Chapter Text
After Tim and Sasha lead him to a more secluded room, Arthur replays the past days to see what lies he could get away with, or, if for once, he was going to have to be completely honest. He probably could leave a couple things out, specifically the cannibalism, murders, and general death, though- most likely the existence of Kanye too if he could help it.
Tim clears his throat before speaking up, "If this is gonna be a big revelation confession thing, should I go get Jon and Martin?" Arthur could tell he was getting annoyed with... everything, who could blame him.
He pops his head out of the door, looking around, before looking back at Sasha.
"I think I heard one of them down the hall." Tim continues, his voice over laping with John's unheard words.
"Well?"
Sasha raises an eyebrow to you expectingly.
"Finding Sam is the priority, is it not? So the faster I explain the faster you can look." Arthur says vaguely, ready to roll with whatever.
Tim crosses his arms, he's frustrated.
"Then you better start explaining before we strap you to a chair and leave you here while we look for Sam."
"Okay, okay, I wasn't completely honest with you-" both Sasha and Tim practically snort, "about being blind." Arthur continues.
Arthur, I trust that you have a plan, because you've dug us into a hole bigger then usual. Luckily the two look less pissed, and now almost interested in what you're revealing. I think it was the blind thing that threw them off considering you just revealed that this morning.
John wasn't wrong, this is the most someone's called his bullshit, but he had a plan, or at least the start of a semblance of one. He'd be fine, he's done similar before, kind of.
"I didn't lie, I am blind, but, well, there is an- a person in control of them. He was bound to a book, and when I opened it he was inturn bound to me, but specifically my eyes. So when Sam ran off, he told me."
They... I'm not sure what they were expecting, but it wasn't this.
Arthur's pretty sure John catches him calling John a person rather then an entity, hopefully he didn't mind, it was mostly just to not have them start thinking demonic possession- even if that was technically a little true. The King was pretty malevolent in nature.
"I have so many questions, and trust me you will be answering them later, but right now we need more on Sam."
"Sash, is right," Tim agrees, "so I'll ask again, where and why did he run?"
"I lost him, but I checked the archives, and the Institute in general, so we think he's either outside, or in the tunnels."
Arthur hears the puzzle pieces being put together inside Sasha's brain. "Thats why you're always saying we! I mean-" She clears her throat, continuing with the problem at hand, "If he's outside he'd be fine, or at least a lot safer then if he's in the tunnels."
"We should make Arthur go into the tunnels to look, for comeuppance."
"Sending anyone into the tunnels alone is practically a death sentence, Tim."
"Okay, but he has John or whatever has possessed him!" There's a beat, Arthur pretty sure Tim's getting a look because he sighs, "fine, send the boss with him, give 'em time to work out whatever they've been arguing about- two birds with one underground tunnel system."
Sasha seems to be actually considering this. Arthur, we saw the thing that grabbed Sam, thats still down there.
The monster was a good point, and in fact Arthur opens his mouth to bring that up, if not for his safety, then Jon's, but before he can Martin voice comes from the doorway.
"TIM, SASHA-"
Martin rushes in, quite frazzled. Oh, but when his eyes land on us he gets more panicked but less loud.
"And... Arthur. Hi. What I was saying can wait, what's going on?"
"We're sending Arthur to the tunnels with Jon- both of them." Tim drops casually, despite that not being green lit by Sasha.
"Two Jon's?" Martin did a double take before the real news hit, "I- Sorry!? You're sending Arthur into the tunnels with Jon?! Why?"
"Well," Sasha beings, "Sam's gone missing, Arthur both is and isnt blind, and he says Sam is either outside, or in the tunnels."
"Oh my god," Martin mutters, "you can't just throw them down there! They've been at each others throats, someone's going to end up dead."
"Yeah but we can't send Arthur alone because the stuff in the tunnels could kill him, so with Jon by his side they have more of a chance. Maybe they'll see eye to eye." Tim chuckles, but when no one else speaks he quiets down, "what, you want to go with him or something?" He adds as a snarky after thought.
Martin stays quiet.
"Martin no," Sasha chides, "you're not going to follow them into the tunnels."
"Okay, i know you think its because of," Martin's sentence fades into incomprehensible grumbles before returning to normal, "but think about it. If I was down there with them its less likely anyone will be murdered! It makes sense if you think about it..."
They all share a look, a very 'there's something else' look. I think Martin has been influenced by Jonathan's insistent talk about us, something has changed in how he looks at us. I have a bad feeling about Jonathan.
"I do too, but I'm pretty sure you just don't like him, john." Arthur says under his breath, it was almost a relief that he could actually explain why he was talking to himself, "I mean, neither do I, but still."
"Who are you talking to?" Martin asks.
Right Martin's still here, so he still did have to explain. Before he could explain Tim spoke, "that's the other Jon, Arthur can explain in the tunnels."
Sasha turns to him, hands on her hips.
"So thats it, we're sending the three of them down?"
"I don't see why not, Martin made not horrible points and if he wants to follow Jon into the tunnels then he can be my guest. And while they do that we can look around up here."
"Fine." Sasha sighs after a minute, "Arthur get up, you have a tunnel system to search."
***
Jon knows that they're coming before he hears the knock, it'd been too long since he was bothered so it was just a matter of time.
"Yo bossman!" Tim calls out opening Jon's office door before he answers the knock.
"What do you want, Tim," in the door way there wasn't just Tim, but Sasha, Martin, and Arthur, he wasn't expecting all of them.
"Sam's gone missing, and you're looking in the tunnels," Sasha says, "Martin and Arthur are helping."
"Well, long story short yeah. But also Arthur's not blind and theres another Jon, but like in his head."
"What." Jon stares at the employees (and Arthur) in front of him blankly.
Before he can protest (much) he was dragged to the break room, handed a flash light, a pack of goldfish, a corkscrew, a piece of chalk someone found, and pushed to the hall with the trap door to the tunnels, talking about how he was right about Arthur the whole time.
"I'm not going in there!" Jon says sternly, his hand grasps on the lighter in his pocket like it'd protect him, "especially not with Arthur."
"You only have like three hours till we get off so, uh get out before that, call us if you find him." Tim turns around, pulling his phone out of his pockets and starting to text someone.
"Please don't die," Sasha nods, turning on her heel with Tim. "Jon, Arthur, you too I guess." She chuckles, "no seriously good luck."
With that they ran off to look for Sam, leaving the three men climbing into the stone halls hesitantly.
***
"Uh so, Tim and sasha didn't explain... anything really, what's the deal with the other Jon?" Martin asks Arthur about ten minutes after nothing but walking around the tunnels, marking the way with chalk.
"Hm," Arthur sighs heavily, Martin can hear Jon scowl harder, "well... you were there when I said I had a partner with my PI stuff, right? John is my partner, he's just bound to my eyes."
"Like a seeing eye... person?" That... Martin wasn't completely sure what to make of what, that thing, 'Yorick' told him. The skull gave the implication that this 'john' wasn't human, but Arthur seems to think so. Either way he was the farthest thing from trusting anything in Arthur's body.
"A what?" Arthur replies, looking at Martin over his shoulder, it was uncanny how good he was at acting like he could see.
Right, the whole pre-ww2 thing. "Nevermind."
Once again the three (four? He didnt know if the new John counts) men are plunged into silence, par their footsteps. Martin did not like the tunnels, and was starting to regret volunteering till he reminds himself he's doing this for Jon's safety, there's no telling what Arthur was capable of.
"What was Jon- my Jon- talking about earlier? You not being human? Anything to say about that?"
"Oh right that." The way Arthur says it gives Martin the impression that whatever happened wasn't exactly what Arthur wants to relive right now, luckily he didn't care.
Before Arthur could find the words Jon jumps at the chance to prove himself right, "when I was taking his statement-" he huffs humorously, "I suppose trying would be a better word- He refused to tell me anything, and instead, I heard a rising static, that then turned into a demonic voice. That voice called itself John Doe, but it said it was also a part of The King in Yellow."
"The King in Yellow? Like Hp Lovecraft?" Martin asks.
"Who is Hp Lovecraft? How do you two know about The King?"
"Oh my god, didn't he say he was from 'Arkham' at first I thought it was strange but now that Lovecraft has been brought up wasn't Arkham in a bunch of his stories?" Martin says, never having thought that his knowledge of literature would have come in useful, especially not like this.
"What- what are you guys on about?"
"You're fictional, Arthur." Jon snarks.
Holy shit. Sure, Arkham isn't real, and he hoped to everything that The King in Yellow isn't real (he didn't need another malevolent fearful entity), but he never thought that Arthur was fictional. Martin thought that Arthur was just from a world where that stuff did exist. Is that the same as being fictional?
"I am not fictional. I can't be fictional. I've suffered too much to be fictional. If anything this Hp Lovecraft had knowledge of other worlds." That wasn't concerning.
***
"Do you like coffee, son? Or are you more for one of those other things i can never get the names of?" It's weird being called 'son' by someone no more then a decade older then him (if he had to guess) but Sam wasn't completely put off.
Coffee would be good, but It'd remind him of how much it was then the stuff at the OIAR which makes him think of home. Is it weird to say he even misses Lena? Kind of, not fully of course. "I'll just take a tea, whatever's cheapest." He didn't really care for taste at the moment he just liked being out of the open and the idea of consuming something.
" 'Kay, you go take a seat, I'll be there in a moment." Noel says before walking over to the line at the counter, it was short so Sam wouldn't have to sit in his thoughts for long.
Sam sits at a table by a window, but with his back to a wall as well, no one was sneaking up on him. He pops his leg off the sock, as he waits, he's been wanting a break from the dead weight, it was practically a peg leg now. He sets the leg against the wall, collecting his thoughts.
It wasn’t long before Noel came back over with coffee and tea in hand. Setting down the drinks, his eyes land on Sam's missing prosthetic, his eyes widen before he huffs in relief. "Sorry, I forgot about the, uh what are they called-? Prosthetics? Yeah, thought your leg had fallen clean off for a second."
"It's okay." Sam grabs the tea without thinking, wincing away at the temperature. "It's hot." He chuckles, deciding he'll wait a bit to drink.
"Sure is. Right, now that we're a little more acquainted, what's troubling you?" Noel asks sipping his coffee, which apparently isn't as hot as Sam's tea, or he just wasn't a wimp.
"You won't send me off to an mental institution or something right?"
"It's that bad, huh? I promise." He puts his hand over his heart like some kind of boy scout.
"Okay, well, uh I guess I should start with I have a phobia of skeletons, started when I was a kid, its more manageable now but, well if that was the whole truth I wouldn't be here now."
"I'm not from here, not 2017, nor this whole timeline," there was the bombshell, one of many but probably the biggest, no turning back now, "where I'm from its 2025, or well maybe even 2026 now? Anyway, I ended up here because I fell through a portal in this abandoned building."
"I ended up at this place called the Magnus Institution? Some sort of place people go to report weird spooky stuff that happened to them. There was also another guy that showed up a bit after me... Arthur, Arthur lester."
The air got heavy, Noel had a good poker face, Sam had no idea what he was thinking, but he did look like he wanted to say something for a second.
"Apparently while I was from a future universe, Arthur was from a past one, like really far back. Some more stuff happened and some staff decided we could stay for a little. Me and Arthur were in some back room closet or something, didn't matter. but he kept talking to himself, mention some guy named Kayne, and kept saying John. I don't know."
"The next day we had all been doing our on thing after a... thing that happened. Arthur stayed in the room and I had gone off, when I got back I open the door and there was Arthur sitting and talking to a human skull. The worse thing is it talked too, called him master I'm pretty sure. Unsurprisingly I ran, and now I'm here. Long story short."
"Wow." Is all Noel manages to get out.
"Oh god, you don't believe me do you." Sam's fists clench as he trys not to pick at his stitches.
"No, I believe you, more then I thought I would. I... actually know who you're talking about."
"You know Arthur?" Sam asks flabbergasted. How would present day Noel know 1910's and midevil Arthur? Surely he had also time traveled/hop dimensions? How many portals were out there? What's so special about this place?
"It's worse, I know John. And Kayne too, the sick bastard's why I'm here today."
"So you're also-" Sam trails off, is everyone he meets going to be paranormal or something? "What the hell going on around here?"
After another sip Noel says, "Hm, I guess it's my turn to explain why I'm here?"
"Yeah, I'd say so." This time it's Sam's turn to take a drink, he wants to get a taste before the revelation that Noel drops. His tea was still hotter then he'd like but it woke him up enough to be sure he wasn't dreaming. Fun.
"Well first my name isn't technically Noel Finley, but I like it if you did call me that, the true Noel was my partner, he's long dead."
"Now, I met Arthur back in my original timeline, he had this... voice in his head, though I hesitate to call him just a voice, he- John doe as he likes to be called- is a separate entity from Arthur."
"As for Kayne... well Arthur and I were investigating this cult, the order of the fallen star I believe, it's been a while. And this man showed up when Arthur touched this stone that was in the cult's possession, he was in a suit, barefoot, and covered in blood. It ripped the eyes from a man without even touching him, exploded the head of a man helping us. He basically killed everyone but Arthur and I. He somehow flung me to here, it was a couple years ago, ended up in spain of all places."
"When I over heard Arthur talking to john, I guess, Arthur said that he had been talking to in his dream, that Kayne would talk to him again when 'something progressed'."
Noel's eyebrows furrow, "That's curious..."