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“Arthur.”
It’s the first thing he says, when he can say anything at all.
He’s said it so many times, but this is the first time he’s said it, taken air into his lungs and forced it out again in the shape of a name. Not as a question, a demand, a warning, an endearment—just because he can, to prove he can, to hear it with his own ears and taste it. Like a child learning its first word.
And Arthur, Arthur, he laughs a little and shakes his head, and there are tears in his eyes. He tells John he doesn’t sound anything like he did before, that it’s going to take some getting used to. And John doesn’t know how to explain that he can’t tell the difference, he doesn’t remember what he sounded like because he's never had a voice made from meat until now. He likes it. He likes how Arthur’s name feels in his mouth.
“Arthur!”
He shouts it when he has to, when Arthur is so fucking unbelievable that it leaps straight out of him. Like a leash he can tighten, but of course he can’t, because it’s Arthur, god damn him, and everything is so fucking difficult all the time. He likes it, though. He likes how his lips curl back with the first syllable, mouth opening wide, teeth bared—then back together. To say the name is to bite. A part of him has always wanted Arthur between his jaws and he has that now, he’ll never let that go. He chews and chews and Arthur infuriates him and he’ll never go hungry.
“Arthur…!”
It rises out of him like steam when the heat and the pressure overwhelm. Arthur digs in, fingerprints branding his new skin. He must like the sound of it, too, John thinks. And why shouldn’t he? It’s perfection.
It hisses and glides with so little effort. He can feel it rumble in his chest and tremble in his throat, like some animalistic murmur that beasts have been purring since the dawn of time. But then it softens, a gentle sigh rushing past kiss-swollen lips. A delicate flick of the tongue. Arthur is breath and teeth, and little else, and John lets it come to him again and again, worshiping the shape of it, the weightless weight of it—turns his head away when lips seek his so he can let it come, and come, as if he’ll drown if he stops, lets it—
In the morning, Arthur teases him for talking in his sleep. That’s going to take some getting used to, he says.
“Then get used to it,” says John.