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“Oh, alright, you’ve talked me into it. I don’t want the show to end so soon, after all, and you’re just so lost like this. You can have him back… but not here.”
“Not… here?”
“Mm-hmm. See, there’s some… mm, let’s call it interference, with this little town you got yourself kicked out into. If I tried to drag that poor little fragment out here, all on his own? Well, there’s just no telling what would happen to him! So… I’ll set you a ti-i-iny little challenge. Easy as anything. All you’ve gotta do… is leave Addison’s borders. And then–! Your old pal will be back where he belongs. Safe. And. Sound.”
“That’s… that’s it? I just have to leave town?”
“That’s it! Well, you’ll still be blind—I hope you’ve noticed that by now—but I’m sure you’ll find a way to manage. So… do we have a deal?”
“…Deal.”
He should have known it wouldn’t be that simple.
Arthur has been returned to Earth in the thick of winter, in what truly was a little town in the middle of a mountain range, too dangerous to safely venture out of its borders on foot with the minimal (or, complete lack of) supplies he has access to. Maybe it’s the interference Kayne talked about, or maybe it’s just his own rotten luck, but it feels like this whole town is against him. Most of the people he’s met are in the grip of the mining company, in one way or another, and the few travelers like him who aren’t…
Well, they don’t seem to last very long.
The wind rattles the door of the small… he thinks it’s a shed, that he’s found to hide himself away in for the rest of the day. When the temperature starts to fall again, it’ll hopefully be dark enough for him to move unimpeded. For now, though, he turns his attention to the bundle of candles he’s found. They’re small and the wicks are long enough that he’s been able to tangle some of them together at the tips. It’s not much—it’s hardly anything, really—but at least it lets him feel like he’s doing something.
He clicks their lighter open with his right hand, and searches for the wicks with the left. Even the brief brush of the wax against those fingers makes his breath catch, a tight knot rising in his throat at the reminder that he can feel it.
He… he refuses to call himself helpless, but he’s never been more acutely aware of how much he’s come to rely on John. As his eyes and as a second voice of reason. Alone, he’s been poisoned, he’s been run out of buildings, he’s been chased by wolves and people and something that he swears was entirely different to either of those. His whole body aches, his eyes smart with exhaustion, his stomach is painfully hollow, and he can’t ever seem to catch his breath. And all of that might have been tolerable—
—if only he wasn’t enduring it alone.
He misses John’s voice so acutely. He’d take any of it, in this moment: his earnest encouragement, his scathing derision, the unintentionally cruel edge of his curiosity. His simple presence alone gave Arthur a reason to keep moving, because it wasn’t just his life he was fighting for.
Gives. Gives him a reason to keep moving, he reminds himself with a full-body shake to get rid of the thought, as he closes the lighter and tucks it away again. He misses John, but he refuses to mourn him. Because he isn’t gone. Because this is a temporary separation and he knows exactly how to get him back, and once he does, they’ll be… well, maybe not okay, but they’ll be together again. And they can figure out the rest after that.
He cups his hand around the collection of wicks, and against his palms, the dim heat from the candles only feels strange. The cold in Addison pervades no matter how he tries to stave it off, and it seems to rapidly eat away at even his memories of warmth. He’s beginning to find himself strangely numb, as if accepting that he has always felt, will always feel this way. Even the shivers that wrack his frame have become routine, white noise fading into the background of his thoughts.
When did he last sleep? Or eat?
He knows he can’t afford to care about either of those questions. They’re just wastes of time, distractions from his task, moments longer he’ll be forced to spend within the confines of this prison town. Moments longer spent alone. It doesn’t matter if his limbs shake, if pins and needles race up from his numb hands and feet, if his breath stutters in his chest and blood roars in his ears when he so much as tries to stand. None of it matters when he can see the finish line so clearly in front of him. He just has to get there.
Just has to get there. Then it’ll all be okay.
In his mind’s eye, he envisions the way the light must glow from the cracks between his fingers. He wonders how John would describe it. If he would think it beautiful to watch, too, the way he’s always been enamored with any kind of light.
He clenches his jaw, swallows back the sob before it can fully form.
They have a—he has a plan. He has the outline of a plan, which is all he really needs. The mountainside estate—if he can just get there without being chased off again…
…If he can manage the walk, that is. He takes one hand from the halo of light and rests it on his ankle, where that thing got its claws—teeth—whatever into him. He can feel the thick padding of the makeshift bandages even underneath his layers of clothing—yet another thing that’s so much harder on his own, the treatment of his wounds—and when he rolls the leg of the pants up, there’s a heat under them comparable to the candle-flame his hand had just left.
He shoves the fabric back over it before he can really start thinking about it.
Because he’s not thinking about it. There are only so many things he can hold in his mind at once, and if he starts to properly contemplate the ways infection would hinder his ability to
He is not thinking about it. It’s a fresh injury. He has time. He is not thinking about it.
The Larson estate. Once he gets there, a house of that size must have residents. Staff, or something. And a family like the Larsons must have a car or two. He can… bargain, threaten, beg, whatever he has to do to get himself into one of them.
And then as soon as they’re far enough away, as soon as he hears John’s voice once more, he can slash the driver’s throat and take the car for them alone.
And everything will be okay.