Chapter Text
Lewis didn’t need any time to process his death like the other two had needed to. He had a full four years time to do that on his own.
What he did need to process was the fact that he was so blinded by his rage that not only did he drop his former best friend to his death, Lewis also got to watch his former? girlfriend get impaled with a huge pair of shears while he stood useless on the sidelines.
He had to watch as the two most important but Arthur killed him how could he care about his murderer people in his life bled out to death one after another.
Even worse, he couldn’t even help that giant fox thing that might’ve been Mystery with the tree bitch that stabbed Vivi. Instead he just cried over her bleeding body, cradling her against his chest, uncaring of the blood potentially staining his suit.
What had he done?
A warm feeling encompassed his body, causing him to panic. He couldn’t fade now! There was so much that he needed to somehow fix and he needed to apologize to Arthur and Vivi for not being able to save them or- or- he just !
In a flash of bright pink light he was standing in Arthur’s living room.
Arthur—who had been hunched over Vivi looking absolutely livid—took a glance between Lewis and the mirror.
Arthur’s eyes…
Oh god what was going on? His eyes were black and glowing and he was sparking and Vivi’s eyes were the same and her reflection in the mirror propped up in front of her was a ghost like he had been but Arthur’s reflection was crying and panicking and and and-
...
If Arthur was pissed before, the burning flame of a thousand stars couldn’t even compare.
Time seemed to slow as the next events unfolded.
In a spark of lightning Arthur launched himself over Vivi and straight into Lewis’ chest, both of them colliding with the hard floor. Vivi jumped up and was fully prepared to intervene when sharp teeth grabbed onto her scarf and pulled her back into a furry body, though she continued to struggle against Mystery, uncaring of his sudden presence.
Lewis was too distraught to fight back as he was tackled into the ground.
“You…” Arthur started, head hung low so that even though his hands were around Lewis’ throat his eyes were kept hidden.
“How dare you.”
Lewis could’ve cried when Arthur looked up. His eyes were still glowing, the yellow irises sparking from his anguish. But that wasn’t what caused Lewis to choke back a sob, well, other than the hands around his throat.
Arthur’s eyes were filled with un-shed tears of anger and of anguish, of love and of hatred, of misery and of confusion.
His words were shaky as he tried to suppress the cries trying to get loose. “You-you think you can come back? You think that this is okay? What the fuck Lewis! What could’ve caused you to be sent back here? Huh? Y-you can’t just- you can’t do this! You can’t drop me off a cliff after I spent so long trying to find you. You can’t just throw me away like I’m nothing. What the fuck is going on Lewis?!”
His hands were too shaky to hold a steady grip.
Lewis was confused, afraid, and utterly heartbroken. But he couldn’t process anything other than Arthur’s hands gripping his throat. So instead of acting on the storm of emotions crawling in his head, Lewis just grew angrier and angrier until he couldn’t possibly hold it back.
His hands, which were significantly larger than Arthur’s, latched onto his wrists with a steel grip, leaving him gasping for breath. It’s been so long since he’s needed to breathe.
“What going on with me? What’s going on with me? You’re asking like I should know! Getting my revenge was supposed to feel good, to feel right, but instead I’m grieving over the death of my murderer.” Lewis sat up, keeping Arthur’s wrists in a death grip against his chest. “You, Kingsmen, have some fucking explaining to do.”
The pain amplified all the emotions swirling in his head.
Lewis shoved Arthur off of him at the confused and tired and angry look he received.
“Don’t give me that look. Don’t act like you don’t know. Don’t FUCKING tell me that you don’t know what you’ve done to me, Arthur.”
(But what exactly had he done?)
The continued to argue back and forth, anger progressing and voices rising and limbs shaking until Mystery—still lacking his disguise—felt the need to finally intervene.
He took his tails and separated Lewis and Arthur, forcing distance between them.
Lewis was astonished at Mystery’s form, his anger dissipating for the moment as he stared, argument nulled in astonishment.
On the other hand, Arthur was a deer trapped in headlights. His eyes were wide, mouth clamped shut, jaw clenched to the point where his teeth ached, breathing shakilly, and shaking violently. He clutched at his left arm as if it was his lifeline, dirty nails digging into the flesh of his shoulder.
He struggled his way out of Mystery’s grasp and onto the floor, crawling backwards until his back was against the mirror where their living reflections watched on in horror.
“Y-you-“ He stammered, ignoring the worried stares as his vision tunneled in on Mystery.
“My…m-my arm!” Arthur was curled in on himself at this point, shielding his left arm from the kitsune.
Vivi frowned and slipped out Mystery’s grasp and over to her crying friend.
His weight against the mirror increased. The glass wouldn’t hold much more, brittled with age.
“Hey, Hey Arthur look at me.” She kneeled before him, blocking his view of the terrifying fox that had mutilated him Mystery.
Meanwhile, as she uttered soothing words to Arthur, Lewis was left confused in Mystery’s grasp.
When he threw Arthur down the cliff, all he felt was an unyielding rage. Then as he fell Lewis wanted nothing more than to bring him to safety. Just a few seconds ago he was ready to beat Arthur’s face into the ground, but now? Lewis didn’t know what to do. Did he really hate him that much? It seemed like Arthur didn’t even know he killed him! And the memories from that night only got blurrier with time.
Who’s to say what really happened in the cave.
While Lewis and Arthur were both coming down from their adrenaline fueled rage (plus an anxiety attack in Arthur’s case), Mystery was left to decipher what he could from this situation.
It wasn’t long that he had the chance to do so. Not when a crippling headache and a faint red glow was assaulting his senses.