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Parker woke in the early morning light of Carcosa. The time before dawn was cool, the breeze kissing his hair and the sheets, and this was the sort of day he wished he could roll over and pull a warm body close beneath the blankets.
Good morning, lover, said Sunny, and because it was Sunny, it was just as good.
“Morning,” Parker smiled into his pillow.
You’re up early.
“Yeah.” Parker stretched beneath the blankets, pulling them up higher. “You sound tired.”
Sunny was quiet for a long moment. I am tired.
Parker rolled onto his back. “I know, bud.” His tone was so gentle. “Wanna talk it out?”
We have a big day ahead of us, said Sunny. I don’t want to poison the well by whining about things we can’t control.
“You’re not poisoning anything,” said Parker gently. He reached up and touched his jaw, stroking along his chin with his thumb. “Come on, bud. Talk to me.”
The touch was magic, and Sunny gave in. It’s just so much, he said at last. Court, day in and day out. The unceasing questions we need to keep making up answers to. The need to keep doing illusions to continually establish our place by the throne. Sunny sighed; it was a bad sound, a bone-weary sound. The illusions are just… exhausting. I throw them up, and they just suck all the magic out of me. I don’t know if I can handle them.
“I told you, lover,” said Parker softly. “Use me. I got plenty of life force. You won’t be hurting me. Share the burden, yeah?”
The difference is that when I am exhausted, I can hide, Sunny replied. You, beloved, cannot. We can dip out for a brief recess, yes, but if they see you go weak in the knees after what should be a simple manifestation, they will know we’re not nearly as strong as we appear.
Parker caressed into his jaw. “I got a real good poker face,” he said. “You need more energy, it’s yours. I’ll be fine, and worst case, we can come up with a reason I need a chair.”
When Hastur is back—
“Bud…”
When Hastur is back, Sunny repeated, stubborn, I plan on acquiring a small villa, by the lakeside.
“Yeah? A villla, huh?”
Just a small thing. Maybe two stories, the lower story little more than a kitchen and a room for us to eat and entertain, and our bedroom upstairs with a view overlooking the water. Sunny took an incorporeal breath. We will plant gladiolus in the garden for you, daffodils for me, and violets for us. We will take cases; small ones, nothing of consequence. When Carcosa lands somewhere we wish to explore, we could leave for some time, perhaps even for weeks. Months.
That was a change. “You want to leave Carcosa?” Parker sat up.
Sunny said nothing.
“Lover,” Parker said softly, pressing into his jaw, “I didn’t know you wanted to leave.”
I don’t. But… Sunny let out a low sound, bone-weary and so, so tired. I must confess I do not… dislike ruling.
Parker chucked quietly. “Yeah, no shit. You’re good at it. Got a real knack.”
I do. A quiet rumble. And yet, it is… a lot. The weight of the responsibility is heavy. And with John gone… I simply don’t have the power to back up my words.
“You got plenty of power—the kind people choose to follow,” said Parker. “People trust you; they respect you. They respect Faroe because of you. That’s earned.”
But the magical force behind it is lacking, save for our illusions, Sunny rumbled. I am aware I am being… childish. I have everything I once dreamed of here, Carcosa and you and all.
Parker stroked his jaw. “You know, I get it,” he said. “When you’re tired, every damn scrape feels like a knife wound.”
I am tired.
Parker swapped sides of his jaw, rubbing and kneading, leaning forward over his crossed legs. “I wish there was more I could do for you, lover,” he said quietly. “You know… you really are good at all this. People respect your word because you treat ‘em fair, and folks see that. Sunny the Just, they call you now.”
I need no titles. But there was a bit of a perk behind it.
Parker smiled. “You like it, though.”
I do. Because it is mine, said Sunny. I think… even though I enjoy some parts of this… I like thinking of a future where we do not need to do it anymore. Becuase that future will be mine, too. Ours. There is no future for me without you. You know this. But… I like to think of us somewhere quiet and all our own. I feel… I feel like that is something worth continuing on for. I think that is what I want; to have our own lives, even if we are occasionally called to the side of the King, or the Prince, even if Hastur… He trailed off.
Parker kept stroking his jaw. “It wasn’t him in Ishara.”
Sunny swallowed several times. Arthur said it wasn’t. You understand me without words. You knew what I was thinking.
“We’re in tune, bud,” said Parker.
I have an unshakable hope that you and I will find peace one day. Even if it is just moments like this, between the chaos and the suffering and the uncertainty, it’s enough to keep me going.
They sat with that for a moment, a breeze slipping through their open window. “You know I’m already seduced, right?” Parker said, blinking away Sunny’s tears. “You don’t gotta keep tryin’ to reel me in.”
Ya hafh yogfm’l, I would follow your light anywhere.
“Yeah? Well, guess what, bud,” Parker said, challenging, rising, letting the sheets slide down. “I’m followin’ you, too, whether that’s back to the throne or in some godforsake cave where we can chirp at birds for a decade or so. It’s you and me.” He walked to the balcony, unconcerned about his nudity, and leaned on the balustrade.
Is it, now? Sunny rumbled. Chirping at birds, you say?
“Sure. How hard can it be?” said Parker, and proceeded to whistle as brightly, sharply, and dexterously as he danced.
Sunny choked. What? What?
Parker laughed; his cheeks flushed. “Ain’t done that in a dog’s age.”
You can… whistle?
“Yeah, I can,” said Parker, and did it again—a trilling, playful, sparkling tune, vibrato included. “Can’t sing for shit, but I can do that.”
Sunny was reacting like all his dreams had come true—which, really, they had: his love was musical. Wh… how long have you been able to do that?
Parker laughed. “Forever. Ain't as good as singing, probably, but if you like it, I'll call it a win.”
Sunny’s sputtering didn’t taper off. H… how did… why did you stop?
Parker’s smile was bitter. “White cops kept makin’ out I was somehow doing it at them to be disrespectful, back when I was a teenager. Stupid shit. Racialism. So. I kinda fell out of the habit.”
If anyone even thinks of accusing you as such, I’m throwing them in the stocks, said Sunny. I don’t think we even have stocks. I’ll have someone make some. And there will be a sign that says ‘offended by whistling’ that hangs underneath it, and everyone will laugh at them.
Parker chuckled. “Making stocks… yeah, I can get with that.”
Sunny turned wheedling. Whistle some more? Please?
Parker touched his smiling lips. “Sure, if you want it.” And he started whistling some old, slow tune, maybe some lovesong on Broadway, with just enough of a lilt to it that it made him want to dance.
So he did. Arms out as if holding a partner, he swung Sunny around the room, and could almost feel it true. After a moment, Sunny joined his song, making some low, rhythmic sound like circulation through pipes, like the vibration of train tracks made song. Parker forgot to be fancy and swayed in place, eyes closed, cupping his cheek.
#
Court was normal. Exhausting still, in that way public performance could be, but Sunny at least only needed to project once.
Faroe was an absolute star, and it ripped Parker up inside that she had to be.
Gods, this was complicated. The years of work Hastur had put into this literal child were paying off, but they shouldn’t have had to.
None of this was happening the way it should, and Parker felt a mess of regret for the kid he knew was somewhere in those fancy silks. She should be out making mud pies, or catching frogs, or the other various things that Parker knew little girls liked to do when their mothers weren’t watching.
Hell, mothers were probably much less restrictive in the Dreamlands. People seemed… Well. No one treated everyone equal all the time; people weren’t perfect. But Parker knew he’d gotten a whole lot fewer side glances and clutched-closer bags since he’d staggered out of that tunnel lifetimes ago.
Beloved, Sunny murmured, bringing him out of his thoughts. I think it’s about time for lunch. Don’t you?
“Mmm,” said Parker in agreement, and gave Faroe a subtle nod.
“I thank all of you for your attentions this morning,” said Faroe, clapping her hands brightly. “As the hour is getting later, I think it’s about time to call for recess. I shall return to hear the rest of your petitions in the evening session.”
The court murmured, and bowed, and filed out obediently; Faroe swept elegantly to the side, nodding her head and smiling and making small promises to read letters carefully before making her escape into a private hallway with Nibbles at her heels.
Parker watched people for just a few more seconds, just making sure no one had any designs to try and dart after them, and followed.
Here, in the privacy of an empty hallway that would only be frequented by the members of Hastur’s family and his Dancers, Faroe did not look quite so sure of herself. She leaned on Nibbles, who was whuffing softly, eyes closed, forehead pressed against the goatling’s bark.
Parker’s heart hurt. “How you holding up, kid?”
“I want my dad,” she said simply, her voice very small.
Oh, Faroe…
She sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know. I know I’m being childish. I know what John said in his letter, how Arthur said it wasn’t him. But we don’t know for sure.”
Arthur would know the best of all of us, Sunny soothed. I trust him.
Faroe gave them a look. “But you don’t know for sure.”
“No,” said Parker. “No. We don’t. But the hard thing about livin’ is how we gotta keep going in spite of that.”
She deflated a bit, and Nibbles let out a dismissive snort. “You’re right,” Faroe mumbled to Nibbles, and then took a deep breath. “You’re right. And I hate it.”
Parker’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Me too, kiddo. Me too.”
Hopefully we’ll hear more soon, said Sunny softly. If our projections are correct, John and Arthur should have reached Gor days ago.
“Assuming they didn’t get side tracked,” said Parker.
I'm sure they're safe, Sunny reassured.
Faroe was not so certain. “Please tell me if they send anything, as soon as you know,” she said. “Them or Odd.”
We’ll do our best, said Sunny, speaking for them both, and that had to be good enough.
#
There was a rhythm to it all, Sunny thought that evening after they bid Faroe and Nibbles good night. A rhythm Parker had described before, though not in dulcet tones: the “daily nine-to-five,” the “office grind.” Of course, that had been in the context of the romanticism of the private eye life, when they were just getting to know each other.
Back when Parker had already seemed the most interesting human he—as Yellow—had ever encountered, and had Larson not already spent such effort to drag Sunny off his throne and transform him from god to dog, Sunny would've handled those early interactions completely differently.
And fucked them up. Parker would never have fallen for the smooth act; not even the King in Yellow could have manipulated him with any ease.
It was a horrible yet fantastic thing that Larson’s destruction meant tilled earth ready for Parker’s seed.
Seed. Ha. Sunny chuckled.
“Something funny, lover?” said Parker, striding down the arcade. This was a beautiful evening; a warm breeze carried hints of hibiscus over the low wall to their left. Parker walked with his hood back, his tunic open.
Sunny longed to touch his throat, glimpsed in occasional mirrors. Just reminiscing.
“About what?”
Our first meeting. Sunny smiled with their mouth. I never thought I could be… at all grateful for what… happened to me after Arthur played and I was cast into him.
Parker bared their teeth. “I ain’t.”
I know, lover. I'm not saying I… appreciate the abuse. I'm saying that I… was in the right place to meet you. To appreciate you. That’s all.
“Hmph,” said Parker, preemptively vicious, aggressively protective. “Fuck that guy. With a red-hot poker.”
Oh, Sunny knew what to do with that. He purred. Maybe I'll watch.
And Parker laughed (as Sunny knew he would). “Fuck, that got dark.”
Well, I did bring the serpent up.
“Ha. Disrespectful to snakes, is what that is,” said Parker, grinning. “Don’t feel like that’s fair to snake-kind, even the one in Eden.”
Eden?
“Yeah, see, so the devil supposedly—”
And there was a man before them, as if he’d stepped out of the air, and he was simultaneously familiar and utterly foreign.
Parker stopped in his tracks. No one was supposed to be back here. Able to be back here.
“Well, there you are,” said Wallace Larson, and his voice was a little too high, and his eyes were way too wide, and he smiled like a storm-ripped scarecrow and held out his hand as if he expected Parker to take it.
“What the fuck?” Parker whispered, and stepped back.
Larson had…
Larson was…
What happened to you? said Sunny slowly, because he knew that body, knew it as well as Parker’s own, and about half of it seemed to be missing.
Larson laughed. Oh, that was not a good laugh. It was shrill and sharp, unsteady and anything but fitting for a self-proclaimed occult master. “What happened? Why, Yang… oh, we’ve got things to talk about now, don't we? All on the same level now, balanced out.”
The man had to have lost thirty pounds. Maybe more. Whatever happened had happened fast; his cheeks were sunken, his bloodshot eyes red-rimmed. But worse, he seemed to be infested.
Aetheric threads stuck out all over him, waving like undersea weeds, strange and searching and unknown. Something about that seemed… dangerous to Sunny, hungry to Sunny.
Parker had shifted to a fighting stance, turned slightly to the side, feet apart, fists loosely held. “Okay,” he said. “Buddy, you don’t look so good.”
“No?” Larson seemed surprised to remember he had a body, and looked down at himself, at the stained and baggy clothes he must have worn for weeks. “Well, I suppose there's a price to pay for what we are, isn’t there, Saint?”
“Price?” said Parker evenly, unsmiling. “Hey. Man. You okay?”
Those strands, loose, like seeking tendrils… Don’t come any closer.
Larson ignored him completely. “Yes, Yang. Yes!” He threw his hands in the air, and they shook with effort or perhaps fanaticism, and his eyes watered, and his wrist-bones were so exposed they looked sharp. “Do you understand?”
“Trying to, buddy,” said Parker, very careful, very cautious, his breath rate speaking to his spiking adrenaline.
Everything felt wrong, wrong, bad, it itched though Sunny had no skin, it burned though Sunny had no flesh. Parker…
“No, of course you don’t, Yang, but you will, you will,” said Larson, looking all around the floor, talking to himself as though he’d been speaking to a Parker in his head for weeks. “There is no goin’ back for either of us now, is there?”
“‘Fraid you lost me, buddy,” said Parker.
And oh, those aetheric strands, like undulating tails, waving thoughts, alive-aware-anticipating... Don't let him touch you.
Parker clenched their jaw.
Larson was continuing a conversation they’d never had. “You’re right, though, that these things will take and alter and eatus up if we don’t play right, and they don’t give a single shit about us, no matter what they say, but you and me, we understand! We get what they give back no matter what they cost, don’t we, as long as we go willing?”
“Sure. Sunny, Dancers?”
I’ve been trying, I… Sunny grunted. Parker. We're closed in.
“What?”
Some kind of barrier. Around us. I can't reach through it. Felt like a death-sentence. A final failure that might cost all. I can't. I'm not strong enough. I—
“Hold on,” Parker warned, because they might have to fight, and neither of them knew what the hell they were up against.
Larson was still going. “I, we, we’re different, you and me, touched by them, altered, but we’re still ourselves, and I thought Lester—I used to think he could understand me, but he can’t, not after they got in his head and muddled him up like a sugar cube with bitters, and he just crumbled, useless, no strength left, but you, you saw the Dreamlands, how it really is, the bad, and the good, all wrapped in one, and… and we…” Suddenly, he was sobbing, gasping, tears reddening hollow cheeks, fever-bright eyes locked on Parker’s with a desperation that in spite of everything tugged at Sunny’s heart. “It’s all so hollow, and in the end we all… even us, you and me, we're not special to them at all no matter how good it is or what we give and we… and we…”
“Hey. Hey, man.” Parker was minding Sunny's warning, staying back, but he raised his left hand just a little, sort of a peace motion. “Hey. Breathe. Whatever’s going on, we can help. Okay? You just… need to tell us what’s going on.”
And Larson’s gaze changed, snapped onto him, went sharp and strange and present. “No matter,” he said. “Not anymore. I don’t need to be alone. We don’t need to be alone. It’s you and me against the world, Yang, and we’ll get our vengeance one day—once we pay the price. Do you come willingly?”
“Fuck no, whatever you’re saying,” said Parker, louder, holding the line, and Sunny…
Sunny tried.
He could not reach help.
Maybe if John or Hastur had been here—
(Would he never be enough?)
He could not reach help.
Larson shouted it. “I come willingly! Do you? Do we?”
Parker took one step back. “There’s no we, pal.”
An almost-familiar sneer took Larson’s face, almost real, but trembling, an illusion, and his eyes clenched, and tears fell, as if he’d expected this result but hoped for more. “You’re a pervert, Saint.”
“Oh, fuck off—”
“I ain’t gonna deny that, or try and put a shiny little spin on it—but you got the heart of a romantic.” Larson's eyes widened again, too big, revealing a ring of gold around his blue irises. “And you and I are gonna be together for a verylong time, so I figure I may as well do right by you.”
And it happened so fast.
Snake quick, unholy quick, inhumanly quick, he lunged, and those waving aetheric threads shocked straight forward, plunging into Parker the same second Larson grabbed his arm.
Horribly silent, Parker fell to his knees.
No! Projecting had no power, he had to do something else, had to, but Parker could not channel him, something had closed that door, something had—
It had barely been a second. “With this blade, I, Wallace Larson—” said Larson, pulling an obsidian dagger from his shirt, red with clumsy blood.
No! Stop!
“—do take this man, Parker Yang, for my own, for as long as I see fit to keep you—”
Parker wasn’t moving wasn’t breathing completely frozen on his knees held up by Larson’s grip and those aetheric strands like wires dug into his soul—
STOP!
“—as long as we both shall live, and we are what we should be, and we get our revenge together,” and Larson brought the blade down.
Two things happened at once.
Larson had aimed for Parker's hand, but not the whole hand. The left ring finger, that was what he cut off, and with the spilling of Parker’s blood, this weird spell snapped complete.
The wires weren’t just for Parker. They were also for Sunny, and they caught him like a snare.
Sunny screamed.
Parker frozen, straining, unbreathing, heart pounding—
And Sunny—
Larson screamed, too.
Sunny was being pulled from Parker, sliding forward, falling out of Parker's vision.
No! No! No no no! Pulled—tied, trapped, wires tight and choking his incorporeal form, and he caught one glimpse of Parker through Larson’s blurry eyes (so still couldn't move couldn't look up couldn't even pull his bleeding hand free), and then—
And then, Sunny was not alone.
#
It was tiny.
So very, very tiny.
Tinier than Sunny, tinier than ideas of Sunny, tinier than it possibly could be and survive.
And it could not on its own. It was strapped, intubated, breathing raggedly and draped backwards against the essence of Larson's strained and beating heart.
And it was in pain.
There was sapience here.
Please, it whispered.
Oh, Sunny whispered back (Parker was dying Parker was dying they could not live without the other). What are you doing here?
A glimmer, a flash like a sole piece of glitter in the sun—
Sunny knew this presence he knew it like gleaming gold in the deep deep dark like the gold that had found him when he was lost when he was afraid when he had lost himself—
Oh, Sunny said, and he understood, and it was horrible, and it was doom for them all.
The tiny thing shuddered, a scrap of glory, still brilliant though only a single drop of light. I… am… for you. My… purpose. A strained gasp. I don't want to die. Please…
And the magic here… (Parker, how much time had passed, what was happening outside, Sunny COULD NOT reach him—) was intricate, complex, and layered. It was a trap, designed for him, and obvious… because the bait was just that good.
And maybe the creator had wanted Sunny to come willingly.
Parker was dying. Sunny was losing. But this little thing deserved none of this torment.
Whatever did this cruelty, this unbelievable cruelty, intended it as a trap. To do what, exactly? Take Sunny somewhere? Larson’s focus was Parker (Sunny's focus was Parker), but the wickedness of this…
No human could have done this.
The wires pinched, tightened, cut him as they ensured no escape. He could not return to Parker. He could not fight whatever had been done to Larson—and it was shreds in here, ruination. They were all damned.
There really was only one thing he could do. He could spare this poor forgotten one, who'd never done anything wrong.
Sunny’s heart broke. I’m not strong enough to help you, he whispered to the fragment, this tiny forgotten one, so much smaller than he (suffering suffering suffering). I need you to know that. But… I won’t let you suffer alone. Nevah. I’m here, now. I won’t let him hurt you like he hurt me. And finally, he understood: we can't defeat this, but we don't have to let him win.
It was sapience. It was suffering. And it seemed to look into him, to see him, to understand more than its fear. Oh, it said. But I am here to… be… eaten? Its cry was terrible, long, a ghostly sound. It hurts so much. Win or lose, please… finish me.
Sunny would.
He stopped trying uselessly to get away. The wires were carefully spelled, and the moment he gave in, they loosened. He could move toward the tiny piece without struggle.
But as he did, something strange happened.
Without the constant thrum of Parker's life-force (oh gods Parker don’t die), Sunny grew aware of a current of something—soft, sweet, utterly unlike the bombastic flames of Hastur’s worship, and constant. It whispered through him, unintelligible; and though it seemed without form, Sunny found it stirring.
Worship.
He’d never had it for just himself, and this…
He could almost make it out. Saint… Golden Tongue… the Just… the Wise…
Worship. From the hundreds of people they'd helped, smiles and kindness given in the dark. Worship. From so many souls, who’d been hurting and lost and afraid, to whom they had given hope.
And now, they gave it back.
It was such a quiet flow, it was enough—enough to prove that Sunny and Parker (never one without the other) had mattered, had done what they could. Sunny felt the unexpected stirrings of hope—not for anything specific, not for any magic cure, but because life was a beautiful thing if fleeting, and they had been enough. It was a good run, he whispered, and he could have wept.
Unhindered, Sunny embraced the fragment gently, like the kiss of the morning sun on Parker’s cheek; he soothed the piece’s severed edges, humming them soft and warm. I’ll bear this for you, he said (thought vowed). I won’t let him win.
Thank you, it breathed in relief, not fighting at all, and then it faded.
Blurred. Merged. It was not violent; it was the gentle sigh of a last breath, a peaceful surrender to slumber.
And those golden wires, those tendons of Larson’s soul turned trap, moved with Sunny, adjusted; slid over him like a collar made for him, like shackles made bespoke. It was a gentle trap, in a way; perhaps the maker hadn't wanted to destroy their prize just yet. It did not feel like kindness.
At least it no longer cut. It held Sunny, pressing him to Larson’s heart, trapping. For one perfect, tortured moment, they were balanced.
But the trap-maker had not considered the power of soft and worshipful hope.
The prayers. The worship. The thanks, offered with smoke and incense, with smiles and care. Thanks, hope, hope, traveling through the Dreamlands true, sliding along Sunny, all around him, lifting.
Impossibly lifting.
Impossibly strengthening.
The trap strained to hold him.
Lifetimes ago, Sunny (who had not yet been Sunny) had watched Parker run along the river and a into to the sewers of New York, had listened as Parker said, ‘Can’t stop the bad guys? At least cost ‘em so much they regret it.’ Before then, Sunny thought he knew what a pyrrhic victory was. This had taught him otherwise.
Parker had been willing to die to keep Sunny from Larson’s hands. Arthur had slit his own throat to save John. And Sunny…
Maybe it was Sunny's turn.
The magic of this trap was straining the badly wounded soul of Wallace Larson, too. It had not been handled with care, not been used in a way that indicated long-term plans. It had been snipped and stripped and stretched, his mortal soul moorings mutilated to keep a shred of forgotten one alive and strap another to it. Sunny could see that, could see it was not going to let him throw himself free to tumble to the Dark World on his own. And yet, when he strained against it now—
This hope was enough.
The moorings snapped.
Snapped like rope, snapped like thread, snapped like a rubber band that retracted to bite the one who’d broken it, and Sunny flew loose—
But he did not fly alone.
The sense, the essence, the being of Wallace Larson screamed.
Loose, they were loose, flapping in unreal breeze, the barest of moorings preventing their full-on flight to death. The Dark World loomed like a mouth. No! Stop! Larson cried, strangled, and distantly Sunny was aware of the world swimming, and the part of him that was once not him (the piece he’d made himself a resting place for) made him quick enough to avoid Larson’s desperate, handless grabs.
Larson sobbed, at his end, out of tricks, trying only to hold on, a sail attached by the slimmest of ropes.
The world spun.
The Dark World loomed.
Sunny could let go. But something… there was something here. The part of Sunny that was once not him remembered being bound, remembered being tangled, remembered how to use soul moorings.
Larson had no such knowledge, but this was his soul, his home, and by pure instinct, he reached for the loose and flailing ends severed from himself.
But Sunny got there first.
No, please! Larson scrabbled for those moorings like the scurrying little things that Nibbles liked to eat, but Sunny got there first, and he (like Parker) would fight (like Parker) tooth and nail (Parker please be okay) to keep him from winning.
No! Larson wept without words. Don't do this—we’ll both die!
And Sunny knew this was the end.
End of an era, end of a decade, end of a wasted life and so many opportunities to turn it around, and Sunny, who was just, could not help grieving for all Wallace Larson had thrown away. Then we will go to the Dark World together, he said softly—and gently, but firmly, he pushed Larson away.
Larson’s final mooring snapped.
He screamed, the sound of him tearing like a bad ending ripped from a book, and Sunny wept and stretched his incorporeal self to reach all those loose ends, all that he could, large enough to reach them because of glitter’s sacrifice, and wrapped them around himself, and
and
With no fanfare, no fireworks, no climax, he was alone.
#
The darkness swam away. Faded, failed, like night chased by sunrise. Sunny was… above. Somehow. Feeling… strange.
Heavy.
Weirdly limited and yet… feeling, feeling… length, and breadth, and the unutterable weight of himself, and somehow more—smelling himself, his odor, feeling the strangeness of clothes-on-skin, and he swayed (balance, this was balance, he remembered balance), and he saw—
At his feet knelt Parker.
Parker, who could move.
Parker, who looked up at him, looked up with a rage Sunny had never seen, never imagined, looked up with a rage that transformed him into something like a sun-crazed beast.
Parker was off the floor and on him before Sunny could say a word.
Parker slammed him into a marble pillar, hard enough to crack his skull and make him dizzy, and grabbed his wrist to snap and twist and make him drop the damn knife—
(And Sunny hadn’t even known he was holding a knife—)
—and then rammed him again, pinning him, digging in so hard that he seemed likely to smash this body to paste, and then, teeth bared, Parker screamed: “Where is he?”
The body, the body, Sunny was in the body, how was this happening, how was Parker not dead, how was Sunny not floating away, what was happening, could he remember how to speak—
“WHERE?” Parker roared it, right in his face, breath hot as his anger, eyes wild, white showing all around the irises.
He was a mad demon. A god of judgment. A day of wrath.
He was the most beautiful thing Sunny had ever seen—and he was going to kill this body. “Parker,” Sunny wheezed, and his voice sounded strange, it sounded like himself but not himself in the confines of this head.
It must not have sounded like Larson because Parker hesitated.
It was barely there; Sunny knew him so well, could see it, could see the pause in his eyes, but no one else would have noticed because—
Parker slammed him into the pillar again, hard enough to crack ribs and banish air. “Where?! Where is he? What’d you do with him, you… fucking… monster?” Each word, he banged Sunny into the pillar again, and it was pain, and it was shock, but already on top of so much sensation and seeing Parker with his own eyes, and it all merged into one rising flood of horror.
Of course Sunny was crying. He cried out with every blow, and the vision of Parker (Parker Parker his Parker his guiding star) blurred, and he could feel his tears (not their tears?) hot and wet trail down his cheeks. “Parker,” he whispered. “He’s gone. Larson’s—”
“Fuck you! Where’s Sunny? If I have to fucking use your damn bones to dig to the underworld and find him—”
He meant it, grip tightening. Sunny was alive (a miracle) and Parker was about to kill him (a tragedy). “It’s me. I’m Sunny.”
Parker went green. He looked like he’d been stabbed through the heart. He leaned right in, so close all Sunny could see what his eyes. “What?”
“Me. I’m…”
Parker looked like he’d aged a billion years in six seconds, and his eyes filled with tears (Parker’s tears, and Sunny couldn’t feel them anymore, and Sunny felt like he was going mad). Parker bared his teeth again. “What? Wh… you… prove it!”
This mouth didn’t work right, but Sunny made it speak. “My lover’s hands are rough from work,” he whispered. “Strong and callused, knuckles dusted with s-scars like snow on mountaintops—”
Parker cried out as if stabbed, and stared, eyes wide. Shaking, shaking, shaking. “You… he…”
“It’s me,” Sunny whispered wished willed, his tears flowing.
The pain on Parker’s face, the conflict… “Tell me something only he’d know.”
He hadn’t let go. His grip hurt. He would kill this body.
For Parker to live with that… Sunny couldn’t let it happen. “A little villa,” Sunny whispered. “Down on the lakeshore. I’d want us to plant—to plant gladiolus in the garden. For you. Daffodils, for me. Violets, for us. Ya hafh yogfm’l.”
Parker cried out as if he'd lost his heart. For one moment, he swayed, as if about to crash to his knees again, but he did not; he shook so hard as if he wanted to fall to pieces, to die right here, tumbling in parts to the ground. “Sunny?” he whispered, like dreams and nightmares blended brown.
Their mouth (no, his, his alone) moved… strangely. Sunny was trying to smile—his voice came out like a sob instead. “Parker, he’s gone, Parker. I… I killed—”
Parker grabbed him again, gripped him again, but this wasn’t to hurt, and that such strength could be so controlled was a whole thing to think about, and this was not the time, and Sunny was a murderer, and how were they alive, and who had set the trap, and—
“Sunny?” Parker said again, high and terrified. “You… oh fuck. Oh, fuck.” He looked at the arm he’d slammed into the pillar, its bruising, its redness. He looked down at the torso he’d hit, gently touched the back he’d damn near broken. He began breathing very quickly. “You’re… in that body? Are you gonna… fall out of it? Fuck, what… oh gods, I hurt you. What've I done? I hurt you. Oh, gods. Oh, gods!”
“I don’t care,” Sunny said, and he felt like the corners of his mouth might crack open from smiling. “He’s—he’s gone. He’s gone.” Sobering. All those years, that constant presence, that entire person, gone. “Oh, gods, Parker—he’s gone—”
Parker was panicking. Looking him up and down, touching him and noting every flinch. Getting blood everywhere. His finger. He…
“Parker,” Sunny said, dizzy. “Your hand…”
Parker checked Sunny’s pulse, fingers against his throat.
The blood. It was all over the floor. It was—
Parker picked him up. Just bent and scooped, like he weighed nothing, which maybe he didn’t after whatever Larson had been up to.
After that horror had been done to him. Oh, Wallace, what did you do…
Parker ran. He slipped on his own blood, maybe on his missing finger, but he ran.
Sunny cried out. It hurt. Banging down the hall, breath coming harsh, every step a jolt, clutched in Parker’s arms as if to protect him from the world. Parker, not looking relieved, so pale he’d developed dark circles under his eyes. “Hold on!” he breathed, making a left. “Hold on, Sunny!”
The pain had risen to a single throbbing brightness. Sunny didn’t feel right. He knew why; he understood now. There was no Sunny without Parker. Not even with a body. But at last, he could feel Parker’s strong arms around him; at last, he could feel the pounding of Parker’s heart beneath his cheek. It was beautiful. It was worth what he’d paid. He hoped he’d remember. He wanted to remember, needed to remember this when he—
Memories bobbed to the surface, crept into view. Memories from that which was not him but now was.
Memories not Sunny's own. “We need to get to the Keeper,” he gasped, shuddering; the knowledge almost felt like pain, all through him, and maybe it was pain because it was different than the ache of his head and of his wrist, but it also still felt strange and was this dying? Was he dying? (There was no Sunny without Parker.) “I—he had—a piece of Hastur. I think it knew where they were. I know some of where they were.” Tears slipped down his face, onto Parker’s shirt. “I can’t—I can’t die before we tell her!”
“You ain't gonna die!” It was a vow, a promise, a seal. “I've got you! Already going her way!” Because of course he was, they were always one, united, in tune— “You won't fucking die!” And he opened the door he’d been running to and staggered into the Scriptorium, leaving blood on the handle and on the wood and on Sunny and it just wouldn’t stop and how long would he bleed?
Parker Yang screamed the Keeper’s name.
#
In the empty gallery of the King in Yellow, a private hall meant for his family alone, blood and a severed finger cooled. Blood was powerful, an identification, and a body part even moreso; perhaps that was why the letter appeared in the wrong place.
Here, hovering, over that lost digit, smelling slightly of smoke:
Parker, Sunny, this is an emergency.
I encountered a piece of Hastur. A piece of him, who knew me by my mark. He’d been placed in a body that couldn’t handle him, and died.
I’ve already reached out to John and Arthur, but as I write your letter, I think I’ve realized something more: John and Arthur heard a rumor of something like this, too, in Ishara. Friends, I think someone with an unhealthy interest in forgotten ones is behind this.
You two need to be safe. I don’t care if it means not appearing in court for a few days. I think you need to hide. I’m on my way back now, and I can help carry the burden, and help out Faroe, but you’re in danger.
Sunny, I’m especially worried about you. This was pointed. Personal. I don’t think you’re safe.
I’m coming. It’ll be another day or so, even with the ley line, but I’m coming. Don’t do anything rash until I get there.
I’m coming.
Your brother,
—Odd
There came the sound of fluttering pages, and then nothing at all.
