Work Text:
John froze at the door to the bedroom, hand raised where it had pushed the door open. Arthur sat on the bed before him, hunched over his lap where he held – cradled – something in his hands. Like it was precious. Like it could save him. Like it could kill him.
It was a gun. John saw the metal casing, the fingers of Arthur’s right hand wrapped loosely around the trigger. He held it so carefully, as if it was going to explode if he made a sudden movement.
“Arthur…?” John breathed out. His mind short-circuited in panic. He had a suspicion about what was happening and it sank heavy in his chest, like a stone thrown into the ocean – a feeling still so beautifully new in a body all of his own.
Arthur let out a shaky breath. The fingers on the trigger trembled.
“I thought you were going out for longer,” he said. His voice shook slightly, otherwise numb. Cold dread spread along John’s limbs.
“Arthur, put the gun down.” He tried to be directive. Confident. Wasn’t this what panicked people need? John wouldn’t know.
Arthur shook his head almost as if involuntarily. “You were supposed to be out.”
“And why is that?” He went for confrontational. Arthur wasn’t panicking, he was… Maybe, if he could rile him up, get him angry, some of that fire – that life – would come back to him. Right now, Arthur stared sightlessly at the gun in his lap. He looked like a ghost already. An empty shell of himself.
“I can’t…” Arthur started, then stopped. Sighed. “This is pointless.”
John frowned in disbelief. Frustration. Premature grief. Sorrow. Anger.
“What’s pointless?” He growled out.
Arthur’s face scrunched up in a wince, and he turned his head away from John.
“I’m holding you back,” he whispered.
All the anger within John dissipated like smoke in the air.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” His voice had settled on desperation as the current course of action. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t will his muscles to move from the door for fear of startling Arthur into reckless action.
He longed for a body that was faster, for limbs longer and more flexible, that would be able to grab a hold of Arthur and protect him from himself. Wrap around him like a protective cocoon until he cried out his frustrations and found his light once again.
Arthur’s eyes returned to his lap. A few tears streamed down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” he mouthed, his throat not quite producing the sound. His finger trembled again, each small movement of it tugging on taut strings connected to John’s heart. He wished Arthur would rip it out of his chest, if only to see just how afraid he was for him. How much he cared.
If that even mattered.
“Arthur, please ,” John said insistently. “Just put the fucking gun down. Everything will be fine.”
A slight movement of the head, his chin raising ever so slightly. Meaningless to any other person perhaps, but John saw Arthur relent. He took a step closer.
“Here, just give it to me,” he murmured, trying to keep the cadence steady and neutral. Arthur didn’t like that sweet, manipulative voice. Arthur didn’t like to be pitied. Didn’t like to be coddled.
Another step closer and he put his palm on Arthur’s hand – the one that held the trigger. John’s hands were much bigger, and Arthur’s grip was loose as it was. John still took great care, as he extricated the gun from his grasp and put it on the bedside table.
“John, I…” Arthur started weakly, but John didn’t let him finish. He took hold of his shoulders and, sitting down on the bed beside him, pulled him close to his chest. Wordlessly holding him, feeling his breath – shallow, but warm; feeling his pulse – fast, but still there. Arthur’s heart hammered in his chest in much the same way that John’s was, even if the reasons behind it opposed each other.
“I wouldn’t,” Arthur mumbled into John’s shoulder, sinking into his large frame. “You know, I wouldn’t.”
“I don’t know that, Arthur,” John said shakily, pulling back to look at his face. “What if one day you—”
“I wouldn’t ,” Arthur insisted, his own eyes red-rimmed. “I just…”
“ Arthur ,” John snapped, trying to grab his attention. His tone was undercut by the fact that his voice was breaking on the sharp emotions. “This is the third time I find you staring at that gun. I’m not going to wait until I find you dead in here.”
Arthur opened his mouth, as if to say something, but no sound came out.
“I don’t know what to do,” John confessed in a desperate whisper. He didn’t know how humans did this. He wasn’t supposed to provide comfort, he was a creature of madness. And yet, this was madness, and John was powerless.
“I couldn’t save her,” Arthur sobbed. “John, I should’ve—I…”
“Arthur,” he growled in desperation, pulling the man close again, carding a hand through his hair and holding his face close to his shoulder if only to shut him up.
“I couldn’t save her.” Somehow, Arthur kept talking, his voice muffled by John’s shirt and hair. “I had another chance and I failed. And you…”
“What about me?” John snapped, eyebrows drawn together in pain, voice colored with desperate anger as he clung to Arthur.
“You have it all, John,” Arthur whined. “You could be out there. Living your life. I’m… I have nothing.”
“You have me,” John growled again, digging his nails into Arthur’s back. “You have me and I need to have you, Arthur. You are not leaving me.”
Tears prickled at his eyes. His entire body was shaking. He wasn’t letting go of Arthur.
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t,” he snarled. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I just want you to be here.”
“But… John, I’m—”
“You are everything , Arthur,” he whispered fervently. He felt tears travel down his cheeks, leaving searing hot tracks in their wake. “You are everything to me. Everything I have. Everything I want.”
“But—humanity and, and life, the world…” Arthur tried to argue, tried to pull back; for all his efforts, John just clung to him tighter.
“Don’t you get it?” He almost sobbed out the words, exasperated, sorrowful, fond. Grieving. “They’re you . You make them worth it, Arthur. They would be nothing without you.”
Arthur’s body shuddered with a sob that wracked through his chest.
“John…”
“I need you to understand that,” John kept talking. “I need you to be strong. I need you to keep fighting. I need you to be here.”
Arthur cried into his shoulder. John’s fingers carded through his hair, passed down his back. He saw this on movies, and he hoped it would be enough. He knew it wouldn’t.
“It feels…” Arthur whispered. “John, I failed her. I failed her again. I can’t live like this.”
“I know,” he said soothingly. “I know, Arthur. But you will. We will.”
More sobs. Sympathetic tears spilled from John’s eyes. He didn’t know that was something human bodies did. It served no purpose but to make more mess.
He cried anyway.
“This too shall pass, Arthur,” he mouthed the words into Arthur’s hair. “You hear me? This too shall pass.”
Arthur let out a whine with his next sob.
“This…” He sniffled. His fists were balled up in John’s shirt. They were holding each other, as if the other was the anchor keeping them afloat. As if together, they could never drown. “This too shall pass.”