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It was on a Wednesday afternoon when John first brought it into the apartment, setting it upon one of the odd side tables in the sitting room and dropping a wooden crate beside it. Arthur soon realized the latter was packed to the brim with records, all snugly tucked into their protective paper sleeves, a plume of dust erupting the moment he slipped one free.
“It was on sale,” John had said, snagging the record from Arthur’s hand. A few seconds later, the arm of the gramophone must have fallen into its proper groove, for music soon filled the room, brassy and bright amid a gentle crackle of static. “The man said I could have the collection for a dollar more.”
Arthur hadn’t argued how high, exactly, said ‘sale’ was or if there had been one in the first place. He had already recognized and accepted his friend’s penchant for spontaneous purchases, especially if those purchases were associated with more artistic pursuits. There was still a box of oil paints, complete with half-empty tubes and stained brushes, that had since taken up residence beside the bookshelf, not to mention the notebooks Arthur found himself tripping over from time to time. He could clearly imagine the crooked words and stanzas spilling out in John’s cramped handwriting as he felt each impression of his pen.
They owned a radio, of course, nor did they truly need a gramophone, but at John’s elated, “It works, Arthur!” he knew it was a fight he had no intention of starting, let alone winning.
Some days, a wisp of guilt would work its way into his chest, his very bones. He knew John had shown interest in learning the piano, and had even mentioned the desire to purchase one on multiple occasions when they passed a music shop in the streets. Repeatedly, Arthur had denied such wishes, redirecting the line of conversation or hand-waving it away with the well-worn excuse that their money would be better spent elsewhere.
Memories of Parker crowded the forefront of his mind, a birthday, a piano hauled into their shared office, secondhand with rosewood keys and chipping corners. There was a longing, there, deep down, something he could not claim did not exist, but he could never quite bring himself to remedy it.
Not yet.
He wasn’t ready yet.
So, the gramophone stayed.
Because Arthur could not hurt John more than he already was. He could not crush such a newly-blossomed human spirit purely seeking more ways to express itself. It was a compromise, for now. Music without expectation, no matter how many times John said he didn’t expect anything of him.
They both knew that wasn’t entirely true.
No matter the day or time, if John was home, some sort of record would be whirling away, producing the sounds of crying violins or rampaging horns or soft piano.
Perhaps even more surprising than the fact John hadn’t grown sick of this particular purchase was the fact that Arthur felt his barriers slowly but surely crumbling, all the subconscious and conscious distance he placed between himself and music unraveling just enough for him to tap his foot against the linoleum of the kitchen as he brewed his tea in the mornings, or drum his fingers against his desk as he wrote up reports for cases, or hum Berlin or Gershwin under his breath when he practiced his braille.
He would catch himself, sometimes, and, aghast, force his limbs to stop and his vocal cords to cease their incessant vibrating, though it was becoming a losing battle.
It was as he was putting away dishes one evening that his body began moving of its own volition, swaying side to side as he lined up glasses and bowls in their respective spots, Benny Goodman wafting across their modest-sized apartment. His feet shifted positions on the floor, giving a tap here, a tap there, his shoulders rising and falling, alternating on every other beat.
He plucked the dishrag from the countertop, drying circles into the center of a still-damp plate, instinctively spinning on his toes before depositing the dish in the proper cupboard.
“I thought you didn’t dance?”
Arthur flinched, nearly tripping over his own two feet in his attempt to turn around.
“Jesus, John. How many times have I told you not to do that?”
“What? Catch you dancing?”
There was smugness dripping from every word. Arthur tried to force his face not to warm.
“I meant the whole ‘sneaking up on the blind man’ thing.”
“The dancing blind man.”
Perhaps childishly, Arthur threw the rag in the direction of John’s voice, satisfaction filling his chest at the muffled protest that followed. “I was not dancing. I was merely putting the dishes away and…swaying to the beat.”
“You spun.”
“Fuck off.” Though, Arthur couldn’t deny how unconvincing he sounded when his lips stretched in a smile. “It was a fluke spurred on by the rhythm of a single song—don’t get your hopes up. I wasn’t lying when I told you I’ve never been one for it.”
John hummed.
There came a stretch of silence, long enough for Arthur to grab another clean dish from the rack and move to slide it into the cupboard. He assumed John would leave him to his task and replace the record that had just reached its end or maybe retreat to the sofa to read from one of his many poetry books. Even without hearing footsteps, he was almost convinced John had left before he spoke a good minute or so later.
“You said you would start.”
“What?”
“‘I can’t think of a better time in my life to start dancing more.’ That’s what you said in Larson’s manor after you told me you didn’t dance.”
Had he?
Admittedly, most of that conversation was a blur, slipping through bloodied fingers and lost among tear-stained memories. Still, something tugged at a corner of his mind, like he was forgetting something important.
“A dinner out, with drinks, music, and dancing,” John continued almost bashfully. “You said, someday, when we returned to Arkham…” His sentence trailed away.
Suddenly, everything slotted into place, as did the meaning in that now-so-distant promise. It hadn’t just been about returning to Arkham, but when they were no longer running for their lives. When they were no longer threatened by insane, all-powerful gods from other planes of reality. When they weren’t bleeding, and broken, and feeling more and more inhuman as the days went on.
When they had finally scrounged up a scrap of peace.
And they had. Somehow, miraculously, they had that, now. Peace. Calm. A life of their own—lives of their own—separated and comfortable and, dare he even think it, stable. By comparison, of course.
How had he allowed that promise to slip by the wayside?
“You’re right,” he breathed. “God, John. I… I forgot all about that. I swear, come this weekend, we can go out for dinner. Someplace upscale, with a band and—”
“Will you dance with me?”
Arthur's mouth flapped mutely. “I suppose we could find a restaurant or a club of some kind that allows patrons to—”
“I don’t care about a fucking night out, Arthur,” John cut in again, slightly more irritated. “We’ve shared plenty of meals together. I meant now. Will you dance with me?”
Arthur was momentarily grateful he wasn’t holding anything because he whirled again, hoping he was meeting John’s face and desperately wishing he could see his expression so he might be able to read it.
He swallowed. “I— I don’t— I really don’t have that sort of experience, John. The only person I ever danced with was Bella, and, even then, it was only once or twice.” Much to the dismay and abject disappointment of Daniel and the other guests breathing down his neck. Arthur Lester: the man who couldn’t do anything right. “I haven’t practiced in years.”
“Neither have I.”
Arthur laughed.
John didn’t join him.
He sputtered. “You’re— You’re serious? Right now?”
“Well, I would need to switch the record. But, yes. Unless you’re occupied?”
He cast a look over his shoulder at the counters and sink.
“There aren’t any more dishes,” John said as if reading his mind. It wasn’t said as a slight, but, instead, like his friend was simply notifying him of his surroundings, letting him know he didn’t need to do anything more.
Nevertheless, Arthur’s face burned. He doubted any excuse he made wouldn’t be seen through just as quickly as he crafted it. Of course, he could say his joints were acting up, old injuries flaring angrily to life as they tended to do at this time of night or after a particularly grueling case. He could say he didn’t have the energy tonight and ask John to start a warm bath and he knew the other would do it with no hesitation.
But no. No, that would be taking advantage of John’s hair-trigger desire to care for his every ill. And he wasn’t so petty as to cry wolf just to get out of doing something he wasn’t very good at.
Was that it? Was he embarrassed John had finally asked something of him that he couldn’t do when most aspects of the world he could explain and teach as though they were second nature? Was dancing, of all things, really such a chink in his armor?
“If you don’t want to…” John said carefully, and it was then Arthur realized just how long he had been quiet.
“No, no— I’m sorry. Got lost in thought there, for a moment.” He swallowed again. Forced himself to step over the metaphysical precipice. “Lead the way.”
Arthur hovered as he heard John shift things to and fro, likely removing the record from the turntable.
“Any preference?” he asked, then clarified. “For music.”
Arthur chuckled. “Hardly any dancing experience here, remember? Something not too fast, I suppose.”
There was an odd sort of silence bouncing between them, trapped within the four walls of their apartment, something nigh akin to…awkwardness. But that was nonsense. Had they not walked through veritable hells hand in hand? Eat with each other? Sleep next to each other? What reason did he have to be awkward?
Automatically, Arthur found himself pacing the room. His knee knocked against the coffee table. Realization dawned.
“We should probably… I mean. We need more room than this, I assume.”
“Oh,” John said, pausing in his own task to walk nearer.
Arthur moved to one end of the table, bracing his hands on the edges of it as John lifted the other side. With one short fumble, they successfully shoved it into a corner of the room, leaving a wide open space padded with the rug he’d bought for John a few months back.
“Find something you like?” Arthur asked as John moved back to the gramophone.
In lieu of a response, he heard the arm sink its teeth into the record and a melody soon unspooled into existence, though not nearly as fast-paced as the previous one. In fact, there was significantly less brass, overall.
When John finally met him in the center of the rug, Arthur searched the air until he had captured his left hand in his, momentarily surprised at not feeling the familiar, gnarled wood of a pinky that was no longer John’s. He interlaced their fingers, now safely housed between their bodies mere inches apart.
With his other hand, Arthur found John’s right wrist, maneuvering his palm to rest on the dip of his waist; John’s hand skittered away like a frightened animal.
“Arthur—”
“You’ll be the one leading, John; you’ll pick up on the form quicker, that way, and I won’t risk leading us both into a wall.” He replaced John’s hand on his waist and, this time, he didn’t flee, though Arthur could sense how stiff his muscles were. “Honestly, you’re acting like you’re going to break me in two!”
Even coated in a laugh, the words still made his heart pound as they left him. He sincerely hoped his palm wasn’t sweating in John’s grasp as he clasped his shoulder with his remaining hand.
It was then he realized rather abruptly that he had never actually danced with another man before. Sure, Parker had invited him to nights out on the town in the past, but far too many of those ended with Arthur tripping over his own feet because of alcohol rather than a misplaced box step.
“Just think of those moving pictures you watched,” Arthur continued, trying to keep his voice neutral. “You’ve seen dance scenes, haven’t you? Try to picture how those couples moved.”
“You mean the men who tapped their shoes so fast, it sounded like gunshots?”
Arthur snorted. “Don’t worry; we won’t be tap-dancing.”
“You say that…”
“We won’t be. I promise. Now, remember, it’s been quite a while since I’ve last done this, so you’re going to have to bear with me.”
He tried his best to recite the same instructions given to him so many years ago when he had first learned (and executed rather mediocrely) to waltz. They attempted to make their way around the perimeter of the room with Arthur giving a spattering of “lefts” and “rights” and “turns” and, more often than not, stepping on one of his friend’s feet and making him curse under his breath.
The motions were jerky and uncoordinated and it was after John had stepped on his own foot that Arthur’s elbow clipped a vase on one of the side tables. John lunged after it and Arthur found himself being pushed aside. He would have collapsed to the ground if it weren’t for the bumpy embrace of the bookshelf in the corner, though the force with which he struck it sent three or four books raining down upon his head.
“Fuck. Sorry,” John said hurriedly, hands fluttering over Arthur’s shoulders as if he didn’t want to risk touching any newly formed bruises. “Are you alright?”
Arthur rubbed his skull with a groan. “Never better.”
John sighed and Arthur heard him shove the books a tad aggressively back into their slots. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“We just need practice, that’s all.”
John scoffed. “We can’t go five steps without tripping each other, Arthur.”
He couldn’t argue with that, though that might have been explained by the fact one of them was blind as opposed to their mutual lack of experience.
That or All of the Above.
Once again, Arthur’s mind seemed to find the grooves of past memories, of holding a woman in his arms, a slender hand settled about his neck, green eyes staring into his own like they were forced to do so. He tried to recall if he had danced better back then with his sight or if the presence of so many watchful gazes, so many whispering voices had made his knees shake with anxiety and his fingers tremble in her grasp.
There was no such pressure, now, no audience besides the occasional potted plant they had passed in their bumbling circuit around the room.
“Maybe a waltz wasn’t the best choice,” Arthur said at length. “Perhaps we need to go even simpler. Try a form with fewer steps.” In a very literal sense.
“Such as?”
It was then he noticed the change in song, a gentle opening of piano chords giving way to soft cello and even softer brass. The notes bobbed languidly through the otherwise silent apartment as if they were beckoning him to follow.
Arthur motioned John to the center of the room once more, adjusting his hands when he did so. “Now, slow dancing is the simplest form of them all. All one needs to do is hold their partner like this and sway side to side or rotate in a tight circle. In a way, it’s like you’re standing on a spinning record. Make sense?”
John was still holding him stiltedly. “I suppose...”
“Here, let’s do it together. Just— move your foot slightly to the right. Your other right.” Arthur smiled at the familiarity of the words. “And now to the left. Slower. And a small step to the right again. That’s it! Good job.”
After a few seconds of fumbling, John seemed to find a suitable speed and, before long, the two of them were swaying slowly from side to side. His friend’s ridged death grip on his side had lessened and the hand in his own relaxed. Arthur ran a thumb over John’s knuckles in assurance.
“I suppose we really are a pair of amateurs. Who knew you’d concede after only ten minutes of waltzing?”
“I did not concede,” John protested. “I just thought we should try something else and I was right. Unless you want to owe the landlord hundreds of dollars?”
“Now you’re just being dramatic. I doubt we would have destroyed the apartment that much.”
He could practically feel John’s incredulity.
Arthur laughed. “Alright, maybe we would have. But it’s a shame, really. We hadn’t even gotten to the spinning. Not to mention the dipping.”
“I’d much rather keep both my feet on the ground, thank you.”
They lapsed into silence once more, Al Bowlly’s vocals traipsing in the background.
Without any other distractions, Arthur was finding himself increasingly aware of John and his distance or lack thereof. He could feel the warmth of his hands radiating outward, methodical exhales released from a mouth and lungs that did not belong to him, that they did not share, like Arthur had sometimes imagined they had, even if John’s control over his body had been much more restricted.
He slid his hand up John’s shoulder to loop behind his neck, closing those scant inches between them to rest his head on his broader chest and to lean more of his weight against his.
John, in turn, rested his chin atop his head after a moment of hesitation rather unlike him, and Arthur couldn’t help but think there was something about the night that was affecting them both, an energy that was stealing the synchronization from their limbs and the eloquence from their speech.
The hand around Arthur’s waist traveled farther around his back as if, now that he was this close, John didn’t want him to go any farther.
Arthur allowed his eyes to slide shut, not that the change from natural darkness to a manmade one made any significant difference to him.
Time passed.
He allowed himself to be led in slow circles in the center of the room, trusting that the body beneath his cheek wouldn’t step aside and let him fall, wouldn’t move him too roughly, wouldn’t do anything besides stay close and solid, a steady heartbeat beneath his ear.
It was a sound he knew John found comforting. Arthur was starting to understand why.
“Arthur.”
He hummed in askance, mind far more sluggish than he would care to admit. His shoulders were slumped, whatever proper form he had been taught in years past now entirely gone as he melted into the heat and safety that was John.
“The record finished.”
“Did it?” Even his voice sounded lethargic to his own ears, tension long sloughed off from the syllables.
“Yes,” John said. He kept up the swaying, nonetheless, which wasn’t making Arthur any more inclined to detach himself. “Do you…want me to start another?”
“That depends. Will it require you to move to the other side of the room and abandon me here for longer than five seconds?”
He could practically hear the cogs in his friend’s brain whirling, likely weighing whether he was being serious or not. “Well, I would need to skim through the collection to find another set of songs you might like, which would probably take half a minute or so—"
“Then I’d much rather stay where I am, thank you.”
Arthur felt a puff of warm breath rustle the hairs on his head, a paltry attempt to stifle a laugh on John’s part. “And you call me the clingy one?”
“Shut up. Can a man not enjoy himself?”
Arthur knew they were the wrong words to say the moment they left his lips; he could practically feel the thrum of John’s sly pleasure.
“Oh? But I thought you said you were never one for dancing?”
“Yes, yes—”
“That you didn’t possess that sort of experience—"
“Yes, alright! I get it. You’re ruining the moment the longer you fucking talk, you know.”
With a surprising amount of restraint, John actually fell quiet at that.
He said nothing as he slowly and nigh-reverently moved them in a small circle, no longer mapping out the rest of the room, but rather staying near its center and each other, two planets forever trapped in the other’s orbit. He said nothing when Arthur moved his hand out of his gentle grasp to drape both his arms around his neck, said nothing as both of his own arms wrapped more securely around Arthur’s back, pulling him ever closer.
Arthur wondered if John could hear his own heart steadily beating somewhere deep inside him, perhaps even the slightest bit faster than usual as it was wont to whenever he found himself so wholly contained and content in his arms.
A memory of Bella, fleeting and smudged with time. Her head in the crook of his neck, eyes meeting his, wary and apprehensive and, though Arthur hadn’t identified the emotion then, pained. Her lips hesitantly meeting his, the wrongness that had surged through every fiber of his being, sent a feverish spike of fear through every synapse. The inability to push her away when there were so many eyes, so many words and rules and expectations sticking to the heels of his shoes and collecting in his lungs like plaque.
He tried to flatten those memories each and every time they tried to resurface, drown them like he was apparently so damn good at doing. Only, when he did so, more would arise, sharper and far more insistent, reminders of all the pain he’d caused and would continue to cause, the ‘perfect’ life he had cast aside because he only ever thought about himself. Memories he couldn’t help but wince over on account of how forced their creation was.
He lifted his head slightly, dislodging John’s chin in the process so they were instead eye to eye or how he assumed them to be. Before his friend could so much as utter an inquisitive “Arthur?” he spoke.
“Will you kiss me?”
Perhaps it was the abruptness of the request that caused John to stop mid-step, their gentle swaying, though it had long since faded into the physical equivalent of white noise, now all the more noticeable in its absence. He could only imagine how John must have been looking at him.
“I…” He faltered, confusion evident in the tone of his voice. “I am uncertain what you—"
“I meant now. Will you kiss me?”
If he couldn’t disregard or erase the bitter memories, perhaps the next best thing was to etch better ones overtop them.
“Unless…” Arthur echoed with faux-consideration, “you’re occupied?”
A few more seconds passed, silent and still, when Arthur felt one of the hands leave his back to cautiously cup the side of his face, a thumb gently tracing the line of his jaw, fingers curling behind his ear.
“No,” John answered at last, before guiding Arthur’s head up another fraction and bringing their lips together.
It was slow, and chaste, and warm, and Arthur let out an involuntary sigh like it had been trapped somewhere within his chest for far too long, itching for a way out. Even with his eyes closed, even blind, he felt John’s smile on his mouth, pulling out a matching set.
Maybe that was it. Maybe there was something about the night, something in the air when it was John’s air he was sharing.
The kiss broke after both an eternity and a mere moment, and maybe Arthur hadn’t been clear enough with his directions either, for John quickly returned for another, and another, and another, each one just as gentle and purposeful and immeasurably, dazingly affectionate as the last.
John pressed another light kiss to his cheekbone, leaned close to whisper in his ear. “We can stop, if you want.”
A free pass, a proffered escape, because of course John knew when he was acting strange.
And Arthur wished he could see him, wanted more than anything to reassure his friend through his eyes alone that he was fine, more than fine. That it was just his stupid fucking brain that could never seem to live in the fucking present.
He was sick and tired of being controlled by his past.
So, he focused on the hands on his waist and face, combed his own through John’s hair where it tumbled in unfettered waves down his back.
No gazes singed the nape of his neck, none of the plants saw fit to murmur among themselves about tradition and keeping up appearances. It was just the two of them, dancing and kissing because the mood had taken them, not because they were seeking to prove something to someone.
Arthur leaned into the palm currently cradling his cheek, pressing the ghost of a kiss to the middle of it, trying to match the sheer gentleness of all the ones John had bestowed upon him. “Maybe one more record couldn’t hurt.”
He should have expected John to pick him up by the waist and carry him the handful of paces to the gramophone, just as he should have expected him during the following song to attempt a twirl and a dip that resulted in a jumble of limbs on the sitting room floor and two strains of laughter that were eventually stifled by the press of two grinning mouths.