startled Arthur badly enough that he stood too fast and fainted again.
And John had said it with him, too.
So, yeah.
He got the fucking bastards.
He doesn’t think he’s slept properly since all that went down.
Still too worried that Jack would come banging on his door in the middle of the night saying they’d been taken again.
Fuck.
This is why he tried to stay away from the dangerous cases.
Not out of some misguided urge to keep Arthur Away from the worst of humanity.
Arthur’s seen the asshole of the universe just as much as Parker, even if Arthur hadn’t had to go through an actual asshole… repeatedly.
Well. Who knew if Arthur told him everything.
He’d certainly thought twice before telling John and Arthur about it. And he’d had to be fucking tipsy to do it.
One of the blessedly few times Arthur had been drinking, that Parker knows about. And he’d stopped after two. Already red in the face for it, and he’d needed help standing. Which Parker wasn’t used to in Arthur until he’d had a good deal more in him.
It had been …really fucking nice to drink with Arthur and not worry that he’d have to peel him off the bar later. Well. He’d still helped him up the stairs. But the difference between dizzy and drunk is still enough to …he doesn’t know. He hasn’t slept enough to finish that thought.
“Oh thank Christ,” Jack says. And Parker still isn’t sure if he’s a religious man. Doubtful, since he took in a literal demon and isn’t convinced the telephone is gonna do some shit like making a guy unable to keep it up or summon satan on a direct line. Jack beams at him.
And it’s like he’s a kid again, rewarded for good behavior or getting thanked for helping the elderly neighbor bring in her shopping.
“Breakfast is on the house, son.” Jack grasps his shoulder, and the force of the pat rocks him, ever so slightly.
Parker beams back.
Pride and giddy exhaustion flowing through him.
“Not that I’d make you pay for a meal anytime. You remember that, son.”
And yet no matter how many times Jack offers, and no matter how tempted Parker is, he won’t take that for granted.
But… since he’s been directly offered today…
“I wouldn’t say no to some waffles, sir, if it’s not too much trouble.” Hell, he’d consider killing someone for some waffles.
His stomach grumbles, and Jack laughs.
“It’s just Jack. Just Jack. Let me get those for you.”
Arthur… is still scowling into his coffee.
Parker rejoins him at the table.
“Look. Art, I…”
“I thought you had agreed to stop coddling me.” It’s a bitten off whisper.
Damn, Arthur is not good at whispering.
Makes Parker wonder how exactly Arthur got away with talking to John back when they were sharing a body.
(Another thing Parker has a million questions about. But. Those are questions best asked tipsy. Or. Better yet, not at all.)
Parker rubs at his face. His eyes feel gritty. “I wasn’t. I… I wasn’t thinking. I should have told you. I know you wanted to be there. I just… I got the tip and I… I kept thinking about you and John in that basement. And I got so fucking angry. And I didn’t want to risk him getting away.”
“You borrowed Jack’s car. You were staking out the place. You could have called. You should have told me. You had to have known what you were doing. You left me out of it. Not to mention the danger you put yourself in on our behalf.”
And… Arthur’s right.
It wasn’t so much an intentional thing.
It’s not like he was sat there thinking about how he didn’t want Art there.
Honestly, he thinks he’s more for Arthur being back on cases than John is.
Then again, in John’s perfect world Arthur is safe and warm and healthy and happy and probably kept in a room full of pillows and eating four square meals a day.
Arthur would fucking hate it.
“Look. I get I’m not… I’m not exactly as well as I was. But I’m… I’m not going to…”
Not gonna flake out on him, is how Parker finishes that thought in his head.
Not gonna collapse on him and make him choose between getting the bad guy and keeping English’s head from cracking open.
Because deep down Parker knows he’d pick keeping Arthur’s head intact no matter what Arthur himself would prefer.
And… Well that unfinished thought isn’t wrong exactly. But… But he wants Arthur back in the field. And there is nothing in this world or the next that will keep Arthur sitting on his hands and stay behind.
And Parker doesn’t know what to do with this.
He isn’t in charge of Arthur.
And if he isn’t on cases with him and John, then he’s absolutely gonna find his own way to get into trouble.
“Of course you’re not, English.” And he tries to keep anything that might conceivably be pity out of his voice.
Because Arthur might just hate him for it.
And no matter how deep down he believes that Arthur Lester will never hurt him, his body still remembers those long fingers closing around his throat.
And even if his body didn’t, he sure as fuck gets a reminder every time he looks in the mirror.
He stops himself before he can raise a hand to his throat when Arthur glares at him, because John might just blurt that out to him before he thinks to stop himself.
John isn’t an idiot, he just doesn’t have a brain to mouth filter sometimes.
Parker clasps his hands around his coffee cup. And tells himself they are starting to shake from exhaustion and hunger and not because of that lingering twinge of panic.
“I swear. I swear it isn’t like that. You aren’t gonna…” He has to be careful here. He is pretty sure he knows what Arthur was unable to say out loud, but if he finishes for him, then that will just confirm Arthur’s suspicions. Whether Parker means them or not. And he doesn’t . No matter his reluctance. He doesn’t. “Whatever you’re afraid of, we’ll handle it.” He takes a deep breath. Forcing himself to think through the fogginess that comes with not sleeping and adrenaline starting to ebb. He needs to sleep. He needs those fucking waffles and he needs to sleep. Maybe for a whole fucking year. This conversation is more exhausting than the fucking stakeout.
And they keep circling around to this.
In no small part because things keep happening to Arthur. Every goddamn time he almost recovers, something else happens.
Not that the dizziness has ever really faded. But every time they reach something close to a stable “normal,” he gets sick sick, or has some sort of mental spiral, or he gets fucking kidnapped and drugged.
“I should have told you. But every time I thought about it, I couldn’t stop picturing you tied to that goddamn chair-”
“It’s hardly my first time tied to a fucking chair-”
“ Arthur ,” And Parker hopes that get’s his attention, because since fucking when does Parker use his first name. Because that isn’t reassuring, and it also has goddamn nothing to do with his point. “Every time I thought about it. I was back there. Trying to get you untied from that fucking chair. You couldn’t stay conscious, and English, your pulse was so goddamn slow.
“I thought you were gonna fucking die on the way to getting you to the hospital. I was so goddamn angry when they sent you home before you could stay awake for more than a couple minutes at a time. They swore… They swore up and down that you were okay, but I… And I was so fucking angry at the bastards that did that. I wanted to make them hurt.
“I… It’s not that I doubted you. Or that I do doubt you now. I just… I had to see it myself. And I… I know that’s probably how you’re feeling now… But Art… I had to do it.” Parker runs his tongue over his teeth absently. Hoping that Arthur won’t take it wrong.
Arthur looks like he’s taking it wrong.
But something falls into place behind his expression.
And Parker sees him internalizing that anger and hurt.
Blaming himself instead of Parker.
And Parker doesn’t know if that’s worse.
“...I… I understand,” he forces out. Between his teeth.
And Parker, for the life of him, doesn’t know what he could have said differently.