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Jay squeezed Louis’s hands again, reassuring. “Okay,” he said. “That sounds good. Let’s count out the main city of Carcosa and the palace, then. If they’re heavily occupied, someone would probably have found it, like you said. Let’s discount the lake for now, too, ’cause… well, if there are other things living down there, same deal, and besides, I can’t think of how we could explore it anyway.”

“So that leaves the abandoned city?”

“Or the forest,” Jay said, “but I feel like the abandoned city… just feels more likely. If it’s a city made of cities lost to time, it makes sense that lost things might end up there.”

Louis nodded. “It’s as good a place as any,” he agreed. His fingers wound between Jay’s, clasping his hand tightly. “Let’s go, then.”

They headed toward the ruins, quickly passing under the damaged archway that had once been the entry to the city. If there had been a name on the plaque that still sat on the stone archway, it had long since been worn away; what was left there now was simply a rusted mess.

To either side of the path lay small cottages, similar to those he’d seen in the city of Ulthar, but with the bricks partially collapsed, the thatch rotted, smelling of wet decay. It was clear even this short a distance in that there were far too many buildings in this town to search each one as they came across them. This was a city, after all; it could take hours just to walk from one side to the other, let alone looking through each house on the way. And if, as Louis implied, all lost cities and towns ended up here, it might back onto another larger area—Jay wasn’t sure, but tried not to think too hard about it if so.

It was better to walk some of the streets and see if anything gave some kind of tell as to where to go. They walked briskly, looking around them as they went, watching for any signs of something different. Rarely—maybe once every twenty minutes—one or the other of them caught sight of hunched figures picking through the foundations of some building or another, scavengers of some kind looking for any goods that hadn’t yet been picked over. But since none of them appeared to have found anything, Jay and Louis steered clear.

More often, they saw strange creatures flying overhead, criss-crossing as if looking for prey. They had fat bodies, membranous wings, beaks, many dangling webbed feet. Looking at them made Jay’s pulse race, his heart squeeze in his chest, so he tried not to pay attention to them, and hoped they paid even less attention to himself and Louis.

And he tried to remember anything Aunt Grace had said about running away from monsters in dreams. Anything that he could use for a tried and true method to get away from those flyers—or the more mundane scavengers, or any other pursuers he hadn’t yet come across or hadn’t yet noticed—if they came after him.

But nothing came to mind. She’d always tried to save him, he thought, from the more terrifying things in her dreams. And even if she had said anything, this wasn’t the Dreamlands anymore. They’d only just used the Dreamlands to transition to this place, to dread Carcosa. His dream abilities, weak or not, were useless here.

After just under an hour of walking, they found themselves leaving behind the abandoned old village that they’d been walking down the main street of. The houses became fewer, though he could see more up ahead, and the cobblestone path turned to cement.

“Thoughts?”

“We should press on,” Louis said. “The first area is the most picked-over. It’s still more likely something would have been found in the last while.”

“I agree.”

They continued walking down the cement street into a much more modern abandoned town—but also much smaller. From where it began, he could already see the city center; it could have been a town in Massachusetts still, not unlike Kingsport. There was a tall white church, a grain silo, an old general store, a pub, and numerous houses. All were immediately obvious as abandoned, their windows blown out, lawns overgrown, paint peeling and wood decaying, holes in their roofs. Further along, he could see more buildings, additional houses, possibly a school.

Louis and he took a break when they reached the city center, sitting on the porch of the general store. “Thoughts?” Jay asked. “I mean, the church is suspicious by virtue of… I don’t know, being a church in this place.”

“Mm, maybe,” Louis said, distractedly. “But I think that’s more suspicious.” He pointed to a house.

Jay turned to look, then ducked, trying to hide his face as a number of those horrible flying creatures soared past low overhead, flying quickly, chattering to each other in a horrible tongue and moving with intent as they followed the main street themselves, further down. Louis covered Jay with an arm, tugging him closer, and Jay swallowed, waiting for his heart to calm.

“They seemed agitated,” he managed, when he could. “Moving in a group like that. We could check that out, too, if… I mean, if you thought it was safe.”

“I don’t know if it is or not,” Louis said. “I think those may be the Byakhee. Creatures summoned to perform tasks, so it’s possible they had some purpose. Though, many of them live around Carcosa and Lake Hali, I’ve heard, so they might be a wild flock. They can be injured or killed, but…”

“Can also injure or kill us? Yeah,” Jay said. “So should we go after them? Or look around here instead, in the church or maybe the store?”

Louis hesitated. “I really want to check that house out,” he said finally. “Something feels… wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Jay looked at it again. “It looks like a lot of the houses in Kingsport, like yours and mine. You find it suspicious because it’s familiar? I guess it is weird that a part of the lost city looks like it could be somewhere like Kingsport.”

“No, I mean, there are plenty of ghost towns in Massachusetts,” Louis said. “So that part’s not surprising, exactly. Because it’s familiar… it could be that, perhaps. But that particular house looks exactly like our houses. Don’t you think it’s suspicious? Miss Evans stole something, and we came across a place that looks exactly like the place she had lived.” And then, as usual, that intensity faded, replaced with some kind of disinterest. “Well, you’re right that it’s a common enough architectural style, and there’s no reason for it to be there in particular. It’s up to you. If you want to follow the Byakhee or explore some public buildings, I’m fine with that.”

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[Previous Day: Day 26. Next Day: Day 28.]

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Jay lay still for a long moment, hesitating. He was ready to go, he was determined to go, but who to take?

Camden and Hannah were out; he liked Camden well enough, but he barely knew either of them, and didn’t want to drag them into this mess. Ashesh was out as well—while Jay intended to summon him once he’d found the item, and was very sure Ashesh could handle himself, he didn’t exactly think he’d feel more protected if he took the Crawling Chaos along as a companion to help be his touchstone to sanity and humanity.

Which left Louis or… well, or Ulthar.

Ulthar was, ultimately, a cat. Maybe a strange, dreamworld cat, but he could get hurt or killed—had been hurt when Jay had encountered him. And the whole warning against killing a cat of Ulthar wouldn’t exist if, well, they couldn’t be killed. And going through the door meant they’d be going physically, so Ulthar’s injured foot could be a problem, too.

Still, he felt that Ulthar would protect him, just like he’d protect Ulthar. Ulthar was a sense of comfort and home to him. If he took Ulthar with him, then he’d always, always be able to touch into his sense of humanity, of the desire to protect and love something smaller and better than himself.

And then there was Louis.

Louis was… well, his lover, apparently. His friend, he believed. Someone who had chosen to step out of his role in order to help Jay with his goals, someone who seemed to need tenderness and kindness in his life. Louis could consent to this journey and provide commentary, thoughts, insight. There wouldn’t be any dependence there, just an educated second opinion from someone he was pretty willing to trust.

But on the other hand, Louis wasn’t entirely well. Jay had already seen Louis struggle with emotions, disassociate, retreat into apathy. And there were the issues with Louis’s god on top of things. If Louis was to be Jay’s touchstone, he would need to be Louis’s, too. He knew that.

Jay took a deep breath, and made his decision. Louis at least deserved the right to choose if he wanted to come along. If he chose to, then Jay would take him. If Louis didn’t feel ready, Jay wouldn’t demand—and that’s when he could see if his weird alien cat wanted to tag along.

He shifted, nudging Louis, who stirred, eyes flicking open behind his mask. It had slipped down into the usual—likely more comfortable—position while he slept.

“Jay?” Louis murmured.

“Hey, can you wake up?” Jay asked. “I know it’s early—” The clock said it was around dawn, though the sky outside seemed too dark for that, thick with what he hoped were clouds. “—But I’ve got the key now.”

“The key?”

“To go find that flute—” Jay quickly summarized everything that had happened when he’d gone to the Library, making sure to leave no part out. It only seemed fair that Louis be able to make this choice as informed as Jay himself was.

“Ah,” Louis said, when Jay was finished. “Then, who are you taking?”

Jay swallowed. Don’t take it personally if he won’t, he told himself. Saving the world now for the eventual coming of his god might be Louis’s goal, but that didn’t mean he would be willing to invest in it beyond having granted Jay a Sign. “I was wondering if you would be willing to come.”

Louis tilted his head, watching Jay with a strangely intense curiosity. He took a long moment, thinking through it, then finally nodded. “I’ll come,” he said. “Now?”

“I really don’t want to put off saving the world in case, uh, I put it off too long.”

“Fair,” Louis said. He stretched, a gorgeous picture as the blankets rode low on his hips, then rose to pick up his clothes from where he’d dropped them. “Let me get cleaned up and ready, then.”

“Of course,” Jay said, relieved. “I have to too, you know?”

He did. Uncertain what sort of weather to prepare for, he put on a t-shirt and jeans, along with a jacket. If it was too hot wherever he went, he could at least strip down a little. If it was too cold… well, he imagined if it was arctic level, Grace would have warned him.

Once he’d dressed, Jay sat on the bed again and petted Ulthar, who let out a sleepy mrrp and thumped his tail, but didn’t otherwise move. He pulled out his phone, hesitated, then sent Camden a text. They’d started to become friends, and he thought that if something happened to him, if he weren’t able to come back, Camden would want to know.

Hey man, hope your volume is off so I don’t wake you. I’m briefly leaving this world, to try to find something that should keep us from being invaded by horrible extraplanar beings. I’m hoping I’ll be back, but if I vanish… well, if the world’s still here, I’m leaving a spare set of keys buried under the bush to the left of my front door. I have a cat now, so please come in and feed it. Thanks for watching out for me, hopefully I’ll be able to laugh this off with you in person later.

Yeah, that about covered it. He sent it, headed out to bury his original set of keys—the ones that were only the front and back door, not the set Ashesh had given him—then came back in and rounded up the Signs from the various locations that he’d stashed them.

By the time he was done, Louis had finished in the bathroom and was waiting outside the office for him, patient. Jay came up, leaning up to give him a kiss on the masked cheek, treating it like his real face. “You ready? Nothing you need to take care of at home?”

“…No. I don’t have anything that will be affected if I don’t return.” Louis seemed to take a moment to decide if that was depressing or not, then just shrugged at himself. “So let’s go.”

Jay led the way downstairs, to that strange mysterious freestanding door. The Signs he was carrying were warming in his clothes; he could feel them, pulsing like something living. In return, the same marks around the lock were shifting as if alive, squirming.

“I know,” Jay murmured at it. “But I’m not going to use any of you.”

He took out the key that Grace had left him, and inserted it in the lock. Then, before he turned it, he reached out behind himself, offering his other hand to Louis. “Hold on, okay?” he said. “I don’t know if it’s fine for us to walk separately or not as we’re going through the portal, but I don’t want to risk it.”

Louis slid his hand into Jay’s, holding snugly. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready.”

Jay turned the key, hearing it click. Then he took hold of the doorknob and turned, opening the door. A swirling, misty void was within, looking cold and uninviting. For a moment, Jay couldn’t make his legs move.

And then he shook himself, squeezed Louis’s hand, and stepped through.

He found himself in an unfamiliar cottage house, directly facing an enormous painting of a black city, broken and repaired with gold. He didn’t even take a moment to look around, not wanting to get distracted. Grace had told him she was going to put him in a place in the Dreamlands that was right in front of a the portal that would take him to the world where she’d dropped the Flute, and so he pressed on, trying to enter the painting as if it, too, was another misty void. He pulled on Louis’s hand, making sure that they went together.

They entered it. The passage was soft around him, then grew firm, and he took a last step forward to find himself, with Louis behind him, squeezing their way out of a small cave opening in a cliff face.

They emerged onto a beach. It had pebbles rather than sand, worn smooth with the passage of time, with an enormous lake stretching in front of them. The waters rocked and churned, almost completely obscured by the clouds of fog rolling across them; even through it, he thought he saw huge reeds moving in the waters, or perhaps the tentacles of great creatures in there. Across the lake, a tall twisted black palace rose, backlit by two huge moons, both full and nearly touching each other.

On this side, a path ran along the beach toward some shattered ruins of old buildings, the start to an old city that had clearly been long destroyed and left to rot. That path split before reaching the ruins, one fork leading on into the, the other leading through some woods; beyond those woods, he could see black spires, tall domes, lights on in their windows. An occupied city, still in use, perhaps thriving after the old city on its outskirts had died out.

Jay felt Louis drop his hand, and turned to ask him what he thought, but Louis was looking around with his eyes huge behind his mask.

“This is Carcosa,” Louis said airlessly. “I’ve seen it in my nightmares. This is the lake Hali. That is the palace, where they reenact the coming of the king.” He raised his hands to his face, his mask. “Am I the Stranger here? Will I be sacrificed? No, it’s fine, since this isn’t the palace, it’s fine. Someone is already acting that role there, and my role is different on Earth.”

“Hey.” Jay took his hands, squeezing them, pulling them down again. “Look at me.”

Louis looked, eyes still wide.

“We’re going to be okay,” Jay said. “We’ve got to decide which way to go, though. What do you think? Abandoned city, new city, try to cross the lake to go to the palace? Or do you think it fell into the waters?”

Louis let out a shudder, then abruptly became calm again. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem to have been found, though, so we have to consider what that means in terms of where the Flute ended up. The City of Carcosa may or may not be Hastur, but people and monsters are said to live there. The Palace hosts the royal family—at least, in the play. I don’t know what the reality is. The Lake? They say that Hastur lives in lake Hali, along with… other things. And the destroyed city… I don’t know anything about which city that could be. They say Carcosa absorbs cities which are lost to time in other worlds and takes it into its own body, and so it could be any lost city.”

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“Thanks,” Jay said, taking the robe and pulling it on hurriedly. It was hard to feel embarrassed, under the circumstances—if Keziah was an ancient god who’d been around since humans began, it was nothing she hadn’t seen before. “But before I get into any of this, what is that?”

He pointed to the painting, still frozen as it had been when he entered: Louis, asleep, a horned creature, four-limbed and too-long, slinking low to the ground as it entered the room. He gestured in a circle around the beast, just in case Keziah were likely to deliberately misinterpret the situation.

She looked over, brows raised. “That’s a cat.”

“Like hell that’s—”

“It’s one of the cats of Ulthar,” she said, her tone slightly put-upon at his response. “You’re just seeing its other form through the filter of the portrait.”

Drawing a deep breath, Jay forced himself to chill again. Okay, so that was a lot more reassuring than what he’d been fearing. And Ulthar had been pawing at the door to get in; he must have just managed to wiggle it open.

A cat with a horned hybrid form was not the weirdest thing that had happened to him today, he reminded himself.

“Okay,” he said. “Sorry, thanks. I was thinking that I’d come back to find Louis eaten.”

“I mean, I don’t know if he’s killed any cats or not. If he has, you’re out of luck.”

Jay made a face. “I can’t imagine him doing that,” he said. Besides, Ulthar had seemed fine with Louis. “…That information, about the cat, was it from the library or from you?”

“I’ve spent enough time here it’s basically both,” Keziah said with a faint, melodic laugh. “You could find that information here, but no, I’ve just seen those cats before.”

“So if I ask you things, will you just tell me, or send me to find the information?” he asked. “Does this library have everything? Like, does it update with things as they happen? Or is it like a normal library and only has things that people have written and donated to the library?”

She shrugged, smiling and tucking a lock of her hair behind a too-pointed ear. “Either, or both. I can tell you most things. If I don’t know, or if you don’t trust my answers, I can tell you where to look it up. The library has everything that has been written down that touches on our reality: forbidden knowledge, information about the gods and their worlds, every spell and every item and so on. It doesn’t have to have been donated: if it has been written and is true, it’s here.”

He nodded, tightening the robe about himself a little more, cold. “And what are the rules? You told me I couldn’t take information out without a Sign, but…”

“The books can’t leave the building,” she said. “However, you can copy down information from anything and take it out with you, if you need to. I know certain texts have already made their way to earth like that. No damaging books. Behave like a decent person. No fucking in the stacks, don’t get food crumbs in pages, you know. The usual.”

“The usual,” he echoed wryly, managing a little smile. “So there’s no cost?”

“Not if you don’t break the rules,” she said. “Other than whatever risk you put yourself at for learning information, or the risk you’ve put yourself in by laying claim to Signs at all.”

He scrubbed hands through his hair. “I need to know where you stand in this,” he said. “You don’t want the world to end?”

“You say ‘the’ like it’ll only be one,” she said, then shook her head. “No. I need people. I don’t continue to evolve unless people continue to evolve. I can only learn the things that other people have learned. Each new technology, each new discovery, each new ability, it’s closed to me without others. Those amorphous gods will destroy me along with everyone else, sooner or later. If they’re all that’s left, I’ll stagnate.”

That was more or less what Jay was hoping he’d hear. It meant that she was invested in him knowing the truth. “Do you know what’s happened?”

“I do. Do you?”

“I think so,” he said. “But… why haven’t you done anything about it yourself, then?”

She shook her head, smiling. “I can’t. If I touched it… look, we’re not enemies, but we’re not friends, either. I’m not going to take hold of Azathoth’s flute. But you’re of the bloodline given a Quest to steal it. You could probably manage to take hold of it for a moment or two.”

“It can’t come down to me.”

“If you can’t do it, I’m sure we’ll all fight the elders as they invade,” she said. “Though I don’t think your world will enjoy that much either.”

Jay began to pace, trying helplessly to get his rush of anxiety and nerves out. “Okay, fair,” he said. “So, I can handle the flute?”

“You might go mad,” she said simply. “I’d get to it and then use that Sign of Nyarlathotep you have to put it back in the hands of the messenger. If you have to pick it up, be quick about it. Your bloodline will only help for a short while. Don’t linger, don’t spend too much time examining it, do not blow into it.”

He nodded. “Okay. Don’t touch it if it’s not necessary, got it. Do I have to get past those… ‘amorphous gods’ to get to it?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Right now, they seems interested in breaking into the worlds. There’s a barrier to most of us, you know. Some of us have figured out ways around it, or portals, but in general, unfettered access isn’t something we have to all worlds. So there’s that.”

Uneasy, Jay chewed the inside of his cheek. “So I guess the key is finding the location. Then getting there.” An idea dawned. “I—you said anything that was written that involves this sort of thing comes here?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I’d like to see the section of things Aunt Grace wrote,” Jay said. “A bunch of her files got corrupted, and—look, a lot of them were older than when this happened, maybe all of them, but they might have some information.”

Keziah grinned. “You’re a smart one, aren’t you? I like you. All right, behold.”  She turned, gesturing to the shelf next to him.

“It’s right here?”

“So’s the portal we made to her room,” Keziah said.

Fair enough. He pulled a few notebooks down and began to flip through them.

Even skimming, now that only the information she’d written that related to this sort of thing was included, he very quickly began to get a picture of what her secret life had been like. As a young journalist, while investigating into a cult situation, she ended up in Kingsport; from there, she grew attached, more interested and involved, nearly obsessive, but because she’d been investigating them all, she held them all at arms length even while she grew closer to the people as individuals. Eventually, she began to enter the Dreamlands, and explored there, meeting Keziah, growing fascinated with the potential of all these worlds, these gods, with the entirety of reality being much bigger than most people realized.

She wrote, also, of her love affair with Keziah, of the impossible depth of her passion that she suspected wasn’t returned, of her longing to touch on someone who had devoured humans through their dreams, the witch who represented human consciousness without ever being human herself. Jay thought of the love letters that Grace had never sent, and wondered if there were copies here, and if Keziah had read them.

Toward the end, her Dream-Quest: To steal the flute. Dream-Quests were meant to be nearly impossible things; those who won would be granted the ability to create their own realm in the Dreamlands, to dwell there everafter, undying. She had not wanted to die of old age, not with so much of the greater reality left undiscovered to her. So she had embarked on the quest when already getting on in years, and it took her fifteen years to complete. Almost too late. Her goal was to return it to Nyarlathotep as proof, but, as Jay had already read, she’d lost it on the way.

And then, at the very end of the notebook, there was a handwritten page:

Jay, if you are reading this,

I am sorry to have left such a task to you. I hoped to undo my own mess, but I am old, and I must die or I must return to the Dreamlands to live hereafter. I think of the way you always sat at my feet to listen to my stories, and I believe that you will be able to find the wonder in all of this horror, the love in all of this madness.

I was able to track down the location where I must have lost the Flute, but I dare not write it down in case this note is read by the wrong eyes. If this is happening when the Flute is in no hands, imagine what it will do in the wrong hands. I cannot go there to do it myself, as it is not in the Dreamlands, but in one of the other realms I passed through while weaving back and forth, and to leave the Dreamlands for me now is a true death. I am sorry, Jay, to have to put this weight on your slender shoulders. I don’t know how old you will be when you see this, but when I last saw you, you were still a child, a gangly awkward teenager who nevertheless still listened to this old woman.

Instead of telling you, I have made a key out of dreamstuff that you can use on that door. Using that key will take you, physically and in reality, right to the place in the Dreamlands that you can pass through into that other world. If you have any Signs—and I hope you do, if you are reading this in the Library of Celaeno—then take them with you for whatever protection they afford. I have drawn the key below. Ask sweet Keziah to remove it from the page for you.

And you don’t have to come alone. You can come alone if you judge it best, and I do leave it to your judgment. It’s just that I was lonely by the end, and perhaps working alone caused my failure, so I thought I would work in the ability to take one other person or creature. Do not bring anyone into this who was completely unaware or uninvolved, of course! And do not bring more than one person—I could only grant passage to so many in the portal, and I do not want you to be trapped and have to find your own way back. But, yes, if you wish, you may bring a friend. Staying sane and keeping yourself whole is always easier with a touchstone.

If all goes well, I’ve given Keziah instructions to help you find my new home so we can meet again and you can give me what-for after all I’ve done to you. But I’m ashamed to face you until this is fixed, and have asked her to not give you any information on my location until then. If you find me yourself, so be it, but please… prioritize the world over scolding this old biddy.

Love always,
Grace

A sketch of a key was drawn at the bottom of the note.

Jay drew a deep, unsteady breath as he read, then turned that last page, holding it wordlessly out to Keziah. She barely glanced over it—perhaps she’d read it already, or perhaps it took her no time at all to read anything—and then she reached out, plucking the sketch out of the page and handing him a real iron key, still looking as if it was made of ballpoint on paper.

He closed his fingers around it, swallowing. “I guess it’s okay if I visit her when this is all over?” he asked, tentatively.

“Sure,” she said. “She seemed down with that. You going to go get it all over with now, then?”

“Is there a tracker that can help find the flute?” he asked, desperately.

“No,” she said. “I imagine you’ll have to look around in wherever it is she has decided to make a portal to.”

“Then…” That seemed to be all the questions he’d thought of. He knew how to get to where the flute was, what to do and what not to do when he found it, that he could use the Signs for protection if needed. That Aunt Grace really was out there, that he could go see her when this was all over. Any other information he wanted to learn, in order to figure out his new life in the middle of all this eldritch nonsense, could wait until he’d saved the world.

The big question he was left with was if he should go alone, or, if he did bring someone or some creature, who or what that should be. But that wasn’t something Keziah or the library could help him with.

“Then I’m ready,” he said—and woke up in his bed with a start, Louis asleep next to him, Ulthar curled up on his feet.

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It was a split second decision, his hand coming up to touch Louis’s chest as though he were going to push him away, then curling in his shirt instead, tugging him closer and kissing back.

Louis made a soft sound, pushing into the kiss, mouth opening to kiss him wet and hot rather than soft and sweet. Jay let go of his shirt to close the distance between them further, sliding his fingers into Louis’s hair instead, feeling the string of his mask where it dented Louis’s soft locks.

“Nnh—” Jay heard himself gasp incoherently as Louis’s teeth brushed his lower lip. Louis kissed like he was some kind of expert. Like he had a Ph.D in kissing, hot and warm, tongue teasing, leaving him aching and tingling.

When Louis finally drew back, it took Jay a moment to catch his breath, genuinely almost shaken with how into it he was. “Uh,” Jay said. “Wow. Yes.”

“Yes?” Louis repeated, voice low. He ran fingers down Jay’s arm, slow, just feeling the slide of his shirt over skin. “Do you want to go to the bedroom?”

Well, what the hell. It was the end of the world, he liked Louis, Louis was hot, and he was definitely into Louis. And it seemed like Louis liked him well enough—more than enough to act as a person instead of just his role, certainly. Relationships had started with less, and even if Jay wasn’t sure if this would end up a relationship or not yet—well, it was certainly worth a try.

Sleeping with Louis was just sleeping with Louis, now that he’d just given him a Sign. It didn’t mean getting in bed with his god too.

“Yes,” Jay said. And then a problem occurred to him. Flushing, he stammered out, “It’s my aunt’s—my aunt’s bedroom. It’s a mess. I haven’t done any cleaning, all I’ve done is get my own bedding on the bed…”

Louis shrugged, lips twisting in a small smile. “I don’t care,” he said. “I promise I have had sex in odder places.”

“You are always so reassuring,” Jay said fondly. He pulled away from the desk, grabbing Louis’s hand, and led him down the hall.

Even with Louis’s reassurance, Jay was a bit embarrassed to show him into the bedroom, as messy as a point-and-click adventure game, but Louis glanced around with barely a sign of interest—at least as far as Jay could see, with the mask still on.

“Are you… going to keep that on?” Jay asked, shutting the door behind them before Ulthar could follow him in. He heard a distant, plaintive Mawwwhhh in return.

“I plan to keep very little on,” Louis retorted, but touched two fingers to the mask, still just tilted up to expose his mouth. “…But this will stay on. If that means you ask me to leave, I understand.”

Jay blinked. “It doesn’t mean that,” he said. “It definitely doesn’t. I mean, I’m sure you have a perfectly lovely face, but I don’t need to see it if you don’t want to show it.”

“I don’t.”

“I understand—”

“Have one,” Louis clarified. But he smiled anyway, the scars around his lips twisting into incomprehensible patterns. “So I’m glad you don’t need it, especially as I cannot remove my mask fully anyway.”

“I mean,” Jay said slowly, “I like what I’ve seen. You have gorgeous eyes, and a soft mouth.”

Louis shook his head, still smiling. He began to unbutton his shirt, sliding it off his shoulders, letting it drop. His chest was unmarked by scar or freckle, almost entirely hairless, a smooth expanse of lean muscle and elegant lines. “Is there… anything specific you want?”

Jay flustered, pulling his own shirt off, stepping forward to touch. “I wasn’t making plans or anything?”

At that, Louis pulled away, turned away, and for a moment, Jay thought he was getting cold feet—and then he saw Louis’s back, with strange markings scarred into him, twisted patterns that must have been made with a knife, and overlaid with straighter, thinner scars, light whip marks. “My people have certain tastes,” Louis said, dropping his shirt on the floor with the rest of the mess. “When you’ve been listening for the tatters of the king for so long, you can’t feel much without some sort of …indulgences involved. If you need anything, I can—”

Oh, jeez. Jay put a hand against that back, almost unwillingly tracing an existing pattern, heart aching. Louis kept saying just enough to build an unpleasant picture, then walking it back, and Jay was never quite sure how much of the truth was on which side or the other, or if it was both. “Do you need this?”

“Sorry, what?”

“…Whatever kind of indulgences you need. Or have you not been doing it that long?”

Louis’s muscles tensed under his hands, then relaxed. “I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice strangely soft.

“Okay, because I don’t need it? Or, I mean, I’m not interested in anything that’s not definitely still just playing?” Jay managed to get out with only a light stammer. “I’m not looking for a service top. Or a service bottom, for that matter, or for a master or a slave or—look, I was thinking we could just go to bed and make out and see what we felt like in the moment?”

Louis turned again, sliding an arm around him. “I’d like that,” he admitted.

***

[jump to an 18+ scene]

***

Jay awoke from his post-coital doze to find himself standing in the library, in front of the same picture he’d been looking at when he’d left it last: a painting of Aunt Grace’s bedroom. In it, he could see Louis curled up asleep, the door a little open, some strange horned creature starting to slink into it.

“Welcome back,” the woman from the library said, and Jay jumped, turning. Seeing the grin on her face, as well as the bathrobe that she was holding out to him, he realized that he was naked. “I see you’ve found several Signs, so you’re cleared to take information out, even if your attire’s a little less than professional. What do you want to know?”

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Jay didn’t really want to read The King in Yellow anyway. That honestly felt like a cursed storyline from a creepypasta or something, like he’d read it and something would happen to him that would make Hastur claim him. If that’s how he got the Sign, he didn’t want it.

He wanted to stay neutral; if Aunt Grace had all these Signs but hadn’t fallen under the sway of any one being, then hopefully, he could too.

And if Louis told him he had to read the book… well, he’d cross the bridge when he came to it.

Jay walked past his house, heading to Louis’s instead, feeling a bit like he was going door to door collecting for charity. Spare a Sign to help save the world? He laughed weakly under his breath, ringing Louis’s doorbell.

A minute or so later, Louis answered. He was wearing jeans and a black shirt with gold trim around the wrists and collar, and looked somewhat severe in it. “Jay,” he said.

“Louis,” Jay said. “Hi.”

Louis looked past him, up at the sky. “Do you see that?”

“Yeah,” Jay said. “It’s really bad.”

“You know what it is?”

“The hordes of dancers around the throne of the blind god are free from his music.” Maybe, Jay thought, I have it in me to be a weird cultist after all. Listen to me.

In all fairness, Louis did look impressed at that. “Oh. That’s really bad.”

“It’s really bad!” Jay repeated fervently. “Listen, do you want to come over? There’s something I need to talk to you about. We could get take-out or I could make a can of soup or something. You can meet my new cat.”

Louis looked dubious. “…It’s the end of the world and you adopted a cat?”

“He’s from a city I went to in a dream. He followed me home.”

“Oh.” Louis considered that, then grabbed his keys and wallet, locking up and gesturing for Jay to lead the way.

Jay did, letting Louis in; Ulthar bounded up to meet him at the door, then paused, tail twitching curiously, hunched and slightly cautious.

“You did get a cat,” Louis said. He crouched, head tilted, watching Ulthar with curiosity, then held a hand out. Ulthar hesitated, glancing between him and Jay, but whatever he read in Jay’s body language seemed to relax him and his tail perked up a bit more as he trotted over to sniff Louis’s hand. “What’s his name?”

“Ulthar.”

“Like the god?”

“What? No, what? Like the city,” Jay said, alarmed. “I don’t think he’s a god. There were a lot of cats in Ulthar, and this just happened to be one I helped out. I named him after the city because… well, I didn’t have any other ideas.”

Louis shrugged, apparently unaffected by the implications. “I’ve only heard of Ulthar as a god in passing regardless. Some sort of guardian. There are worse things to share a name with.”

That was, at least, mildly reassuring. Jay let out a breath, leading the way into the living room; Ulthar trotting after and bee-lining for a mouse toy Jay had given him earlier, and Louis ambling to bring up the rear. He sat again in the solo chair, Louis taking the love seat.

“Okay, so,” Jay said. “It’s about the Yellow Sign.”

“Ah,” Louis said. “…Should we order dinner first?”

“What? Oh. Sure. Not a lot seems to deliver out here,” Jay said, a bit thrown off. At least Louis thought they’d still be able to eat after this conversation. “Pizza, something resembling Chinese food. Which do you want?”

Louis looked at him askance, the dubious expression clear even through the mask. “…You don’t need to just order from places that offer delivery.”

“I mean, I guess if I wanted to go get take out—”

“It just depends on who you know,” Louis said. “Do you like bouillabaisse?”

“That’s, uh, fancy French hot-pot? Then, yes, I guess?”

Somehow, it seemed as though Louis was smiling, eyes crinkling. “There are similarities. All right, we’ll get it. My treat.” He pulled out his cell phone, dialing, then ordering in rapid French.

Jay stared at him, fascinated by the abilities of the rich. The world was clearly a very different place for Louis.

Louis didn’t seem to notice, finishing and hanging up the phone. “There. Alexandre will have one of the escueleries drive it over shortly.”

“Uh, well, thanks,” Jay said. “I hope it’s no trouble?”

“No trouble,” Louis said. His voice warmed. “I do this for myself often enough. It’s more pleasant to order for two.”

Jay couldn’t quite keep from blushing. “Well, yeah, thanks,” he said. “…So.”

“So. The Yellow Sign,” Louis prompted. “You haven’t read the play.”

“I haven’t, no.” Jay rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve collected three Signs. I’m trying to collect four, and… your god’s is among them. And… I’m trying to collect four because they are ones that Aunt Grace had, signs marked on her door into dreams, and since I’m trying to find something she lost, in order to save the world, I just… feel like I should try to match whatever she was doing.”

“That makes sense,” Louis said cautiously.

Jay drew a deep breath. “But the other thing she did that I’d like to do is… well, remaining neutral. I don’t want to give any particular god a claim on me. I know having and using their Signs will draw their attention, but I don’t… want to play favorites either?” He rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head. “So… if I can get it from you without reading the book, without… whatever ritual that is? I’d like that.”

Louis was silent for a long moment; when Jay looked up again, he saw Louis picking at the hem of his jeans. “…This is a bit awkward,” Louis said, finally. “I’m supposed to be a… harbinger. I’m supposed to drop portents, and lead you to the book. To put you in the  grasp of the Feaster from Afar. I’m the messenger.”

“I know,” Jay said. “I don’t really want to be in anyone’s grasp. At most, I want to be within arm’s reach? And besides, the world is ending.”

“Besides, the world is ending,” Louis agreed slowly.

“Do you really want me to become… whatever it is after I’m in his grasp?” Jay asked.

Louis said, “But it’s what I’m supposed to do.”

It hurt, despite everything. Then again, they’d only known each other a couple of days. And he had already warned himself about Louis’s intentions. “Is that a yes?”

“It should be a yes.” Louis looked up, meeting his gaze, his own expression also strangely hurt. “…No. I’ll get you the Sign. A gift. From one equal to another. If you meet him through it, you meet him through it, not through the play’s maze.”

Jay swallowed. “So—”

“So I’m not going to sacrifice you,” Louis said. His voice, usually mild and slightly vacant, had a tinge of anger. “All right? You’re just like your Aunt, so it’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

“Hey—” Jay pushed down his own sense of offense that Louis would even consider sacrificing him to his dark god. He rose, coming over, putting a hand on Louis’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

Louis looked up at him, brows drawn down far enough they were visible even through the mask’s eye holes. “I—”

The doorbell rang, and they both jumped. Louis recovered first, rising and reaching for his wallet. “That’ll be the food,” he said. “Clear some space on the kitchen table?”

Jay fled, getting some space and catching his breath as he did as Louis had asked, shifting The Laws of the Dead aside and setting out some cutlery.

Louis joined him, setting out the two plastic containers and claiming a chair. “I hope you enjoy,” he said, tilting his mask up enough to show his mouth, soft pink lips with fine scars marked all around it.

“I’m sure I will—” Jay sat, still flustered over the whole situation. “Thanks again.”

The soup was delicious, rich and saffron-flavored, similar enough in composition to haemul jeongol to feel faintly nostalgic, while also far enough away in flavor profile that it didn’t make him homesick for his family’s cooking. They ate in near silence, broken only by Ulthar begging for seafood. Louis did not seemed compelled to speak, and Jay found himself just watching the way Louis’ spoon carried food to that scarred mouth. He wondered if he should ask.

“That really was good,” Jay admitted, when they were done. “Thanks for using your, uh, wiles to get it.”

“Wiles?” Louis sounded amused again. “If knowing the chef is being wily, sure. Let’s get your Sign.”

Louis rose, leading the way out of the kitchen and leaving Jay scrambling to get up, take the bowls away and rinse them so Ulthar couldn’t get into them, then chase after him. Louis was halfway up the stairs when Jay caught up, walking with confidence toward the office.

It felt weird that Louis knew where the office was, where the book was kept—but then, their houses were designed the same way, and Grace may well have had Louis over before, and anyway, Louis had even told Jay that he was aware of where the book was, if it had been found, if it had been read.

And Louis did in fact go right for the book, taking it down, and flipping it open. He traced patterns on the pages as he went, fingers caressing them.

“Are you—reading it? You’re not going to get in… trouble, are you?”

“It’s fine. I’ve read this before.”

Jay braced himself against the edge of Grace’s desk, watching Louis standing in the middle of the room, skimming through it, fingers moving. After a few moments, Jay shifted his gaze out the window, looking at how dark it was getting out there. When Louis was done, Jay should send him home, he thought; find some way to relax tonight so he could sleep easily, and head to the Library after.

Just when it began to take long enough that he thought he should offer Louis a seat, Louis flipped the book closed, put it down, and offered Jay a small gold coin, a key hanging from it.

The coin had the twisted, questioning triangle on it. Jay closed his fingers around it with a sense of relief washing over him. He had all four Signs and, as far as he knew, he hadn’t had to give up any part of himself to get them.

“Thank you,” he said, meeting Louis’s gaze, feeling almost shaky with relief. “Seriously, Louis. Thank you.”

“Jay…” Louis still hadn’t lowered his mask. His lips were trembling. He brushed Jay’s jaw with his fingertips, then leaned in.

Jay realized almost too late that Louis, too, was going for a kiss.

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