Since you're apparently THE knows about Malevolent guy, do you have any favorite fics or series recommendations?
ok loving the new reputation as The Malevolent Man, but i haven't really had time to read that many new fics so here's some of the ✨classics✨
a universe that doesn't care and people who do by supposedtobwriting - a 3-part series rounding up to 230k words, with john/arthur (can be /platonic imo) in a s2 finale canon-divergence, the found family in this is amazing !!!
meowlevolent week by smallsies - the reason i made a really good friend, this is a lovely series about john and arthur bettering each other's live in a fluffy college professor modern au feat. pets and faroe being adorable !!!!
oh, i love you so much (it scares me half to death) by supposedtobwriting - ngl i love this author just read all their fics they're amazing, but this one in particular, written for the malevolent bang, is about jarthur as private eyes in separate bodies as the world around them starts to mysteriously fall apart
asunder by redcore - this isn't a classic at all lmao this is just self-promo, read this if you want short, sweet, extremely visceral angst
some i haven't read but would argue are fandom classics
whiskey old fashioned sour by bluejayblueskies
formaldehyde (or, the case of the missing lilly) by supposedtobewriting
and some more i haven't read but would like to read from the malevolent fic bang event !!
and the pendulum swings by bluejayblueskies
inheritance laws by maddoc05
i'm not giving up (just giving in) by thecarrionqueen
wait through the night for the dawn light to break by coffeecats
doe and lester in: the nitrate dogfight by dyedviolet
hope this helped x and everyone feel free to add on your own recs !!!
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Fragile - a Malevlent fic (Intermezzo spoilers)
Arthur got low in Larson’s house. He hit bedrock; he admitted, brokenly, that they won.
John didn’t let him drown. Which is ironic, because John was already drowning.
Spoilers for Intermezzo.
AO3
———-
Humans were fragile.
John knew this. He’d known it since before he was ‘John,’ when wicked memories seeped through the torment of loss and damnation.
Arthur was fragile, too.
John did not know this, and this new and acidic knowledge threatened the unset foundation John had built his everything upon.
#
Your hands, Arthur. You have broken pieces of his eyes under your thumbnails.
Hardly like John hadn’t done things like that when King, hadn’t done things like that for Kayne, hadn’t torn people apart until he knew them down to the cellular level. It wasn’t that eyeballs were gross, or the violence was too much; it was that Arthur was the one who did it.
Arthur. Who’d stayed so strong through cult and coma. Who’d kept his head in the prison pits, and forgiven John more than any saint could.
Who’d cut his own damn throat to keep the King from winning.
John knew it had been less than a day for Arthur. (It had been… longer, for him.) Less han a day. How could Arthur change so much in less than a day?
“I…” Arthur sounded fucked.
Instinctively, John tried a lever, tried to use that name to prize Arthur from the mud. Imagine what she would think. Faroe wouldn’t want her father to be this. To lose himself in this way.
The lever did not work, and Arthur slumped down, bleeding, and wept. “I’m lost,” he said, and It was a terrible sound. “I’ve lost. I’ve sunk too far.”
Less than a godsdamned day.
No, said John, scrambling in the wake of shock. I know you, my friend. You are in there. You saved me before. (Arthur had, everything he’d done, everything he’d said, had saved John in the Dark World, had kindled his only lingering light and hope. Arthur could not lose. He could not sink. If Arthur did…)
John vowed: I will not let you drown.
Arthur sobbed.
A good sob? A broken one? Don’t be scared.
“They’ve won, John,” Arthur wept in a high, unrecognizable voice. “He won. Faust. I… I wanted to kill him. I wanted to fill his blood within my hands. I wanted to feel the crunch of his bones beneath my palms. They won.”
This couldn’t be happening.
No.
No.
Arthur was his light. Arthur was his hope. The source of a purpose in a life so short, the proof they didn’t have to win!
Kayne’s voice might only be in his head, but it rang cruelly true: If he was this wrong about not letting them win, what does that say about his hope for you?
No!
Humans were fragile. Arthur was less fragile than most, but still human, and John...
John knew what to do.
He was ashamed of it, this innate, easy understanding of manipulation, of control, of (pleasure it had always brought him pleasure as the King) pretty words to make Arthur do what he wanted, to shift Arthur’s sails and steer him from the rocks.
He felt ill. Sick. He shouldn’t do this. Good people did not think like this.
Would it really be “good” to let Arthur wreck on the rocks of himself?
It would not (and John told himself it was for Arthur’s sake and not to shore up his own cracking foundation), and so John made his choice. Followed his instinct, and manipulated. How could they have won? We’re nowhere near finished.
That was the exact right delivery, and it snagged Arthur’s attention like a lure (fish, Arthur, now caught).
Next, communication the way Arthur thought in his quietest hours: Whose woods these are, I think I know... Because Arthur thought in music and poems. Because Arthur’s sobs slowed as John quoted, pulling the verses from the shared well of their mind.
My horse must think it queer, to stop without a farmhouse near... Because Arthur might deny that gloriously artistic part of himself (of which John, as King, was keenly aware), but he could not resist the siren-song of rhythm and introspection and beauty, and he’d listen to this when he’d kick all else in the teeth.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep… and miles to go before I sleep. He would not lose this man today (maybe if the King had used poetry instead of compound fractures, he would have gotten somewhere). And miles to go before I sleep.
It worked. (Of course it worked. It had to work. It was back to the Dark World if this didn’t work.) Arthur, as John knew he would, responded. “I’m sorry, John,” he said, and he finally sounded like Arrhur again. “I’m so sorry. For everything.”
(He’d missed him so much, his changeability, his chosen softness.) I’m sorry, too.
“Why? For what? You…”
For what?
For what he’d done to get back here.
For the lies he’d told.
For the wickedness he’d wrought.
For—
For leaving you for so long. But that was too close to the truth of things Arthur must never know. Now. Let’s leave this place.
“No,” said Arthur (because his stubbornness took no time at all to reassert itself). “We need to help those people. Down in the mines.”
And there he was. The Arthur Lester of John’s imagining. The flawed but willingly good human, the anchor to which John clung, the mortal for whom he’d debased himself, for whom he’d died.
He’d done… so many things to stop being dead. Arthur (canonized in memory, precarious on his pedestal) would never understand.
How could he? Arthur was human. Humans were fragile. And even Arthur had people he would not forgive.
He could never know. It’s a new beginning, Arthur. A clean slate. For both of them.
“No, no. Not a clean slate.”
John’s metaphorical heart clenched. No? I thought that’s what you wanted.
“That was easier than to remember what I’ve learned, what I’ve preached, not only to you but myself… that we can’t escape these things we’ve done,” said Arthur, fragile human, with no idea he was telling John that John was beyond hope.
John had to escape the things he’d done. He had to.
This confirmed it all: If Arthur knew what John had done, he’d never forgive him, and that flickering hope-light in would finally go out.
John couldn’t really reply. Okay.
“But it still is another,” said Arthur, sounding like his soul had shed a thousand pounds. “And I’d rather greet a new day like an old friend—with fondness and appreciation.”
Oh, Arthur. How did that fragile hope always survive? (He could never know.) Okay, Arthur.
“My friend. Let’s leave this place.”
And of course, Uncle’s body was still there, still shaking Arthur with reminders of savagery. “I… I lost…”
Damn it. You’ve beaten yourself up enough over this, Arthur. It’s fine.
It clearly was not fine. “You’re right,” lied Arthur Lester.
Nope. Misdirection time (and John refused to think how easily the manipulation came). Oh! There’s a corpse in the bed.
And just like that, the detective switch was flipped, and finally, Arthur actually was fine.
It would all be fine.
It had to be fine.
The danger was past. John would never, ever need to tell him what he’d done. Arthur would continue to hope in John. It would be fine.
He couldn’t handle all that horror, anyway, John told himself as they dove into mystery and memory. Arthur was fragile, after all.
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