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In the end, peace finds them on the banks of a river.
The pair had woken up back on Earth just last night, in a field somewhere in the outskirts of Arkham. The very same field, John would later realize, where the police had found Emily Macfarland’s dismembered body. He would say it was ironic, yet he was sure it was anything but.
They had been laying side by side — Arthur knew with a sureness that he had forgotten he was capable of that the person laying next to him was John. Without thinking, he gingerly extended a hand, snaking his trembling fingers through the soft grass, towards him. He stretched his pinky out, keeping his eyes firmly shut as he did so and wincing slightly at the ache of the wood that had embedded itself in the tender flesh. It was a new sensation, he thought, quickly burying the flurry of anxiety at being alone in his head, in his body, once again. Strange. He hadn’t expected to miss it.
An exhale, to his left. A smooth palm coming to rest over the back of his hand. Arthur’s chest seized — with relief, with euphoria, that kind of swirling, all encompassing warmth that threatened to lift his soul straight out of his body. Some silly part of him felt like there was an entire ocean inside John, as though there were some seething waves just barely contained beneath his skin. Like Arthur was the shore, a place John could return to over and over and over again.
And then John moved to wrap his fingers around Arthur’s hand, and he nearly said it all right then and there. He swallowed the words instead. Not yet.
“John,” he said, voice thick.
“Arthur,” John murmured. “Welcome home.”
The silence in that moment lay heavy over the two men, and the scent of damp earth permeated the air. Somewhere in the distance, Arthur could hear a river. He could practically weep with joy. Home.
Arthur hadn’t even wanted to open his eyes at first, at once wildly giddy with relief and overwhelmed with terror. He wanted to savor his first moments of sight, wanted to be sure that he chose the first thing he laid eyes on carefully. It was nighttime, he surmised, by the chill in the air and the touch of dew that had seeped through the tattered mess of his clothes. I could look at the moon again, he thought, exhaling softly through his nose. I could see the stars. Or I could…He turned his head towards the presence, the space beside him where he knew, if he opened his eyes, he would see John.
Arthur took a deep breath in, focusing on the way his chest expanded as the fresh air filled his lungs. Back on Earth, in Arkham, with John. Home. He opened his eyes.
Blackness. That familiar, stubborn blackness laid like heavy stones over his eyes. He exhaled a shuddering breath, feeling all his limbs go cold as his face went slack with horror. Arthur flinched, and as he did so John drew his hand away from Arthur, snatching his fingers away as if burned. Instinctively, he drew his hands up to his face to rub at his eyes, hoping beyond hope that if he just gave it time, moonlight would filter through that persistent darkness and he would see his friend, waiting patiently there beside him.
He blinked, and when the darkness proved once again to be unmoving, he sat up. Arthur stood so suddenly he nearly fell over, blind as ever and trying desperately to get his bearings. His arms wheeled at his sides as he staggered, directionless, away from John.
“Arthur,” John tried, a lilt of ache in his voice. Arthur could hear John moving to stand somewhere off behind him. All but lost in the mounting terror of this realization that his blindness was permanent, he could still hear John stumbling and struggling, and for a brief moment Arthur almost laughed; John had to learn to walk.
Wouldn’t that be a sight to see.
“Arthur, stop. Come here. Let me help you.” Arthur prickled at the kindness — no, the pity — in John’s voice. He felt one of John’s hands come down on his shoulder, the palm colder now than he remembered it being just moments ago. He froze as the whole world narrowed to that singular point of contact.
Arthur took one great, heaving breath, his whole body drawn taut as he desperately tried to rein in his panic.
Blind. I’m still fucking blind.
These things, he remembered bitterly, Come with a cost.
“I don’t fucking need you!” he snapped, wrenching his shoulder out from under John’s hands. “I don’t need your pity!”
Silence, again, stretched out between them.
“Fuck,” Arthur hissed, leaning over and pressing his hands to his knees as he desperately tried to catch is breath. “Goddammit.”
John, persistent as the darkness, relentless as the ocean, reached out once more.
“Arthur,” he said. “Arthur.” Warm broad palms laid across his shoulders. A presence before him, making the fine hairs on his arms prickle. A voice, slow and deep. “Breathe.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled up out of his throat at that. “Just like old times,” he said, the words coming out in a wheeze. He shook with rage, with fear, with so much pent up exhaustion.
Arthur was suddenly, bone-achingly tired.
In a moment, all of the tension bled out of him and he sank to the ground in defeat. His back hurt. His feet hurt. His whole fucking body hurt. He was so, so tired.
“John,” he sobbed. “I thought…” Arthur swallowed another choked off sob, putting his head between his knees and dragging his fingers through his hair. “I thought…” he tried again. The words wouldn’t come.
All around them, crickets chirped. The wind, steady and gradually picking up, stirred the leaves in the distant trees. Silence lingered and drew out, stretched taut like a thread. “What, have I finally found the magic words to get you to shut the hell up?” Arthur croaked, trying for venomous and missing by a mile.
“No,” John said, and to Arthur’s surprise, there was something of a smile in his voice. Some kind of warmth he didn’t want to look too closely at right now. “Just… trying to choose the right words.”
Arthur huffed a laugh weakly and felt the way the exhalation stirred the messy strands of hair that hung down in front of his face. He dropped his knees and crossed his legs, though he still rested his face in his hands. “Well make it good. This is your fault, after all,” he said, forcing a levity he didn’t feel.
At that, John clumsily knelt down in the grass before Arthur, and their knees brushed as he moved to sit down. Arthur’s breath caught in his throat, startled at the brief touch.
“Arthur,” John said. Arthur loved the way he said his name, like each letter fit neatly in his mouth between tongue and teeth and palate. “Give me your hands.”
At that, he lifted his head and frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Your hands. Remember those? You control both of them now. Reach out.” Arthur snorted at the tinge of impatience in John’s tone and reluctantly did as he was told.
His shaking palms hung in the air for barely a moment before John pressed his hands to Arthur’s. John’s own hands, Arthur noticed, were trembling.
John tugged gently, and before Arthur realized what was happening, John had pressed his hands to his face. “Is this alright?” John asked, his voice gentle and seeking. Arthur nodded. Leaned slightly over his crossed legs, he could feel the warmth of John’s breath on his skin. Blood beat in his ears as his frenzied breathing gradually resided and his mind quieted.
“I don’t fucking care if you think you need me or not. I’m here.” Arthur could tell that John had wanted to say more but thought better of it. His voice was firm until the end, where it wavered slightly, an undercurrent of anxiety running through his words, and the space between them grew heavy with the things left unsaid. Arthur swallowed, conscious of all the places they touched — knees pressed to knees, hands pressed to hands with John’s jaw tucked gently into Arthur’s palms.
“And now that I have my own body, I’d like to introduce myself,” he declared, the slight air of fear shrugged off like an ill-fitting skin. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m John Doe.” Arthur laughed, the noise coming off choked.
“Arthur Lester,” he sniffled. “How do you do? And —” Arthur paused, shifted slightly, treasuring the silence of the night and the tickle of damp grass against his ankles for a moment before continuing. “I’m sorry, do you mind if I…?” he asked, tentatively stretching out his fingers, plucking them out one at a time from John’s gentle grip. John seemed to understand Arthur’s request, and he nodded slowly.
“Of course,” John exhaled. The words ghosted over the chilled skin of Arthur’s hands and he suppressed a shiver. Residual energy from earlier still thrummed beneath his skin, and when he went to fan his fingers out across John’s face, he couldn’t hide their shaking.
He felt John’s eyelashes flutter beneath his searching hands as they skated across his face — John’s face, because John had a face now. Arthur’s heart thudded once against his chest, painfully, before settling back down again.
Slowly, methodically, Arthur tried to fit all of the little details neatly into place: John’s face was broad, with a strong chin and sharp jaw, lined with stubble. He had what felt like a thick, expressive brow, and he laughed softly at that — finally, John could properly glare at him the way he had probably always wanted to. Arthur traced the protruding jut of his nose, the fine line of bone around his eyes, and felt as the contours gave way to cheekbones. He intentionally avoided his mouth, though he thought for a moment his thumbs had dragged over thin laughter lines. Delicately, he reached out his right hand to touch John’s ear, at which John shivered a little and snorted.
“Ticklish?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” John stated resolutely. Humor shone through in his voice, and Arthur laughed again. His laughter dissolved slowly into silence and his hands paused, lingering over his jaw once more, and for a moment he was content to just feel.
An ocean, he mused silently. He could practically feel the waves. He couldn’t wait to plumb those depths.
“Are you okay, Arthur?” John asked, tilting his head slightly.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Hello, John Doe.”
--
The two men stumbled into the lobby of a motel at a positively ungodly hour — quite frankly, it was a fucking miracle that there had even been an attendant behind the desk. They must have truly looked like hell because while Arthur had been prepared to beg (as neither of them had any money) the clerk had smiled sadly before passing Arthur a pair of keys with “104” engraved into the brass and assuring them: “God be with ya, no charge. Just the one night but then you’ve either gotta pay up or get outta here.” Arthur had thanked the man profusely, stammering out a flimsy explanation before John grabbed him by the arm and led him out the door and to their room.
“You’ve just been waiting to be able to push me around, hm?” Arthur muttered, still sore and grieving his lost eyesight.
“Oh yes, Arthur, I’ve just been dying for this moment,” John sighed. “Here, we’re coming up on the room. Stop.” Arthur slowed, reaching out a hand to feel for the door frame. For a moment he blindly fussed with the keys, searching for the lock, before John snatched it from his hands and unlocked the door himself.
“Prick,” Arthur grumbled, shouldering his way past John and into the room before immediately bumping his shins into the edge of an incredibly unforgiving metal bedframe. “Fucking hell.”
“You know, Arthur…” John began, walking over to guide Arthur to the far side of the bed, which — of course, there was just the one. He mercifully didn’t have the energy to think twice about that.
“No, you know what? Just — no. Not tonight. Go to bed, John.”
John huffed, a sound which, Arthur remembered, always sounded somewhat like a growl when it was inside his head. He toed off his worn shoes (I’m gonna need to replace those, he thought) and slipped out of his clothes which, if he was being honest, smelled truly awful, before slipping between the sheets and laying down.
Arthur was asleep before he felt John lie down.
--
Arthur Lester was, largely, a realistic man. That said, he still hoped that when he opened his eyes in the morning, his sight would roll over gradually into color and shape like radio static coming into focus, gaining a clearer signal.
He was disappointed, though not entirely surprised, when this didn’t happen. Arthur laid on his back for a moment, stock-still and caught between trying to ignore John’s steady breathing and wanting to reach out again as he had last night. He lifted his hand just a fraction of an inch before dropping it again, the aborted movement sounding unusually loud in the silence of the room.
If he couldn’t see, he thought, he wished he could at least touch — just reach out and brush his fingers over John’s again, hold on to the proof that they were both here, home, and alive, alive, alive. The narrow gap between their bodies, though smaller than the distance between them when they’d woken up in the field last night, felt all but impassable. He thought once again of the way that it’d felt when he’d touched his hand, as though there was a vast sea beneath his fingertips. He longed to feel those waves again.
Arthur groaned softly in frustration and sat up, moving to get out of bed, when —
“Arthur,” John said, and god help him, the deep, smooth timbre of his voice made him freeze. “If you get up and try to walk around in this unfamiliar room, you are going to trip and break your fucking nose. Let me —” John huffed. “Let me describe it to you first.”
Arthur swung his legs over the side of the mattress, grumbling in vague agreement. The bed creaked behind him as John, presumably, sat up. “The room is… L-shaped,” he began. Tempted as he was to disregard John, there was something calming about slipping into the familiar lull of his description. He continued, “It’s cramped in here. The bed sticks out just a bit in front of the door.”
“Yep, got that one,” Arthur muttered, reaching a hand down to rub at one of his bruised shins. John chuckled at that.
“The bed here is in a small alcove, just large enough to fit the mattress and two nightstands on either side. If you stand up, turn to your right and take a few steps, there will be a narrow hallway to your left. I believe it leads to the bathroom.”
“What does it look like, though?” Arthur pressed.
“I just told you.”
“No, just — you just told me the shape and size of the room. What does it look like?”
John paused. “Well… these sheets are crisp white, and the thicker one — the duvet? — is light tan. There is a single lamp in this room and it is to your left, on the nightstand, and there is a small chest of drawers against the far wall near the door which appears to be made of oak. The wallpaper is plain, with pale beige stripes. The ceiling seems to have some water stains, and the brown curtains are drawn over the window next to the door. Whoever owns this motel seems to have a favorite color,” he joked. “Though the curtains are drawn, some light spills out from beneath them, warm and golden. Judging by the light I believe we slept in well past morning, although I can’t see a clock anywhere. There is a small painting on the wall before you which depicts a train cutting through a field of tall grass amidst a wide blue sky.”
Arthur waited a moment to be sure that John was done before speaking. “Thank you, John,” he said. The words came out quieter than he’d meant them to.
“Of course, Arthur. Do you…”
“No, nope,” he said, standing abruptly. He pressed his palm to the wall before him and thumped it once. “I’ll just, ah, follow the wall.”
“...Alright.”
After blindly fumbling around in the bathroom for a few minutes in an attempt to get what he hoped would be passably clean, Arthur reemerged into the room. When he crouched down to the floor and began feeling about, he heard the bed creak as John shifted.
“What the hell are you doing?” John asked. Arthur could picture that thick brow furrowed in confusion, his deep set eyes narrowing.
“Looking for my shoes. I want to go for a walk.”
“What?”
“A walk.”
“Did you not get to do enough walking in the Dreamlands?”
“I got more than enough of sitting and doing nothing in the prison pits, too. I heard a river last night, in the field. I want to go back there.”
“Arthur, we had to walk for over an hour just to get to this motel, are you sure —”
“Yes, John, I’m sure. Now would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of my shoes?” John’s eye roll was practically audible. The man slid out of bed and wandered over in the direction of what Arthur thought to be the door.
“How’d they get over there? I thought I took them off over here.”
“You did. I, um,” John said, seeming to fight a stammer. “I moved them last night, after you fell asleep. I didn’t want you to trip on them in the morning. In case you got up before I did.”
“Oh,” Arthur said dumbly. It was such a simple gesture, and yet… “Thank you, John. That was very thoughtful of you.”
“Think nothing of it,” John said gruffly, the springs on the bed squealing as he sat back down.
In short order the two men were cleaned up (as much as they could be) and headed out. As John pulled the door shut with a soft click and turned the key in the lock, Arthur took a brief moment to send thanks to whatever gods — evil or otherwise — that had allowed for this one act of kindness: a room to themselves, a place to rest, however brief.
After returning the key to the desk and thanking the clerk profusely, John slipped his hand into the crook of Arthur’s arm and led him away, back towards the river. Arthur, without thinking twice, brought his own hand up to rest on John’s, just for a brief moment, and he was overwhelmed by the enormity of the things he wanted to say. He kept his mouth closed all the same.
I used to be afraid that I’d never get to know all of you, Arthur thought. I’m beginning to worry I might fucking drown in you.
--
A great deal of their walk had passed in silence before Arthur spoke again. John had spoken only to warn Arthur of cracks in the path or stones that he might trip over, his words often accompanied by squeezing Arthur’s arm and tugging him in close.
After one such incident, he felt compelled to speak.
“You sound different now,” Arthur said, his voice slightly rough. It had been nearly an hour since he’d spoken, and he could practically feel John’s head whip over to look at him.
“What?”
“You sound different. Like,” he paused, chewing on his lip. “Like before, it almost sounded like you were speaking to me from the bottom of a well. And now you’re just… I don’t know. More human, obviously. But there’s more. It almost feels like I could…” Arthur extended a hand out in front of him and closed his fingers into his palm. “Like I could just reach out and grab your words, your voice, right out of the air. I don’t know. I think I’m just tired.”
For a long moment, John was quiet, and Arthur wondered if he’d inadvertently revealed too much somehow. He cleared his throat, moving to backpedal — what I meant to say, was…
“I think I like that,” John said, cutting into the quiet.
The sound of the river washed over them both. Not the ocean he kept returning to, but in the darkness he could pretend that the white noise of water running over rocks was the sound of waves crashing against a distant shore.
“Good,” Arthur said at last. “Now, tell me what you see.”
John took a deep breath in and let it all out before beginning. “The path, which began as loose gravel, has become dirt, with some rocks sticking up through the soil. Closer to the riverbank the shore is dark sand, or silt. The sun is shining through the thick green canopy of trees and the light shimmers and glints off the rushing water. There are wildflowers bursting up from the grass on the far side of the bank — mostly pale yellow, but some pink. I believe there are some wild violets, as well. We haven’t seen anyone else for some time, though this path does seem to be maintained, so I suppose it sees its fair share of use.”
“How wide is the river?”
“Wide enough. Large boulders jut up from the riverbank like gray fists, narrowing the stream in some places. Where we stand, I’d guess… perhaps ten feet, or slightly more? The water doesn’t look overly deep, though you can’t see all the way to the bottom. What you can see — which is mostly just mud and stones, as well as some vegetation — is cast in a sort of blue-green light. It’s… charming.” John said, the lilt of a smile in his voice.
“Mm,” Arthur hummed, putting the picture together behind his sightless eyes. In his mind the butter-yellow light that filtered through the leaves fell across John’s face, catching in his eyes (What color are his eyes, I wonder? Arthur thought) and highlighting a mellow smile. Arthur couldn’t resist a smile himself at the thought.
“Can we pause here for a moment? I just want to enjoy all this,” Arthur said. The while we still can went unspoken.
“Sure, Arthur. Here,” He said, guiding him to the right, towards the river. “There’s a rock just there, to your left. You can sit if you’d like.”
“Thank you, John,” Arthur said, casting a smile in the direction of John’s voice and hoping that he’d tilted his head upwards enough for him to see it. “Y’know, I took Faroe to a river outside of Arkham once, in the summer. She loved to toddle around by the bank and dig her little fingers into the dirt, sifting around for rocks. She liked the colors.” John was silent, sensing that Arthur intended to continue. When he did, his voice was thick. “I don’t know if this is the same one. But I think I want it to be. Would you…” Arthur sniffed, cleared his throat and went to stand. “Would you mind helping me find a good rock? Just to, y’know. Just to keep with me.”
John’s voice, when it came, was soft, almost reverent. He almost didn’t recognize it.
“Of course, Arthur. Anything.” John took his arm again as he rose to his feet, a gesture he was quickly becoming accustomed to.
“See any good ones?”
John hummed, and Arthur felt the tug on his arm as he leaned forward. “Here. Take a couple of steps forward — careful, don’t fall in the water — yes, there. Before you is a small cluster of round stones. Most are dark red like rust or a deep steel gray, but a few are… almost green, like the color of the water. They range in size, with some as small as the tip of your index finger and others large enough to fill the palm of your hand.”
Arthur reaches out blindly, trusting that whichever one he lands on will be enough. His fingers closed around a cool, flat stone, probably no more than an inch or two long, and his fingernails scraped against the rock as he turned it upwards to show John. “How’s this one?”
“It’s good,” John said, voice going light and gentle again. “The rock in your hand is a light blue-gray, and pale lines loop unevenly around it like rings on a tree. There’s some mud on it — you can rinse it off in the river. Lean forward slightly, the edge of the water is just a couple feet from you.”
Arthur hummed in acknowledgement as he went from crouching to kneeling on the rocky shore, and he winced as the uneven surface dug into his skin. The water was cool as he dipped his hands in, and he relished the chill as it washed over him. He brushed his thumbs over the smooth surface of the rock, pressing down a little on the soft dip on one side. The sound of the rushing current was a welcome distraction as Arthur tried not to think too hard about
“There, I think it looks clean now. Let me see.” Arthur grunted as he pushed himself up, brushing the sand and dirt off his trousers with his free hand. He held it up to John, gripped between his thumb and forefinger, and he felt John reach up to touch it himself, examining.
“Mm. It’s lovely, Arthur. I think it’ll do just fine,” John mused.
“Thank you, John. Truly.” Arthur tucked the stone into his breast pocket, smoothing a hand down over it.
“Of course, Arthur,” John said again, and Arthur once again came to the realization that he loved hearing John say his name.
While we still can, Arthur thought, turning the words over and over in his mind, and tried desperately to stop his heart from hammering as he reached up to touch John’s face. John’s breath caught audibly, and Arthur’s mouth curled into a soft smile at that.
Arthur ran his thumbs over the familiar thick brow and cheekbones, the slope of his nose and down to his chin. Hesitantly, he brushed the pad of his finger against his lips.
“John,” he murmured.
“Arthur, I…” those few syllables stumbled over themselves, nervousness writ in their shape, down to the precise weight of each one. He pressed his thumb down just slightly, lingering to feel John’s soft exhale. John’s skin burned under Arthur’s hand, which was still cold and slightly damp from the water.
“I want to apologize,” Arthur said. And that clearly wasn’t what John was expecting to hear, because —
“Excuse me?”
“For last night. It was your first night in your own body, and I was selfish. I… I ran off and threw a tantrum when you were just getting your feet beneath you. Literally. I wanted to apologize for not giving you time.” He drew his hand away from John’s face, letting it come to rest in the dip between his neck and his shoulder. He heard John open his mouth to speak, but he cut him off. “Let me take responsibility for my actions. Right away, from the moment you opened your eyes, you put it all aside just to help me. And… I wanted to say I’m sorry. And thank you.”
He could hear the way John swallowed, struggling to speak. “I… I accept your apology,” he grunted, turning his face away slightly.
Arthur let the moment wash over him, let the sensation of the warm sun through the trees bloom in his chest. The sound of the water, the grounding coolness of the stone in his pocket, and John, the comforting realness of the man who stood before him. He wished he could look him in the eyes so much that it ached.
And then —
“While we still can,” John murmured, moving to cup Arthur’s jaw before tilting his chin up and kissing him.
It was just a moment — Arthur barely had time to process the brush of lips, here and gone — but he thought, in that moment, that maybe he didn’t need to know what John looked like. Not really.
Arthur ran his hand up the length of his neck and dragged it up the back of his skull before tangling his fingers in John’s hair and pulling him down for another kiss.
Rise and withdraw, touch and touch and touch again, on the bank between the trees where no one can see you. Arthur thinks, perhaps, that what he felt had not been an ocean at all, but a river.
In the end, it was John who pulled away first with a soft gasp, and Arthur who reached out to stroke John’s cheek. He can’t see it, but he can feel John staring down at him. He pictures the two of them, pressed together there on the riverbank, John’s mouth hanging open just slightly as his tongue darts out to lick his lips —
“Arthur,” he says, and it’s soft and breathless in a way that Arthur could never have anticipated. Could never have dreamed of.
God, he loves the sound of his voice.