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Published:
2022-06-23
Completed:
2022-07-09
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2/2
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Phagia

Summary:

It's a holdover from his old body, his old identity. Sometimes his blunt little human teeth ache to bite. To rend, to tear into flesh and set his jaw and just rip.

Notes:

In honor of the anniversary of Chomp Week, and also wyrmboy whose art seized hold of my brain and wrote this using my hands.

Spoilers up to Episode 12.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

It's a holdover from his old body, his old identity. Sometimes his blunt little human teeth ache to bite. To rend, to tear into flesh and set his jaw and just rip. He—'he' the King—was never particularly titillated by the pleasures of gross physical violence, but the pain that came flooding into his mouth with the blood was a delicacy. Sparks of agony as bright as the metal tang on his tongue, seasoned with fear and a biological organism's cell-deep horror of being consumed.

He longs to bite when he's angry. To teach these pitiful, mortal little creatures how small they really are, how easy it is to reduce them to nothing but their place on the food chain. But he can cope with that. It's only part of his pride, which he recognizes is immense even as he learns, incrementally, every day, how misplaced it is now that he too is small and biological. Now that he has understood the strength of these little human creatures, who fear and suffer and wait to die every moment of their lives and yet manage to seize life despite that.

It's harder to cope with how much he wants to bite and tear and hurt with love.

He's never loved before. Oh, he has loved things. Beauty, art, music, he loves all of those, maybe more than he ever did before. He can be moved by the moon gleaming on water and the line of trees against the sunset. But in all his endless, rolling, ancient life, he can never remember one single spark of love for an individual.

So sometimes he looks at Arthur, and he can barely stand how badly he wants to set his teeth into that body.

Arthur’s pain. It stopped being delicious, somewhere along the way. Became bitter. He doesn’t enjoy Arthur’s suffering anymore…except.

Except he remembers the way that body screamed in pain. The all-encompassing flare of agony along Arthur's nerves and the way it swallowed all thought, all composure. He remembers the way Arthur shook, from the inside, when he suffered. And he wants to make Arthur feel him like that—everywhere, unstoppably, along every fiber of his body, until the knowing of him replaces all Arthur’s thoughts and senses.

Sometimes he wants to be back in their body again, together. He still thinks of it as their body, even though he has his own; his is his but Arthur’s is theirs. And is it so wrong that he wants to brand himself back into that flesh and mind until Arthur knows, inescapably, that John is there and can’t be separated from him? Is it so strange to want to hold Arthur between his blunt, stupid little human teeth, to bleed him just a little so that he can smell and taste him and engrave himself into Arthur’s nerves and brain, to bring them back together until they know through every sense, the way they used to, that they’re still part of each other?

“Yes,” Arthur says, from John’s lap where his head is pillowed. “Yes, that’s…fairly odd, John.”

And then, “...But, erm, I appreciate the thought.”

Chapter 2

Summary:

A week or so later: the follow-up.

Chapter Text

“It’s running away,” John reports from down the alleyway. His voice is a little muffled; he’s facing away from Arthur.

Arthur rests his back against the brick wall as the tension of the fight drains from him. His right shoulder hurts like a bastard where the abomination caught it with a…something. Claw, mandible. He reaches over with his left hand to seek the wound, hisses through gritted teeth when he finds it amidst the drench of blood down his arm. Excellent gash; one for the scar collection.

John’s footsteps approach, muted despite the closed-in space. He moves quietly for such a big man, even when he’s deliberately making noise for Arthur’s sake.

“It bit you,” he says when he gets close. His tone is dark with disapproval.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Arthur snaps. “It seemed like such a good idea at the time.”

The growl is faint but unmistakable. Arthur ignores it. John’s tempers stopped holding any menace for him ages ago.

“You’re sure that thing is gone?” he says instead, still tracing around the wound, trying to get a sense of the size and severity past the general fiery ache in his bicep.

“Long gone. But we wounded it. It was dripping some kind of black goo as it fled.”

“Lovely,” Arthur growls. “I suppose we’ll have to hunt it down all over again, then. After I…ow. Get this dealt with. Are you just going to stand there judging me, or help me with this?”

John’s body encloses Arthur, dampening sound and radiating heat against him as he moves in for a good look. “It’s deep. It will need cleaning and stitches. No sign of poison, but you’re still bleeding. Hold on.”

Cloth rustles and tumbles against Arthur’s legs as John rummages in the enormous pockets of the trench coat he’s taken to wearing. The thing is ridiculous. Arthur has stuck his hand in those pockets. His arm went in nearly to his elbow. “Hold still.”

Despite his sullen tone, his big hand is gentle as it cups the back of Arthur’s arm to pull it carefully away from his body and encircle his bicep with cloth. The yank he gives to pull it tight and tie it off, however, is not. Arthur bites off a shout of pain. “What the hell, John! Give me some warning!”

“It was quicker to just do it.” Oh yes, he’s definitely sulking. “Here, wear this to hide the blood till we get home.”

The trench coat gets pulled around Arthur’s shoulders, then tucked in around him with significantly more fuss than the situation calls for. He’s swimming in the damn thing; a knee-length cut on John is close to a duster on Arthur. The coat’s sleeves sag down well over his hands, which is just as well because his right shirt sleeve is sodden and ripe with the meaty stink of blood. After John satisfies himself with the coat, his hands rest heavy on Arthur’s shoulders for a long moment, as if he doesn’t want to let go.

“John, I’m not dying.” Arthur narrows his eyes. “...I’m not dying, am I?”

“No! You’re fine.” The grouchy snarl in John’s voice reinforces the truth of it.

“Then what in the world is wrong with you? You’re acting like…like you’re…” He’s a little lightheaded, which may explain why the conclusion seems so evident. “Oh. John. Are you jealous?”

“What in the hell would I be jealous of?” His recoil is physical as well as audible. His hands drop away and the sense of his presence recedes as he steps back.

Arthur’s skin aches a little from the loss. “Because it bit me!”

“I’m not jealous of it fucking biting you, Arthur, Jesus Christ!” John’s hand lands back on his shoulder with a hard grip, and starts pushing. “You’re losing it, Arthur. Let’s just get the hell out of here and get you home before you fall over.”

He considers batting John’s hand away, but it’s a steadying force with the world tilting a little around him. He’s light-headed, cold and shivery, and John’s warmth feels as though it’s trapped in the cloth. He tugs it closer around himself. “You said last week that…” Distantly he recognizes that this is probably the shock talking and he probably ought to be taking a hint right now. “That you wanted…”

“Were you not listening to a goddamn word I said? I said I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Yes. No. I mean I got that. But you…well what’s eating you, then, if not that?”

They take several steps in frosty silence. “Was that a pun?”

“Shut up, John, I can barely walk straight right now.” But now it's in his head, he can't let it alone. And maybe he doesn't want John to either.

***

Arthur sits on the edge of the tub while John cuts his shirt off him—another one ruined—and begins washing the blood off. At John’s gently yelled suggestion, he didn’t say another word on the way home, but that only gave him more time to brood.

Their thighs are pressed together and John’s heat and the sense of his mass run all along Arthur’s right side. Arthur’s skin still aches at the distance between them.

“I’m sorry I said you were jealous, John.” Now that his head has cleared a little, he recognizes that comparing John’s desires to a monster that was trying to kill them was a shit move.

John grunts, laconic as ever about his own hurt feelings after the fact.

John’s hands are both on Arthur’s arm as he tries to be gentle about cleaning around the wound, but there’s not much for it. It throbs angrily with every touch.

He’s so goddamn lonely.

John freezes. “Arthur? Does that hurt?”

“N-no. That wasn’t…” He can feel his face heating. John must be able to see it. God, he misses John. He misses him every day, even though he's right here, and he feels like a shit about it.

John's warmth all along the side of Arthur's body where their thighs press together and their arms bump. John's breathing; his scent, of sweat and blood and something uncanny Arthur isn’t sure whether he can smell or just sense; the quiet soft taps of bare feet on the floor as he shifts. The comforting closeness of their hard-earned separate bodies.

He shed blood for this. He lost pieces of himself. There is no way in which what they have now is not objectively better than what they had before, so what the fuck is wrong with him, pining after a goddamn nightmare?

John and his fucking…biting fantasy. His smelling and tasting and making Arthur feel. Arthur wants to open up his own skin and engulf him with it, is what.

He closes his eyes—it doesn’t change much for him but it matters somehow—and leans forward, pressing closer into John. He keeps his voice careful and soft. “Tell me why this hurts, John?”

He thought it was a fantasy, what John told him. But this doesn’t feel like a fantasy. It feels more like desperation.

“Arthur…” John’s hands fall still on his arm, only partly because Arthur is leaning on him enough to be a hindrance. His name is a warning.

Arthur chooses to ignore it. He reaches out, finds John’s shoulder, and slides his hand over and up his neck to cup his cheek, blunt and rounded and strong against his palm.

Follow his intuition. He fucking hates himself sometimes. He feels wrong. John feels wrong. There’s something here, he knows it.

“Arthur.” This time his name is a snarl. John’s hand clamps around his wrist, bruising-tight. Intimidating him, the way he does when he feels cornered.

Arthur accepts that for the danger sign it is, and doesn't move. He doesn’t think John would break his wrist, but god knows getting separate bodies hasn’t stopped them from fucking each other up.

But he doesn't back down, either. He stays soft and still, on the principle of letting shy creatures choose their approach.

By increments, John’s body softens against him. Arthur doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing here, but John has surprising wisdom sometimes. And a knack for the ugly underbelly of human experience. Arthur lays melted against his contours, and feels John give himself over a heartbeat at a time to the temptation of what’s on offer.

Whatever that is. If it solves this hole in the pit of him, Arthur’ll give him whatever he wants.

When he nudges Arthur gently back upright, Arthur allows it because he knows he’s gotten his way. John goes back to cleaning around the wound, but his touch has a new sense of intent. He pauses, drops the bloody cloth into the tub with a squelch and leans down to pick up another one. The sharp smell of alcohol curls into Arthur's sinuses.

He braces himself, for all the good that ever does. When it makes contact with the wound, he starts swearing through his teeth. This part is necessary, but somehow it always manages to hurt worse than the first time around, as if he’s getting a replay of the injury to make sure he doesn’t miss any of the exciting nuances this time.

John’s fingers gently, firmly part the wound, hold it open while he probes inside with the alcohol-soaked cloth. He makes no comment when Arthur's right hand moves from the edge of the tub to grab John’s thigh and digs fingers in hard enough to bruise, or about Arthur's cursing and hisses of pain.

He’s always thorough when he cleans out Arthur’s wounds. But this time he truly takes his sweet fucking time. When the vibrato of agony in his body gets too relentless, Arthur breaks and stuffs the heel of his left hand in his mouth to stifle his moans. It's not a matter of pride; John's heard him scream many times. But it wouldn't do to alarm the neighbors.

John scoffs and reaches up to pull his hand away from his mouth. “Oh, so you want to be quiet now?”

His breath is right in Arthur's face and he feels so close that Arthur's skin crawls trying to close the gap and get to him. He sways forward, tugged by the gravity between them, and John crumples into it. He bows his head till his nose is buried in Arthur’s hair and his cheek is pressed to the top of Arthur's head.

“Are you sure?” John whispers into his hair. He’s trembling, Arthur notes. John wants this so badly that he’s shaking. It occurs to him that he really may be getting in over his head here.

He laughs a little wildly, because when has that ever stopped him? “You know, this could be a bad idea.” He hooks his good arm around John’s shoulder to hold him in place. “But I don’t care. I want… Fucking hell.” He rests his forehead against John’s shoulder.

John wheezes in a breath like he can’t get enough air. For a moment his arms close around Arthur in a tight hug, and then he pulls back. His hand slides up Arthur’s shoulder blade, over his shoulder and down his arm to the gash on his bicep, and that much skin to skin contact goes to Arthur’s head. His senses swim for a moment. He closes his eyes and breathes through his nose and he would just about swear, if he were forced in a court of law, that he can sense the reality of John the Entity though the common human substance of that hand, as he were conducting him through both their bodies into the place where he belongs.

This. This is what he wants. If they can only grab it in five minute increments, he’ll take what he can get.

There’s a bit of blood flowing hot and ticklish from the gash again, thanks to John’s cleaning. John’s shoulders hunch under Arthur’s arm. Hot wet breath fogs against the skin of Arthur's arm, followed by a tongue that strokes flat and wet up the trail of blood, lapping it up. Arthur tips his head back, jaw clenching with anticipation for the burn as it dips into the wound.

“I’m sorry, Arthur,” John mumbles against his skin. His breath stings in the gash. His thumb is stroking over the inside of Arthur’s left knee.

Arthur shakes his head and sets a hand to the back of John’s head. “It’s okay,” he whispers. He can’t really unclench his jaw. “It’s… Keep going.”

His hand clenches in John’s hair as John drops his head again and obeys.

Pain winds like lacy knotwork through his body from John's attentions, but more than that, what gets to Arthur is the squirming intimacy of it, of another person helping themselves to his body, of being inside him in places they aren't meant to be. Except it's John, and between them that passes for normal. His tongue is soft and rough in the raw tissue of the wound. John bites delicately at it, teeth scraping over torn flesh.

Arthur wobbles on the edge of the tub. John catches his elbow to steady him but this isn’t going to do.

He pushes forward against John's body. John tips back with a yelp. With his good arm, Arthur controls their descent as they slide into the tub in an undignified tangle.

"What the hell, Arthur?" John shouts, long limbs floundering. Arthur takes a knee to the spine and an elbow to the side as he scrambles up out of their heap to straddle John's lap.

John by himself is enough to fill the tub. Arthur feels surrounded by him, packed in so close that he has firm sensory awareness of where every limb is. John has one hand on the tub's edge, pulling himself up to sitting while the other braces Arthur at his waist and both John's thighs press up against the small of his back. It's the best he's known John's body since they separated and it's bloody satisfying. He hadn't even known he coveted this.

He ignores John's grouching and cursing in favor of finding his shoulders. From there, he works his touch upward to get both his hands on John's face, which startles John into shutting up long enough for Arthur to look directly into his face and growl, "Goddamn it, John, I’m not afraid of pain."

He feels himself drop a couple of inches as John exhales hard. His hand moves from the tub rim to cup the back of Arthur's head. Arthur stays put, staring with imperious blindness into his face till John breaks. With a snarl more monster than human, he seizes Arthur’s hair and yanks his head back, then sets his teeth decisively into Arthur’s collar bone.

“Fuck!” Arthur shouts. “Jo-ohn!” His voice cracks, pitching up as he turns John’s name into two syllables. So much for not alarming the neighbors. His body arches automatically in an instinctive, futile effort to escape it, but all that does is bump his shoulder blades back against John's thighs. He'd have nowhere to go even if he wanted to, and that…that feels right. Good.

John is still growling, jaw working as he adjusts, settles his teeth in, works them into the hollows around the bone to get a good, solid grip. His teeth tear at the thin skin and rip absolutely embarrassing sounds out of Arthur. Oh, he had never quite realized how many sensitive nerves he had there.

“Talk to me, Arthur,” John demands around his mouthful. His tongue works against Arthur’s skin as he talks. “Tell me how it feels.”

“Gaaah, fuck!” He clutches both hands in John’s hair, holding him close against him, and whines as John grinds his jaw into him.

No, this isn’t right. He digs his nails into John’s scalp, claws at him hard enough to make John growl at the sting.

No, that’s not right either. Gently, he pushes John back. John goes, recognizing the slow steady pressure for a real request and not just Arthur’s thrashing. The pain is worst as John releases him, flaring up through his body like a poker. He can feel blood trickling down over his chest. John makes a questioning noise.

“It’s good,” Arthur pants, and leans forward to bump his forehead against John’s. “God, John, your teeth in me…”

John hums, body vibrating against Arthur’s; he strokes a broad hand up Arthur’s bare back. The other one is still tangled in his hair. Fuck, he doesn’t want him to let go.

“I don’t… I don’t fucking understand this, John.” His voice is a harsh, frustrated whisper in the space between them. “I don’t know what I want. What you want. I just…goddammit, I—”

John kneads into the muscles of his back. “You always need to explain things to yourself,” he grumbles with fond disdain. He brings his hand around to dig his thumbnail into Arthur’s bite mark until Arthur hisses.

He knows when John raises it to his mouth. They’re so close that the back of his hand presses against Arthur’s cheek as John sucks the blood off himself. “Fuck,” Arthur curses softly between them. His lips brush against John’s hand too.

John laughs quietly at him. “I’ve known the taste of you for a long time. Remember at the Stanzyck house? When you scraped your knuckle climbing up the fireplace and then you put it in your mouth…”

Arthur shudders all the way down to his toes. He wants to kiss John. He hadn’t thought about them that way before, but he wants to kiss John and taste his own blood in his mouth, and taste him, and…and he doesn’t know what. After spending so long with a monster in his head, he recognizes this as a human impulse. A human-flavored desire for physical intimacy.

And why the hell not?

He follows the contours of John’s hand with his lips, tracing them back to John’s mouth, and then nuzzles in. John makes a surprised sound—Arthur can feel it against his mouth—and then as their mouths fit together, clasps him tight to hold him in place.

John doesn’t know how to do this, and it shows, but he’s a quick study. He melts in, basking in the sensation, when Arthur brushes their lips lingeringly together; parts his lips when Arthur does, so that their breaths mingle in one another’s mouths. He makes a pleased little growl when their tongues brush together.

Arthur bites down on his lip.

John loses his shit.

Arthur’s shoved back so hard he loses all sense of orientation for a moment. John doesn’t break contact with him. His knees are digging into Arthur’s back and his mouth is on Arthur’s and their chests are pressed together. His hands are painfully tight around Arthur’s head. John feels like a cocoon around him, and he can’t properly process how his body is moving—how either of their bodies are moving—because John is biting back hard enough that Arthur yelps into his mouth, hard enough that he tastes blood.

"I was jealous of you." John speaks right into his mouth, so low it rumbles in Arthur’s lungs. He sounds almost furious. "You. This…fucking body you wander around with that's all the goddamn way over there when it should be…" He draws a shaky breath that makes Arthur’s head spin with the way it pulls air from his lungs. "When I know it from the inside and every fucking thing I feel now, I feel by myself." His fingers threaten to sink into Arthur's flesh. He almost thinks he wants them to. Joined again. "Everything you feel, you feel by yourself when it should be mine too."

John is in him. John’s teeth breaking his skin, scraping and tearing, sunk into his flesh that’s thrumming with the pain of him, and around him, the warm pressure of his body wrapping around him everywhere. Finally, it’s close enough to what he wants. The satisfaction of it thrums through his whole body. He doesn’t have John’s eloquence. “I can feel you in my fucking eyes, John.”

“I want to eat your eyes,” John snarls, and turns his head so that his nose nudges against Arthur’s eyelids. Arthur wraps his hands around John’s wrists and settles into him, accepting it in the spirit it’s meant.