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Occasionally, Arthur plays nice with Oscar.
He likes to spin them both round into each other, to hear the priest’s steady heartbeat fail, to hear him stutter. Often enough he can tell how he feels just from the slightest hitch of Oscar’s breath or the way he still flutters around Arthur. He can’t expect from the entity any further insight on Oscar’s expressions, his looks, his gaze, but all in all, he doesn’t necessarily need to know those details.
He doesn’t need them to know that Oscar, in spite of his plain moral dilemmas, is ardent.
He is devoted to a fault.
Even as he snarks, even as he growls, scratches, howls and even more so as he keens like a kicked puppy.
He’s loyal at the times he spits out Arthur’s name as if it were a glob of poison, still loyal in the moments where his strength sways and he becomes a panicked mess, clinging to Arthur, especially blindly loyal as Arthur leads his hands down with a weapon to ensure no other person threatens them.
There could be no sweeter irony in how Oscar himself tears piece by piece just to cling to a man that is the farthest thing from holy.
Arthur would consider the priest a tragic character, but he’s far too useful. He’s precious company, unlike the constant thorn of the voice in his head. He can’t just ignore it, not with how it mocks him, how it points out each his inaccuracy, his faults, his inhumanity against all the odds that prove him flawed just as a human was.
Oscar has proved that above all of his spite, he would and will, and has killed for Arthur.
“No, no– Shit, I didn’t mean to, Arthur–” The name wanders to Arthur’s ears and rings like a pleasant bell, easing his edges and swaying Arthur into moving towards Oscar.
“You’re fine. He had it coming.” He says offhandedly, distracted by the sudden spike of something, something hot, in his body. He can feel the intensity curling around his spine and then down through his chest, and even lower to his stomach and groin. Oscar doesn’t pick up on the motion, suffocating in his own panic and regret, despite the fact he has done nothing closely wrong this time around.
“He was, well, but I still– Maybe we could’ve talked it out.”
“Oscar, this man tried to strangle me. Do you consider protecting someone a mistake?” Arthur asks inquiringly, more teasing rather than cruel. He gets that this proceeding panic attack is only getting worse, but it is momentarily funny.
“No, you don’t, you don’t get it, I murdered this man. I killed him for no viable reason, I can’t just, just move on from this like you.”
But only for a single moment.
He huffs at the pitiful reasoning, deciding to finally intervene in the madness that collects around his traveling partner. He grabs at Oscar’s collar, dragging him with force that should be beyond a one eyed and one limbed man, and then promptly pushes them both up against a near wall, out of the vicinity of the body.
“You killed McKenna. I don’t see how this is any different.”
“Stop. This is different. He didn’t know what exactly he was trying to do. Stop, let go of me, I need to repent.” Oscar’s voice shakes as intensely as his body does, already giving in to the force that is Arthur’s thin empathy. His heartbeat and breathing are uneven, but his lashes flutter and his eyes darken, and Arthur feels him coming undone within the slightest pressure on his throat that quickly shifted and Arthur’s closeness. “I need to, you don’t get it, I need to pray, this was a mistake.”
“Oscar.”
Arthur doesn’t need his vision to promptly aim and squeeze in a warning around Oscar’s neck. He doesn’t speak again, he doesn’t move, just keeps Oscar shuddering under his grasp, despite the fact the priest could overpower Arthur to some degree.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re forgiven for this.”
Oscar tries to mumble something, to counter his keeper, his tormentor, his savior, but all of his ideas fall flat. He licks his lips, his stability fraying, before he decides on curling his hands around the sides of Arthur’s white shirt. The soft material rumples easily, now stained, but Arthur does nothing to stop the other man.
Arthur exhales like he doesn’t quite know what sort of thoughts he’s invoking, like he doesn’t know that Oscar is, in a simpler form a pitiful dog with a leash, like he isn’t entertaining the idea of something between them.
Nevertheless, it isn’t half as plain as that.
It wouldn’t be entertainment.
It would reach far, far beyond it.
Oscar can’t find any ire in himself to hate the possibility.
Or rather, certainty.
It shouldn’t be this easy.
The priest carefully tried to shift himself away from the wall and closer to Arthur, he tried to bury himself in his partner’s assessing form, tried to, God forgive him for this urge, kiss Arthur, to hold him, to have the man. The only thing that stopped him from going through with his intentions, was a sudden yank, a hand pulling his hair and head back with a painfully tight hold. It startles him enough to collapse against the tile surfaces once more, far from the closeness he desperately wanted.
But it is easy, so easy to just want in silence.
Oscar flushes scarlet from the edges of his ears to the shade on his cheeks at the cold smile he’s given. The warmth slowly staking his body upwards is a disgusting fact, that he’s been overcome with feelings, feelings of desire, for the sad lonely man who took his heart to never return.
“Ah, ah. Only good followers get their needs satisfied.”
“Arthur–” The called man doesn’t wait for Oscar to collect his thoughts; he sighs, a soft unspoken chide, perhaps a bit disappointed, before letting go of the familiar brown curls.
“If you’re good for me, I’ll give you a treat of your choosing.”
Oscar whimpers into the empty shared space of their breaths, holding in all of his enjoyment as his resolve breaks.
He’s never asked for something so deeply embarrassing in his life.
There is a body laying not so far from the two, but neither give it any thought.
There is something odd that Arthur noticed lately about Oscar.
Now that the incessant snake from his mind is gone and he can finally see, and think freely in the empty space of his mind, and rest in the dark depths of it, he’s drawn to Oscar and his image. He’s drawn to him like an insect to a sugary liquid, to lick at and taste, and perhaps cherish on his tongue. When Arthur’s had his fair weekly share of agony entertained with underlaying frustration, he always moves on to testing Oscar’s limits in a new sense. Oftentimes, it is by pressing chaste, little to nothing kisses or compliments safely tucked into his famous sarcasm. During other occurances, he forces Oscar to listen to him speak about gutter and filth, and the joys of physical contact that Oscar has been left out of since his childhood.
After all, misery loves company.
And Arthur just can’t wait to die with this man in his embrace.