Chapter Text
They were dancing when it first happened.
Having his own body was a learning experience with difficulties John had greatly underestimated. After all, he was The King in Yellow—once and future if he had his way—and a simple human configuration was nothing compared to the complicated majesty and grandeur of his original body. Perhaps that is why he struggled so much to not stumbled over his own feet in an effort to not step on Arthur's toes.
"John, c'mon," Arthur laughed, every inch of him beautiful in his joy and amusement (even at John's expense), and it stole the breath from his human lungs. "Just relax! Go with the beat."
"Easy for you to say, Arthur," John muttered, feeling heat flood his face as Arthur's fingers laced with his own and guided John around their small apartment to the crooner on the radio. "You're an expert at this."
"Pfft! Hardly," Arthur denied, because he was also an idiot. John's beautiful, wonderful idiot. "Come now, this is an easy one. Just watch my legs, let me guide you for once."
"Blind leading the stupid, hm?" John grumbled, but there was some of his more relaxed and teasing humor to it, and he could see the approval of it in Arthur's softened smile; feel it in the tightening of his hand in John's.
"Shut up and dance with me," Arthur commanded, still smiling, and lead them in an approximate waltz around the floor. They spun, and Arthur's thigh would sometimes slide forward, nudging when John should adjust, pressing when he should stop. John's heart thudded hard behind his chest, in his sweating palms (ugh, why did these bodies get so damp in the worst ways?), and down between his legs.
"Do you trust me?" Arthur asked gently, pressing in close so they were chest to chest.
"Always," John answered without thinking, and a fraction of a moment later: "Why...?"
"I'm going to dip you," Arthur said without explaining, his thigh sliding snugly between John's legs, pressing up into the juncture of him, his other leg bracing and bending as Arthur twisted them suddenly. John gasped, bending backwards, hands gripping tight to Arthur's hand and shoulder as the small of his back rests against Arthur's knee. His braid swung like a pendulum back and forth, and his eyes locked on Arthur's.
Though Arthur never got his sight back, a problem he WILL solve, John never felt so seen or stripped bare when Arthur meets his gaze. It's always so unerring in moments like these, and his legs shook not just with the effort to keep upright without falling. Arthur's thigh was warm and firm against him, and John felt himself stirring—quite literally. It startled him badly enough into losing his balance and falling hard onto the floor, pulling Arthur along with him.
"Fuck!"
"Shit! Fuck, my knee."
John was frustrated enough at the sudden drop and his own flustered, spreading heat that before he could think clearly enough to do otherwise, he shoved Arthur off of him.
"Hey—ow!" Arthur snapped, rolling onto his back and elbows, glaring in John's assumed direction. "John, what the fuck!?"
"I—I'm sorry," John blustered, scrambling to his feet, running his hand over his hair. Some hair had loosened and fell in his face, and his horrible cock was half out and expressing interest in things. And Arthur looked annoyed and perplexed, which he could deal with but—oh no. There was concern there now, doubt.
"John, I didn't mean—"
"It wasn't you, goddamnit," John snapped, and roughly tugged Arthur up off the floor, onto his own feet. He pointedly kept him at arm's length from himself, gripping the slighter man's shoulders like he needed to keep him at bay. "I'm just. Embarrassed, okay?"
Arthur blinked at him, surprised, already fighting a smile as he took on all that so-soft human concern for John. Because Arthur was blind and stupid as well as beautiful and clearly hadn't noticed what was wrong with John yet.
"There's no reason to be embarrassed, John, it's just us here." Arthur's warm, calloused hand patted gently over John's hand, which he jerked back like it'd burned. "John, come now, you're being a bit ridiculous."
"You're being ridiculous!"
"And now you're being a child," Arthur crossed his arms, cooling.
"Do not go there, Arthur," John bristled, and finally his dick got the memo and retreated back inside of him. Though it was a bit more halfhearted than he'd prefer.
Arthur threw his hands up in the air, giving up. "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried that move. I was...it was..."
John waited for Arthur to finish his thought, but it didn't really seem like it'd be coming as the man turned pinker and floundered.
"I mean, you're a giant now, and you've never danced before—"
"I've always been a giant, Arthur, and I've danced just...not anything like this. Or like this," he gestured at himself, and then sighed at how stupid that was. "Like...Like how I am now. Physically. With all these...contained, stiff limbs."
Arthur tilted his head to the side, curious. "You remember dancing as ...as you were before?"
John doesn't know why it bothered him how much Arthur avoided referring to him as the King. It just felt like an Arthur thing, and like all Arthur things, discussing it was damn near impossible for the two of them.
"Of course I did," he huffed, his turn to cross his arms now, and focused on breathing steadily as something still peeked out with interest. "Music, Madness, entertainment in all forms. The Dancers—"
"Yes, yes," Arthur said hurriedly, dismissing and moving on in the same breath. John's gaze dipped to the floor, irritation and shame fluttering back up again. "My point remains the same though: I pushed you too far. I'm sorry about dropping you."
"You didn't drop me; I lost my balance and... fell."
"Tomayto, tomahto, John."
"What does produce have to do with this?"
Arthur threw his arms up again and faced away from John striding across to the radio that had started on an episode of The Spirit now that the music hour was done. "Whatever! Christ, I can't even apologize to you—"
"You don't have to apologize!" John growled back, actually stomping his foot before he could gain control of that little tantrum expression.
Their neighbors answering below with heavy thumps a broom under John cut off whatever either of them was going to say next. They stared at one another (or rather, John did) before Arthur's shotgun laughter broke the tension. John melted a little, and joined with him, his own deep and malevolent chuckle roiling up to meet him. The broom banging resounded once more, louder and angrier, and they knew a warning when they heard it. Both of them muffled their laughter best they could, and Arthur collapsed onto battered sofa in their living room with a sigh.
"I am sorry you felt embarrassed, John," Arthur continued, because he can't help himself and John knew this. "Stupid of me to try that move."
"I wouldn't mind trying it again," John argued, weight shifting from foot to foot as he remained standing where he fell. "Now that I know what to expect."
"Oh really?" Arthur's voice sounded different, lower and throaty, intrigued. It made John fidget and force a shaking exhalation out. "Really."
"We could—"
"N-not tonight," John cut in, too quickly, he knew it. It was suspicious, there was that Detective Look on Arthur's face, and he started to panic in earnest. "Just—don't you think it's been enough. Tonight."
"Oh," Arthur deflated a little, that self-doubt on his face again, and no, no, no! John didn't want that either! "Right."
"I'm just—I'm still figuring it out. This...body," John admitted, hating how tight and confined he felt in his suit still, no matter how loosened and relaxed it had been made now that they were in for the night.
"You...still haven't really described yourself to me." John scoffed, caught off guard by that.
"What are you talking about? I told you what it looks like."
"Not all of you, John."
"What more is there to..." It was John's turn to say: "Oh."
It was quiet now, their downstairs neighbor's radio more audible than their own. "I... it’s different than yours," John reminded him, voice stilted and rough.
"So you've said. All you've said."
"It's my body, Arthur," John snapped, feeling cornered and defensive now as he moved to grab up his jacket, discarded on the back of the desk chair. "I don't have to tell you anything."
He didn't miss the hurt flinch, the way Arthur tensed up and closed off.
"Of course not, John. You can just...know whatever you like about me, have seen me in every possible way, because I—what? Don't get that same courtesy?"
"That's not the same—"
"Why not!? Because I'm not trapped in your eyes? I'm still dependent on you for so much, and the things we've done—been through, John. Did...Did it not mean anything before? Was all the...the intimacy just you, what? Appeasing a lonely pathetic—"
"Arthur shut the fuck up!"
The sound of the radio being turned up downstairs was poignant, but they hadn't busted out the broom again. It meant they were still good before the threat of calling the landlord or police cropped up. Arthur's face was splotchy and red with feeling, and John's own chest felt like a bellows. His eyes pricked with frustrated tears, and he once more cursed himself for being so Weak and Physical. They stewed in the quiet for a bit, as Arthur listened for once.
"I... I’m different from you," John emphasized, his voice quieter and rougher than he'd like it to be. "It's....It's not normal."
Arthur's brows furrowed, and he leaned forward a bit, elbows resting on his knees: his active listening pose. "Do you mean...not...human?"
"Not if what you told me about your own genitalia is true," and John knew he sounded bitter and vulnerable. Everything felt more vulnerable now, and he wondered when at what point being stuck in Arthur had become less a prison and more a shelter.
"Well, it's certainly true for most men I knew," Arthur replied quietly, and somewhat cryptically. John wanted to pursue that hint of implication, but refused to get off this path now that he'd bravely started down it.
"Yes, well, it's...closer to what I was familiar with. Before."
"Ah," Arthur paused, fingers drumming along his knees in a very pianist action. "I don't exactly have a frame of reference for that, John."
John sighed heavily, feeling so weary of this already, when Arthur added: "But I'd...like to."
John's eyes snapped to Arthur's, and once more he felt stripped and seen by this impossible human. "If...you'd let me."
"I..." John fretted, feeling too warm, too unsure. "I'm not...sure."
Arthur leaned back; his hands raised in placation, "I don't want to—"
"What if you hate it?"
"—pressure you. Wait, what?"
John's hands are back and snagging in his own hair again, tugging more of it free of the braid Arthur helped him with earlier. "What—what if it's disgusting, Arthur? I don't—what if—I'm not like Parker or Bella but I'm more like Bella if what you said about women is true and—"
"John."
"—And you left her. You didn't love her, and I'm not normal I don't know why this stupid fucking body couldn't just be normal—"
"John!"
The command in Arthur's voice cut through John's spiraling like a slap. John's jaw snapped shut, and he watched dumbly as Arthur got up from the sofa, crossed over to him. His hands blindly patted across John's chest—pausing like always over his pectorals a moment longer than necessary—as he felt his way up to John's face. The pinky of Arthur's left hand scraped a little on the hint of stubble coming back on John's cheek, and he instinctively leaned into Arthur's palm.
"It's you. It's yours," Arthur said, eyes unerringly finding John's again, and it made John swallow with an audible click. "I love it no matter what."
"You haven't even seen it."
"I haven't seen you but I know that you're beautiful."
Arthur's right hand joined the left, mapping gently over the planes of John's face, his strong nose and wide, thick lips, the subtle point on the curve of his ear. "I can guess a little at what I feel, and I believe what you've been willing to describe to me as the truth. But none of it matters to me—none of that ever mattered to me, even when I could see."
"I don't...understand," John mumbled, lips buzzing a kiss with his words against the tips of Arthur's fingers.
"It's always been about what's here," Arthur tapped at John's forehead, getting him in the eyebrow slightly. "And in here," he added, and poked directly over John's heart. "For anyone I've...wanted; cared for. John, I've known all I need to about you before you ever had a body. I knew I would like whatever you were—because it would be you."
"Oh, Arthur...." John's voice, choked with feeling, his vision hazy with tears, and it crashed over when he realized that he could in fact hold this man. How could he ever stop holding Arthur now that he had the arms to hug him? John pulled the slighter man into his broad chest, arms octopus wrapping as best they could with their limited joints and stupid-stiff bones. He sniffled, tucking his face into the crook of Arthur's chest, wetting the man's shirt collar when Arthur heartily returned the embrace.
"Let’s call it a night, partner," Arthur whispered after their hugging turned into gentle swaying back and forth in time with the neighbor's music. "One bite at a time, right?"
"Right," John croaked, shoulders shaking with a short laugh. "Like the elephant."
"Just like the elephant. C'mon, you big softy," Arthur tugged the jacket back off John, working on the buttons of his shirt.
"Arthur...."
"Just the shirt and trousers, John; for sleeping. One bite at a time."
"Okay. Arthur?" John stayed Arthur's fingers for a moment, drawing them back up to his mouth for a kiss. "Thank you."
Arthur's ears and cheeks burned red, and he demurely looked away despite all the sense that made. "Charmer."
"I mean it."
"I know, John," Arthur said, twisting his hand about to kiss the inside of John's wrist. "Thank you...for telling me."
John grunted at that, and was quicker about getting Arthur's shirt off than Arthur was at his, fastidiously folding their shirts and setting them on the back of the desk chair. "Trying to be better at this...talking thing. About what's actually bothering me, that is."
"Yes, I know. Me as well," Arthur sighed, cracking his back. "I'd rather go against a boltworm again sometimes."
"You're free to stick a fork in the socket any time, Arthur."
"Oh, shut up." Arthur swatted at John's chest, causing an embarrassing little yelp and whimper out of John as his pinky grazed a nipple. They stood there a moment, and then Arthur pointed at him. "Later. Sleep, now. Tomorrow, after we finish getting your wardrobe increased, we're talking about this."
"I don't need more clothes, Arthur," John whined, but got into his side of the bed without fuss. "I like wearing your clothes."
"You're clearly several inches taller and broader than I am, John. It has to be indecent the way you look in public."
"I thought you didn't care what I looked like," John sniped back, just being contrary now.
"I care about other people looking at you," Arthur muttered, and it sounded somewhat dark...and possessive.
John's cock peeked out once more, but a quick little slap down there both solved and worsened the problem. He bit back another moan, one that he clearly didn't muffle near as well as he thought if the tense silence that followed it was any indication.
"Tomorrow," Arthur said, strained and nearly breathless.
"I could..." John's hand crept over Arthur's hip, but stopped when Arthur rested his own over it.
"No, no. Tonight, just. Just this. You next to me."
"Alright, Arthur."
"Goodnight, John."
John rested on the edge of Arthur's pillow, his strong arm around Arthur's middle, left hand resting over Arthur's chest to feel his heartbeat. "Goodnight, Arthur."
Neither slept until the rosy-fingered dawn teased under the shutters of their window.