Chapter Text
John’s arms were, in fact, sore the next morning. It was nothing compared to the pain he had felt after they’d lost their pinkie finger in the dreamlands, but even though that hurt like hell, it was only for a moment. What he was feeling now was constant. It was the sort of pain that really got on his nerves - mild enough to leave it be, but painful enough that he couldn’t carry anything even remotely heavy without the pain getting worse.
This was apparently the thing that finally pushed Arthur to call Daniel for help and arrange for the delivery guys who brought the piano to also carry it inside themselves. John wanted to be tough and test his strength, but Arthur insisted that he should take it easy. John couldn’t argue with him on that.
“Instead, we should both go to the bank-” Arthur said as he stood up from the couch. “That way we’ll still get something done today.”
“Sure. What business do we have at the bank?” John asked.
“Well,” Arthur straightened his waistcoat, “in order to start a private investigation business together, we have to get some forms and paperwork to fill out.”
John groaned at the thought of having to do paperwork.
“You’ll get used to it. It's quite an eyesore- but, well, what can you do,” Arthur responded. “When you want to live amongst us humans, you have to play by our rules.”
“Even if they’re really stupid?”
“I’m afraid so,” Arthur gave him a sorry smile. “But the quicker we get it done with, the sooner it’s over.”
The weather was quite damp on that day. It wasn’t raining, but it had been, judging from the numerous little puddles littered all over the streets.
John took a deep breath. There it was – the smell of autumn. It was even stronger than it had been the day before.
“What’s that smell?” he asked Arthur about it.
“What smell?”
“It smells like autumn.” John pointed out.
Arthur took a deep breath and smelled the air.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “It does smell like autumn.”
“What is it?” John repeated his question.
“You know, I’m not quite sure,” Arthur said as he furrowed his brows, clearly thinking. “I suppose it could be the smell of decaying leaves.”
John took another whiff of the air around him. Yeah, that must’ve been it. It was such an earthy smell that it couldn’t have been anything else. He also found himself positively surprised at the fact that the smell of decay could actually be pleasant.
“That’s so odd,” Arthur chuckled. “I haven’t smelled it since I was a child.”
John gave him a confused look.
Arthur told him about a time when he was still a young boy and had just started going to school every day. His parents had walked him to school when he was in first grade, but in second grade he was already going alone.
“And every morning I would step out of my house and take a deep breath in – just like you did – and really enjoy the autumn air.” He smiled as he told the story, his face light and dreamy as if he was still there, in the moment. “It would put me in such a good mood and carry me through the first half of the day. Until lunch, anyway.”
John tried to imagine a little Arthur going to school, but it posed some challenges. John had never been to a school, for starters. He’d seen children walking on the streets in the morning, though, so there was something to go off of. However, he still couldn’t imagine Arthur without a mustache.
“I didn’t really like going to school, of course. But I’ve always liked autumn. There’s just something romantic about it,” Arthur continued reminiscing.
“Romantic?” John asked.
“Not as in romance, but more…” Arthur searched for the right words, snapping his fingers impatiently.
“It’s hard to explain. I suppose poetic is a better word to describe it.”
John looked around him. The trees were in colors and leaves were flying through the breeze. The sight was certainly poetic.
“And you haven’t smelled it since?”
“I suppose I started noticing it less and less as I got older,” Arthur said. “But thank you, John, for reminding me.”
“You’re welcome.” John replied.
Neither of them said a word after that. They both enjoyed the weather in silence, until they had to step into the bank.
***
“Well, that was somewhat disappointing.” Arthur sighed as they both stepped out of the bank.
“I don’t get it,” John said. “They didn't even try to hear us out.”
“Well, to be frank, it is kind of an oversight on our part,” Arthur said. “I didn’t even think about you needing an ID. Old habits, I guess.”
“I mean, we can just get me an ID and try again later. I don’t see the problem in that.”
“The problem is – it isn’t that easy. Especially in your case.”
“How? Why?”
Arthur sighed, again.“To get an ID, you’d need a birth certificate and you weren’t exactly born, so–”
“So I can never get an ID.” John was getting a bit frustrated.
“There probably is a way, somehow.” Arthur tried to reassure him. “But I don’t know how and frankly, it can wait until I have the private investigation business running and we have a solid income.”
“Can’t we just buy an ID for me to use?”
“We can, but not for that purpose. That would just get you in trouble.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” John groaned loudly. “Why can’t I just use yours?”
“Because we are two different people now, John!” Arthur raised his voice, obviously getting tired of John pestering him with questions. “Besides, we really don’t look that much alike.”
John didn’t say anything after that. He was right. They were two different people. John knew that, of course he did. But it hadn’t occurred to him that they didn’t look much alike.
It came to him in a stark realization then, that truth be told, John didn’t know what he looked like. Sure, he had passed the mirror a couple times, but when he tried to think of what was different between him and Arthur, he couldn’t name a single thing.
Arriving back home, while Arthur was busy taking off his coat and shoes, John went and stood in front of the mirror. The few days he had lived in a body of his own had been so hectic that he hadn’t actually gotten the chance to truly take it in. John had his own body, at long last – and from the look of things, he didn’t seem to care at all.
He did care. He had just been busy. Besides, it wasn’t like his reflection would run away before he could see it. Now was as good a time as any.
“John, you alright?” Arthur came to check up on him, having noticed that John was frozen in place.
It was strange to see two men in the reflection instead of one. Even stranger that the reflection he recognized was Arthur’s, not his own.
“We really don’t look much alike.” John said, his eyes fixated on the mirror.
He heard Arthur gulp.
“No, we don’t.” he agreed, his voice a tad bit quieter than usual.
John didn’t say anything for a while, letting the silence fall upon them. He looked at his reflection – not Arthur’s, his – and a stranger stared back at him.
He didn’t look like he had always imagined himself to look like. Not even close. But it was him, yet it also wasn’t.
John felt this awful knot in his heart. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He wasn’t ready! Here he was, looking in the eye of the goal he had worked for since the day he met Arthur, unable to accept it. What a fool he was!
“Arthur,” John said slowly, his voice barely a whisper. “I don’t know what I look like.”
Arthur either didn’t know how to respond or was choosing not to. Maybe he was thinking of what to say. Picking the right words was difficult, John knew that.
“Y-you don’t have to know right away,” Arthur said, finally. His voice was shaky and uncertain. “It all comes with time.”
John tilted his head slightly. To think that, in time, he’d look in the mirror and recognize himself as if he had always looked like that – it was hard to imagine. It was difficult to picture his future at all when he didn’t even recognize the now.
“Start with small things,” Arthur suggested. “For example, what color are your eyes?”
John looked straight into the eyes of his strange reflection. To his surprise, he had piercing, bright yellow eyes.
“...Yellow. Like yours were, Arthur.”
“See? That’s already a trait you recognize.” Arthur reassured him.
John turned his eyes to Arthur’s reflection, specifically his eyes. They weren’t yellow anymore, for a start. He looked a lot different with his own original eye color.
“You have… hazel eyes, Arthur.” he said.
Arthur nodded.
As they stood before the mirror, John got to know a lot of things. He was apparently taller than Arthur, for example. Arthur seemed to be a little annoyed at this, for whatever reason. Overall, John didn’t feel as overwhelmed anymore. He didn’t exactly find his reflection familiar, but he could name a couple of things about himself.
“See?” Arthur smiled. “ At times like these, you just gotta eat the elephant.”
“One bite at a time.” John smiled as well.
***
Due to recent developments, namely John discovering he is apparently not a legally existing person in this world, his plans of getting lost in filling forms and paperwork had been shattered. Instead, Arthur had been saddled with double the paperwork he had anticipated and was busy working. John had offered to help, but Arthur had told him it’d be quicker for him to just do it himself.
In a way, John was happy about this. Learning about bureaucracy and paperwork was not something that he had been excited about anyway. But on the other hand, all of his plans for the future had just been thrown out the window. If he wasn’t starting a private investigator business with Arthur, what was he going to do?
While thinking about questions like this, John found himself looking out of the window at the people walking on the streets and the occasional car passing by.
It was one of those days when the rain didn’t stop pouring even for a moment. People on the street were struggling against the wind with their umbrellas. Those who didn’t take an umbrella were running from cover to cover, trying their best to stay as dry as they could, though it seemed like an impossible task to John. The puddles on the road were growing by the minute, making the entire street look more like a river. John watched people jump over the puddles and yell at the cars passing by when they were splashed by water.
All of these people, John thought, had a purpose. They were all going somewhere, whether it be work or home or wherever else. They all had a destination in mind which they were making their way towards. None of them were wandering around just because, without any kind of reason.
John didn’t know what his reason was anymore. He had told Arthur he could just solve cases with him anyway, but Arthur encouraged him to find something else that he likes doing. He had reminded him that he was under no obligation to follow in Arthur’s footsteps, that he was fine on his own.
Arthur was right, of course. But it didn’t help. John simply didn’t know what he liked to do. He didn’t know a lot of things about himself.
John shifted his focus onto the raindrops on the window and a reflection on the glass, looking him in the eye.
Even now, John still didn’t recognize his own reflection. He knew that logically, the reflection belonged to him, but it wasn’t at all familiar to him. It had been his reflection only for a couple of days, after all.
I’m entirely my own, he had said to the witch. And he had meant it. But even back then, Arthur’s reflection had been his reflection. The arm he could control entirely on his own had still been Arthur’s before he had taken it from him.
Now, having his own body and his own will to do as he pleased, he was truly, entirely his own, no longer chained in any way to Arthur. This was what he had always wanted. So why was it so hard to accept, to come to terms with?
All this time, when John wished for a body, even as the King in Yellow, these aspects of having one never even occurred to him. He had thought that having a body was the end goal, that once he obtained one, everything else would fall into place. He had never even considered what that might truly mean.
When logically, he was a complete human being – one mind in one body – he was feeling more incomplete than ever.
Only I decide who I am, he had also said to the witch. And he had also meant that. But what do you do when your self doesn’t match with reality? What do you do when you don’t know who you are?
You find out, John decided. Just as he always had. He didn’t become entirely his own in just a moment. It was a process. So what if he didn’t recognize his reflection now? In time, he would. The best thing to do right now was to get to know himself in this new shape.
With this newfound enthusiasm, John stood up. So what if he didn’t know what he liked doing? He would never know if he didn’t try to find out.
Besides, there was one thing that John liked to do alone, entirely without Arthur.
“I’m gonna go shopping,” he announced.
Arthur looked up from his pile of papers, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
“In this weather? You’re gonna get soaking wet.”
“I’ll take your umbrella.”
“Alright,” Arthur sighed. “Still, wouldn’t tomorrow be a better day? It’s really coming down out there.”
“The paper said it’s gonna rain the entire week.” John said while already tying his shoes.
“Indeed it did.” Arthur said bitterly. “Well, try to stay dry, okay?”
“I’ll be fine, Arthur. It’s just rain.” John reassured him while putting on Arthur’s coat.
“And don’t spend too much money!” Arthur reminded him, but John was already out the door.
Arthur sighed. He was glad that there was something John liked to do without Arthur, but his shopping hobby was burning through their money faster than he could’ve expected. He could’ve told him to find a new hobby that wasted less money, but he didn’t have the heart to. All the more reason to get back to work to eventually earn it all back.
It was only when Arthur decided to take a break from working and lit a cigarette to relax that he noticed how quiet it was. He found himself wanting to ask if John was still there, in his head, but he wasn’t. He had gone out shopping. All on his own.
No matter how hard Arthur tried to deny it, it was still so hard to believe that John had a body of his own. It wasn’t easy to settle back into the normalcy of everyday life after going through what they went through. Thinking back on it, Arthur really hadn’t gotten the time to fully take in their new situation.
John had his own body, and he could see again. All this Kayne bullshit was behind them forever now. As if it had never even happened. But it had, at great cost to Arthur's physical health.
He knew that John was right when he said he should go to a hospital. It was probably the smartest option, but it would destroy Arthur’s false sense of control that he had over his life – his illusion that everything was fine, everything was back to normal.
Fighting horrors beyond his comprehension had definitely taken a toll on Arthur’s body and he could feel it, always. Not to mention the numerous unhealed scars and wounds, he just generally felt more tired. His back pain was near constant, but that might’ve also been because of the amount of paperwork he had taken upon himself.
You see, setting up a Private Investigator business was the easy part. The real challenge was getting enough cases to solve to make a living. Daniel had promised to be of help financially whenever needed, but Arthur didn’t want to depend on him too much. So he had taken it upon himself to get himself out there, and the entire afternoon he had spent putting ads in newspapers. For the first time in a while he was completely alone and he had spent that time spelling out his name for newspaper agents.
It was weird being alone. Arthur had wished for so long for just a little moment of privacy and solitude, but now that he had it, he didn’t know what to do. He was so used to sharing everything there was to share with John, good or bad, that not having him around made Arthur feel strangely empty. Like there was something missing.
Arthur chuckled wryly to himself. What kind of a man he had become. A man who’s having a hard time living a normal life and missing the person who had ripped that same normal life away from him.
Just as suddenly as he had left, the door opened and John came in, already talking about what he had bought today. Arthur gave him the most supportive smile he could muster and tried not to think about the money gone down the drain.
“There was this really nice lady who was selling all sorts of tinctures and ointments and all that,” John told Arthur as he took off his trench coat and hung it on the clothes rack. “But I remembered how you told me that I only buy useless trinkets and things, so–”
“I didn’t say it like that–”
“So I bought something that I thought you could really use. Especially since you want to avoid a hospital visit at all costs.” John continued while rummaging through his pockets.
“There!” he said and pulled out a neatly decorated little tin box.
“What’s that?” Arthur asked, trying to hide his skepticism.
“This, Arthur, is a scar-relieving cream.” John presented proudly. “You’re supposed to apply it every morning when you wake up and every evening before you go to sleep.”
“This is…” Arthur said as he examined the tin box a bit closer. It was covered in all sorts of swirly patterns, wrapping around the entire box.
To be frank, Arthur didn’t trust it. Not fully, at least. But John seemed so proud and pleased with himself that he couldn’t find it in himself to tell him it was probably a sham.
“Alright.” Arthur tried to sound more optimistic about this whole idea. “Well, I suppose it is around time I should get to bed anyway. Might as well give it a try.”
Right? Even if Arthur didn’t believe it to be a magical healing cream, he didn’t believe it to be poisonous either. Worst case scenario, he would just feel a little stickier than usual. Maybe if he used this cream every day John would stop being so handsy and eager to unbutton his shirt and check on his wounds every day.
John’s smile was so bright that Arthur felt like the sun was shining on him, despite it having set a few hours ago.
“Yes!” John said, his voice full of enthusiasm. “I’ll get ready for bed, too.”
Arthur was in the middle of brushing his teeth when he heard John walk into the bathroom and the next moment his pajama shirt was already being unbuttoned.
He rolled his eyes. He should’ve seen this coming. Of course John was going to take every chance he got to observe Arthur’s scars and wounds. He felt like even if he agreed to go to the hospital, the doctors there wouldn’t give him nearly as much attention as John did.
John didn’t say a single word as he scooped some cream with his fingertips and started massaging it onto Arthur’s scars. His fingers moved slowly and carefully across his chest and Arthur felt himself tense up a little.
He could feel John’s intense gaze on his skin just as well as his fingers. He was acutely aware how he was being studied, analyzed in immense detail – and he wasn’t sure how to handle himself.
He continued brushing his teeth, which he had apparently stopped doing at some point. He tried his absolute best to pretend that he wasn’t affected by John’s soft and delicate hands running across his chest and oh, now his hands were moving towards–
“Take your shirt off, Arthur. I can’t get to your back properly.”
Arthur released a breath he had not realized he’d been holding. He complied immediately and took his shirt off like he was in a hurry. John threw it over his shoulder and moved behind him, continuing with his work.
Arthur gulped and kept brushing his teeth, even though he had been going over the same spot for several minutes now. It didn’t matter. He just needed something to distract himself with while John examined him intently.
He could sort of understand why John didn’t seem to acknowledge the existence of Arthur’s personal space – they did share a body, after all. That was an intimate experience in its own right, but this… This was something else.
It seemed like time was moving at a snail’s pace. Either Arthur had a lot of scars to take care of, or John was taking his sweet time. Maybe both. Probably both. Either way, Arthur was running out of patience.
He reminded himself that whenever he felt uncomfortable, he could always tell John to stop. He would understand. Arthur could tell him how he had always been a bit cagey with his personal space, how the only people whose hugs he had really tolerated were Parker and Bella. And then John would say ‘thank you for telling me’, and then he would say ‘don’t worry about it’ and it would all be well.
And yet, he didn’t want to tell John. He felt more exposed than he had ever felt and it was driving him absolutely nuts. But not even once had the thought of telling John to stop crossed his mind. Why?
Before he could delve deeper into this train of thought, John had finished with the treatment. He even took it upon himself to dress Arthur up again. Arthur wanted to tell him that he didn’t need to do this, that he was fine and could dress himself, but he didn’t. Instead he watched John button his shirt back up, slowly and deliberately.
Halfway through, John suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“John?” Arthur asked, breaking the silence between them.
“This shirt is too big for you.” John said.
“Well,” Arthur spit out the toothpaste still in his mouth before continuing. “Pajamas should be a little loose and oversized, actually. Makes it more comfortable to sleep in.”
John shook his head and looked in the mirror.
“Our pajamas are the same size, right?”
“Right.”
“But it looks bigger on you than it does on me.”
Arthur looked in the mirror. John was right - whereas Arthur’s pajama shirt sleeves were a tad bit long for him, John’s sleeves were just a tiny bit short.
“Well, you’re taller than me, for one. Of course it’s going to fit you differently.”
John didn’t say anything, examining their reflections in the mirror.
“If you don’t like how it fits, you can buy yourself new pajamas tomorrow.” Arthur tried to cheer him up. “Or just new clothes in general. It’s only fair. After all, you should wear clothes that you like wearing.”
John seemed to brighten up after hearing Arthur mention shopping.
“Something to look forward to in the morning. But right now, let’s get to sleep. You’re tired from all the work, I bet.” he said and led Arthur into the bedroom they shared.
Arthur was really glad they hadn’t also cut corners on the sleeping situation and had gotten two separate beds. If they had to share a bed as well, Arthur doubted he would be getting any sleep. Wait, why was he even thinking about something like this?
Whatever. He was obviously tired and his thoughts were getting nonsensical. He laid down on his bed and watched John climb under the blanket as well. Only when John was tucked in did he smother the light.
“Good night, John.”
“Good night, Arthur.”