Work Text:
Eating was fine until it wasn't. John lasted a couple of hours.
That first meal – breakfast, technically – was so washed over with sensation, John hardly remembered it. Well, he remembered the important parts. Like Kathy greeting him (greeting him ), the warmth of a mug in his hands (his hands ), Arthur’s tired but wide smile across the table. Across the table. It was nice.
It just so happened that the nice things were unrelated to the food.
Arthur was an unpredictable eater on the best days, oscillating between famished hunger and having no interest in food whatsoever. The specifics of the meals hadn’t mattered to John before. Only that Arthur ate something , because he was still thinner than the slightly-too-thin that John knew when they first met. There was a vague notion of trying to get variety. But if all Arthur ate was stale bread for two days straight, well, it was better than nothing. The sound of Arthur chewing was deeply unpleasant, and sometimes brought to mind things John would rather forget, but there was no avoiding it.
An apple is the first thing John eats in their apartment. John spent much of the first day walking. Not far and not fast. But he walked through their kitchen, living room, bedroom, and back again. He'd seen it all before, of course, but not propelled by his own two feet. And not from this height. He hadn't been able to see the top of the bookshelf before. Arthur scoffs when John points this out.
But when Arthur mentions lunch – an early dinner, really – John shrugs. He figures he should be hungry. He feels a sort of emptiness in his core, but nothing about it is associated with wanting to put food in his mouth. He explains this to Arthur, who hums in understanding.
“Something small, then.”
They contemplate the offerings in their pantry. Arthur makes a sandwich for himself, but John balks at the thought. Bread, cheese, and ham hardly constitutes a list, but John's nose crinkles at the thought of mingling flavors. The toast this morning was serviceable. Why did bread need other things?
Then he spots the bag. Two apples left from their last grocery trip. He remembers the crunch, Arthur's happy sighs at the first bite in Addison. It came to mind with every apple Arthur has had since.
He picks one up to inspect. It's a few days old at this point, and a bruised spot has started to form on one side. John squishes it with his nail and shudders at the give. He'll start with the other side. And just… bite into it. Like Arthur does. Arthur said once that he never liked dirtying more dishes than necessary.
John gets mostly skin. It feels wrong to open his jaw that wide and it feels wrong to press his teeth in, waiting for the snap where the flesh opens for him. There's a slight crunch, but it's a grainier texture than he’d expected. The sweet juice keeps him from gagging on it. Barely. The skin, more bitter than the fruit, sticks to his molars and his taste buds. Skin and flesh are the only words that come to mind and John hates that.
“How is it?” Arthur asks hopefully.
Disappointing , John doesn't want to admit. “It's…alright.” His tone might admit it for him.
“You can try cutting it up. When I was – well, I never used to eat apples whole. Cutting in slices helps.”
“And dirty a knife?”
“John,” Arthur laughs. “We can wash a damn knife.”
It is better. And easier to eat around the skin, which John opts to avoid entirely. He eats the slices like he's seen Arthur eat oranges. And it's not bad. But his hands and the corners of his mouth are unpleasantly sticky. When he reaches the muddy brown flesh of the apple’s other side, he loses the appetite he already didn't have.
“We can buy more,” Arthur says. “Fresh ones.” It sounds good in theory, and that's enough for now.
Half of an apple becomes a frame of reference for John's meals.
Bread is fine. Better as toast. He chews it fast, because once it becomes soggy in his mouth it's almost too repulsive to swallow. He goes very, very light with butter the next time. The slight flavor it adds isn’t bad.
Potatoes are a pantry staple. Easy to boil and a template for adding other flavors, as Arthur put it. John wouldn't say he was excited to try them, but at least hopeful.
John swallows a single quarter, with butter and salt and garlic and a bit of pepper. And he tells Arthur it's fine, because Arthur really looks so invested in it, and maybe John can convince himself it is fine. The melted butter coats his mouth with cloying garlic, and the potato is already mush in two bites. He pushes the rest around on his plate. He'd already eaten the last apple in the pantry, but he wasn't hungry anyway. Whatever that felt like, John still wasn't sure.
John takes to sleeping on his side. When he lays on his back, his stomach feels too empty, too exposed. Maybe that’s hunger. But John opts to sleep instead, to the sound of Arthur’s breathing.
Arthur has eaten more in the past week than John has ever seen him. He’s eager to run through the small list of meals he knows how to make. And John is happy for him, and appreciative, so, so genuinely. But if Arthur asks John once more time if he wants to try something, John is going to lose it.
No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to try a new soup, or eggs, or whatever . He doesn’t want to lie through his teeth that it’s fine, or tell the truth and say that it’s disgusting, through no fault of Arthur’s own. He doesn't want Arthur to wait expectantly to hear what John thinks, he doesn’t want to watch Arthur’s face fall or his eyebrows pinch in concern.
There’s so much he does want to do – walk through the streets, the park, feel rain on his skin and sun on his face. Eating is not one of them.
So, yes, John decides. He’s awake early, Arthur still dead to the world next to him. He can go for a walk, and think about easier and gentler things.
When John sits up, the room spins. It does it again when he stands, and when he bends over to get socks from the drawer. The edge of his vision dims, but clears after a few moments of breathing. He’s seen this before, through Arthur’s eyes. He didn’t realize it was accompanied by such an out-of-body feeling.
The sun hasn’t risen yet, but it’s close. The east horizon lightens to a pale yellow, and the morning still holds a coolness on the breeze despite the approaching summer. It raises goosebumps on John’s forearms; he almost regrets not grabbing a coat. But he appreciates the air on his skin, and the satisfying thump of his shoes on the sidewalk. When he breathes in, long and slow, it makes his stomach ache. Not painful, exactly. But pulling, like overstretching a rubber band. His stomach growls, but John opts not to think about it.
Despite not walking far, his legs begin to ache. Not enough to stop him, but enough to be distracting. He turns a corner several blocks away. There’s a diner on his left, just open, with a small line forming at the counter. John can smell it – coffee (smells better than it tastes), bread (safe), but some greasy frying thing that makes his mouth water, but turns his stomach at the same time. He walks as fast as he can past it. He just needs to distract himself. Watch the people and the pigeons, and read the headlines at the newspaper stands.
He’s too good at it. When he comes back to himself, the sun has well risen, and more people fill the sidewalks to get about the day. John doesn’t have a watch, or – fuck , he didn’t even bring his wallet. Arthur’s wallet, because he didn’t have his own yet. It was on their to-do list. John, shaky and tired, contemplates hailing a cab before realizing that no wallet means no money. He curses so loudly he scares a woman walking past, who scowls at him. John scowls back. Begrudgingly, he starts his walk back home.
About a block away, it occurs to John that he didn’t leave a note. And damn it, a note wouldn’t do Arthur any good anyway. Did John remember their phone number? He takes their building steps two at a time, but has to stop at the top to catch his breath. He’s fucking dizzy again. He hopes Arthur is still asleep.
John reaches for their door knob, but the door swings open. It’s Arthur, cane in one hand, shirt half-tucked and hair matted on one side.
“Arthur!”
“Wh– John!” Arthur steps back in shock, before grabbing John’s arms. His cane clatters to the ground. “ Christ, where have you been?”
“It’s okay. I just went for a walk.”
“A…a walk,” Arthur clears his throat. “You – you could have fucking told me.”
Arthur’s eyes are red. Guilt pools in John’s stomach. “I’m sorry, Arthur, I – it was so early, I didn’t want to wake you. I lost track of time.”
“It’s fine, it’s…” Arthur gives a relieved laugh, but he isn’t smiling. “God. It’s fine.”
John picks up Arthur’s cane, walking in so Arthur can close the door. “Were you coming to look for me?”
“Of course I was! I woke up and you weren’t here, so I figured you were somewhere , o-or something happened, or…”
John hugs him. It’s one of his new favorite things to do, to wrap his arms around Arthur’s shoulders and feel Arthur’s arms wrap around his. They’re both shaking.
John waits for Arthur to pull away. He rubs at his face furiously, clearing his throat again.
“Really, Arthur, I’m–”
“It’s fine.”
Arthur doesn’t eat breakfast that morning. John doesn’t ask.
In hindsight, John should have known better.
Every morning was harder than the one that came before. He woke up later and later, laying in bed longer and longer after he opened his eyes. If Arthur was bothered by this, he didn’t say. He would simply press his nose to John’s shoulder, half asleep, until he woke up enough to put tea on for breakfast.
Spots dance in John’s vision, and he wonders if he can just drink tea for the rest of his life. Tea is safe – pleasant, even, when he adds large spoonfuls of honey. Arthur had laughed at John’s description of how much he was using, but encouraged him nonetheless.
And with each of these mornings came warmer and warmer afternoons. A strong start to summer, the papers called it. Arthur called it uncomfortable. John called it unbearable. Climbing the two godforsaken flights to their apartment made sweat collect at his hairline and the small of his back. And it, to put it mildly, pissed John the fuck off. That, and the near constant headache, and the dizziness that seemed to follow his every move, left him at the end of his rope.
“Well, I regret to inform you that the heat will only get worse. If you're wilting now…” Arthur trailed off with a chuckle.
“Fucking fantastic .” John growled. It did little to drain his well of irritation.
So why, on the hottest day thus far, he and Arthur were moving a couch, John hadn't the slightest idea. He knew that Arthur had talked to the neighbor, and that said neighbor was moving, and that said neighbor offered them a couch, which they currently lacked. John didn't care either way. They had a kitchen table and two chairs and a bed. Three chairs, actually – the third they brought out for clients.
Speaking of. They'd yet to start taking cases again. It'd only been a couple weeks, of course, and they knew they would need time to get their feet under them again. Literally, in John's case. But John could feel Arthur’s unspent energy coiling the air between them, like a cat's back legs.
So maybe that made the idea of new furniture appealing. Or the burning mystery of how to pivot it through the stairwell. Because of course the neighbor lived on the first floor, and she was a little old thing who couldn’t have helped even if she wanted to.
“Okay,” Arthur pants from halfway up the stairs. “We just need to twist it.”
“There's no room.”
“Lift up and twist.”
“There is no up! I can't lift this damn thing any higher.”
“Don't shout!” Arthur shouts.
The legs of the couch dig into John’s shoulders. It pinches his hair as well, where it was coming loose from its tie. Arthur had taken the front end because John was taller. And supposedly stronger, but John was wondering if that was still true. His arms shook with every lift, his muscles burning deep to the bone. The air was thick and humid and clung to John’s throat when he breathed.
They continue like this for more minutes than John can bear, but they eventually get the couch to the landing. John hardly remembers getting the couch through the apartment door. Maybe because he can’t see it through the holes in his vision. He grips the arm of the couch to steady himself while they push it.
“Wait,” Arthur says. He wipes the sweat off of his face with his shift sleeve. “We should lift it to avoid scratching up the floor.”
“What do a few scratches matter?” John asks. His tongue is heavy in his mouth. A chill runs down John’s spine and his palms go cold. Was it really that much cooler in their apartment?
Arthur says something. John asks him to repeat it. John misses it the second time. And he misses the couch when he falls to the side, hitting the floor.
It’s a moment of unawareness that could only be a few seconds. Then John gasps and tries to sit up, but only gets as far as his shoulders. His head is spinning. He leans it back against the floor, trying to blink the spots away.
“John? What happened?” John can’t see Arthur from this angle, but he can hear him.
“N’thing.” Oh, talking is hard. He tries to clear his throat, but coughs instead. Arthur kneels down, reaching out to feel where John is.
“Jesus, are you hurt?” Arthur’s hands find John’s arm, moving to his shoulder and neck. It makes John’s already crawling skin squirm. He brushes Arthur’s hands away.
“No, I’m – it’s fine. I just blacked out, I think.”
“What?”
Arthur helps him sit up with his back against the couch. John tells him again that it’s fine, but Arthur is insistent. He gets John a glass of water and a wet cloth. They’d moved the table and chairs to make room for the couch, and Arthur trips on them on the way there and on the way back. John tries to warn him, but the directions come too clumsy and too late. The couch is still in the middle of the kitchen.
Arthur grills him with questions, but John’s frustrated, one word responses don’t seem to please him. The cool cloth helps, but John’s face is still flushed, now with embarrassment. John breathes through the tense silence before Arthur breaks it again.
“John,” Arthur asks, very seriously. “When was the last time you ate?”
Oh, John does not want to think about this. “I don’t know. Breakfast, I guess.”
“But you didn’t eat any of it.”
John has to put forth physical effort to remember. Only a couple hours ago. They’d made toast and eggs. John had one bite of toast and a cup of tea.
“I ate…some.”
“I'm blind, John, not stupid.”
“Of course not,” John bites back. “But why does it matter?”
“Of course it matters, John. You need to eat. And I know you haven’t been.”
John knows he’s being petulant, but he doesn’t care. “If you knew, then why didn’t you say anything?”
“I… well, I should have.” Arthur looks down, runs a hand through his slightly damp hair. “I didn't – I didn't want to push. But I didn't realize how bad it was.”
“It's not that bad.”
“John, you just passed out cold. How long have you been feeling this way?”
“Well, moving the couch didn’t help.”
Arthur sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. But before that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shaky. Weak. Dizzy. Like, everything goes fuzzy for a few seconds when you get up.”
John never had to think about where he was looking when he was talking. Before they separated, he just did it. Right now, hard to talk to Arthur and look at him at the same time. Arthur’s eyes can’t see but they’re searching John’s face all the same, open with concern, and John has to look up at the ceiling when he answers.
“Ever since we separated, I think. I mean – maybe not that first day, but. Yeah. It’s worse in the mornings. Climbing the stairs is hard. But, is it that abnormal?”
“What?”
“I know what it looks like. Through your eyes, at least.” John thinks about all those mornings before they separated, when Arthur would hold his head in his hands for a long, long time before he stood from the edge of the bed, and John would patiently watch the floorboards go in and out of focus. Or John shouting for Arthur to sit down, because he could tell Arthur was about to pass out whether or not Arthur did. “But it’s different when you can feel it, too.”
While he was talking, Arthur reached for John’s hand. Always the left one.
“I don’t think normal for me is a good benchmark,” Arthur says. “You need to eat, John.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“I know it’s hard. Believe me, I know. I’ve been hoping to find something you like, but…”
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve been doing, Arthur. But all the different things you’ve been asking me to try–” John wracks his brain for a way to say it without sounding like an ass. “It’s overwhelming.”
Arthur looks so genuinely surprised, John has to bite his tongue to keep from taking it all back.
“It’s the–” John finds himself making some kind of motion with his right hand, like it could help him get the point across. “The different flavors mixing together. I know that’s what cooking is supposed to do, to make things taste better. But it’s…” Disgusting . “Well, it’s unappealing.”
Arthur nods, slowly. Then he laughs. “God, I can’t believe I didn’t think about that.”
“It’s fine, you didn’t–”
“No, no. I. I get it. It’s a lot of pressure, right?”
“Yeah.”
“John, I’ve spent a large portion of my life trying to put as little effort as possible into keeping myself alive as possible.”
“Arthur…”
“No, that came out wrong. What I mean is, sometimes you just eat because you have to. It’s great when you can sit down and enjoy a meal – a good meal. But sometimes food is just…I don’t know. It can just be food. You don’t have to love it. It can just be.”
“It can just…be.”
Arthur nods again, like he’s trying to convince himself of the fact. “There’s nothing wrong with keeping things simple. And of course I want you to find enjoyment in it the way I do. At least, the way I do some of the time. But… yeah. It’s hard.”
Arthur clears his throat. “Now, I’m not going to ask if you’re hungry. But I know that I’m hungry, so I’m going to make something.”
John offers to help, but Arthur threatens him with bodily harm if he so much as tries to stand. So John sits on the couch – still in the middle of the kitchen – while Arthur skins and cuts two apples from the bundle they’d bought at the market. They’re bright and crisp, and they eat them off of the same plate, sitting on the couch in the middle of the kitchen. Arthur insists that John eat exactly half. But it does stop the shaking, and it feels less like John is going to vomit his heart out of his throat.
So now, when they make sandwiches, John eats all the pieces individually. The ones he can stomach, at least. When they make soup, John drinks the broth and then eats buttered toast, because the idea of eating food that had been boiling in liquid is repulsive. And Arthur doesn’t mind, so long as John is eating. And on the days he really, really can’t, Arthur at least makes sure he has water and tea to drink. Arthur leaves sliced apples and small stacks of crackers on plates throughout the day.
Several weeks after the whole couch thing, John comes home.
Not for the first time and not for the last. He’s taken keenly to evening walks, after the sun has gone down and some of the heat has dissipated from the asphalt. Sometimes Arthur joins him and sometimes he doesn’t, but John is always sure to leave him with a time John expects to come back. Sometimes a kiss on the head for good measure. John relished the brush of Arthur’s curls against the delicate skin of his lips, and the shy smile that crosses Arthur’s face.
On this particular evening, before John left, Arthur said he was going to make something for dessert. John wasn’t sure if he was asking for permission or simply speaking it into the air to avoid catching John off guard, but he appreciated it all the same. So when John comes home, he isn’t surprised by the sweet, fruity smell that wafts from the stove. He is surprised that the smell is appealing, and vaguely familiar.
“Stewed apples,” Arthur said. “Shockingly easy to make. My mother used to make them, actually.”
“Your mother?” John asked. Arthur’s childhood was something he talked to rarely about.
“Yes. I always begged her to make them, and she used to scold me for only eating fruit when it had been cooked in extra sugar.” Arthur laughed. “But she made it for me all the same. For– for my birthday, she would make it as a topping for pancakes.”
Arthur cleared his throat. “Well, my sweet tooth isn’t what it used to be, but I think the neighbor made some the other day. The smell made me nostalgic, I suppose.”
John hummed. Arthur didn’t ask if John wanted to try it, but he did put two spoons on the table. John tried not to wrinkle his nose at the appearance. The apples had taken on a brown color, swimming in amber liquid. But the smell, sugary and cinnamony, made John’s mouth water.
He’d never had a warm apple. Room temperature, sure, but the hot sugar coats his tongue and his teeth when he bites in. The mushiness could be unappealing, but less so when it’s surrounded by the taste of apple that John had come to appreciate, extra sweet and mingling with a bit of cinnamon. He’d always liked the smell of cinnamon.
“Oh,” John says. “That’s quite nice.”
“Really?” Arthur smiles. “Have as much as you want.”
They finish it in a minute flat. Arthur laughs when his spoon finds an empty bowl. “I only used two apples, but we can make more.”
“Will you show me?”
“Of course.”
It really is apples, sugar, and water. And the cinnamon. Arthur doesn’t remember the recipe to a T, but it seems to be more about feeling than the measurements. It also seems like a poor excuse for soup until the stove starts to warm the pan. John watches as the sugar water thickens into syrup, stirring every so often as Arthur instructed.
They wait for it to cool and eat it directly out of the pot. John laughs when Arthur burns the roof of his mouth, and then John does the same damn thing.
“You seem to have quite the taste for sweets, John. This goes great with vanilla ice cream, too.”
“I’ve never had it.”
Arthur stares at him, spoon still in his mouth. He pops it out to say, “You’ve never had ice cream?”
“Arthur, when would I have had ice cream? I’ve never even seen you eat it.”
“Of course,” Arthur shakes his head. “Here you are moaning about the heat and we’ve been depriving you of cold desserts.”
“How cruel,” John says. “The parlor down the street does seem to get a lot of business. The smell from the sidewalk is always nice.”
“That would be the waffle cones. Made fresh, I assume. We could go tomorrow – only if you want to, of course.”
John can’t say how he’ll feel tomorrow, which is something he’s been learning over and over and over again. But, right now: “We should. That sounds nice.”
“If you don’t like it you can just hold it to cool off, I suppose.” Arthur laughs. “Maybe ask the cashier if you can stand in the freezer.”
“They have quite a few flavors. Which one is your favorite?”
“Hm.” Arthur taps the spoon on his chin. “A good vanilla is nice. They don’t always have it, but I am partial to rum raisin.”
“Raisins? Disgusting.”
“Hey now, have you even had a raisin?”
John crosses his arms, leaning against the counter. “I don’t need to. Why would you ruin a fruit by taking all the juice out?”
“It’s not supposed to be the same as a grape. It’s a whole new thing.”
“Yes, and it’s worse.”
“You know, my mother used to put raisins in her stewed apples, too.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Discussion of the merits of raisins, and lack thereof, follow them to bed. And John, maybe for the first time, finds himself looking forward to a meal.