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Arthur knew from the moment he woke up that it was going to be one of those days, the same moment he opened his eyes to greet the unchanging black haze of the world and didn’t feel the sliver of sunlight that usually wormed its way between the gap in the drapes.
These days, he had the privilege of rising much later, unless a client’s only workable window of time was in the ungodly hours of morning, which—thankfully—was a rare occurrence. If he stirred in the middle of the night, nightmares were the likely culprit, be they his own or John’s or, on nights when the universe saw fit to add a larger dash of turbulence into their comparatively calmer lives, both.
But there was no light. No birds singing incessantly. Before sunrise, then. And it was another moment later that he realized what had awoken him. Or, in this case, what hadn’t?
Everything ached, the same way an amputee might feel a storm on the horizon, deep within his joints and muscles and the marrow of his bones. His eyes stung the longer he kept them open, more sharp than the customary after-effects of slumber, and he quickly shut them again.
Now that he had pinpointed the cause, everything seemed that much more acute: the pulsing ache of the spiral of wood in his pinky, sending small shocks of pain tingling up the length of his left arm as though it remembered it had once belonged to someone else.
The burning of his right ear with the bottom ripped out, feeling so raw at the edges, he might have convinced himself he’d only received the injury the day before.
The way his lungs felt like they were fighting just to expand, irritating the old stab wound a few inches from his heart just as a swallow pulled at the jagged white line across his neck.
His abdomen throbbed with the recollection of steel, his shoulders with the echoes of lead and teeth, his leg with the assurance that, yes, it had been broken in two too many places, and, yes, it was still fucking pissed about it, no matter how long ago the tibia and femur had been magically set.
Sometime in the night, John had slung an arm, purposefully or otherwise, over his stomach and the typically comforting weight now seemed to be crushing Arthur’s already tender ribcage.
Is this what it felt like to John when he said he wanted to peel all his skin off? Though, perhaps skin was the least of his problems. It was deeper than that, the pain sinking into every last nook and cranny and pore and Arthur wanted the day to be over before it had even begun, wanted to scream, wanted John to move his fucking arm—
Weakly, with the arm that didn’t feel like it had thousands of needles sticking in it, Arthur pushed at his friend’s. He may as well have been pushing against a brick wall. He considered going back to sleep until John moved on his own, but the mere idea of lying there a minute more, clouded by pain, was enough to renew his efforts.
Arthur eventually wriggled into an upright position, John grumbling when he did so. The world spun like a top and he leaned his skull against the headboard, praying it would end before the nausea won out. He pressed his eyes shut that much harder.
What had he even done the day before? Walk around the city? Do some shopping? They hadn’t been chasing down a fucking cultist, that’s for sure, and yet the pain ricocheting through every inch of his body begged to differ—chastened him for having the audacity to exert himself in any way.
He had never been a soldier in a war, never returned with medals on his lapel and an air of a job well served. Whenever a stranger occasionally mistook his injuries as being the result of such things, all he could do was choke down the guilt and offer a stilted, “Thank you.” Because he didn’t deserve that recognition. He hadn’t chosen to put his life on the line that day he’d opened John’s book; in actuality, he hadn’t wanted to. Forces out of his control had latched onto him.
Sure, he’d helped people. They both had, just as he and Parker had, back in the day. But did that deserve accolades? If those people could see him now, fighting back fucking tears over the thought of stepping out of bed, would they still deem him a returned military hero?
No. He wasn’t that in the slightest.
He wasn’t anything other than false advertising.
“Arthur?”
A hand touched his shoulder, the one the Butcher’s bullet had torn through during a frantic chase through the streets of New York City, pulling an involuntary sound from his throat and shooting his eyes open again. The hand flew away.
“I’m sorry.” Ah, John, sounding so apologetic. “Are you…”
He seemed to stop himself short, like he didn’t want to finish the question for fear of irritating him. That or he already knew the answer.
Arthur tried to smile through a tense jaw. “Just pain. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s not just pain,” John said firmly. “You know that. And I was getting up anyway.”
He hadn’t been—John slept like the dead—but Arthur let the white lie flutter away with his next exhale, so much more labored than normal. He could tell the sound did nothing to lighten his friend’s nerves.
“Do you want me to start a bath?”
Arthur chuckled and, oh, right, he shouldn’t do that today. He hissed as the vibrations jostled his aching, angry body. “Little early for that, don’t you think?”
“No. I don’t.”
As he did every so often, Arthur wondered what sort of expression was painting John’s face, if it was as firm and uncompromising as his voice. Was he staring directly into his eyes, waiting for him to inevitably cave?
Christ, a hot bath did sound nice.
“…Yes. You can start a bath, John.”
So John did and, as the water ran, he helped Arthur maneuver to the edge of the bed and, then, to standing, catching him when his legs locked up on his first step. Arthur recalled having done the same to him when they’d first been separated and John had kept tripping over his own two feet like a newborn fawn.
The memory brought a small smile to his face.
A dozen or so steps and half a dozen expletives later, they’d made it to the bathroom. John tested the water, turning the knobs when it was, evidently, to his satisfaction. Arthur managed a good half of his undressing by himself, with John helping to ease off his nightshirt and apologizing again when Arthur was forced to raise his arms.
He shivered when the chill morning air struck his exposed skin, but, a few seconds later, he was blissfully submerged into steaming water.
“Fuck.” The word seemed to escape him of its own accord. “That feels…”
“Good?” John prompted warily from where he had sat on the tile. “Painful?”
Arthur considered. “A little of the latter, a little more of the former.”
It wasn’t a cure-all—he doubted anything was—but, God, did it feel heavenly. Maybe he could fall back to sleep right here, the stiffness leaching from his joints, the perpetual aching dulling to a lesser throbbing. The water seemed to dilute the stinging, itching, burning of each scar, still all too present, but…quieter. Tantalizingly-manageable.
“We should call Mr. Rodrick and reschedule.”
Arthur flinched. Fuck. That’s right. They were supposed to meet with a client today. Of course. Of course that had to be today. How many times had they had to reschedule? Maybe not with Mr. Rodrick, no, but with other clients? All the other appointments they couldn’t make the first time around because of Arthur’s stupid fucking bundle of scar tissue and bruises that he called a body? That didn’t even deserve to be called one.
“That was three o’clock, right? We can make that—”
“Arthur.”
“I’m fine, John. I’m feeling better already!” At this, another sharp wave of pain seemed to strike him head-on and he hissed through his teeth. He tried to steady himself. “I’m not missing another client.”
“I said reschedule, not throw to the fucking curb. It’s not like we’ll be abandoning him. For all he knows, a more pressing case came up in the interim. You need to take some time to fucking rest or you’re going to run yourself ragged.”
I’m always run ragged, he left unsaid.
Arthur had slumped lower into the water until his chin and mouth were covered so that the sigh he made caused bubbles to flutter to the surface.
“I’ll phone him after breakfast,” John decided aloud.
Arthur said nothing, content to wallow in a bit of self-pity as he sunk entirely beneath the water, rising only when his lungs began their furious demands for oxygen. Then he thought of a little girl and music and, suddenly, the appeal vanished as rapidly as it had come.
John helped him stumble from the tub, dry, and dress, and whatever relief he’d managed to capture soon vanished as well. When previously the morning air had felt cold, the warmth of the bath had made it freezing by comparison, his limbs that much more exhausted. It was as if the pain was gnashing its teeth, ashamed it had lessened for even a few moments and seeking vengeance over that fact.
John wrapped one of Arthur’s arms across his shoulders. “Bed or sofa?”
“Sofa, please.”
Fortunately, their apartment was only one level, excluding the flight of stairs one had to climb from the front door of the building. If Arthur ever bemoaned not having the space of multiple stories, he relished that they didn’t on days like today, when each step felt more akin to walking on glass than hardwood.
With John now carrying the majority of his weight, they arrived in the sitting room where Arthur was slowly lowered to the couch, pillows situated to better support his head. John sat at one end, gingerly drawing Arthur’s legs into his lap and, without being prompted, beginning to rub and knead at the muscles there.
Arthur tried very hard not to curse, failing miserably when sharp knuckles dug into the tender flesh of his calf. John lightened the pressure, but continued with each leg from thigh to ankle. He lingered when he came to Arthur’s left foot, rotating it and massaging the Achilles tendon even as pins and needles saw fit to pierce his very cells. He could hardly lift it. Lifting any limb that had belonged to John during such flare-ups was like lifting an anvil.
“How bad is it?”
Arthur nearly laughed again, but stopped himself before he could repeat that mistake. “Which part?”
“I meant compared to other days.”
“What, like rank my pain?”
“I suppose.”
Arthur didn’t have to think. “Ten.”
He could practically hear the frown in John’s voice. “Why ten?”
“I don’t really have a form of measurement here, John. Let’s just say, for the sake of your question, if one refers to no pain at all and ten refers to intense pain…ten. Like—I don’t know—a papercut compared to a compound fracture.”
“What about a dismembered limb?”
“Well, I suppose—”
“Or evisceration?”
“Look, I’ll admit, ten is a rather arbitrary number—”
“So it’s higher?”
Arthur’s mouth flapped, dumbly. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
There was a long stretch of silence but for the sharp inhales he couldn’t quite conceal as John moved to massage his right hand, pressing his thumbs into the base of his palm and wrist so that his fingers curled inward automatically, flowers seeking the light of the sun. It did alleviate some of the bone-deep aching, if only a bit.
Arthur sighed. “Maybe it is higher. But I’m not going to lay here and say others don’t have it worse.”
“Misery isn’t a competition,” John muttered, moving to his left hand now. His hand now.
“Misery is a strong word,” Arthur countered.
He wasn’t even mortally wounded. Not anymore, at least. These were all just echoes—echoes that his body was too senseless to realize were not currently happening to him, as though time, itself, had become hopelessly tangled up, the past into the present.
John touched his pinky and a shockwave of pain arced through his veins.
“Jesus—”
“Stop that.”
“Stop what? You just—”
“You’re belittling yourself. Loudly.”
Arthur spluttered again, searching his mind for a suitable comeback. “Well, you’re being too rough.”
Surprisingly, John’s movements seemed to falter, his fingers skittering away like a frightened spider. “Am I?”
Arthur felt a twinge of guilt in his chest. “No, no. You’re fine, John. It’s-it’s helping. Really. You can keep going.”
He hesitated, almost like he didn’t fully believe him, before moving his hands upwards to rub at Arthur’s sore arm.
Though it didn’t fade entirely, the haze of pain did begin to lift layer by layer with every bath-warmed tendon and ligament John soothed. The sun ascended slowly, John commenting on the types of birds he could catch warbling in the distance and idly wondering when they would be migrating.
Arthur found himself sinking deeper into the cushions of the couch, fatigue dragging his eyelids closed again. Perhaps it was this same fatigue which caused his tongue to loosen.
“You know, I remember when Faroe started to walk, around eleven months old, I think? Twelve? I can’t recall. But she would…she would waddle across the room, arms stretched out on either side of her like she was some acrobat. Then she’d trip over thin air or her own feet and start to cry.”
“Arthur…”
“I always tried to catch her,” Arthur continued. “Obviously, accidents happen. Sometimes I would look away for a second and she… She was always scampering off somewhere, exploring her world. Sometimes I wasn’t fast enough and she’d bruise her legs or cut her hand. I’d make sure to bandage them up and, no matter how superficial the injury, she’d insist that I kiss it better.”
He thought back to her, so tiny in his arms, large tears streaming down her cheeks as she pointed to the flecks of blood on her knee. He remembered letting her help him unwrap the Band-Aid and stick it to her wound, bringing his lips to press a comically big smack over the whole of it. Then he would kiss her freckles one by one and her tears would be forgotten under squeals of delight.
His heart clenched.
“I remember thinking that, if I could, I would take all her pain upon myself so she wouldn’t have to feel any of it.” This time, he did laugh, and it sent a jolt of agony through his core in more ways than one. “Hell, if this is my punishment, I’ll take it.”
The moment the words left his lips, he was expecting John to reprimand him again for saying such things, for wanting to punish himself. He did nothing of the sort.
“…What did she mean?”
“Hm?”
“‘Kiss it better,’” John repeated. “What did she mean?”
Arthur opened his eyes to stare blindly at him. For the second time that day, he wished he could see his friend’s expression.
“It’s just…a practice, I suppose, often done with children when they injure themselves, you know, in all the little ways children do. Parents generally kiss a part of their body in order to make it feel better. I’m not entirely sure where it originates. Faroe thought it very important, though.”
John remained quiet.
The silence somehow stretched on longer than ever before.
“Is everything alright?”
He heard a rustle as John shifted in his seat and, a moment later, felt hands lift his left leg. A small pressure, hardly discernible, was delivered to his calf, then it was gone.
“John?”
His other leg was lifted. Again, the tiniest pressure arrived on his calf just below the knee, then on his right thigh over the fabric of his pants.
His left hand was taken next in a light grip and then, finally, without any barrier of cloth, Arthur identified the feeling as it pressed against the knuckle of his pinky: lips, slightly chapped and oh-so warm.
They moved to press a few more barely-there kisses—because that’s what they were—over his wrist and part of his arm, where the dark veins spread out like a tiny woodland.
“John.” He tried very hard not to sound choked. “What are you doing?”
He already knew the answer, of course—had already picked up on the ample context clues in the form of the practice he had just explained not two minutes ago, but John’s murmured response still seemed to stop his heart dead in its tracks.
“Kissing you better.”
Arthur prided himself on being able to keep his cool, to remain unfazed in unexpected or gruesome circumstances—had to in his line of work, where showing so much as the slightest crack in his façade could get him killed. Yet, at those words, he felt his whole face warm of its own volition.
John always found the cracks.
Before he could say anything, John lowered his left hand and moved to his right, pressing another soft kiss between his middle and ring finger where a tiny scar from the splinter in the windmill all those months ago lay, then to his right wrist—much like his left—where ropes had once dug into the skin. When he’d been bound. Trapped. Abandoned.
But not alone.
It was like a ghost was kissing him, each touch so light and gentle that Arthur was having difficulty remembering how to breathe. “W-why?”
Whatever answer he’d been expecting, it wasn’t the one he received.
“You’re in pain.” Like it was that simple. Like John had actually concluded in his brain that Faroe was correct and Arthur would only feel better should he do the same thing he had done for her.
John moved higher on his arm to where it had been bitten, burrowed into, and haphazardly cauterized. He left another kiss there.
“But it’s…it’s chronic, John.”
You can’t fix it, he left unsaid.
There was another rustle of fabric as John pulled away and Arthur already missed the warmth. “Do you want me to stop?”
“I…”
Did he want him to stop? Or did he want him to continue, despite there being no point in it? Even if the bath and massage had eased the sheer violence of the throbbing, it still had not disappeared entirely. It never would. He had resigned himself a long time ago to the prospect of being in pain for the rest of his life.
But when was the last time someone had been so careful with him?
When was the last time someone had kissed him?
“I’ll…tell you. If I do.”
John evidently took this as permission to shift closer. Carefully, he lifted the hem of Arthur’s shirt, Arthur wincing in commiseration at what must have laid beneath: a mess of overlapping, crisscrossed marks and scar tissue covering the length of his abdomen, wounds that had healed wrong or been reopened one too many times or been stitched back together with less-than-ideal materials.
John had shared it, though. This had been his body too, had been all he’d known for a long, long time. He’d seen everything there was to see, in all its messy, splanchnic glory. (If glory was even the proper word.) By all accounts, Arthur was the one who hadn’t. Maybe his imagination was blowing things out of proportion.
…Or maybe John really was disgusted and that’s why he hadn’t moved—
“I can hear you thinking again.”
“Sorry. It’s just—” Arthur swallowed. “I doubt it’s a pretty sight. You don’t have to—”
“It’s not that.” John paused again as if collecting his thoughts. Very softly, he brushed a thumb over one jagged scar. “I wish there was more I could have done to protect you.”
“John…”
It hadn’t been the first time he’d said that and Arthur knew it wouldn’t be the last. Neither of them were very good at outpacing their guilt, especially in regard to each other.
But his words died when John leaned down to place a tender kiss on the scar he’d been tracing. If it was from Kellin or the witch or the monster in the mines of Addison, Arthur had no idea. He wasn’t particularly inclined to ponder on it.
“If I could find every last fucking creature that laid a finger on you—”
“What, you’d shoot their brains out?” The joke was weak even as it fell from his mouth.
“More than that,” John growled, vowed, sending a shiver down Arthur’s spine.
In silence, he worked his way over every single scar individually, each bite and stab wound and bullet hole left by the hands of those who had only ever treated Arthur’s body with viciousness now feeling the gentle, methodical touch of someone who loved it.
Nevertheless, his limbs still felt tense with an instinct so deeply ingrained, the instinct to flinch, to pull away, to fight back because someone, something was leaning over him, touching him, hurting him—
“J-John.” His voice trembled and, even with the wave of panic, he felt momentarily ashamed.
John halted immediately. “Do you—”
“No, just— Just talk to me. Tell me a story. Anything. Please.”
Keep me here with you, he left unsaid.
“…Alright.”
John had moved to his chest now, kissing the bullet wound he received on the boat on Lake Crawford. “There is a man,” he began, pressing a lingering kiss to the scar left by the witch’s rapier, the puncture of which had perforated a lung and narrowly missed his heart. “A man with hair dark as the bark of an oak and, if you catch them quick enough, eyes that turn liquid gold in the sun.” A trail of dry kisses over the scattering of burns, leaving enough electricity in his wake to rival that of the boltworm. “A man whose body has seen so much toil, because he has constantly used it to save anyone other than himself.”
Lips soon found the slant of the shoulder where the Butcher had once shot him, the one which John had aggravated just that morning. “It is a constellation of good deeds.” The other shoulder, once dislocated. “And mistakes.” The nape of his neck where the creature in the mines had interposed its will upon him. “And sacrifices.”
Hands alighted on his jaw, prompting him to tilt his head up.
Arthur went willingly, because John, as he now was, would never maliciously lead him astray.
Because he trusted him, notwithstanding the rest of his body ringing alarm bells.
After what may or may not have been a moment of hesitation, John’s mouth met the center of his throat, directly over the raised white line that existed as a glaring reminder of everything Arthur had nearly lost and everything he would throw away all over again if it meant that the most important person in his life could continue to have that life. A reminder that his own hands were just as dangerous, if not more so, than any other malevolent force in any plane of existence.
And John kissed it as soft and unhurried as every other kiss had been, despite how easily he could open his mouth a little wider, dig his teeth in a little deeper, sever Arthur’s jugular until his lifeblood flowed onto the rug—
Arthur fought to keep his pulse under control.
It was just John.
Just John’s warm breath tickling his skin.
Just John’s lips moving away as quickly as they had come.
Just John’s wide hands tilting his head back down.
“Though he may be reckless—” This time, the hands remained on his face, cradling it as John pressed a kiss to the ear Uncle had mangled. “And foolish—” One just below his right eye, forever raw from the sands of the Dreamlands. “And think he doesn’t deserve anything good no matter how fucking stupid that is—”
His voice seemed to stop like he couldn’t get the words out. His hands moved to thumb over Arthur’s eyes, coaxing them shut again. Perhaps more carefully than he’d done to any other part of him, John pressed an unbearably slow kiss to each lid.
Arthur’s eyes stung with tears.
“He never stops making sacrifices,” John finished, and his voice sounded strangled, tight in a way Arthur hadn’t heard it since… Well. Since he’d received so many of those selfsame scars.
There was grief in his voice. That and a not-so-hidden apology, like Arthur had done something he should have been able to prevent. Like he’d given up his eyesight for no logical reason.
Like it had even been a sacrifice to begin with.
The truth of the matter was he had never thought that, not even for a moment. If there had been even the slightest possibility of finding or giving John his own body, then it had been the natural course for him to take. His sight had never been a factor.
It’s not that it didn’t matter, of course it did. Of course he missed being able to walk the streets without a cane, to watch the sun rise and fade over the skyline, to drive, to live as he once had. Of course it was a sense that he still mourned on days when his brain tried to drag him back down to bedrock with the promise that he could never be truly happy without it.
It wasn't that his sight didn’t matter.
It was that it mattered less.
Impulsively, and in an attempt to communicate what he couldn’t adequately explain with words, Arthur moved his head forward to cross the small space that remained between them, capturing John’s lips in his own and causing him to jolt slightly.
Soon, however, they were fitted together and whatever fears had been flooding Arthur’s mind ebbed like the tide. He wasn’t in danger. No one was after him. He could have this for once in his life. This dazzling prospect of peace.
John pulled away far too soon, his voice strangled in a different way. “What was that for?”
Arthur looked at him seriously. “You were in pain.”
John let out a noise that may have been a partial laugh or a huff of disbelief. “Oh? And you know that how, exactly?”
“Because you think too loudly.”
That finally earned him something nearer to a genuine laugh.
In his ministrations, John had moved so that most of his body would have been in Arthur’s lap if he hadn’t been sprawled across the couch. It was then he lowered himself the rest of the way, cautiously laying atop Arthur like a weighted blanket and resting his head in the crook of his neck.
Just like earlier that morning, it should have felt suffocating, eerily similar to those enclosed spaces they’d found themselves in so many times in the past—caverns and caves and mines.
Maybe it was because his limbs had been soothed so meticulously, but it was…comforting. Because John was comforting. Because he would move in an instant if Arthur so much as gave the word. Because, if Arthur concentrated hard enough, he could almost convince himself he could feel John’s heart beating in tandem with his own.
He lifted his right arm to wrap around John’s back, absently fiddling with the ends of his hair. It had grown quite long in the passing months and Arthur found something nearly therapeutic in the way the velvet-smooth strands parted between his fingers, the way John hummed at the touch like a satisfied housecat, nuzzling closer to his neck.
It was amusing to think this was a fragment of the same god who had once been the cause of great fear. Perhaps there was something godlike within him still, if only a tiny hint—that desire to be obeyed, that fierceness to protect one’s own, that determination to get what one wanted.
Arthur was only now starting to come to terms with the idea that he was what John wanted to protect. And, perhaps, on days like these, when John was akin to a blazing hearth in his darkest moments, Arthur regarded him with reverence.
“What happened to the man?” Arthur asked when the mid-morning light reached the sofa and began warming his face. “How did the story end?”
John hummed again, sounding far drowsier than he had ten or so minutes ago. “Found happiness, I guess.”
“‘You guess’?”
“It’s not my fault. He’s never told me.”
“Really? Because it sounds to me like you’re just a horrendous storyteller.”
Suddenly, there came a sharp prick of pain on his left earlobe and Arthur yelped.
“Did you just bite me?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“You did! You fucking bit me!”
In response, John pressed his lips to the now-angrily throbbing spot on his ear and Arthur would never admit that the ease with which he did so still made his heart flutter.
“All better?” John asked innocently.
Arthur was seriously debating whether or not he had the strength to push John off of him and onto the floor when he paused.
Sometime since John had taken it upon himself to follow Faroe’s treatment to the letter, he had, indeed, forgotten his pain. If he focused, he could still recognize the stiffness of his joints, the heaviness of his head upon his neck and spine, the weariness that had settled over him the moment he’d stepped out of bed that morning, but…
It was better. The aching in his bones may have been making a valiant effort to convince him of the opposite, but it was.
He felt relaxed.
Safe and warm and loved.
And, abruptly, he realized he wanted John to kiss him again.
“Actually,” Arthur said with faux-absentmindedness. “There’s this one spot that keeps burning.”
John’s shoulders audibly slumped. “Oh?”
“Yes. And I’m afraid the bath didn’t do it any favors.”
“Where is it?”
Barely containing his smile, Arthur lifted one of John’s hands, bringing his fingers to rest over his mouth. “Technically, I did you. You’re the one who missed.”
Understanding seemed to dawn on him, then, his concern morphing into equally false gravity. “…My mistake.”
They must have leaned closer simultaneously, for Arthur’s aim was askew by a couple of centimeters, his lips landing on the very corner of John’s mouth and part of a cheek.
Out of every kiss, each one that had been pressed to Arthur’s aching joints and scarred skin, all reminders of how many times he had failed and succeeded, how far he’d come to be here, it was the most imperfect.
John guided him, though.
He always did.