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(Rustling, a soft whimper. The sound of quiet weeping.)
JOHN: Arthur…
(Tossing and turning. A low sob.)
JOHN: Arthur. (Sighs.) Arthur. Wake up.
ARTHUR: (Gasps, groggy.) Wh--
JOHN: Arthur…
ARTHUR: What? (Sniffles.) What is it?
JOHN: You were crying in your sleep…
ARTHUR: (Wiping his face.) Oh.
(Rustling and sniffling.)
JOHN: What were you…?
ARTHUR: Nothing. I don’t--
JOHN: Arthur… You’ve been crying in your sleep every time you--
ARTHUR: (Sharply.) It’s nothing, John.
JOHN: (Angrily.) It’s not nothing! You cry every time you go to sleep! You won’t tell me what’s wrong. I’m here for you, Arthur, goddammit, but I can’t help if you won’t tell me what’s wrong.
ARTHUR: There’s nothing you can do! He’s gone!
JOHN: (Quietly.) Who’s gone..?
(Arthur sighs, frustrated.)
JOHN: Were you dreaming about… Parker..?
ARTHUR: (Thickly.) No. (In a small voice.) Noel… Charlie.
JOHN: (Hurt.) Oh… (Smaller.) oh.
ARTHUR: What’s worse is we don’t even know if he’s dead or alive. (Quiet stretches on.) … John?
JOHN: Yes…
ARTHUR: (Sighs, annoyed.) This is why I didn’t want to talk about it. No use in dredging up memories when we don’t know if-- we don’t know… what happened. Where Kayne… sent him.
JOHN: ‘Memories are only memories… until you’re dead.’ … What did he mean by that?
ARTHUR: You can’t take it with you.
JOHN: Is that what he meant…
ARTHUR: What do you think he meant?
JOHN: I don’t know… I thought… maybe… (Trails off.)
ARTHUR: (Gently.) What, John?
JOHN: In the Dark World…
ARTHUR: (Sympathetically.) John…
JOHN: Memories were all I had. All I had… connecting me to… to you.
(Rustling, then skin-on-skin contact, a soft grip.)
JOHN: It was when I started to… to lose those that I… became weak.
ARTHUR: John… It wasn’t weak to-- to seek salvation in whatever way you could…
JOHN: Salvation. (Laughs humorlessly.) Arthur… The things I-- (His voice breaks.)
ARTHUR: The things Kayne made you do. (Firmly.) That wasn’t-- you, John. You-- you did what you had to do. To survive.
JOHN: I did what I had to do. (Stiffly, like a mantra.)
ARTHUR: … It’s not… memories that I dream about. Hardly had any time to make any with-- Noel. Charlie.
JOHN: (Soft, interested.) Oh?
ARTHUR: No, I-- I dream of… what could have been. (Sighs.) I dream about… a world where we all walk out of the Order. A world with… time to breathe. Diner coffee and… (wistfully) pie, and… a place to call our own. Sailing to England on-- (Voice hardens.) our own terms…
JOHN: With Charlie?
ARTHUR: With Charlie. Going to a pub for a pint, like-- (Stops suddenly.)
JOHN: … Like you used to with Parker.
ARTHUR: Yes.
JOHN: Those sound like… nice dreams.
ARTHUR: Mm.
JOHN: Why do they make you cry?
ARTHUR: (Quickly, angrily.) Do you remember where we are, John?!
JOHN: (Tense.) I know.
ARTHUR: (Exhales the tension.) We’ll never have that. We’ll never know… peace. (Sorrowfully.)
JOHN: Arthur…
(Arthur sniffles.)
JOHN: Tell me about your dream.
ARTHUR: Why? Why wallow in--
JOHN: (Sharply.) Arthur. We may be stranded in thirteenth century England, but we have this. We have your dreams. Our one escape from this alien landscape. I can’t dream. Please. Let me have this. Let me share this with you.
ARTHUR: (Exasperated.) Fine. (Sighs.) I… I was having a dream that.. Charlie and I were sitting at a pub.
JOHN: Was I there?
ARTHUR: Yes-- … yes, you were there, John.
JOHN: (Hesitating.) In… in your head?
ARTHUR: … No. You… you were… standing over my shoulder.
JOHN: I… I had my own.. body?
ARTHUR: S-sort of. You were… like my shadow.
JOHN: And you could… see Noel?
ARTHUR: (Sighs.) Sort of. His-- his face is… indistinct. You never described him to me.
JOHN: Oh. (A beat.) Would you like me to?
ARTHUR: … Yes.
JOHN: He had short, dark hair. A square jawline, thick, dark brows over gray eyes. When he smiled, it-- it was sort of tilted. One side pulled up higher than the other. He was… shorter than you by a little bit, and more filled out. Broader. Sturdy.
ARTHUR: (With a smile in his voice.) That’s about how I imagined him… Did he have a knot in the bridge of his nose? Like-- like it had been broken before?
JOHN: Yes!
ARTHUR: (Chuckles softly.) Funny what you can glean about a person just from their voice and mannerisms alone.
JOHN: So, we were at the pub… (Suddenly.) Was I drinking a beer?
ARTHUR: I don’t know. (Amused.) Sure, you had a pint, John.
JOHN: Yes. (Satisfied.) Do you remember what we were talking about?
ARTHUR: Yes… We were… talking about Noel.
JOHN: Noel?
ARTHUR: Noel Finley. Charlie’s… friend. The one whose name he took on. And… Parker. We were talking about… old friends we’d lost.
JOHN: Oh…
ARTHUR: I was telling him how… stupid I felt, fumbling my aliases twice in New York. What a rookie mistake-- but… but how Parker was still so… present in my mind. He said… he said the same thing had happened to him. That he had sort of stumbled into taking on Noel’s identity, too. Everything was so… fucked up when he got back to Arkham, with Roland missing, presumed dead, his whole life overturned… I suppose we sort of skimmed over his time in the Dreamlands… (Musing idly.)
JOHN: Small graces.
ARTHUR: (Agreeing.) Small graces. (Sighs.) The conversation centered around… loss. And… memorial. Keeping the people we’ve lost close. The ones we… felt responsible for. The… survivor’s guilt.
JOHN: Arthur… You weren’t…
ARTHUR: No, I wasn’t. (Firmly.) Neither was Charlie. But that doesn’t erase the… guilt that comes with grief. That I-- that we got to live to see another day, but our partners… didn’t. There’s no… bringing them back. All we have is… memories.
JOHN: I’m sorry, Arthur.
ARTHUR: Don’t be. It was… nice to reminisce. With someone who understands. I told him about how… loud Parker used to get when he got excited. (Chuckles softly.) And he told me about… oh, I don’t know. Something about what mischief he and Noel got up to when they were boys.
JOHN: (Warmly.) That does sound nice.
ARTHUR: And he… well, I suppose… I imagined that he was close with Noel like I was with Parker. That he… that there was tenderness there. Fondness. I think-- I think there must have been for him to carry his memory through all those years.
JOHN: Arthur, were you and Parker…
ARTHUR: Don’t, John. (Warning.)
JOHN: Sorry.
ARTHUR: (Sighs.) I miss him.
JOHN: (Hesitating.) Parker…?
ARTHUR: Charlie.
JOHN: I miss him, too.
ARTHUR: We barely even knew him, but--
JOHN: But he was our friend. Both of us.
ARTHUR: Yes. Both of us. (Quiet for a moment, a subtle gripping sound.) I’m sorry, John.
JOHN: Mm?
ARTHUR: You lost a friend. Your… first friend, other than me.
JOHN: Mm…
ARTHUR: Do you… want to talk about it?
JOHN: About what?
ARTHUR: About… how you feel.
JOHN: I- I don’t know.
ARTHUR: How you feel?
JOHN: I feel… sad. I feel a sense of… loss. But I-- I suppose I…
ARTHUR: (Sadly.) John…
JOHN: … Nothing gold can stay.
(Arthur’s voice breaks and he begins to sniffle and weep.)
JOHN: Arthur…
(Fabric rustles and Arthur continues to weep quietly.)
ARTHUR: (Weakly.) Thank you, John.
JOHN: Of course, Arthur… I’ve… I’ve got you. We’ve… got each other.
ARTHUR: That we do. (Sniffles.) To… to the bitter end.
JOHN: (Resigned, but determined.) To the bitter end.