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One moment, Arthur Lester was standing in his office, about to open the cover of a strange book that had just been delivered to his door.
The next moment, without any discernible transition between the two, he was on his back in three feet of snow, screaming in the worst agony he'd ever experienced in his life. The scream was a bit more... bubbly than he would normally expect, but that was probably because of the copious amount of blood in his mouth. Why was there blood in his mouth?
"...rthur! C... ear me? Arthur! Arthur, fucking say something!"
Arthur whipped his head around at the sound of the unfamiliar voice and learned three new pieces of information. One, he should not be whipping his head around as his neck was just one of several sources of excruciating pain in his body. Two, he was bleeding quite heavily from his neck, and a fresh wave of hot liquid spilled down his throat only to freeze against his skin within moments. Three, when he opened his eyes to find the source of the voice, he could see nothing .
After he was done gasping through the pain of that small movement, Arthur managed to gurgle out, "Who-who's there? Please, h-help me, I- I can't see, and I don't- where, where am I, I don't-"
"Arthur, calm down, we’re- fuck, Arthur, there's so much blood."
There was something wrong with the voice. It was deep and reverberated strangely and... Arthur technically knew that humans heard through vibrations against their eardrums, but he'd never noticed, was never as hyper aware of that fact as he was now, realizing that the voice was distinctly not doing that. Despite the roar of the wind and the sound of shaking trees around him, the relatively quiet voice rang clear as a bell from inside Arthur's own head.
"Who- What-" a cough cut him off, and he spat blood. "P-please..."
"Okay, okay." The voice seemed to steel itself, spoke with a forced calm. "Arthur, listen very carefully. We have to get out of this storm or we're going to freeze. Now, I think I saw a building off to... the right, off to the right." The idea of a sanctuary helped Arthur to gather himself, cut through the pain enough for him to start processing his situation.
"O-okay, yes. I–I think I hear b-branches, s-scraping on a roof."
"Very good, Arthur."
"W-where are we?" Arthur asked again. He started trying to assess the damage, which was a little difficult since his entire body ached with cold, but the greatest source of pain was definitely coming from his right leg. He also noted with alarm that he couldn’t feel his left hand, or his left foot for that matter. Had frostbite already gotten to them?
"We're in the middle of a snow-covered forest; the trees seem to be pine. Beyond that, I have no idea. Don't worry about that right now, the important thing is to get to that building. Can you crawl?" A whine escaped Arthur’s throat without his permission.
“Crawl? C-can’t you help me? Wh-where are you, who are you, w-why is your voice…” The voice sighed.
“I’m sorry, Arthur, but I can’t carry you.” Before Arthur could object further, the stranger continued. “As far as who I am, my name is John, and I have no body of my own.” What? “I am bound to you within your eyes; that’s why you can’t see anything and why you hear me within your mind.”
“ What? ” There was quite a lot to unpack in that statement, but he found himself fixating on one point in particular.
“Look, Arthur-”
“You h-have my eyes?”
“Yes, I-”
“Give them b-back!”
“I can’t , Arthur.” Arthur opened his mouth to challenge this, but the voice–John–bowled him over. “Look, we don’t have time for this, we can talk about it more once we’re inside.”
Arthur would have kept fighting whatever this thing in his mind was, but the cold was rather insistent, as was the blood flowing down his neck. He took a deep breath and went to roll over onto his stomach.
Oh, if he thought his leg hurt before, he had no idea what it would feel like when he actually tried to move it. Arthur had broken bones before, but it was an entirely different thing when the bone was brushing against things outside his body.
“What the f-f-fuck happened to me?” Arthur moaned after he was done screaming, nausea washing through him at the feeling of wrongness and pain.
“You have two compound fractures in your right leg, the tibia and the femur.”
“ How? ”
“I’ll tell you after we’re inside. Now move.” Arthur couldn’t help the whimper that escaped him, but he took another hard breath through his nose and finished turning over, grinding his teeth against a scream. He reached out and was relieved to find that, while he couldn’t feel his left arm, he could still feel movement in that shoulder, and the rest of the limb seemed to be following. Slowly, torturously, he started to pull himself through the snow.
“No, not that way, the other way.”
“I th-thought you said it was t-to the right.”
“That was when you were on your back; now it’s to the left. I can see it better now, it- it looks like a cabin.”
“Any l-lights on?”
“I can’t tell, tilt your head up more.”
“What?”
“I’m using your eyes, Arthur, I can only see what you’d see.” Arthur really wanted to follow up on that, but did as he was bidden. “Perfect… Hm, there don’t appear to be any windows, I can’t tell if it’s occupied.” Arthur grunted an acknowledgement and kept going.
The journey was painful, the most physically painful thing he had ever experienced. He had never been this cold in his life, and it made everything hurt worse, but after a few moments he developed a system. Well, system was perhaps too complicated a word, but he managed to fall into a rhythm of reach-pull-reach-pull. All the while, the voice in his head gave direction and encouragement. It was working well enough until– maybe it was a fallen branch, or a jutting paving stone, or anything at all. But when he went to drag himself forward, something hidden in the snow impacted his knee. The contact was barely anything, it probably wouldn’t even leave a bruise, but, in that moment, the agony that vibrated through his bones was enough that the nausea won out, and he gagged into the snow.
“Fuck, Arthur. I’m sorry, I didn’t see it.” Arthur didn’t say anything, too busy sobbing and trying not to pass out to acknowledge the entity’s contrition. "Arthur, I know it hurts, but you have to move ."
“Fuck off,” Arthur gasped. “Just- j-just give me a minute.” John growled impatiently but kept his peace. Arthur took the opportunity to hold still–except for the shivering–and just breathe.
In. Out.
The cold had initially made the aching pain worse, but now it was finally starting to numb everything. He was pretty sure that was a bad sign; under the circumstances, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
In. Out.
“Arthur.”
“Just, just one m-more minute,” Arthur muttered.
“Fucking-” John cut himself off with a sigh. “I’m sorry, but we have to go.” Arthur opened his mouth to retort, but instead he yelped as his left arm suddenly stopped supporting him, almost pitching him face-down into the snow. Confusion turned to fear as he felt a shifting in his left shoulder, and then he was being dragged forward, his left arm grasping and pulling him through the snow entirely without his input.
"What the fuck?" Arthur gasped, his mind somehow making room for an entirely new terror.
"Arthur, don't panic.”
“What the fuck?”
“Calm down. In the same way that I have control of your eyes, I also have control of your left arm. Now, this will go a lot faster if we work together, so fucking move your ass."
"D-did you do this to me?" Arthur asked, half hysterical. "T-take me out into the woods, break my leg, t-take control of–”
“No, Arthur! I wouldn’t–” the voice bit off whatever it was about to say and tried a different tact. “Why the fuck would I break a body I wanted to use? Arthur, I am living in you. If you die, I die.”
“W-why should I believe you?”
“The cold doesn’t care if you believe me, Arthur.” The voice softened, went back to coaxing. “You can do this, Arthur, come on. We’re almost there, and then you can yell at me as much as you want.”
Frightened, but unable to think of an alternative course of action, Arthur reluctantly started crawling again. Only a few seconds later, he heard a distant howl, and he wanted to scream for a whole new reason.
“Was th-that a wolf?”
“It doesn't matter, just keep going.”
He did, and Arthur was quite certain his fingers were going to fall off when John finally, finally, called a halt.
“Okay, Arthur, we’re at the door. I’m going to push us up with our- your left arm, you reach up with your right and try the door knob.” Groaning with the effort, Arthur just managed to stay balanced on an arm he couldn’t feel and blindly pawed for the door. Clumsy, frozen fingers found the knob and turned.
“It’s unlocked,” he gasped
“Push!” For a terrifying moment the door didn’t budge, but with a heave that hurt even through the numbing cold, the door finally scraped open. “Well done, Arthur!” John crowed. "Now, let me look… Yes , there's a fireplace to the left with a stack of wood next to it ready to burn. It'll be completely dark once we close the door, so you'll need to feel your way over. You have a lighter in your pocket; start a fire, and then we'll deal with your neck."
Arthur very much wanted to be done now that they'd finally made it to the building, but inside was only barely warmer than outside, and it would be a shame to go through all that hard work only to bleed out now. He–well, they, he supposed–pulled his way inside. He lashed out with his left leg once he thought he was sufficiently past the threshold, and, while he couldn’t feel the impact, John confirmed it was closed. The journey was worse now that there was no snow to cushion the slide of his leg, but the distance was at least shorter this time.
"Ow."
"W-what’s wrong?"
"Found the kindling. I think I have a splinter," the voice said with grim humor. Arthur huffed a tired, wet laugh and started fumbling for the lighter. It took multiple tries with numb fingers to get a flame going, then John found a smaller stick to get the fire started.
"Good job, Arthur," John praised. “Now we need to- Arthur? Arthur!”
“‘N a minute,” Arthur murmured. He rested his cheek against the cold wood floor, feeling the warmth of the fire wash over his face.
“Arthur, don’t!”
Arthur was in his old living room, sitting in front of his old piano, his daughter in his lap.
“Now, here,” Arthur instructed, smiling as he tapped the keys. She giggled and followed his lead, and his heart felt like it would burst.
“Faroe,” Arthur whispered, spraying a mist of blood on the exhale.
“Arthur, don’t you dare leave me, not now, not after everything,” the voice in his head was rambling, and Arthur felt a firm pressure around his neck; the hand that he no longer controlled was clamped tightly over his wound.
"Nnn."
“Arthur, wake up!”
“‘M awake,” Arthur said, reluctantly stepping out of the dream and back into the painful reality of his situation. Was it reality? None of it made any sense, but he'd never experienced such pain in a dream.
“Jesus Christ, Arthur,” the voice said, though there wasn't any heat to it. "Don't do that. I know you're tired, but we at least need to stop the bleeding before you sleep."
"Wasn' on purpose," Arthur slurred. "How're we gonna stop the blood?" The voice sighed.
"Sit up a bit, I need you to look around so I can see our options." With a groan, Arthur did as he was told. John proceeded to describe a wooden cabin with a single bed that had a chest at its foot, a wardrobe against the opposite wall, and a desk with a rifle mounted above it.
"M-maybe, um… the bedsheets?" Arthur suggested, voice faint at this point.
"Good idea. They're not far, this cabin is small. Start moving, and I'll tell you when to stop." Arthur had barely started when he heard the sound of rolling dice. Before he could ask, John spoke up again. "Wait, there's- there's something under the bed, a box. I couldn't see it from the fireplace, it's pushed back and behind the chest. Crawl over there, I'll see if I can get it out."
Arthur refrained from pointing out that he was going to the bed anyway and dragged himself over. He could hear fumbling, then scraping. "It's heavy," John grunted, surprised. "Got it, sit up a bit so I can look inside." Really wishing he could just lie down in front of the fire, Arthur shakily pushed himself up. After a moment, John made a triumphant noise.
"Arthur, there's food in here," John said, excited. "Cans, and a canteen, and- buried underneath, a first aid kit!"
"Oh, thank Christ," Arthur grunted, then grit his teeth and turned over so he could sit with his back to the wooden chest, whimpering a bit. Together, they clumsily unloaded the cans so they could reach the kit. Arthur flinched each time he brushed against a hand he wasn't expecting, failing to coordinate with a limb that should be his.
"It looks like the bandages are a little old, but they should get the job done. Let's get your neck first, then you leg."
"I don't suppose we can just skip the leg?" Arthur said without hope.
"It's still bleeding, Arthur."
"Right, fuck."
"Let's just worry about your neck first. Here, hold this." Working together, and with more bumping of hands as Arthur tried not to feel like he was getting in the way of his own body, they managed to get the bandage around his neck in a way that seemed stable but didn't choke him. Arthur did his best to contain his whimpers as they tied it off; the wound in his neck might have been less painful than the two on his leg, but it was still a bitch to press on.
"Good job, Arthur. Just a little longer, we're almost there," John soothed as Arthur got his breathing back under control.
"You said I had two compound fractures?"
"Yes."
"Then no, no we're not," Arthur said, leaning his head carefully back against the chest.
"Don't give up on me now. Come up, pick up your head, let me look and see what we're dealing with." With great reluctance (a running theme for the night) Arthur complied, looking down where he knew his legs to be sprawled out in front of him.
"What do you think?" Arthur asked after a moment. "Should we... set it?"
"Do you know how to do that?"
"... Shove it back in and hope?"
"It's your leg, Arthur."
"Well, ideally you just try and stop the bleeding and then get to a doctor as soon as possible. Given that I have no idea what the fuck is going on, tell me, how likely is it that we'll find a doctor out here?"
"...Not likely. Our best bet would be if whoever owned this cabin returned and could take us to one, assuming they were willing."
"And what are the chances of that? Does it look like this cabin has seen any recent use?"
"No," John admitted. "It doesn't look like anyone has been here for a long time."
"Then we're on our own."
"Okay. How do you want to do this?"
The night had already set a pretty high bar, but what followed was the worst (physical) agony of Arthur's life. There didn't seem to be any food in his stomach to throw up, but that didn't stop him from dry heaving at the pain, feeling like he was going to pass out once more. All the while, the voice whispered encouragement and assurance, sometimes resorting to insults and beratement when Arthur tried to stop before they were done. In the end, Arthur lay panting on his side, his leg screaming its complaints but at least no longer bleeding, the occasional sob escaping him as he dealt with the aftershocks.
“Well done, Arthur," the voice said, at least sounding genuine. "You did it, the worst part is over.”
“Thank you," Arthur gasped. Minutes ticked by in relative silence, the only noise the ragged inhale and exhale of Arthur's breathing and the crackling of the fire. When he finally felt like he could think past the ache, he pushed himself upright.
"Now," Arthur started, doing his best to sound steady. "We're inside the cabin, a fire is lit, and my bleeding has stopped. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Wait, we still haven't checked the wardrobe. You're shivering even with the fire going, let’s see if there’s anything in there you can use.”
"You're stalling," Arthur accused, losing patience.
"No, Arthur, I'm looking out for you,"
"You said -"
" ARTHUR !" the voice intoned, and Arthur flinched, the shout seeming to rattle his skull even though the sound never actually reached his ears. "I-- sorry. You’re right, Arthur, but… What I have to tell you won't be easy to hear. This is going to be a hard conversation, and it's going to take a long time to explain everything that's happened, so you might as well be comfortable. I promise, let's just get you warm, and then I'll tell you."
"Fine," Arthur growled, and he was proud that his voice didn't shake. They made their way over to the wardrobe; miracle of miracles, there were clothes inside. John described what seemed to be a variety of work clothes and warm jackets. John then pointed out that Arthur's clothes were damp from melted snow, and it would probably be better to switch out. Arthur couldn't actually disagree, but he was further disturbed as he handled his own clothes and realized how ragged they were; what had happened to his suit?
(Arthur tried to take off his shirt with one hand, but, when that proved to be impractical, the other hand joined in. It felt strangely like someone helping him to undress, and the intimacy was just one more layer of discomfort in what was shaping up to be a very bad day.)
They had cut through Arthur’s trousers with the little scissors in the first aid kit in order to properly reach his wounds, so his legs in particular were freezing, but Arthur didn't think he would survive trying to pull on a pair of pants right now. Instead, they just took out everything left in the wardrobe and pulled the sheet from the bed. They used the pants to pad the floor so Arthur wouldn't be right on the freezing cold ground, then piled the sheet and all the coats on top of him. John warned him about not getting the clothes too close to the flames, but, honestly, his bedding catching fire didn't actually sound like the worst thing at the moment.
"Alright, I'm as warm as I'm going to get. No more stalling, tell me everything," Arthur ordered, his teeth chattering only slightly; 'warm as he was going to get' still wasn't very warm. The voice had the gall to sigh at him, but he acquiesced.
"Arthur, what is the last thing you remember before bleeding in the snow?"
"I was in my office," Arthur answered. "My partner and I were working on a case; we get a lot of work done on Sundays."
"Is that all?"
"And... I remember a book. Dropped off in front of our door. Picking it up-- that's the absolute last thing I remember."
"Okay." John seemed to steel himself. "Arthur, that book was cursed. I had been trapped within it, bound by a ritual, and when you opened it, I escaped into your eyes."
Arthur didn't say anything for a long moment.
"Arthur?"
"That's-- alright, I'm not going to say that's impossible given our current configuration. I'm not willing to accept that I've gone completely mad, and that the only other reasonable explanation for a voice in my head that can control parts of my body. But why were you bound to the book?"
"We'll get to that. At the time, I didn't remember why I was in the book either; I didn't know anything, not who I was or where I'd come from. You, meanwhile, didn't know why anyone would send you such a book. And we both wanted to know how to get me out of your body. So, we set out together to look for answers."
"And that journey somehow led us here?" Arthur guessed.
"Yes."
"How long have we been looking? How much time am I missing?" The voice didn't answer. "John? Tell me," Arthur demanded.
"From the day we met in your office, it's been a little over four months," John answered reluctantly.
"What?" Arthur asked, aghast.
"Admittedly, one month of that was spent in a coma, and almost three imprisoned in a pit."
"You-- okay, no. No jumping around, just tell me everything from the beginning."
And so he did, sharing the most unbelievable story Arthur had ever heard– although only slightly more unbelievable than waking up in a snowstorm with an entity in your head that could control your arm. Arthur got the feeling that John was leaving things out, but there was just so much that Arthur wasn't even sure he could fault him for it. There might not have been enough time in the world to truly share everything that had happened.
Arthur, of course, couldn't resist butting in with questions (a ghost, a talking head, and a lake monster, really?), though he did his best to limit them when it became clear that John was becoming irritated. He couldn't contain himself, however, when John reached the part about the city under the hotel and what they learned there.
" You are this King in Yellow?" Arthur asked, reeling back, though there was no point in acting like he could actually get away from the voice. Where could he go? How were you supposed to escape someone living in your own head?
"No, I'm not," the voice said forcefully. "Arthur, I understand how frightening that sounds, but I am not him."
"But you just said--"
"I used to be a part of him before someone tried to bind him to that book. The ritual had started, but the one attempting the binding wasn't fast enough. The King managed to escape by cutting off the part of himself that was already caught."
"Like-- like an animal chewing off its own leg to escape the trap," Arthur suggested.
"An apt enough description, if that leg could then form its own mind. I was trapped in that book for what felt like an eternity before you opened it. I won't lie to you, Arthur, at first I didn't care about you as more than a means to an end, same as the rest of humanity. I might not have remembered who I was, but I knew you were beneath me."
"And you insist you're not this evil king," Arthur said scornfully.
"Let me finish! That's how I felt at first, but the more I spent time with you, the more I observed, the more I was forced to think as I was brought along on your ride– I realized that there is value in the lives you live. And I wanted that for myself. I told you that the nurse, Lilly, gave me my name? Listening to her greet us every morning, just in case you were aware enough to listen-- it was the only connection I had for that whole month, and I don't think I could ever repay that kindness."
"It... sounds like she was a lovely person."
"And then there was you," John continued, catching Arthur off guard. "Despite everything that the King threw at you, in the face of all that cruelty, you never once gave up, and you never once passed up the chance to help someone in need. So yes, I used to think there was no point to any of you, and now I know I was wrong." Arthur wasn't sure what to say to that. Did he believe John? Could Arthur, of all people, change the heart of an unknowable and malevolent god?
"... What happened next?" Arthur asked instead. If John was disappointed by this, he did not say so. He simply resumed his terrible tale which, alarmingly, seemed to only just be getting started.
Arthur was certain that John was leaving information out about how they "escaped" the ritual, but Arthur would accept that they had both had the strength of self to resist the king for now. He listened intently to John's description of the Dreamlands, wondering if it could really be as fantastical as he made it sound. Arthur felt the wooden finger with morbid fascination as John described the carnivorous forest, though he stopped when a firm pinch made John hiss in clear discomfort. (It was... reassuring? to know that Arthur wasn't the only one left hurting by that place.)
On John went, through a desert and an apartment and a cave that contained dangers comparable to ancient myth. He told of how he and Arthur had worked together to defeat their adversary, only to be captured by the agents of the King in Yellow and left to rot in a pit. How they slowly built up a ramp until Arthur was finally able to free them from that place, and of a bloody being named Kayne who greeted them in a dead city. That part in particular was sparse in details as John's voice took on a clipped, efficient tone, and Arthur would have pressed to know more if it were not overshadowed by the fact that they were now approaching the King in Yellow of their own free will.
"Ah. So, that's how my leg was broken," Arthur said, feeling slightly nauseous. Other than that, he wasn't feeling much of anything; perhaps he had reached capacity on what his mind was willing to absorb, and now the story was just washing over him. "I take it I also have the King to thank for my neck?"
"... No, not exactly." Arthur's brow furrowed.
"I- I couldn't stand seeing you that way. I realized then that, for all our talk, I couldn't have spent an eternity watching him hurt you. So I offered to return to him in exchange for your freedom and safe passage home."
That should mean something, Arthur felt. What John was confessing was like something out of a war story, a display of selflessness meant to draw tears from the audience. But Arthur still felt disconnected from it all; surely these things had not happened to him. Surely the pain in John's voice was misplaced, meant for a stranger Arthur had been mistaken for.
"And then?" John took a shuddering breath, as if he had lungs to struggle against.
"You wouldn't let him have me. You said 'I can't beat you, but that doesn't mean I have to let you win.' You took out the dagger from our bag, the one that Kayne had given you." There was a rushing sound in Arthur’s ears. "You said goodbye, and-- and you sacrificed yourself. For me."
"No."
"Arthur?"
"No, that's too much," Arthur denied, letting anger coat his voice to hide the fear. "I don’t believe you, I– I wouldn't do that."
"You did do that, Arthur. I wouldn't lie about that."
"And how am I supposed to know that? I have no idea who you are--"
"I'm your friend!"
"–and yet you expect me to believe that I– that I killed myself for you?"
(He had thought about it more than once, and yet he had not, not for his parents or Bella or his daughter. How could he be expected to believe that the catalyst that would finally drive him to suicide could be this parasite?)
"I didn't ask you to! I didn't know what you were doing, I told you to stop."
"The blood on my neck has only just dried!" Arthur snarled, uninterested in the entity's objections. "This just happened, so how the fuck could I have forgotten all of that so quickly?"
"...I told the King to heal you," John answered reluctantly, voice tight. "But he said to rejoin him first. I did, but he just threw you out into this frigid wasteland. I wanted to hurt him for that, but I couldn't do anything as I was. Then, Kayne appeared to me. He offered to return me to you, on the condition that you wouldn't remember anything that had happened since the moment we met."Arthur laughed incredulously at John’s confession.
"So, that's it," Arthur said bitterly, and understanding clicked into place. "You're the cause of this. My eyes and my hand weren't enough for you, you had to take my memories, too."
" I didn't take your memories," John growled back, his frustration only feeding into Arthur's own.
"No, you just gave them away to some other god of unknown intention." As if he had any more right to them than the rest of his body; did Arthur have to worry about John trading away other pieces of himself on a whim?
"It was the only way Kayne would bring me back to you. If I hadn't agreed, you would have been alone!"
"Because having you here has made things so much better," Arthur snarled. "What have you contributed but to tell me what I could have done on my own? And don't say you've been guiding me, you can't take credit for being my eyes when you're the one who fucking stole them ."
"You ungrateful fucking-- Kayne said you were still blind, that our separation had done nothing to restore your sight. That you were blind and bleeding and freezing in the middle of nowhere, that the King had all but killed you himself. What the fuck else was I supposed to do?"
"You could have left me alone!"
"Maybe I should have!"
Arthur clenched his fists--no, he couldn't even say that. His right fist clenched, who knew what the other one was doing. Arthur clenched his right fist and breathed, focusing on the rise and fall of his chest as he tried to get himself under control. Neither of them said anything for a long time.
It was strange; John had no physical presence that Arthur could feel (just the lack of feeling in his lost limbs), but Arthur almost thought he could feel the entity roiling like a storm cloud behind his eyes. After a bit, the clouds began to break, and John spoke up, hesitant now.
"Arthur?"
"What?" Arthur said coldly.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said. I-- I know this is frightening, I shouldn't get angry--"
"I'm not a child, John."
"I know."
Arthur didn't respond at first, just huffed a sigh, then reached up and rubbed his forehead.
"... So, you think that this 'Kayne' was telling the truth? I'm just-- I'm blind, now?"
"I'm sorry, Arthur."
"Why should I believe you?" Arthur asked plaintively, a genuine question rather than an attack. "What proof is there of anything you've said?"
"Arthur," John said, voice low and soft like he was talking to a spooked animal. "Touch your face."
Arthur didn't know where John was going with this, but he couldn't see the harm in obeying for now. He regretted it almost immediately.
Arthur had always preferred to be clean shaven, getting antsy if he had to go without it for too long. Parker teased that he was trying to look like a banker, but, really, he just liked feeling clean.
His face now could not have been farther from that goal. The stringy mass on his chin was long and matted and caked in grime. He knew he must have brushed against it when they were bandaging his neck, but its presence hadn't registered. There had been too many other parts of his body that demanded attention before, but, now that he had noticed it, he couldn't think of anything else. It was disgusting, and he wanted to rip it right up from the follicles.
"This…"
"Now, feel your ribs."
He didn't want to, but Arthur had never been one to resist a hard truth. He pushed his hand under his coat, and he could count each one of the ridges there, arching up against his clinging skin. Arthur had never been a large man, but he had lost the slimness of his youth some years ago, fat starting to deposit in places it hadn't before. That was all gone now, replaced by prominent bone and a sickly belly.
"I..."
"We had time," John said, his voice painfully gentle. "I can't prove anything else to you, but you know that we had time."
It was too much. Arthur had never been particularly concerned with his body before, but to have it changed so drastically… Arthur couldn't fathom losing so much of himself, couldn't imagine loving someone so much and just forgetting--
He fisted his hand in his shirt and cried. Not the pained sobs forced from him by exterior assault, but tears and keening that built up pressure within him until they had to escape. And once they found their way out, they refused to stop, draining out of him like poison lanced from a wound. He hadn't cried so much since-- well, who was he to know? Maybe Arthur Lester cried everyday now, and he had just forgotten. Maybe time and the god within him had changed this, too.
He was startled out of his tears by a hand placed over his own. A rough, scabbed, calloused hand with a wooden pinky. His hand, or so he had once believed, completely unfamiliar to him now.
“What are you…”
"Sorry," John said, and he immediately pulled the hand back, sounding embarrassed. Arthur gave a snotty chuckle, then a hiccup.
"Is- is that a thing we do? Hold hands?" Arthur asked, smiling at such a simple phrase being so absurd in context.
"I- no, it's just- you seemed like- never mind," John said, voice turning to a flustered growl at the end. Arthur chose to have mercy, clearing his throat and wiping the moisture from his face on his new coat.
"Well, that was quite a story. And it ends with us in this cabin?"
"I would hardly call this the end, but I understand what you mean. Kayne made his offer, and I accepted. It felt like I was in that strange place for so long, but it must have been only a few minutes before Kayne fulfilled his end of the bargain and brought us back together."
"Why?" Arthur asked, flabbergasted.
"Why what?"
"Why any of it? Why get involved with us at all, only to place such an arbitrary handicap?"
"I won't pretend to know his mind, but beings as powerful as Kayne tend to get bored. I think he likes to fuck with people, and we simply have the misfortune of being his latest distraction."
"So, this is all for his own amusement?"
"In case it wasn't obvious, Kayne is a dick."
"Hm."
"What are you thinking?" John asked when Arthur didn't say anything further.
"I was thinking that the King in Yellow must be truly awful if being confined to a pair of eyes and a hand is preferable."
"The King would not have allowed me to exist as I was. I would either have struggled to maintain my identity for an eternity, or I would have eventually been subsumed by him." Arthur nodded to himself.
"So, in coming to help me you chose the lesser of two evils."
"No, Arthur. You are preferable to the King, but that was not the reason I came back."
"Right, I understand, it's-- we'd been through a lot together, and you felt like you owed me for--"
"Arthur, I know this might be hard to believe only hearing the tale rather than remembering it, or maybe the failure is mine for not making this explicit, but I gave up godhood for you," John said wryly, and Arthur's brain skipped a bit like a bad needle on a gramophone. "I'm sorry for all I have taken from you–your eyes, your hand, your normal life–but it's not just that I didn't want to leave you to face this alone. I didn't want to leave you ." Arthur sat for a moment, trying to make the words make sense in his mind.
"... That's a lot."
"It is."
"You'll forgive me if I can't– return the sentiment quite so quickly."
"I will."
"Alright, then."
An odd silence fell, and it seemed neither John nor Arthur felt the need to break it. Arthur stared at the flame– rather, he felt the flames on his face and listened to the crackle of burning tinder. He felt bereft, realizing he would never stare into open flame again, and he wondered if John appreciated the view.
"... If we put one of those cans on the fire's edge, we might get something close to a hot meal."
"Brilliant idea."
Arthur's hunger had taken a backseat to the rest of his discomfort, physical and emotional, but now it was at the forefront and could no longer be ignored. Arthur had never felt so ravenous in his life, and it was another point in favor of John's story. Arthur was too impatient to wait long enough for the container to heat through, and he was too hasty in picking up the can–John scolded him when the hot metal smarted their hands–and yet the half-cold can of beans was like heaven to his deprived stomach. John only spoke up once to tell him to slow down and not make himself sick, but otherwise left Arthur to enjoy his meal.
Arthur finished the beans, still ready to tear into as many cans as he could get his hands on, but John pointed out that they didn't know where they were going to get their next meal. They compromised with just one can of cold peaches 'for desert.' This did bring up the troubling question of what they were going to do in the middle of nowhere with a broken leg; John said that Arthur could maybe take a moment to come to terms with the current situation, but Arthur found a welcome distraction in preparing for the future. Arthur was slurping up peach juice in between suggestions when he realized he had forgotten something.
"And after that the next goal would be to get back to Arkham. Parker could– hold on a moment, where was Parker in all of this?"
John did not answer, and even though John was a disembodied voice in his head, Arthur got the impression that he had tensed up. Instinctual dread began to build in Arthur's stomach. "John?" Arthur asked cautiously. The voice finally answered, subdued, and the fragile composure Arthur had managed to regain threatened to shatter all over again.
"I'm sorry, Arthur. Parker is dead."
Parker is dead.
"No, that's–" Arthur stopped. Swallowed. As much as the idea hurt, it wasn't hard to believe. There were plenty of opportunities for death in John's narrative, and it was hard to imagine Parker allowing so much of what had happened. He just couldn't fathom why John wouldn't have shared this fact during his retelling; was Parker not important enough for his fucking highlight reel? Arthur shoved aside the grief in favor of answers and demanded, "How? When?"
"... We've already talked a lot tonight. I think it would be better if you got some sleep before we continue."
"Fuck you," Arthur shot back immediately, anger surging hot and fast. "You've been dancing around plenty tonight, and I've let you, but not this. Tell me what the fuck happened to my partner."
"No." If Arthur's eyes were his own, he imagined he would be seeing red.
"What the fuck do you mean, 'no'?"
"I don't want to."
" Why ?"
"Because I'm tired, Arthur!" John snapped. "I know that you're having a hard time right now–" Arthur let out an angry scoff, but John kept going, "but I've been going through this nightmare right alongside you, every miserable step of the way, and I am fucking tired."
Normally, Arthur would have pushed. He would have screamed and threatened until this being gave him the answers he wanted, if only to get Arthur to shut up. But. There was grief in John's voice as he shied away from this topic. Whatever had happened, it hurt John to think about. And as much as Arthur wanted to demand answers–
Well. Apparently he and John had become close enough to die for each other in this time; maybe John had come to care for Parker, too, before his death.
"I deserve to know," Arthur said firmly, though quieter this time.
"And I will tell you," John said, sounding as exhausted as he claimed. "But can we just– can we just leave it until the morning?"
"... I suppose it's not like either of us are going anywhere," Arthur said begrudgingly. It chafed to put a stranger's grief before his own, but he could manage at least for a little while.
"Thank you, Arthur," John said, and the genuine gratitude in his voice was enough to mollify Arthur for the time being.
Neither of them had much appetite for conversation after that, so they went about bedding down for the night. They moved more logs so they were right next to the fire pit, then repositioned so that Arthur could lie down on his back with John's arm stretched out towards the stack. With some effort, John could keep feeding the fire as necessary while Arthur slept.
"If I wake you, just ignore it and try to go back to sleep," John advised when they tested the theory and found it difficult to move the logs quietly.
"Honestly, with as exhausted as I feel, it's possible a bomb could go off in here and I'd sleep through it," Arthur said, finally allowing himself to relax in preparation of sleep. (As much as one could relax while sleeping on a pile of clothes on the floor of a tiny cabin in the middle of a blizzard with an unknown entity in his head and the unresolved knowledge of his partner's death bouncing around in his brain.) John snorted at that, which led to Arthur wondering if John had a metaphysical nose.
"I suppose there's no point in getting up if bombs have started manifesting out of thin air, but I'll wake you if I see something slightly more survivable."
"In our current state, I'm having a hard time imagining many candidates."
"Considering what we've survived before, I think you might surprise yourself."
"Well, that's terrifying to think about."
"Arthur, just go to sleep. I promise, I'll watch out for you."
"I... Alright. Good night, John."
"Sleep well, Arthur."