Chapter Text
The grandfather clock which rested against Goethe’s living room wall ticked in sync with Verlaine’s heart as he stared at the ground, trying to ignore all his friends staring at him.
After the incident on the roof, Verlaine had stayed in his “safe house” for a few hours, trying to collect his thoughts. His boyfriend had stayed for the majority of them, talking with him about everything. He almost nearly didn’t believe Verlaine’s story, not because he thought of him a liar, but simply because it seemed inconceivable, like a story ripped straight out of a work of fiction.
Rimbaud had left the safe house an hour before Verlaine did, wanting to quell any fears or speculation coming from the other three, taking the warmth with him. He felt afraid to return home, worried that Rimbaud would have a belated reaction, and he would be right back to where he started, isolated and alone under his father’s thumb.
Yet, that didn’t happen even as the cold of the house seeped into his bones. Instead he received a text within a group message, asking if he’s available the following afternoon to talk.
So here he was, in Goethe’s living room, back where they first learned of the King of Assassins, glaring holes in the carpet. His stomach was in knots, not helped by the tension that hung in the hair like an anchor, dragging him further into the abyss.
“Arthur, can you join me in the kitchen?” Hugo called out after many minutes of silence, effectively breaking the tension, if only slightly. “I need help carrying some glasses,”
Rimbaud sighs as he gets up, body still achy from their fight yesterday. Verlaine felt guilty for that, as he often did. He could heal almost instantly, thanks to Pan, but his love could only heal as fast as his body would allow. Verlaine thought about the time he stabbed Rimbaud. It would only now start to truly heal, and that’s only if it was properly taken care of near instantly.
Verlaine rests his head in his hands, gripping his hair.
It was all a mess, a horrible, horrible mess. He should’ve killed Pan the day he killed his mother, or maybe even the day Pan had him arrested at age fifteen. There were so many times he could’ve killed Pan, if it wasn't for that stupid contingency plan.
Verlaine felt a hand rest upon his shoulder, and when he glanced up, he saw Goethe looking at him concerned.
“Are you alright?” He whispers, keeping the answer between the two of them.
“I’m fine, Jo. Just thinking,”
”Aren’t we all,” Goethe sighs, though his next statement was preemptively interrupted by Hugo and Rimbaud coming back, five glasses of Goethe’s nice, expensive whiskey between their hands. Goethe doesn’t even protest that they took it without asking, just taking a glass himself and sitting down.
Verlaine took his glass gratefully, feeling the warm burn of the liquor cast fire in his stomach. He wasn’t the biggest fan of hard liquor, being a much bigger fan of wine and cocktails, but the sensation of the whiskey was not unwelcome.
The stifling silence once again came over the group, whoever it was slightly less than before, no doubt aided by the liquor.
“So. What are you going to do? And we are not going to ignore it until it blows up in your faces like you like to do,” Hugo said, looking at all of them.
Rimbaud and Verlaine both scoffed at that, with Rimbaud downing the rest of his whiskey in one swing.
“What is there to do? We can’t change what happened”
“That’s not what I’m asking and you know it. I’m asking what we are going to do moving forward,”
Verlaine kept staring at the ground, not meeting anyone’s eye, even as he felt their stare bore into him. Shakespeare also stared at the ground quite intensely, bouncing his leg up and down. Goethe swirled the watered down whisky in his glass, the sound of ice hitting the glass echoing.
“Well…” Goethe started out, trying to prompt someone else to speak.
“You knew! And you kept it from us!” Shakespeare accused, interrupting Goethe and pointing his finger at him. Goethe fidgeted with his fingers, slightly in an anxious manner, but he met Shakespeare’s glare.
“I did know, but you knew about Arthur, and you also kept it from me. Both of you did. You can’t be hypocritical,”
”You-!”
“Enough,” Hugo said, standing up and cutting Shakespeare off. “Fighting will only make it worse for the all of us,”
Verlaine nodded in agreement, standing up, shoving his hands in his pockets.
”Why don’t I explain why, so you all can stop looking at me as if I turned into a frog,”
Shakespeare quieted down with a huff, brows still furrowed, now more upset at Goethe than Verlaine.
“Pan, my…father,” he starts, already hating that he had to do this at all. “CEO of Twelfth Corp. He’s been experimenting on me for ages, probably since I was fourteen or fifteen, around the time Chuuya was born. His end goal was to make me a super soldier of sorts, to take out his political enemies and competitors while keeping his hands clean. He also wanted to mass produce the “solution” to the highest bidder, most likely a government organization,”
He stopped, taking a deep breath. It felt odd to tell someone besides the brief allusions he made to Wells. He half expected bullets to shower the walls, shattering the brick and killing him near instantly.
He still didn’t make any eye contact, fearing that if he did, he could no longer find the strength within himself to continue.
“I didn’t want to, but he forced my hand quite strongly. All of your lives were under threat, so I continued playing his game until I could find a way out,”
Verlaine sighs, pacing around, trying to collect his thoughts. No one else spoke, giving him the time and space to breathe and process.
“He developed a contingency plan of sorts, ensuring I was trapped within Twelfth Corp. If I disobeyed, refused him, or did anything that could potentially make him enraged, he swore to ‘cut down anyone I held dear,’ as he so eloquently put it,”
Rimbaud had already heard all of this, as Verlaine had explained it all to him earlier that week in the safe house. Yet, he was still visibly angry, grinding his teeth.
“And you all are equally in danger, so I went along with it,”
With each new detail, Hugo, Shakespeare, and Goethe became more and more horrified. Verlaine didn’t get into the gorey details, not in an attempt to save his friend’s minds, but more so in favor of saving time. He explained why he couldn’t kill his father, and why he tried to kill all of Pan’s closest men in one fell swoop, but failed due to an unaccounted variable.
Verlaine took another deep breath, his chest feeling a little lighter.
“Any questions?” He asked, finally looking up from the floor, stopping his pacing. The room was silent for a few moments as all the information settled in.
“So…” Shakespeare started. “You’re Black No. 12?”
Verlaine nodded. He didn’t really appreciate the news and the Investigation bureau posting those medical documents all over, even as redacted as they were. No one knew who he was, but he knew, and with each new speculative article or news broadcast, it made him feel ever so slightly worse.
He taps his left thigh, feeling the scarred flesh beneath his pants.
“There’s a twelve carved into my skin here. I would prefer not to show, so you all just have to have confidence in me,”
All of them nodded, Shakespeare looking a little guilty for his prior outburst.
“That still begs the question, what are we going to do? I don’t feel inclined to let Paul do it by himself,” Hugo murmurs, tapping his finger rapidly against his thigh.
“I agree,” Rimbaud chimed in, shifting in his chair. “I don’t quite understand everything, but I can conceptualize the scope,”
“What do you want to do, Paul?” Goethe asks, bringing over the bottle of whisky and refilling their glasses. ”It’s your situation, we’re just bystanders in some way or another. It should be your call,”
Verlaine doesn’t know what to say, or even what to do. He had a plan, a well developed one at that. It sometimes felt impossible, but he knew that there were only two options, either he succeeds or he dies trying.
“I want his reputation dragged through the mud. I want Twelfth Corp to burn to the ground. I want everyone to know who he is, and if I get the chance to kill him, I will,”
Hugo pulled out his notebook and a pen from the inner pocket of his jacket, sitting back down and started to write things down.
“Alright. Do you have any evidence so far? I have a reporter friend who might be interested in the story, even if she is a field reporter,”
“Oh, I know her. Though, she does not know me as me. Regardless, I have even gathered evidence for years. I know he knows,”
Hugo’s brows furrowed in concentration, scribbling the most important things down.
“What are you collecting evidence against? Just for bookkeeping…”
Verlaine took a deep breath, his leg shaking. It felt nerve wracking to even think about the demon wearing human skin, much less talk about him.
“Monopolizing the market, tax fraud and evasion, the murder of my mother and step father, unethical experimentation of both humans and animals…”
He continued to list crime after crime, felony after felony, misdemeanor after misdemeanor for at least fifteen minutes, barely stopping to breathe. With each passing moment, Goethe and Shakespeare looked more and more horrified, while Hugo seemed to concentrate so much that the reality hadn’t quite hit him yet.
Once he was done, the atmosphere felt thick, like swimming through slightly dried blood. The unfathomable totality of it all finally sinking its fangs in their skin.
“Even claims like these would surely get the media talking, Shakespeare comments, looking over Hugo’s shoulder to see the list. “And we have your witness testimony for a few of them,”
“I’m not going to testify,” he said, conviction strong, startling Shakespeare. “Black No. 12 will remain that, an experimental label. He’ll never have a name nor a face. I do not wish to be associated with Black No 12, lest the media hound me to an early grave,”
”That’s understandable,” Hugo agreed, eyes tracing his writing. “Though I have to ask, what evidence do you have? While such statements would make his reputation waver, he’ll sue us to hell for defamation,”
”Documentation, written testimony from others, some photographic evidence. He knows I have some, but I doubt he knows the scope,”
Hugo hums, looking up from the list.
“You said you know Wells? How do you know her?”
”I ‘commissioned’ her, for lack of a better word, to find the truth of my mother and stepfather’s death. I know he murdered her, even if the coroner deemed it accidental death by carbon monoxide poisoning,”
“Could it simply be that?” Goethe asked, trying to work out the details in his head.
“Doubt it. The carbon monoxide detector had its batteries removed, and the radiator had been tampered with. It could’ve been natural wear and tear, I suppose, but my stepfather was usually on top of things like that,” he replied with a deep sigh, resting his head in his hands.
“I see…” Hugo murmurs, already thinking through a plan, though the odds of success felt improbable.
“Has Wells gotten back to you?” Rimbaud asked, squeezing Verlaine’s shoulder comfortingly.
Verlaine fished his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through notifications, new and old.
“She sent a message saying she wishes to meet in an hour,” his eyes glanced over the entirety of the text, before responding with a short reply.
“Do you want company?” Rimbaud asked, reading over his shoulder, to which Verlaine tilted his screen to give him an easier time.
“You can accompany me if you so wish, but I don’t think it’s strictly needed,”
Rimbaud nodded. “Just text me when you get there safely,”
“That means we have an hour to plan,” Hugo points out, looking around to see if anyone had any ideas.
”What about stealing the most crucial evidence?” Shakespeare cut in suddenly, grinning at his suggestion. “We could even burn down the place while we’re at it,”
”Impossible,” Verlaine scoffed. “Pan practically lives at the Twelfth Corp building, especially in his office. He knows what's in those filing cabinets, and he would never let even as much as an opportunity arise in which anyone could get close,”
”Aren’t you allowed in that office?” Shakespeare countered, staring back at Verlaine, almost challenging him.
“I am…” he finally admitted, spinning his promise ring around his finger. “But that doesn’t mean that Pan will let me waltz in and start digging through his drawers,”
”But what if we distract him? Victor and I, that is,”
Verlaine narrowed his eyes at Shakespeare, almost not believing what he was hearing.
“You’ll be risking your life,”
”I know. And it’s worth it if we can help you,”
Verlaine was at a loss for words. He had feared for so long that his friends would scorn him, scream at him, cast him out, or worse. The very idea that they would know everything and still voluntarily offer their lives for his was almost incomprehensible.
“Very well,” Verlaine said with a nod after a few moments of silence, earning a grin from Shakespeare.
“Great! Victor, you in?”
”I know my way around, so I would be the most beneficial. Need I remind you, I also work there, so it’ll be less suspicious for me to request a meeting,” Hugo points out, tapping his pen to his notebook.
“I can also pull the building layout. Shouldn’t be too hard to pull them from public databases, and I’d imagine they’d be there,” Shakespeare points out.
”Indeed,” Hugo nods. “We just have to think, and quickly,”
———
Forty-five minutes later, they didn’t have much, but it was something.
It didn’t inspire much confidence in Verlaine, but he could reasonably see a future in which they succeeded.
Everyone was celebrating slightly, to raise their own spirits, as everyone knew how risky it was.
”My will is in a box in the back of my closet, along with my various important documents. My birth certificate, my financial information, everything,” Verlaine said suddenly, staring out the window, accidently interrupting the small celebration, watching the few stars that shone through the light pollution of the city.
“Paul…” Shakespeare started, unsure on how to continue. The possibility was certainly on their minds, even if the situation itself felt very comical, well above anything they could’ve imagined. Pan felt more like a concept than a person, the type of supervillain only found in comics and movies.
Twelfth Corp was a conglomerate, a smoke screen for Pan to hide his actions under the guise of progress. Progress which is only seen under exponential growth, up, up, and up, not giving second thought to who or what it steamrolls over.
If Verlaine did one thing with his life, it would be making sure it was gone.
It took them quite a while to put together a plan compared to the time they had, and even then it was a haphazard concept that barely held together under the slightest bit of scrutiny, but it was something, and something that could save him.
Save him, save his brother, save his friends, save his boyfriend.
“What do we think,” Hugo asked, spreading out their hastily drawn diagrams and plans across Goethe’s sandalwood coffee table. Goethe tapped his finger on his upper lip in concentration, his brows furrowed as Verlaine hums, picking up one of the papers.
“I think…it’s the best we are going to get,” Goethe said eventually, his mind reeling through potential ways it could go wrong, each thought branching off into worse and worse outcomes.
“It’s the only one we’re going to get,” Verlaine said, squeezing Rimbaud’s hand. Rimbaud agreed, even though he would’ve preferred to spend days, maybe even weeks working out an iron tight plan, one that had multiple back up options in case anything happened.
But they didn’t have days, they barely had hours. They had to hit the ground running soon, before Pan could react, and if they were extremely lucky, they had less than twelve hours. Verlaine told them that Pan knew someone for everything , and it would only be a matter of time before Pan slaughtered each and every one of them, all while making it look like an accident.
They would be dead, Pan’s hands would remain clean, and he would move on to other people, other experiments, other victims, and they would just be another body swept under the rug.
Rimbaud squeezed Verlaine’s hand back, looking at his face to see if he was afraid or apprehensive.
Verlaine’s expression was far from scared or afraid, instead seemed determined, exorbitantly so. Almost of a decade of torture and misery could be over tonight…or…
No. Rimbaud wouldn’t think of any other outcome other than success. Mind over matter. He couldn’t even let a seed of doubt influence his actions, lest something go awry, and he loses the ones he holds dear.
“It’ll all be over tonight. Everyone follows their part, and it’ll be all over,”
Goethe, Hugo, and Shakespeare all nodded, while Verlaine picked at his nails, staring out the window in concentration.
“All over…” he repeated, though it was barely louder than a mumble.
“I’ll get ready,” Hugo said, standing up, his knees popping.
”As will I,” Goethe declared, copying Hugo’s actions, smiling at Rimbaud and Verlaine. “I’ll see you in the morning, after everything"
Hugo and Shakespeare left first, needing to prepare logistics on their side before anything happened, bidding everyone goodbye as Goethe put away the whiskey and started to clean the glasses. Rimbaud and Verlaine followed the other two rather quickly, nerves jumped into a knot.
“See you in fifteen minutes?" Rimbaud asked, wanting to feel Verlaine’s hand in his again.
Verlaine smiles, even though he felt it waver under uncertainty.
“See you in fifteen,”
—————
Verlaine stared out onto the city line, watching all the lights shine, drowning out the stars that hung in the sky. The eyesore that was the Twelfth Corp building stood out against the dark skyline, the bright lights of the logo burning into Verlaine’s eyes.
“You’re quite punctual,” a voice called out from behind him.
Verlaine didn’t turn around, still watching the cars go by.
“Indeed. I find being late to be extremely rude,”
Wells hums, dropping her backpack onto the concrete ground, rummaging around her folders to find something.
“You sent me on quite the wild goose chase. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered so many dead ends,”
“I know. Pan is a shifty man. You won’t find anything he doesn’t want you knowing,”
“Not shifty enough. I found quite a few bits of incriminating evidence. Not against him personally, per say, but certainly indicates foul play being involved,”
Verlaine turned around, looking at Wells. She didn’t react with shock, or even seem surprised in the least. He was still in his normal King of Assassins outfit, but he didn’t wear his mask. It felt odd, like he was walking around without his skin.
However, Wells barely reacted, and simply handed him a Manila folder, which was thick with legal documents, written testimony, and a final conclusion done by Wells herself as well as the official police report.
“I doubt my research will overturn the official ruling, but it’s worth a shot”
Verlaine ran his fingers along the ink, Wells’ neat script standing out like a light piercing through the fog. Clear as day, she had written what he thought all along, that there was probable evidence of foul play, though she could not confirm with absolute certainty that it was his father.
She was correct, it most likely was not going to overturn any official ruling, especially since it was almost a decade old by now, but it was something . It nearly confirmed everything he ever thought, everything he ever feared.
He has been slightly afraid that once he knew without a reason of a doubt that his mother was killed by his father, the fire of rage that fueled him should dull, finally sparking out as one of the many mysteries he had dedicated his life to was finally solved.
However, seeing the printed results stoked the fire more, the flames licking at his skin, driving him further and further towards his goal, and most likely his own ruination, but if he fell into Hell after burning his father’s throne to the ground, then so be it.
“Thank you, Wells. I can’t thank you enough,”
Wells nodded, shoving her hands in her pockets to stave off the slight evening chill, joining him by the ledge, looking out into the city.
They lapsed into silence, Verlaine fidgeting with his promise ring. His skin crawled with nervous energy, and he was nearly about to call it all off. It felt as if he was committing a great sin, where the reaper’s blade will cut him down on a shiny, white linoleum floor in an act of divine retribution. As soon as he fell, five more bodies would join him, all arranged in a sickly fashion in which the only explanation was that their deaths were simply an accident.
“I have nothing else to give you besides money, so I suppose I need to ask for a favor,” Verlaine said, breaking the silence as he turned his head to properly look at her.
Wells tilted her head in intrigue, though continued looking out at the city silently, allowing him to continue on.
“As soon as I’m done with this conversation, I’m going to Twelfth Corp to finally settle things with my father,” he says, keeping it as vague as possible, lest Wells report him to the authorities for probable cause. “I’m going to grab documents and evidence that incriminates him of a considerable amount of crimes. I wish for you too look over them, and if you don’t wish to do anything with them, if you could pass them off to someone who would,”
Wells hums, drumming her fingers along the concrete brick.
“That is doable,” she says eventually after a few seconds pause. “Though I doubt the report will solely be done by me,”
”That’s no matter to me. I just need everyone to know who Pan truly is,”
Wells nods, her brows furrowed in concentration, mulling everything over.
“I have no doubt that what you’re about to do is extremely dangerous. I wish you luck. Your father seems like an interesting character,”
Verlaine couldn't help but scoff, but he stayed silent and listened to Wells continue.
“When you succeed, just drop the documents off at my apartment, and I’ll look over them,”
”Thank you again, Wells. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you,”
”The knowledge that a future calamity is stopped is enough,”
His time was running out, he needed to meet up with Rimbaud before the turn of the next hour. He brought the mask to his face and fastened it around his head, donning it like a second skin, a second skin that itched and burned, yet embraced him like a cold blanket.
“Be safe, Paul.” Wells said, heading back for the stairs, not looking back.
“I will. Thank you, Wells. You’ve done more than I could ever repay,”
“I know. Meet me back here tomorrow with the evidence,”
“See you tomorrow,” he confirms with a nod even though she couldn’t see him.
He didn’t wait for her response, though he doubted she would give one, as he jumped off the ledge, pushing off the concrete with enough force to crack it.
Verlaine landed safely on the other roof, planning to simply jump from building to building until he met up with his boyfriend, and all of this would be over, permanently.
He could finally breathe a sigh of relief, finally feel the hearth. Blood will stain the office floors, soaking into the grain, a permanent reminder to all. He’ll tear Twelfth Corp down, though he doubts it’s entrusted to him. He’s never seen Pan’s will, but he figures Hell will freeze over before his father gives him anything out of pure benevolence.
As the wind whips through his hair, the resolve within his heart fuels the flames, scorching higher and higher.
Paul Verlaine was certainly not the first victim of Twelfth Corp, but he swore to be the last.