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“John, come here a moment?” Arthur's voice drifted from the bathroom.
John grumbled his feigned annoyance, setting aside his book. Dylan Thomas' recent 18 Poems, recommended by the bookshop owner down the street. John had been trying to memorize more poetry, envious of how Arthur could recall verses at will. He often found himself reciting couplets he studied in his head, matching their meter to his footsteps.
“My throat knew thirst before the structure / Of skin and vein around the well”
The bathroom door was open a crack, letting out some humid air from Arthur's hot bath. Water gurgled down the tub drain. John knocked once and stepped in to find Arthur stood before the sink with a towel wrapped around his waist and wet hair. He didn't understand why that sight made something ache in his chest.
Nobody had warned him how bodily human emotions would be before he got, well, a human body. How they could hurt, how guilt ate hunger out of his stomach and anger, the one he thought he ought to know better by now, cut through his temples and jaw. This one, this ache, wasn't exactly bad. It was like when he'd recently bumped into their dining table hard enough to bruise his thigh, and he pressed his finger into the bruise, and that hurt a little but there was a sweetness to the hurt that made him want to press harder.
“I, born of flesh and ghost, was neither / A ghost nor man, but mortal ghost.”
He noticed the razor in Arthur's hand. “Mixed up the shaving cream and face wash again?”
Arthur sniffed, smiling. “Don't tease. I was rather hoping you'd tell me if I got all the stubble. So you don't have to be seen strutting around town with me all patchy-faced.”
“Right. Let me see, then.” John stepped closer to Arthur, who leaned his head back a bit. He looked at Arthur's face and neck without touching him, but was close enough that he could faintly feel his own breath refracted off Arthur's skin.
“You missed some here,” John said, touching a spot on the underside of his jaw. The touch spread goosebumps down Arthur's neck and collarbones like a ripple in water. John wondered if his hands were cold. He didn't feel cold at all.
Arthur handed him the razor. John took it in his left hand and with his right, cupped the back of Arthur's head. He held the blade almost parallel to the skin and gently scraped the hairs away.
He didn't want to betray Arthur's trust, far from it, and yet sometimes it felt so inevitable he thought he should just get it over with, do something rash just to show Arthur what a mistake it was to have faith in him. So yes, he thought for a moment about pressing the blade deeper.
“I dreamed my genesis and died again, shrapnel / Rammed in the marching heart”
A few seconds and he was done. He set the razor on the sink counter and brushed hairs off Arthur's skin. With both hands, he held Arthur's head to move it back upright, earning him another sniff-laugh, and pushed back the damp strands of hair that fell forward.
“Time let me hail and climb / Golden in the heydays of his eyes”
“Thank you, John,” Arthur said softly.
John's chest felt cavernous the way that ache echoed through him. “Now you look ready for our, what, strutting?”
“Wonderful. Going to bed soon?”
“I planned to read for some time longer.”
“Oh. Well, I don't mind if you bring your book to bed while I'm falling asleep. 'S not like the lamplight would bother me.”
“Alright, Arthur,” John said, and he thought he might never get over the way the name coated his tongue.