Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Arthur in front of him staggers back, eyes wide with fear. He’d finally found one that was kind of similar to his Arthur. Not exactly his, but… he’ll do.

Kayne grabs Arthur by the back of the hair, uncaring about the blood transferring from his hands as he studies Arthur’s face. A slight frown pinches his brows together- there’s an annoying little whine in the background.

“Wh-who-” Arthur tries to ask, but he’s interrupted by a scream of agony as Kayne presses a finger to the surface of each eye. Little cosmic barbs on the tip of his fingers hook into the golden tapeworm hitching a ride, and with a harsh yank, Kayne pulls that little yellow fucker right out.

John writhes and screams curses as Kayne holds him up, and Arthur calls his name desperately. That’s right, still blind. Oh well. With a little flick, John vanishes from existence.

All that’s left is Arthur’s panicked whimpers. This guy- always with the whimpering! What is that about?? Kayne grabs him by the chin, lifting him from where he’d fallen to his knees and baring his pale throat.

Kayne looks him over, studying the skin of his neck. He’s pale underneath the chin, pores dark where the 5 o’clock shadow is starting to set in, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows fearfully. Kayne traces a finger around the lump in his throat, pressing the nail in until he bleeds a little. It’s red, just plain red like every other human in the world.

“Who are you?” Arthur whispers fearfully. It makes his neck move, tendons straining and blood rushing underneath the surface. Kayne can’t look away, trying to figure out what hides inside.

“Kayne.” He says, not breaking his focus. There’s no need for showmanship with this one. He’s here on business, as professional as a surgeon.

Okay, maybe a little less professional. He abruptly drops Arthur, who loses his footing and crumples to the ground with a gasp.

Kayne clasps his hands and paces circles around him. “What is it?? I’ve done this interview on every single version, and I’m yet to find one who knows the answer. C’mon, you can tell me, can’t you??”

“Tell- tell you what?” Arthur rubs his throat, trying to get the blood off his face.

“The fucking-!!” Kayne makes a series of wild hand gestures as Arthur watches on, confused. “The thing! The reason! God, I’m tearing my hair out over here! You know, I promised my Mommy I’d never let a boy break my heart, but you are FUCKING with my BRAIN here!”

“I’m- sorry?” This poor guy has no clue what’s going on. Of course he doesn’t. He couldn’t. Kayne doesn’t realise he’s muttering to himself as his internal monologue bleeds out into the world.

Finally, he stops pacing and comes back to stand in front of Arthur. This one… isn’t bad, he’ll admit. A good enough physical copy of his Arthur. Slightly ruffled dirty blond hair, wide glassy eyes, all the right scars… yeah, he’ll do.

He can see the rush of blood behind the thin layer of Arthur’s skin. He wonders if that’s where that infectious hope bleeds from- that if he cuts open the right spot, Arthur might bleed a glowing white ambrosia. Well!! One way to fucking find out!!

The bloody red handprint on Arthur’s throat and cheeks where Kayne had grasped his jaw call him like a target for him to slot right back to. But he avoids the spot he’s already investigated- instead, he makes a new smear on Arthur’s chest as he kicks him hard and hears his sternum creak. Oh, that’s good.

Arthur splutters in pain as he’s shoved onto his back with the kick, and before he can recover, Kayne is straddling his torso.

“What-?” Confused, Arthur pushes at Kayne’s purposefully wandering hands. Kayne just bats him away and continues poking at freckles, cutting quick dips and pressing on nerves.

“No, no, no, no!” He sits back up, frustrated. Arthur, obviously knowing that he’s beat and very confused, just tentatively rests his hands on Kayne’s knees. “You look exactly like him. WHAT’S THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE??”

This one bleeds just like his Arthur. Chin to chest, his neck rips right through the middle of that pretty curved scar. Fluttering lungs are revealed as the cut slides down like a flower blooming, showing red insides to the claws hooked into either side of the cut and pulling outwards.

Arthur doesn’t even scream, thanks to the utterly befuddling nature of the painless wound. He makes some very pathetic attempts at speech, but Kayne grows irritated and leans in to chew those hyperventilating vocal cords in half. They have the texture of a nice jell-o, he observes absently. Maybe he should go for the throat more often.

“What do you think, Artie?” He asks, mouth full, and then laughs viciously as he swallows. The joke is that Arthur can’t talk to answer the question. Did you get it? Laugh.

With the treasure chest open, Kayne’s hands wander downwards. He slides his palm down the inside of Arthur’s neck, taking every sensation in as he savours the feeling of the flesh. It never gets old; that delicious texture of rough-yet-wet, not smooth but still slick. The way the blood pulses through the whole body like a lit-up circuitry system. How it spurts out of the severed veins. Too small to be seen by the human eye- L for humans, Kayne can see them just fine- the nerves that are sliced in half when pressure is applied at just the right places.

It's cute. To him, it’s the cutest thing in the world. He thinks it’s so delightful, that humans managed to make their whole world with just this… collection of meat and other fibres to hold them up. How a lump of weird goo managed to pull itself together and make electricity. Something that was once a fish created Seinfeld. It’s fantastic.

Now, despite the inherent hilarity of a still-breathing corpse, Kayne is still quite pissed at the one under him for not having the answer he wanted. This Arthur’s heart pulses like any other, picks up speed when he slides his fingers around them and squeezes rhythmically to throw him off. Pumps like it’s trying to wriggle free when he tugs upwards- the aorta is tight when he cuts the tube and sticks his finger inside, better watch that diet- aw, who is he kidding. He’s the biggest heart problem Arthur is ever going to have. This one, at least.

Heart inspected and deemed fucking useless, Kayne scoffs and tosses it over his shoulder.

Arthur makes a noise of alarm as he distantly registers the organ being tossed. Kayne snorts aloud. “Aw, you needed that, didn’t you? Primrose, I can promise you you won’t need anything again once I’m done here. I’d say you’d wish I never appeared, but… you won’t really have the thought capacity to do that.”

He leans in and pats Arthur’s cheek with a wink that seeps into his tone. “And then maybe I’ll kill you.”

Again with the fucking whimpering. Whatever. It means his message got across. It’s not like he minds it, per se, but he finds it both funny and bemusing how Arthur is a freak at the strangest of moments.

He moves onto the lungs. Maybe it’s in the air Arthur breathes. Arkham isn’t exactly ranked number one for air pollution, and 1930s, cigarettes, whatever. That kinda stuff. Lead poisoning.

The soft tissue rises and falls when he places both hands on top of them. He alternates the pumping of his hands to offset Arthur again- right goes up as left goes down, confuse the organs. It gets old very quickly.

Kayne is struck by the sudden realisation that this isn’t fucking going anywhere.

He’s just dissecting… this could be some random person, for all it matters. The only similar things are the build and scars. Make, not matter, and this dumb bitch doesn’t matter at all. Hell, maybe this universe is completely different. He didn’t recognise Kayne, despite the notable voice; who knows what else could have been different? This was all a waste of time, when he could have been watching his Arthur-

He didn’t realise he was tightening his grip until Arthur’s lungs exploded in his grasp with a pained wheezing sound. Kayne grunts in frustration and decides fuck it. He doesn’t need this one intact anyways. Why not vent a little?

Years and no time at all later, he’s sitting angrily in a pile of something red and sticky and chewing on a broken femur. The frown on his brow is almost cartoonish, and one of those stupid golden glassy eyes is sitting on the ground in front of him.

“Fuck off,” Kayne grunts, kicking it away. “What is it?? Seriously, what makes mine different?? Is it that humanity bullshit he was on about? Why do- how does he have this, this grip on me?”

The femur cracks and shatters in his grip and he growls, standing without bothering to brush himself off. Whatever. “Whatever! I don’t even care.”

He drop kicks the remnants of the femur, balls his fist and screams into the void until he’s red in the face. He cares so fucking much. It’s killing him, it’s making him tear his hair out and stamp on that stupid eye until it straight-up doesn’t exist anymore. Ichor streams down his cheeks like mascara trails, more black pouring from his mouth where he clenches his jaw so hard blood vessels below his teeth start to burst. Kayne does everything he can think of in his little voidspace- he desecrates that damn corpse until it’s nothing but fractured molecules, he sinks his hooks into himself until his heart is exposed- maybe if he can’t find it in Arthur, he can find it in himself- but he can never look inwards for too long, because there’s something else out there he wants to watch instead. Even here he can feel the stupid pull of that foolhardy mortal, whispering to him, driving him further up the wall than Hastur could ever dream of pushing him. It’s so goddamn infuriating.

But. One in a million, right? There’s always a fluke in the bunch.

Kayne pieces himself back together, bone by tooth, and slides a hand through his hair.

He’s going to go have a nice ham and cheese sandwich. Then he’s going to move on to the next Arthur. Trials and tribulation require a large sample pool, after all.

And Kayne has no time limit. For once in his life, his curiosity extends his patience.

This bodes well for nobody.