For this chapter:

Character(s), Pairing(s): USUK

Rating: T

Warnings: Language.

Chapter Summary: You think you've got it all worked out, but you're already dead.

A/N: Hallo once again, audience, it's been a long time! I feel like I owe you guys an update :I Enjoy, my lovelies~!

Chapter 8: I'm Ready to Go, Lead Me Into the Light (E.T.; Katy Perry)

'That looks nothing like me.'

'Sure it does.'

'My nose isn't that big.'

'It's a beautiful nose.'

'I really bloody hate you.'

'Mmm, love you too.'

Arthur woke with the remnants of a grin brushing against his jaw, fingers warm against his skin, burning where they lingered, Alfred's warmth too warm now. It was raining, a fine misty drizzle that turned cotton into lead and his limbs to stone. He was outside, in the community gardens, gravel digging into the bare skin of his neck and wrists.

He also had no memory of having got there.

But that, he supposed as he forced himself to his feet, raking his hands through his hair, was pretty standard by now.

'The Otherworld,' he hummed, picking his way over the trail of blood left by a young woman raped and murdered twenty-two years ago that refused to accept his help. She was crawling in a circle, as she was wont to do, and glared at him as he passed. He ignored her, heading for the exit.

Only to end up back where he started, lying flat on his back and staring up at the rain.

'Bollocks to this,' he groused, shoving himself to his feet and heading in the opposite direction.

After three more aborted attempts to leave the gardens, Arthur resigned himself to sitting on a bench and watching the Otherworld pass him by, at least until he'd Seen whatever it was he was there to See. The Ghosts never once acted without reason, so he supposed it made sense that he was forced to adhere to their wants, at least for now.

'What do you even want me for?' he demanded.

The rape victim crawled past, flipping him off between drags. He still wasn't sure why she did that, he was pretty sure her legs worked fine.

Arthur sighed, and slouched on the bench, spread his legs out and stretched his arms, frowning up at the sky.

'Come on, Jesus, hurry up, I'm soaked through.'

Something cold and wet slithered up his ankle, grasped tight, and yanked, pulling him off the bench and under it, swamping him in darkness.

'Arthur! Arthur, wake up, you're dreaming!"

The Englishman fought the grip on his wrists, ribs, waist, kicked at the sheets pinning his legs, thrashed and screamed and begged to be let go, please, it hurts, it burns, it's too hot, it's ice.

Alfred let go slowly, holding Arthur as flat as he could. His elder still got a decent hit to the ear in before the American had retreated to the other side of the bed. The moment he was free, he curled up into a ball, facing away, chest tight and throat tighter still.

'Art?'

'Go away,' he whispered. 'Please. Just. Leave me alone.'

Alfred's fingers touched his waist. 'Art.'

'Alfred, just. Sod off. Please.'

'This isn't how it went.'

'We can't put how it went.'

'Why not?'

'Because the truth hurts.'

After perhaps five minutes of holding his breath, Alfred sighed and rolled over, getting to his feet and the door clicked shut as he left.

'But it has to hurt if we're going to learn from it.'

'And have we learnt? Have we learnt anything?'

'What do you mean?'

'We're making the same mistakes we always made, and we're not even trying to make things better.'

For several seconds, minutes, hours, Arthur remained in that huddle of sheets, a locked ball of bone and lingering nightmares, and for several seconds, minutes, hours he stared at the wall, mind whirring in circles.

Don't stress so much, it won't do you any good, you know.

How about you go die? Wait, you already did that.

Very funny.

'I thought so.'

Salem meowed and leapt up onto his hip, pawing until he opened his arms to give her space to curl up. He smoothed his hand over the curve of her spine and rested it there, felt the rise and fall of her body as she breathed, the slight vibration as she purred.

'What am I meant to do?' he asked her. 'What do I do?'

She meowed quietly and pushed back against his chest. He sighed and closed his eyes.

'It's getting stronger by the day,' Arthur told the air around him as he picked at the crease of his elbow, veins crawling under the surface, black on the eggshell of his skin. 'I can feel it, creeping closer every time I breathe. Just lurking there, on my peripheral, on the very edges of what my senses can pick up. It's there, and we're at a stalemate.'

His breath shuddered in his chest, and buried his face in his hands.

'It's there, and I can't do anything about it. Someone, please. Help me.'

'What are you going to do?' Francis asked, and Arthur dug his nails into his elbow.

'I don't know,' he admitted. 'What can I do? I'm dying, Francis. My whole body is packing up and if the Ghosts don't get me first, my organs will.' He grins a shallow, empty little grin. 'I've got HIV, remember?'

'Stop that,' Francis chided, but did nothing to move Arthur's hand.

The Englishman stared at the glass of whiskey put in front of him.

'Seriously? You really think that's a good idea?'

'At this point,' Francis shrugged, settling into his own chair. 'I don't think anything I do is going to change what happens to you.'

'That is not an excuse to get me drunk.' But he downed the drink anyway, hissing at the burn. 'Francis, how long's it been?'

'Since when?'

'Since Rome died.'

'Three weeks.'

'Funny,' Arthur breathed, running a finger around the lip of his glass. It whistled a low note. 'I only remember it being four days.'

'You've lost a fortnight? What the hell were you doing?'

'I don't know.' He was silent and then asked, 'Have I missed anything important?'

'Not really,' the Frenchman admitted. His nails scratched against the brittle hair of his beard, and then he said, 'Just some phonecalls. Oh, and Alfred's trip to Japan.'

'Oh, that was this month, wasn't it?'

'Yes. Yes, it was.'

'Oh.'

They fell silent for another five or so minutes. When they spoke again, it was Francis that broke first.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'That this is happening. That there isn't anything I can do.'

'It's fine,' Arthur dismissed. 'It was going to happen sooner or later, wasn't it? I was going to die soon enough, can't be me without something exploding in my face. First my brothers, and then my mother. Alfred and Matthew and Gilbert. It all designed to go tit's up, and the final prize is killing me.'

'Your own little murder mystery,' Francis smiled, nostalgic and fond.

'If only. I know it's going to be my own hand in the drawing room with the crowbar.'

'There wasn't a crowbar in our version of Cluedo,' Francis told him. 'We lost the card.'

'That's true, we did, didn't we? I'm ninety per cent sure your drunken escapades were responsible for that. And the loss of most of the Monopoly money.'

Francis scoffed. 'That was all on you, kitten. You tried using it as genuine currency. I seem to remember you still owe me five pounds.'

'Bullshit, you're the one who owes me money. Not that it's going to matter in a few months.'

'Is that all you've got left?'

Arthur shrugged. 'I can't imagine I've got much longer than August.'

Francis sighed softly, and rested his chin in his hands. 'Oh, kitten. What are you going to do?'

The Englishman tilted his head back to rest on the chair and closed his eyes. 'I suppose I'll set my affairs in order, while I've still got mind enough to do it. And then, I don't know. I suppose I'll go and look for the demon. See what it wants me for. See if I can stop it.'

'There's no Gilbert to stop you this time,' Francis reminded him.

'No,' Arthur agreed. 'There isn't. But maybe it's for the best. After me, nobody else will have to die. This whole thing will end with me.'

'Bullshit,' Francis snapped. 'What about me? Alfred?'

'Alfred will die when I do. We both know that. As for you, you're ugly enough to look after yourself.'

The Frenchman bit out a laugh. 'Very funny.'

'I thought so.'

The Asylum grounds were closed off now, but Arthur hasn't spent twenty years of his life being a delinquent to be stopped by an insurmountable waist-high fence. Okay, it was a six-feet-high chain link fence topped with barbed wire, but he had wire cutters and a leather jacket.

All in all, the foundations of the building covered perhaps three thousand feet from one end to the other, the grounds totalling maybe two acres. Arthur admitted he wasn't the best at maths, but it seemed about right to him. He could have been yards off, but really, at the end of the day, it didn't matter. He stepped over rubble and remnants of the lives lived and lost there and stood in a dip in the ground, amidst broken tiles and painted brick.

'Come on, then,' he said. 'Let's see what you've got.'

Are you an idiot?

'Apparently so,' he shrugged, and turned to look around himself. 'What are you waiting for? You'll hit me everywhere else. But not here. What's the matter? Are you scared?'

For God's sake, Artie, don't provoke it!

'What else am I meant to do?'

Give me control.

'Hah, no, I don't think so. Go back to the Gateway. It's not safe for you here. You'll be warped like the others.'

I'm not leaving you on your own here. What do you take me for?

'For Pete's sake! I'll be fine, go on.'

Gilbert remained silent for a moment, but the prickle on the back of his neck told Arthur he hadn't gone. His heart pounded hard in his chest, drowning out the whisper of the wind as it blew across the dead ground.

Arthur.

'Last warning. Go.'

Fine.

Arthur didn't believe for a second that Gilbert had really gone, but his presence was nowhere to be felt, at least. He wouldn't be surprised if he'd gone and bugged Francis until the Frenchman took a hint and came to investigate a nagging worry that Arthur was up to no good. He had maybe twenty minutes to work out what the demon wanted.

If it wanted anything.

'What is this all about?' he called, and stepped out of the ring Alise's aura had left imprinted on the tiles, stepping instead onto the dead grass of the gardens. 'Surely there's a reason you're after me. What did I do? Exorcise your mother? Destroy your brother? Come on, tell me, what did I do?' He laughed. 'Was it even me? Is this something older? Something to do with my bloodline? No, no, I know! This is that Cult Rome was telling me about, isn't it? Have they summoned you to get me? Is that what it is? You'll take over me long enough to get me to them so they can rip me apart into what makes me up, make me into their monster and weapon? Is that what it is?'

There was no reply, of course, and as Arthur wandered back and forth across the dead zone, he stepped in deeper and deeper piles of ash. Not ash from the building, at least, he didn't think so. It didn't have the texture or smell of man-made material. No, he was stepping in the ash of the dead, stepping deeper and deeper into the Otherworld.

As he walked, he stopped occasionally, and picked up scraps of paper left from the destruction. Patient reports and nurse's diaries, shipment logs and visiting books. He scanned the names, the doses, the signatures, and dismissed each as something unlikely as the next.

'Come on,' he called again, voice tighter now. 'Answer me, tell me what you are! Tell me what you're after! If it's something I can give, I'll give it. But I can't do anything if you won't talk to me!'

You.

'Oh, now you're talking to me,' he sneered.

TrAitOr.

'Really? Am I really? Go on, tell me, how am I a traitor?'

You FleD, ArtHUr. YOu RAN.

He paused his walk, scrubbed his hands through his hair, smearing ash more than he did shake it free, and frowned. 'I fled? What was I running from? You? Hardly a surprise now, was it?'

You tRIed to HidE. YoU tRiED to DISAPPEAR.

'Oh, great,' Arthur sighed, looking up to the sky. It was white with smoke clouds, of course, no sun or moon or sky to be seen. 'I had to attract the delusional demon, didn't I?'

MoRtAl.

'Why, yes, I am. Thank you for noticing.'

ANGEL.

'Wow, are you flirting? Is that what this? Are you hankering after a – no, I'm not even going there. That's ridiculous. What do you mean, "Angel"?'

There was no reply.

'Oi! I'm talking to you! You said "angel," in reference to me! What do you – oh. Oh.'

He turned on the spot to look about himself again, but there was nothing except the shadows of the Ghosts still haunting the Asylum to be seen. He stood there for several minutes looking out at their lurching gait, watching broken legs drag and broken necks swing with the steps, and he smelt the blood and burning flesh in the air, felt it seep into his own, fill in the gaps where he was missing pieces, all the little bits of him torn away from a lifetime helping them slotting back into place with the dead souls pushing always at the badly bolted fence protecting him from possession. A temporary measure at best.

He'd have to get out.

He needed to get out.

But he'd never been this deep into the Otherworld before. This wasn't the Spectral Plain. This was further in than that. This was somewhere he'd never thought he'd go.

This was Hell.

++End Chapter++

Not much to say about this one! I don't know guys, I feel so bad for leaving you in a lurch like that. I'll try to work more on this, but I'm just so bad at time management.

Also, I have a tumblr, feel free to say hi! Vinnie2757, of course!

++Vince++