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It was an odd feeling, embarrassment.
Arthur had very nearly forgotten what it felt like, thought he had long since become jaded to it, what with the past four months or so, but it was as he was trying (and failing) to climb upon his newly-gifted steed that he realized he had merely parted ways from it for a short time, acquainting himself with other, more prevalent emotions, most of which tended to land in the ballpark of Dread and Pain and Mortal Terror.
Now, as that rare embarrassment warmed the nape of his neck and cheeks, skin seeming to physically rebel against the all-too-obvious gazes tracking him like a kettle of hawks, he found that he was far from jaded to it—that it was, instead, an acquaintance returning to sit beside him at the bar. And the more his foot slipped from the stirrup and his fingers scrambled over leather, the more his skin heated with renewed vigor.
His gratitude for his improving health was tempered only by the sudden and overwhelming urge to fall into another pit and never be seen again.
Eventually, (after the increasingly unhelpful interjections from a certain entity and talking skull) Arthur’s leg finally seemed to get the memo and swing over high enough for him to leverage himself onto the horse’s back with John’s assistance.
Together, they steadied themselves, before coaxing the horse into a gentle trot.
You’re a natural, John said, not quite concealing the tail-end of a chuckle.
“John Wayne is a natural,” Arthur countered.
John Wayne?
“I believe he is a horse!” Yorick chirped, oh-so exuberant and oh-so-wrong and Arthur didn’t have the heart nor wherewithal to correct him.
Though…that was as good a name as any, wasn’t it?
John Wayne.
Parker had dragged him to that cowboy film so many damn times, just as exuberant the fourth time as he’d been the very first. Arthur had never considered his friend to be such a fan of the cinema until that week, much less a fan of Westerns.
Why Arthur had joined him each and every time he saw fit to go, he couldn’t say. Maybe it was because Parker always insisted on paying for an extra ticket and scolded him for letting their hard-earned money go to waste if he tried to refuse. Perhaps there was a part of him, larger than he originally thought, that remembered when he’d been even poorer with two parents struggling to make ends meet. Of course, perhaps Arthur just liked seeing Parker’s mouth twitch in an amused smile, his head thrown back as he laughed at all the wrong scenes and talked through all the quieter ones.
Maybe he had been the slightest bit besotted with the silver-screen actor’s sea-glass eyes and perfectly wavy hair. And maybe—just maybe—Parker’s tastes were beginning to rub off on him.
Who could say?
Arthur stamped down a wave of sorrow. He was allowing his mind to wander.
He swallowed and urged his horse on.
He slowly followed the cavalcade through the castle’s courtyard and toward the front gates, John giving him directions every once in a while so they wouldn’t inadvertently bump into the carriage or Sir Vale a few paces ahead.
They were really doing this, leaving behind yet another chance at shelter and safety in an attempt to protect something of immense power. While his stomach certainly felt fuller and his lungs, clearer, his body still carried with it aches deep within the muscles and joints, so deep that he wouldn’t be surprised if Alia’s magic could not touch it.
There were more surprising things to happen to him than learning his body had forgotten what it was like to operate without some base level of pain.
Sleeping for a month was sure to provide him with more time to heal, yes, but there was no telling when and how the stone would fall into the wrong hands. Evrard’s nervous energy had soaked into the stone walls of the castle the past week, buzzing through the air, thick enough to choke on. They’d had to leave.
Arthur sighed.
He was going to be sore after this.
Abruptly, the carriage gave a loud rattle in front of them, likely passing over a large rock or root or something of the sort. Whatever the case, one of the crates of provisions fastened to the back slipped from its restraints to spill across the cobblestone.
It was then Arthur’s transportation saw fit to kick up its front legs, whinnying in fear and making a valiant effort to buck him from its back. John, too, released a surprised yelp, like he was afraid Arthur would meet yet another untimely demise via the end of a hoof.
“Woah, boy!” He wrestled with the reigns, pressing his thighs harder against the saddle so as not to slide. “Easy. Easy.”
His right hand automatically moved into the horse’s mane, running his fingers through coarse hairs and stroking the side of its thick neck until all four of its legs met the ground once more.
Jesus fucking Christ, John growled. Why the fuck is Antoine allowed to ride in the carriage when he can’t even do his job of keeping everything inside?
“Easy, John,” Arthur soothed, his hand passing between two alert ears, palming over tense muscles. “There’s a good boy. You’re alright.”
He didn’t realize his voice had lowered to an old, familiar tone he had used so many years past to comfort someone who never truly left his mind.
Another wave of sorrow to be flattened and locked away.
“Just a loose crate. Nothing to worry about.” The horse huffed. Settled. “That’s it.”
There came the sound of a door squeaking open, then footsteps.
“Apologies, m'lord,” came Antoine’s timid voice. “Must ‘av hit somethin.’”
Arthur chuckled. “I gathered.”
There then came the sounds of wood on stone, which preceded a few groans of exertion as the supplies were undoubtedly returned to their proper place.
Antoine sighed. “Jus’ needs some more rope.”
Arthur would have offered a helping hand, but there was nothing on earth that would make him dismount so quickly after the shamefully herculean task of mounting in the first place.
“Of course. Take your time.”
Thus, Antoine shifted items to and fro within the carriage, Alia remaining stalwartly silent all the while as Sir Vale dismounted his own horse with a clank of metal. Arthur hoped neither of them were shooting him any disparaging looks. Then again, surely John would have told him if they—
Arthur’s train of thought promptly derailed.
“John?” he muttered under his breath, thankful for the bit of commotion directly adjacent to him. “You alright?”
Nothing.
“John?”
Still nothing but for the breeze and the shuffling of wood and metal and stone.
“John, I’d appreciate you saying something; you’re making me nervous.”
Arthur felt that nigh-imperceptible presence shift in the back of his mind as if from a fugue state.
I— John cut himself off, voice somewhat strained. I’m here.
Relief flooded Arthur’s body of its own volition. “Good.” However, when he reached for John’s hand, he quickly flinched away.
“What the hell is the matter with you?”
Nothing’s the matter. I just—
“It is because you called him a good boy, master!” Yorick cheerily cut in, very nearly spooking them and their steed all over again.
If Arthur thought his face had been warm earlier, he’d been sorely mistaken.
“W-what? No, I didn’t—”
“I heard you, master! You said, ‘Easy there, John. There’s a good—'’
“Shh!” Arthur’s hand flailed, scrambling to halt the movement of a no-longer clacking jaw before someone could hear. “Quiet, Yorick. What did I tell you about time and place?”
“Everythin’ alright, m'lord?”
Arthur straightened and tried to look unbothered under Antoine’s curious eye. “Yes, yes. Brilliant! Just— John here is getting a little antsy. I think I’ll walk on ahead if that’s alright with you.”
“Oh.” Antoine seemed to hesitate. “Of course, m'lord. We shall be behind you shortly.”
Arthur gave a curt nod. “Grand.”
With all the nonchalance he could muster, he gently directed his horse forward, trotting a fair distance away from the rest of the group.
“Are we out of earshot?”
“I believe so, master!”
Arthur nodded again, though, even with the confirmation, he couldn’t seem to make his mouth form the question he needed to ask next. It didn’t help that if he concentrated hard enough, he could almost convince himself he could feel John squirming and burrowing himself further in the back of his mind like a duck sticking its head beneath the water.
It was just a simple misunderstanding. Why was he so fucking tongue-tied?
“Yorick,” he said slowly, hoping not directly addressing the person involved would make it easier. It didn’t. “I did not call John what you presume I did.”
“I heard you, master!” he repeated, far too energetically.
He’s right, John mumbled. I-I heard it too.
Arthur’s face burned. “Oh, for the love of— The horse, John Wayne, you absolute donkey! Both of you. I was talking to the fucking horse. You know, because I nearly fell to the ground and cracked my skull open? I was trying to calm it.”
There was a heavy pause.
Oh.
Arthur couldn’t fully hide the chuckle that escaped him. “And here I thought you were an investigator! I warned you—John is a common name. It just so happens to be the name of an actor. Plenty of actors, mind you.”
John’s hackles audibly rose. It’s not my fault you gave the horse my name! And how the fuck am I supposed to know you named it John?
Arthur rolled his eyes. “I suppose I thought it was fairly obvious.”
Well, it wasn’t.
“Evidently.”
Arthur sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. It was longer, now, longer than he tended to keep it, but still far shorter than it had been following those excruciating days in the prison pits. Days he would prefer not to dwell on. The cut he’d received in New York had faded.
“I wouldn’t have called—”
I shouldn’t have assumed—
Arthur stopped the same moment John did, their overlapping words snapping back into silence.
You first, John prompted graciously.
“All I meant to say was that you needn’t worry. I wouldn’t have called you—” Arthur cleared his throat. “Well. You know.”
“A good boy!”
He winced. “Y-yes. Thank you, Yorick.”
How and why John had even thought such a thing in the first place was another matter, entirely. But Arthur was likely overthinking things as he was wont to do. It had been an innocent mistake, and they hadn’t met any other Johns thus far. It was only natural he would get mixed up.
“What about you? What were you going to say?”
John hesitated. It’s nothing. I should have known you were talking to John Wayne. The two syllables left him like teeth being pulled. He’s a very good…horse.
His tone settled poorly in Arthur’s stomach like curdled milk. There was an air to the words akin to jealousy.
The gate is steadily approaching, John said, tripping over himself and landing a bit bumpily into his usual narration. Behind us, I can just about make out the edge of the forest where we came from before arriving at Castle Kerringford. The sky is pale and gray, awash with clouds that promise, at the very least, a drizzle in the coming hours—
“John. I know what you’re doing.”
What do you mean? The false indifference did little to hide the strain of the words.
“You’re trying to distract me so I don’t deduce what’s wrong, but I’m afraid those tricks won’t work on me. I know you too well for that, my friend.”
Arthur knew he was playing his own tricks by adding such endearments, but he did not mean them any less.
Jealously, he understood. And if John could find it in himself to be jealous of Oscar, then why not a fucking horse? Nonetheless, Arthur had the sneaking suspicion there was more to his tone. A hint of pointed self-flagellation—
Ah.
When Arthur spoke next, he did so very carefully. “Do you…not consider yourself to be good?”
John did not reply.
Arthur’s heart sank.
For all that John had told the Witch, for all he had relayed to him during those painful three days of recovery, did he truly deem himself as anything other than good and strong and kind? Did he not see his own self-sacrificial tendencies as a mirror image of Arthur’s? Had he not unfolded that waterlogged letter and, with a trembling voice, recited the one thing he knew Arthur needed to hear most in the world, despite the fact it was etched in a far deeper place than paper?
“You are. Of course you are.”
For the first time since he had acquired the set of armor he now wore, Arthur wished the unforgiving metal was not blocking him from holding his friend’s hand, reaching out in reassurance, rubbing a soothing thumb over the veins on his wrist.
Instead, he had to be content with resting his hand, gauntlet and all, over John’s as it gripped tightly at the reigns, as Arthur lowered his voice to a whisper.
“You’re a very good boy, John.”
There came an immediate hitch of metaphysical breath. Then, a forced calm.
You mean…the horse.
“No,” Arthur said easily, running his fingers again through its long mane. “I don’t.”
John was not a child. He knew that, nor did he think otherwise. However, Arthur couldn’t fully hide the amusement that tugged at his lips at just how high-pitched the responding noise he made sounded, so much like a flustered teenager tripping over his own tongue.
Arthur continued. Where was the harm in it?
“You’re always looking out for me, making sure I’m headed in the right direction or eating or sleeping, especially this past week. So, thank you. I don’t think I’ve ever told you, and-and I know I can be a bit of a prick, at times, but you’re…good for me.”
Warmth rushed to his cheeks and, instinctively, he buried his nose further in his cloak. Christ, who was the flustered teenager now?
Arthur…
That tone was precisely what he shied away from, why he hated being vulnerable like this. He’d heard it in Parker’s voice before, in Bella’s, in Daniel’s. That gentleness that bordered on too sweet. Too suffocating.
“I just wanted to say it, alright? I know we’re stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere, being stalked by God-knows-what, but I… Being with you, it’s—”
Better, his mind finished for him.
Even if, objectively, their life was a living hell of Kayne’s own, twisted creation, Arthur could not honestly say he would be alive without Parker and, later, without John. They were not each other’s keepers, but they kept each other going.
And, in the future, maybe they could keep each other longer still.
I feel the same, John said softly, his presence shifting and expanding and Arthur wondered if the gentle pressure in his mind was his friend’s way of offering an embrace.
Arthur hadn’t realized when John Wayne had ceased trotting, nor when his eyes had fallen shut until the rattle of a carriage pulled him back to the present.
“Something wrong?”
Even without seeing the all-black armor on his sturdy frame nor his horse and its barding, Sir Vale cut an imposing figure with his voice, alone.
Arthur tried not to flinch. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. “No, no. I was just— distracted, for a moment.”
Sir Vale said nothing for a long while, then, with perfect neutrality, “The gates are ahead. We’d best be moving.”
“R-right.”
The fading clop of horses’ hooves soon indicated his growing distance.
He was studying your face for a long time, Arthur. I don’t think he trusts you.
“No. Probably not.”
It was obvious that whatever Evrard had seen in him was not shared—or not completely—by his other traveling companions. Antoine had been amicable thus far, yes, if such an understatement would suffice, but it was just as possible he wanted to get to know Arthur better because of how much he didn’t trust him.
Alia had only ever been silent and immovable, more akin to a Greek statue than anything flesh and blood. He could only guess what was running through her head at any given moment, much less what had been running through her head when she had pressed her cold palms to his chest, banishing blood and fluid from his lungs even as her hands wandered over swathes of scarred skin and black veins as though she had been deliberating with herself before inevitably deciding not to go any further, dig any deeper.
And Sir Vale…
John gave a low, dangerous rumble like bottled lightning.
Arthur chuckled, once more caressing his horse’s neck. “Easy, John,” he whispered, both directed to the creature under him and not. “There’s a good boy.”
He briefly thought it wouldn’t work, but, a second or two later, he felt John settle, however begrudgingly, like a cat whose hackles slowly lowered in favor of receiving a scratch beneath the chin.
Arthur’s chest warmed along with his face. He could never stop being so fucking endearing, could he? To think, this had become his life—metaphorically stroking down the barbs of a fragmented god.
Like the discharge of a bullet, Yorick’s voice tore through the moment. “Am I a ‘good boy,’ master?”
Arthur pretended to think long and hard on the question. “Well, I don’t see why not. Yes, you’re a good boy too, Yorick.”
John let out a scoff that could only be described as affronted in every conceivable way.
“Thank you, master!”
Evidently not so easily swayed, John growled and drove his left hand into the empty sockets of Yorick’s eyes.
Antoine called from behind. “Is something the matter with your brother’s head, m'lord?”
“Oh, nothing at all,” he called in return. “He’s simply talkative today. It’s giving me a headache.”
Amid John’s raging slew of expletives, Arthur buried his mouth deeper into his cloak to conceal his laughter.