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“Arthur stop,” John pleaded, weary in a way Arthur hadn’t heard before. “I can’t do it again, please just-“
The voice in his head broke off with a cry as Arthur gripped Mr. Faust’s flesh, holding it steady as his teeth sank in. He felt more like a feral animal with each bite he tore away.
John’s voice returned. “Please Arthur, I can’t keep doing this, it hurts.”
A part of Arthur screamed at himself from the inside. He was hurting his friend, or the closest thing he had to one. Every bite he took was pain for John, it wasn’t fair, he had to stop.
That part of him had seemed very quiet since Mr. Faust’s lips had turned blue.
So he bit and tore and rent, relishing the blood that ran down his chin. At least it took away some of the dirt. John screamed and cried and begged, and Arthur let him until finally, finally, there were only bones remaining.
*******************
“Arthur. Arthur! ”
Arthur’s eyes flew open as he jolted back to the waking world. The room was too dark for John to see much beyond the edge of the mattress. He started to crawl his arm out towards the lamp he knew to be nearby- Arthur may not have been able to see the light himself, but it seemed to bring him comfort knowing John could see any potential dangers, or at least be able to describe their surroundings to him as he fought to ground himself back in reality. As John strained against his limited range of motion, Arthur made a broken sound like
John had never heard from him before.
“I’m sorry,” the man cried. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I-“
This was new. Arthur usually wasn’t much for talking after nightmares, except to tell John to fuck off when he asked what he dreamt. “Why are you apologizing?”
“I just- I never meant to- I’m just sorry, John, I’m so sorry…” Harsh sobs took over his words. He took in a painful sounding breath
“Jesus Christ Arthur, you need to calm down,” John said, hoping his own worry didn’t come through.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur said between gasping breaths. “I don’t want to hurt you, I’m sorry.”
He’d seen Arthur panic before, seen him wake up from the twisted nightmares of the King in Yellow, and yet this was something new, something John didn’t know how to handle. There were always jarring moments of shallow breaths and shaking hands, but not even the worst of what the King had put in Arthur’s mind had reduced him to tears.
“Arthur, what did you dream about?” John asked. He needed to know if they were both in danger, if they needed to be running.
“I can’t- I can’t, not yet please ,” Arthur begged.
“If this is from the King in Yellow, we need to know now .”
Arthur shook his head, dampness from his cheeks soaking the pillow beneath him. “It’s not him. I know it’s not.”
“How?” John growled.
“It just wasn’t!” Arthur’s hand twisted tighter into the sheets. “It- it was a memory, okay?”
“Oh…” John had to tread lightly around topics of memory, though it seemed no matter how hard he tried, he tended to find himself misstepping. It at least seemed like he was starting to calm down. “Was it-“
Arthur shook his head. “Not Faroe. Not this time, it’s…” Arthur’s breaths quickened. So much for calming down. “Jesus, John I can’t.”
“You can,” John said firmly. “It was a dream. Whatever you saw, it’s over. You’re safe now.”
“Am I?” Arthur questioned, a desperate, maddened tilt to his voice. “John, I don't think I ever left the pits.”
“What are you talking about, of course you got out, you’ve been out for days now-“
“Not the part of me that matters though.” Christ , he sounded miserable. “Whatever was still… still human in me, it’s still in the pit and you know it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Faust.”
John felt a strange ache, though he couldn’t tell if it was from the mention of Faust or the way Arthur’s voice cracked as he spoke. “I think about him a lot too.”
That was clearly the wrong thing to say. Arthur sobbed and curled into himself tighter, his right arm wrapped around his middle as if trying to hold himself together. John laid his left arm over Arthur’s and gave his forearm a little squeeze, and tried again for comfort. “You did what you had to to survive, Arthur.”
“Except I didn’t have to like it, did I?”
John gasped and his hand clenched into a fist, jagged nails digging into his palm. Any other words he might’ve said left his mind. “Jesus Christ, Arthur.”
John remembered Mr. Faust’s death more than he wanted to. He remembered looking down at the man’s gaunt face as his lips went blue, but more than that, he remembered watching it happen from the outside. Over and over, seeing Arthur’s hands, both of their hands close around his neck, their thumbs press into his eyes.
He tried not to look at Arthur’s face in those memories after the first few times, but sometimes it was unavoidable. In the moments before, he’d shouted in a hesitating Arthur’s head to do it, do it now before we lose our chance . Watching from the outside, he saw the way Arthur’s eyes went dark and he bared his teeth moments after their hands locked around his neck. John told himself he was imagining the way Arthur’s lips had curled up into something between a snarl and a smile, or that it was just the adrenaline of the moment. Perhaps, on some level, he’d known all along.
“I- God, John I enjoyed feeling the life drain out of him,” Arthur snarled through his tears. “I told you taking out his eyes would make it faster, but no. I just wanted him to hurt .”
“Every time you ate-“
“I know,” Arthur snapped, and John couldn’t help imagining for a moment, an animal, trapped, starved, afraid, snarling and snapping with the last of its energy. “I knew it then too, that you had to see it, I knew that it hurt . And I didn’t care. Hell, maybe I wanted you to see it, to hurt, I don’t know. ”
A part of John wanted to snap, and claw, and hurt Arthur right back. Watching Faust die over and over and over again, looking down to see Arthur’s hands dripping with old blood and fresh all at once. He’d thought at the very least that Arthur was hurting too, that they were together in that sense. Thinking back, he could feel Arthur’s thrill at the kill. Perhaps he had known it then too and just tried to ignore it.
Instead, he simply sighed “Oh Arthur…”
“Don’t Oh Arthur me, just- just don’t.”
“What do you want me to say then?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Arthur shouted, “Just- I don’t know, yell at me, dig up everything you know would hurt, and throw it back at me, anything but… anything but…”
Anything but pity , John imagined. Fine. If that’s what Arthur wanted, let him have it.
“You want me to be angry do you?” John snapped, letting loose that simmering anger inside him. “Fine. I am angry. You made me watch Faust die over and over again, knowing how much it hurt. You lied to me that you wanted to make his death faster, don’t you remember it took two hands to gouge out his eyes? I remember that feeling. I felt it every time you feasted on him and I hated it more and more every time. Even after he was gone, where do you think my thoughts go while you sleep? I may not be able to dream, but I can remember. And you know what I tell myself when my thoughts bring me back there? At least we made it faster. At least it was your hand next to mine. And now you say it was just blood lust? That hurts Arthur, and yes, I’m fucking angry, but I forgive you.”
“Don’t-“
“I understand you. Perhaps more than I ever have. Because I am the one who relished killing Parker and Emily. I am Yellow and everything we said and did that hurt you before I remembered,” John hesitated, but there was no going back now. “I’m the same person who saw a kind and hurting creature and named her Lilly. The same one who cried at her loss. I am capable of all of that, just as the Arthur Lester who helped me find what it means to have humanity is the same one who murdered men in cold blood and liked it. You did not leave your humanity behind in the pits, it isn’t lost to you. And I know what it feels like to try to claw your way to being something better. You can’t deny what you in your entirety are capable of, but that goodness, that humanity, it’s there too.”
Arthur began trembling again. Good. John thought, maybe he was finally getting to him. “So yes Arthur, I forgive you,” He moved his hand up to run his fingers through Arthur’s sweat-damp hair, eliciting a sound like a barely repressed sob. “If you let me, I will help you find it as you once helped me.”
“ John… ” His voice, high and thready, broke once again. “I’m so tired of hurting.”
Oh, Arthur, John thought as his hand brushed over the still fresh scar on the man’s neck, How long has it been since someone was kind to you?
“I know,” he said instead. “This too shall pass, right?”
Arthur huffed in what might have been an attempt at a laugh. “But please don’t let me know what’s coming next.”
“Whatever it is,” John said, “We’ll survive it,”
Arthur‘s voice was barely a thread in the dark. “I don’t know if I can believe that this time.”
John paused his brushing of Arthur’s hair, letting his hand rest on Arthur’s head in what he hoped was a protective gesture. “Then I’ll have to believe for the both of us.”
Arthur sniffled. “When did you end up good with words?”
“I suppose when you live in the mind of a poet for long enough, you pick up a few things.”
A few more slow tears rolled from the corner of Arthur’s eyes, and John paused his brushing of Arthur’s hair to wipe them away. Arthur’s eyes drifted shut.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Arthur whispered into the dark.
“Neither do I,” John said. “But start with rest. We can figure out what’s next in the morning.”
“Ok,” Arthur took a slow breath. “Ok.”