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It was one of those mornings.
Arthur woke before the sun, and before he could process where he was. The damp cavern air morphed into an icy wind that morphed into absolutely nothing. Musty rot became the vague scent of lavender. Yes, because they’d just changed the sheets. John’s breath, quiet under the buzz of Arthur’s brain. He focused on it, the slow rhythmic tide. Some mornings – or evenings, he wasn’t sure what time it was – he could do this to fall back asleep.
It was not one of those mornings.
Instead, Arthur drifted somewhere between a light doze and a dead sprint. His eyelids were heavy and pulling themselves shut, but the eyes behind them couldn’t stop moving. He clenched and unclenched his fists, flexed his toes into the thick blankets. Trying to lose some of the tension coiled underneath his skin. The sheets were too heavy. He took them off. The air was too cold. He pressed himself closer to John’s back. Christ , he was a furnace. It almost worked. The movement of John’s torso in time with his breathing helped Arthur match his own. But Arthur can’t find a position that keeps John’s hair out of his face. It tickles his cheeks, catching on one day’s worth of stubble. Normally it wasn’t an issue. But it was one of those mornings.
Arthur loses a bit of time, hopefully to sleep. But he pays for it when he comes back to himself, heart in his throat and nausea pooling at the back of his skull. He feels shifting next to him. John, hopefully John, please let it be John and not –
The thing that is probably John stretches, humming in John’s voice. Arthur grips the front of his sleep shirt in his fist, wishing it was his heart he could grab to force it to stop beating so hard.
Arthur listens to the creaks of John’s footsteps (it is John, it is ). The tap in the bathroom is white noise. Arthur listens to it and tries to think of nothing at all. He burrows his face into the pillow; if he physically can’t open his eyes, maybe he can trick his brain into going back to sleep. Like a bird when you cover its cage.
John comes back in to dress. He moves quietly, and Arthur knows that takes a concerted effort on his part. It twists something in Arthur’s gut. John turns the knob as he shuts the door, so only the softest click is heard. John pads away on the other side, and it’s quiet.
The quiet is worse. Arthur aches, both discretely and not. Spring brings with it rain – it’s not falling now, but the moisture hangs heavy in the air and draws Arthur’s scars to the surface. Catching in his throat when he swallows, locking his knee when he straightens it too fast. Arthur doesn’t know if scar tissue forms on organs, but it sure as shit feels like it. His stomach clenches and for lack of anything else to do, he breathes. And that’s hard enough.
Something in the wall creaks. The building and its old pipes. Like Arthur’s bones, groaning and popping when he moves. So he doesn’t. Move, that is. He doesn’t fall asleep but he…drifts. Or sinks, away from himself.. He can’t see the sun creep higher into the room, but distantly he feels it warming the blankets. John must have opened the curtains before he left. Or left them open the night before. How would Arthur know? Why would he care?
Arthur lays until he physically can’t, and then lays some more. The best thing about John gaining his own body was he was free to spend the morning how he liked, not tied to Arthur and his fucked up mind, body, everying, that couldn’t get up and do anything useful.
It had been a long time since it was one of these days. And a long time since one was so visceral. It was a day off for them, a chance to relax and do whatever it was they wanted. Arthur didn’t want this, but he didn’t seem to have a choice.
An unfamiliar sound pulls Arthur back. It’s not anything particularly strange, but not one he’d learned to associate with John and their apartment. There’s a rhythm to the way John moves, the way the floor shifts and the way the windows open. This was off beat.
The strange sound gives something for Arthur’s flayed nerves to grab onto. In one motion Arthur sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He has to stop when a wave of dizziness overtakes him, but he knows how to shake it off. If he doesn’t he’ll be stuck like that. Keep moving. He has to brace a hand on the wall, but he’s moving.
“Ow, fuck. ” That’s John’s voice, closer as Arthur approaches the kitchen.
“John?” Arthur asks, throat tight with not-sleep and panic.
“Oh! Good morning,” John says, sounding…perfectly fine, actually. “I just hit my head on the fridge.”
The sinking feeling is back. John must take Arthur’s silence as confusion – which it would be, on a normal day. And what a fucking novel thing, to have normal days. What did Arthur ever do to deserve a normal day?
“I realized we’ve never cleaned the fridge,” John elaborates, voice dipping as he turns away. “Like really clean it. It’s probably fine, but we’ve cleaned every other part of the kitchen since we moved in except for this. And I did find a few greasy spots, so there’s that.”
Arthur makes some noise in the back of his throat – a question, or a sound of distress. He doesn’t know.
“Don’t worry, I know how to put the shelves back,” John said defensively.
Arthur means to laugh.
He hears John shift in a sudden movement. “Arthur?”
It’s supposed to be a laugh, but it catches on the lump in his throat and betrays him. “You’re – you’re cleaning the fridge .”
“ Should I not be? ” John asks, frantic. It should be funny, how indignant he has the right to be. Because Arthur is being ridiculous and scaring him for no reason.
He should have stayed in bed. He doesn’t want to do this. He can’t do this.
Arthur presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, like he can force the tears back through sheer force of will. He can do that, he’s done it before; if he’d cried every time he felt like it over the course of his life, he never would have stopped. That’s the problem with starting.
Something thumps hard on the counter, and John is in front of him. He puts his hands on Arthur’s shoulders, which Arthur is trying his best to make disappear along with the rest of him.
“Arthur,” John says. “What’s going on?”
Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing, and that was the problem somehow. Arthur sobs instead of answering him.
“ Arthur– ” John’s frantic again, punching the vowels. Arthur shakes his head.
“Please. Please don’t–” It’s Arthur’s fault for worrying him. But he needs to ask more of him because one more thing, one more harsh sound might kill him.
“I– Sorry,” John says, softly. He moves his hands and the loss of touch is so ungrounding Arthur thinks he’s going to fall. The sinking.
But they come back, grazing just above Arthur’s elbows. “Are…are you hurt?”
Arthur shakes his head again. Not like that, anyway.
“Okay.”
John leads him to the couch. Arthur didn’t realize how unsteady his legs were until he was sitting. His knees shake along with his hands and every other part of him that’s capable of it. He can’t help but lean forward, stopped only by John’s arm. Their bare forearms are touching. John still has the sleeves rolled up, because he was actually doing something.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur whispers.
“Whatever for?”
In this moment, Arthur means it for interrupting John’s work. In the moments after, he means it for
“Everything.”
Arthur doesn’t hear what John says, but he feels it where John pulls him close. It’s a hold Arthur could escape if he wanted to (he doesn’t), but strong enough for him to lean into (he does). His face is tacky with tears staining John’s shirt and he’s sorry for that, too. Arthur feels more of John’s syllables, right above his heart – his human heart. He can’t explain it and couldn’t speak it even if he wanted to, not with his own heart strangling him and sobs sticking to his throat. So he just is, with John holding his pieces together.
“I don’t know what to do,” Arthur gasps. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?” John asks. “You don’t need to do anything.”
“I–I know. And I can’t– I can’t fucking stand it.” For a brief, clarifying moment, the choking emotion melts into anger. Arthur can hold onto that. It doesn’t hurt as much.
“It’s – It’s stupid ,” Arthur spits. “We’re safe and we’re together and we have friends and – it’s not perfect but it is and I still–” Arthur chokes on the word. He didn’t deserve it, but it’s what he got, and he can’t even be normal about it.
“God,” Arthur says. Not laughing. “It was better when we were running for our lives.”
It gave him something to latch onto. Something to fix. Even if the thing to fix was a dislocated shoulder or getting John a body or the end of the world. There were goals and they were perilous enough that Arthur didn’t have to think about everything else.
“I understand,” John says. He probably does, because John had confided similar worries to him not long ago. John is here, and he understands. Arthur really, really wants that to be enough. The fact that it isn’t only pulls a harder sob out of him.
“I can’t–” Arthur has to breathe in the middle of the sentence. “I can’t want to die when I’m trying not to die.”
John squeezes him tighter, his cheek pressed to the top of Arthur’s head. They stay like that for a while, John whispering the occasional comfort while Arthur tried to remember how to exist.
“Arthur,” John spoke. “Do you…want to die?”
Arthur has to think about it. “No.”
John waits, because they both know there’s more to the answer.
“But some days I don’t want to be alive, either.” Arthur says. And he says “I’m sorry” immediately after, because John’s arms tense around him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m–”
“Arthur,” John leans further down, whispering into Arthur’s hairline. “It’s okay.”
Arthur buries his face in his hands, pressed against John’s chest. John’s shirt is a lost cause, but Arthur can at least try to put up a barrier.
“Does it always feel this way?” John asks.
“Not exactly,” Arthur whispers. His throat can’t manage much more. “Not so much , anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” John says. His hands are warm on Arthur’s shoulder, his back. One moves to cup Arthur’s jaw. Arthur moves his own hands to make room. John’s thumb wipes tears from his cheek, and the act brings more of them. Arthur’s breaths come easier now, but that may just be his body too tired to act on it.
“Don’t be. This isn’t your concern.” Despite Arthur making it his concern, because he’s really good at that.
“Arthur, look at me.” Arthur doesn’t really want to, but he acquiesces. John shifts so he can hold Arthur’s face, his fingers curling into the hair at the back of his neck. It’s nice, but Arthur deliberately looks down and away, because even if he can’t see John’s face, it’s still too much.
“I’m sorry,” John says again. Arthur opens his mouth to protest, but John continues. “I know it’s not – it’s something bigger than me. But it is my concern, because I want you to be happy. Or… content, at least.”
Content.
Artur shakes his head as best he can. “It’s always been like this. Even before we met, before…”
Arthur can’t say her name, or the names of anyone that came before. He can’t explain all of the days he laid in bed or sat in class, staring out the window and wanting to be anyone, anywhere else other than what and where he found himself. The teachers chided him for daydreaming, and Arthur supposed it was. But it wasn’t fun. It just was.
“I can’t say it was better after we met. It was just…drowned out. By everything.”
John hums in acknowledgement, or sympathy.
“But it’s worse now.” Like he was making up for lost time. “Every morning I wake up and I think I’m somewhere else. Some days it’s just for a second and I can forget about it but. My mind keeps trying to remember. I can’t turn it off, that part of me that wants to run, or fight. Or expects me to die around the next corner. Why can’t I…”
“Why can’t you what?” John asks.
“I don’t know. Be happy. Or normal.”
“We aren’t very good at doing that.”
“No,” Arthur agrees. “I suppose not. But I wish we could. For a little while.”
John hugs him tightly. Arthur doesn’t have the energy to hug him back, not for lack of want. But he buries himself deep into his hold, breathes in the scent of him as much as he can.
“This does help,” Arthur says into John’s shoulder. “It does.”
“Good,” John says. “I can do this. All day, if you want.”
Arthur hums. He’s not crying anymore, but he feels brittle and hollowed out. Tacky from the tears on his face and from sleep. His hair is a mess.
Later, some time later Arthur can’t quite parse, John offers to wash his hair.
He’d known Arthur long enough to understand how much Arthur liked to be clean. Even more now, after all the times he couldn’t be. Arthur almost denies it. The refusal is there on the tip of his tongue, a reflex born from years of denying a lot of things. But John asks so earnestly, and Arthur knows he wants to help. So he agrees.
He listens to John fiddle with the knobs and the soap near the tub. A lemony thyme scent that they were both fond of. Arthur undresses slowly, feeling a few seconds behind himself. The permanent numbness in his left hand didn’t help. John has to help him with the last few buttons, and chides Arthur when he tries to apologize.
The water warms quicker this time of year. Arthur can’t help the sigh when the water envelops him. It soothes the tight skin that makes up too much of his body. Some days he forgot how ever-present the tension was until it melted away. The relief still feels distant, but closer to himself than Arthur had felt all morning.
“Is the temperature okay?”
Arthur hums.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Arthur hums again. John laughs softly.
“Do you still want me to wash your hair? I can leave, if you’d prefer to–”
“Please,” Arthur says. He reaches a wet hand out. Good thing John’s sleeves are still rolled up. “Stay.”
“Of course,” John says, easy as anything.
John guides him to tip his head back. When the water covers his ears it fills his head with a gentle quiet. John runs his fingers through the strands, gently working the shampoo in. He’d gotten pretty good at it, between helping Arthur wash his hair when they shared a body and now having to wash his own. This also answered Arthur’s question on why John’s showers took so long. Other than John having much longer hair. His fingers massaged Arthur’s scalp, behind his ears and at the base of his neck. Smell circles with his nails that sent goosebumps down Arthur’s arms and spine. The combination of sensations was almost too much. Almost. Arthur breathed into the water, making small bubbles at the surface.
“Just tell me if you want me to stop.”
Never , Arthur thought to himself.
“The blue jay landed on the windowsill again,” John says as he rinses the shampoo. “It must be the same one. I recognize the shape of the feathers on the back of its head. Someone across the street has a bird feeder on their sill, we should buy one. It flies away whenever I get too close.”
Arthur closes his eyes, listening to John talk. He talks about the birds, the garden store a few blocks over they can visit. It’s spring, they can get flowers for the sill, and bird feed, and all manner of thing that Arthur never thought they would have. His throat tightens again, tears threatening to spill once more.
“Arthur?” John asks.
Arthur shakes his head. “Keep going. Please.”
And John does. His voice is gentle and mingles with the sounds of the water. When the water’s gone cool, John helps Arthur dry and dress. Something simple because Arthur doesn’t want to go anywhere, and putting on more clothes than he has to is too daunting of a task. Arthur has the urge to go back to bed, but the memory of this morning still clings to him somehow, and he can’t stand the thought. So John leads him to the couch and opens the window, letting in the breeze and the sound of birds. Despite how long he stayed in bed, Arthur can’t help but drift further to laying down, until his head is in John’s lap.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur says, voice hoarse. “This is our day off. We should have done something.”
“We did exactly what we needed to do.” John says plainly. He brushes Arthur’s damp hair, already curling, off of his forehead. “You should eat something.”
Arthur makes a non-committal. “Later.”
John sounds like he wants to argue – it’s a well-worn topic of contention – but he decides against it. Instead, he reads. Aloud, from one of the books he’d picked up a few weeks ago. Arthur forgot the title and the author and everything else about it, but the sound of John’s voice is more important than the words. He lets himself drift once more, but closer to something rather than away from it.
“The newspaper says it’s going to be a nice day tomorrow. We can go out for a walk, if you’d like.”
Tomorrow . It’s an overwhelming thought. Not necessarily a bad one.
“Tomorrow,” Arthur agrees.
“Arthur?”
Arthur makes a questioning sound. He’d been close to sleep, but not quite there.
“You deserve to be happy.”
“John…”
“It’s okay if you aren’t. It’s okay if it’s hard. It’s hard for me, too. But you do deserve it. I need you to know that.”
Arthur can’t cry again today. He can’t acknowledge John’s statement directly. They can argue about it later. So instead, he says, “I love you.”
John’s voice shakes when he responds, “I love you, too.”