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As soon as John woke, he knew it was going to be a bad day.
His human body felt cramped and awkward and wrong. His hands felt both fragile and clumsy, paper-skinned and blunt on the ends. Restlessness made his skin itch and his bones ache. In this moment, he despised his ill-fitting human body. He hated it. He hated everything.
As John rose and dressed, as the day passed from morning to afternoon to a cold winter evening, the restlessness only worsened. His skin crawled with aching wrongness. Anger simmered low in his gut like molten lead.
“Did the frypan personally offend you while I was at the shop?”
Arthur’s voice pulled him back to the present. John glared down at the sink full of dishes and the frypan with a stupid fucking burnt-on piece of egg he couldn’t scrub off. He muttered something under his breath to make Arthur leave him alone.
“Hm.”
Behind him, Arthur set the bags of groceries on the kitchen table and began to unpack them, feeling out the cans and bottles’ places in the cupboards. Normally, John would help, but he felt spiny and brittle like broken glass, and he didn’t want to do anything but sulk.
“Bad day?” Arthur asked as he slid a jar of diced fruit up onto the shelf next to John.
John curled his lips and pointedly ignored Arthur as he continued washing dishes. The mere thought of talking rankled. His teeth startled him every time his tongue touched them and found flat, tiny teeth instead of the pointed fangs that should have been there. It all felt so wrong.
When John didn’t reply, Arthur felt his way down the kitchen counter, his hand swinging back and forth in the air until it hit John’s back. Arthur’s thin, strong fingers trailed upward and settled at the base of his neck. Arthur frowned, his out-of-focus eyes looking a few inches to the left of John’s face.
“John?”
“Fuck off.”
Arthur’s mouth thinned. His eyes narrowed.
“What’s wrong?”
Words crowded at the inside of John’s lips, words he didn’t dare say aloud. My body feels so wrong today. I don’t feel human. I feel like a creature with claws and a golden crown.
The warm weight of Arthur’s hand on his neck tightened slightly, and John gritted his too-flat teeth harder.
I want to crawl back into the space behind your ribs and curl myself around your bones. I want to feel your heart beating beside me and your lungs breathing in and out. I want what I can no longer have. I want to inhabit you again.
“John?”
John slammed the now-clean frying pan into the drying rack and began to scrub a coffee mug.
“I’m sick of being human today,” John spat under his breath.
As soon as the words escaped him, John closed his mouth and turned back to the dishes. Shit. Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that. He couldn’t bring this to Arthur, not after what happened last time.
At his side, Arthur had gone as still as a statue.
The first and only time John had changed shapes around Arthur, it hadn’t gone well.
John and Arthur had been separated for almost three months when John’s monstrous other shape made itself known. That night, John had felt restless and itchy. He hadn’t been able to sleep, so Arthur allowed him to sleep in his room that night. Curled at the edge of Arthur’s bed, John fell into fitful dreams. When he woke, it was to a massive, inhuman body with smooth scales and claws like razors, to ink-black tentacles and a yellow cloak. He woke to a body that felt glorious and wonderful and right.
He woke to Arthur, shaking and whimpering, his fragile human body pinned beneath John’s crushing weight, his hands scrabbling weakly at John’s tentacles where they constricted around his chest and throat.
For a week afterward, Arthur woke up screaming from nightmares he refused to talk about. It took weeks for the bruises to fade completely.
“It feels the same as last time?” Arthur said finally, his voice quiet and careful. “The restlessness?”
“It’s fine.”
“John—”
“Leave me alone!” John shook Arthur’s hand off and returned his attention to a pile of dirty silverware, rinsing them so vigorously that he splashed the countertop with soap suds.
“Don’t be an ass,” Arthur said, quiet but firm.
John’s anger wilted.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“It’s just us here,” Arthur said, his hand returning, his fingers smoothing the hair at the base of John’s neck. “No one will see you.”
The fanged-clawed thing inside John clamored to be set free, but John squashed it down again, controlling it. His next words came softly, carefully.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Arthur.”
“You won’t.”
“Last time—”
“Last time was an accident.”
John placed the last clean dish in the rack but let his hands linger in the sink, still immersed in the warm, soapy water. Arthur’s hand remained on his neck.
With a steadying breath, John dried his hands and turned toward Arthur. He still wore his coat, the collar turned up on one side, and his hair stuck out in all directions, as if mussed by the wind. John reached up and combed his fingers through Arthur’s hair, smoothing it down again. Arthur allowed it, his lips curving up into a bemused smile as John worked to put every strand back into its place.
“Are you sure?” John said.
Arthur answered without hesitation.
“I trust you, John.”
John’s human shape fell away, like throwing off a suffocating coat. He grew, his bones popping into place, his fingers growing into talons, his tentacles curling in the air. A pale crown grew from his skull as golden robes fell around him. It felt right. It felt powerful.
Before him, Arthur was so small, so fragile, and John hesitated again, his claws outstretched in the air between them. He couldn’t fuck it up this time. He refused to hurt him again.
“It’s okay, John. C’mere.”
John’s body reached out, his many limbs opening for Arthur like a sunflower toward the light. Arthur stepped into his embrace, and John’s limbs enfolded him. They fit together as if they were made for it, Arthur’s head tucking perfectly under John’s chin and Arthur’s arms closing tightly around John’s middle. John’s tentacles encircled Arthur’s arms and legs and back, careful of his strength. Arthur felt so right within the shelter of John’s arms.
“Is this okay?” John asked.
“I’m not made of glass, you know,” Arthur said, flicking John’s ribs. “Relax.”
John held Arthur closer, and, like nothing else had that day, it felt right.
When evening came, they ended up in Arthur’s bed without saying a word. Arthur snuggled deep under his mountain of blankets, and John curled himself around Arthur, resting his head on Arthur’s chest. Arthur’s heartbeat thudded steadily beneath his ear.
“If I had known you’d be spending this much time in my bed, I would have bought a bigger one,” Arthur said, adjusting his pillow.
“I’m not here that often.”
Arthur levelled a flat look his way, his eyes only an inch off-target.
“John. I don’t think I’ve had two nights to myself since we separated.”
“That’s not my fault! You get so cold in the winter, and then the building’s heat went out last week, and the week before—
“Mm-hmm. Of course, John.” Arthur nodded with exaggerated sincerity and fluffed his pillow again. “Whatever you say, John. Remind me to thank you more often for crawling into my bed every night because of your purely altruistic motives.”
John’s voice lowered into a rolling growl.
“Oh, fuck you.”
Arthur waggled his eyebrows.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
John smacked Arthur on the back of the head, and Arthur laughed. John leaned into the sound, pressing his ear more firmly against Arthur’s chest. He didn’t think he would ever tire of the sound of Arthur laughing. He had become so familiar with the sound of Arthur’s pain, but the sound of his joy still felt so new. An unfamiliar treasure.
Not that John could tell Arthur that. John had a reputation to uphold, after all.
“Like I want to be any more intimately acquainted with your bony ass,” John said into Arthur’s shirt.
“Says the idiot hugging me like you want to shove your way back into my chest cavity.”
“Fuck you.”
Arthur made a show of batting his eyelashes and fanning his face with an imaginary fan.
“Oh, John, I’m flattered by your offer—”
“Shut up!”
Arthur giggled, a bright, bubbly sound that John had never heard before. John basked in the sound, hugging his arms tighter around Arthur’s middle. He rested his chin on Arthur’s sternum and let his tentacles curl around Arthur’s legs, glad Arthur couldn’t see the stupid grin on his face—Arthur never would have stopped teasing him about it.
The last red rays of sunset painted Arthur’s lashes golden and turned his brown eyes to liquid fire. John cupped his face, skimming his thumb against his sandstorm scarred-cheekbone and the jagged edge of his torn-off ear. Seeming to sense John’s gaze, Arthur looked down at him. John nudged his chin to the side so that Arthur met his eyes.
“I love you,” John said, words he never tired of saying.
Arthur rolled his eyes, his pale skin flushing pink, but he smiled and curled down to lean his forehead against John’s.
“I love you, too, John.”