Chapter Text
“What if I go willingly?”
The king was caught off guard. Why was this fragment of him so attached to this mortal? The fragment was part of a god, mortals were less than even ants to them. Even with Arthur Lester being a musician at heart, inconceivably small compared to what lied ahead for them in godhood.
“Would you?” He asked, carefull for the sadistic hope clouding his mind not to seep into his voice.
“Yes. Yes I would leave this body. Just don’t hurt him” John agreed begrudgingly. That’s all the king needed. An agreement.
“Don’t count on it” the god laughed, an awfull sound that could drive others to madness.
“WAIT-“ but John protests were cut off as the king raised a golden armored hand.
Arthur screamed He had been quiet after the king broke his leg for the secont time, crying silently, curled in on himself. The king found it pathetic. The human instinct was to save himself, instead of to kill your attacker? But he had bigger things to worry about than the logistics of an irrelevant species.
As the king raised his hand Arthur was was pulled into the air, John fighting tooth and nail to not be taken, knowing he had been deceived.But the king was a god. And john had only a fraction of his power. He was pulled to the king. Ripped from his mortal shell, as the king had put it. Ripped from Arthur.
Arthur fell back to the ground with a thud, crying in pain. He looked up and saw the king float closer. He saw. He could see?
He looked around, the ground was marble, carved into an intricate pattern the hurt his eyes to look at. His blood stained his pant leg and the floor around, dripping from his face. A large castle sat in front of him, larger than any biulding in America. It was elegant, like an old church, untouched by all. He looked up and saw the sky, not blue, but an unearthly purple, it looked almost green, he knew that couldn’t be true, but in a dream? He looked to his hands, scarred, with a mark for everything he and John had ever done together. But he realized,John was gone. He was alone. Alone in front of the king. A malaevolent god who had been hunting him, captured him once just to torture him. Arthur felt the courage he had drain out of him.
“Please don’t kill me, please” Arthur begged as tears rose in his eyes.
The king was wearing a golden yellow robe, he had on a white mask and had s golden sharp crown floating above his head. He floated a few feet above the ground, twice the side of Arthur, though the crown gave him some hight. “Don’t worry Arthur Lester. I won’t kill you, I have plans for you. Pet.” He grinned with the last word, Arthur could tell even with the mask hiding his features.
Arthur’s eyes widened “What- what are you going to do to me?” He asked.
The king laughed, a malicious laugh. Intended only to mock and to hurt and to threaten “Arthur Lester I will rend you limb from lib. Let you feel all the pain before healing you just to do it again. I shall kill you over and over. Skin you, poison you, drown you. I gene you the easy option. But you made your choice. You are my pet, you have nothing, you will never have anything again. You will obey my every command. You will know nothing but pain human. I will never give you an ending, never let you go.”
He let out a sob “please”
The king laughed. This human had taken a part of him, ran from him, escaped his grasp, and now was begging for mercy. He reached into his bag, what did he have? A gun, a puny weapon. But no a knife. The king frowned. He knew that type of knife. Kayne.
The human pointed it at the king as tears again fell from his eyes.
“You can not kill me Arthur Lester” the king grinned, had he overestimated this human? Did he really think he could kill a god with such a simple weapon?
He slowly turned the knife to himself, tears welling in his eyes and falling to the ground, mixing with the crimson blood that lay in a pool around him. He smiled as the blade plunged into his neck. One final act of defiance.
Alas, he simply missed anything vital. Nothing the king could not fix. Though he was displeased.
The king growled. “Well. A round of applause for Arthur Lester.” In the distance a crowd roared. “Congratulations on free will. I will see you soon.” He sighed.
“Fragment.” The kind more demanded than asked.
“That is not my name.” John growled
“Oh, my apologies hastur” he retorted in mock sympathy.
“Fuck you. You know my name.”
“YOU AND I ARE THE SAME BEING.” The king yelled as he lost his temper.
“My name is John. John Doe. The name given to me by Lilly and kept with the humanity given to me by Arthur. You can not take that away from me, no matter what you think or how hard you try. Now save Arthur, he will die if he stays like that.”
“Fine” he said. Snapping his fingers two cultists in white robes wearing white masks appeared before them. “Take this mortal inside. Heal him then put him in a cell. I can deal with him later.”
The cultist hurried to obey their gods orders, knowing that Arthur was not the fist to be locked in the dungeons.
“Not sticking him back in a pit I see. Did that get to boring for you, your majesty?” He spat the last part as if it burned his mouth.<
He frowned “No. Not a pit. I have cells under the castle, you should remember that. Makes it quite easier to acces them when I need to.”
John sighed. “Why do you care about hi. So much? You have me. You have what you want.”
The king grinned “no, fragment. I don’t care about Arthur Lester. But you do. You love him. You love him in a way that is human. That is why I am keeping him. To study him. Or just to put him in his place, below us”
“I do not keep Arthur as a pet. Arthur is my freind. Arthur is everything to me.”
“Fragment. Anser me this. Do you want to be human? Do you want to be like Arthur?”
John Paused, what was the king getting at here? “I- yes. Yes I want to be human. I would give everything to be a human with him on earth.”
The king smiled. Wide under his mask. Something was not right. He snapped his fingers. Another cultist appeared. Looking the same as the one he had summoned before.
<“Enjoy your body John