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The ritual is complete. There’s blood on the floor, and on Arthur, on the candles and the bowls of various unspeakable goops and on the corpse of the goat they had just slaughtered.
There’s also blood on John. At least it’s only goat blood.
John looks at Arthur. Arthur looks at John.
“Nope,” says John.
“What?”
“I don’t fucking like this, Arthur,” says John. “Let me back in.”
“Wh—John, what the fuck? We just—we literally just—”
“We tried it,” says John, reasonably. “I don’t like it. There, now we can say we’ve officially given it our best go, but it’s time to stick me back in your head—”
“You’ve been out of it for two fucking minutes, John, the goat’s not even cold—”
“Are you enjoying this?” asks John.
“I’m covered in goat blood. What do you think?”
“You know,” says John, “Yellow shared some interesting things about how you reacted when you didn’t have me inside of your head. Honestly, I think it’s in the best interest of you, and me, and the universe at large—”
“Thanks, Yellow,” mutters Arthur. “Asshole.”
John rolls his eyes. “Arthur, be reasonable. It’s perfectly normal and not codependent at all to go into a feral rage and murder people because you’re not sharing a brain with your platonic life partner and anchor to humanity and reason for existence—”
“No,” agrees Arthur, “you’re right, that’s normal. Just friends being friends. But I’m not up for another ritual tonight, John. We don’t even have another goat. Come on, let’s get cleaned up and hide the evidence and go to bed. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find you like having your own body.”
He goes over. Takes John’s brand new hands in his own, looks (finally looks!) into his brand new eyes.
“Hi,” says Arthur, stupidly.
“You’ve got blood in your hair,” says John abruptly, face turning a little darker with his own brand new blood. Arthur idly wonders if it’s the same type as his own. It doesn’t seem quite right for it to be otherwise. Surely, neither of their bodies would ever reject the other.
“So’ve you.”
John makes an uncomfortable noise, and looks down at his brand new feet, bare on the cold floor.
“John?”
“I don’t know what you’re feeling,” says John, scowling. “Your face doesn’t give away as much as… as…”
“I know. It’s odd not to feel your frustration.”
“I’m not frustrated!”
“Sure,” says Arthur. “But we’re still here, and still covered in blood. Let’s go home.”
——
“Maybe,” says Arthur thoughtfully, as they both try to fit on Arthur’s narrow little mattress, five feet apart because they’re not gay, “I could be the voice in your head instead. For a change.”
John shifts. Oh well; the five feet apart thing wasn’t working, anyway. Arthur shifts, too.
“Would you… like that?”
“I don’t know,” says Arthur, tracing the lines of John’s face. “It’s nice to be able to see you.”
“This isn’t even what I look like,” says John. “I mean—it wasn’t until a few hours ago.”
Arthur pets John’s hair wistfully. It’s nice and soft and thick. The ends of each strand come to the feathery, tapered points of baby hairs grown out from the scalp, rather than the blunt flat ends of hair that’s been cut before. It gives him an oddly delicate look. “I wish I could see what you really look like, then.”
“No you don’t,” sighs John. “I’m big. And tentacley. And very yellow.”
“Did you know that the human eye can see the colour yellow more easily than any other? It’s because of the sun. That’s why warning signs are painted in yellow.”
“There, you see? It’s about time you start paying attention to those.”
“Don’t be dense,” says Arthur. “I mean to say that I’m literally, biologically wired to have eyes only for you. No matter if I’m blind or not.”
“…oh,” says John.
Arthur pats his hand—his right to John’s left, a habit carried over without conscious thought. Shifts even closer. He can feel John’s breath flutter against his cheeks. “I’ll like you whatever you look like. Even if I’m a voice in your head.”
John hums. “Would you have my eyes, if you were? And… some limbs? I could offer you more than just a hand and a foot, I’ve got plenty to go around.”
“Limbs sounds nice, John,” says Arthur sleepily.
“But,” continues John, worried, “some of them are in different dimensions. And I have ana and kata facing eyes, too, and humans can’t move in the uptowards or downfrom, so do you think that would be too disorienting?”
“John,” says Arthur, “the only thing disorienting me right now is exhaustion from wrangling a goat. Go to sleep.”
There is a long pause. They’re close enough that if he wanted to, Arthur could lean forward and… he rolls over. He’s drifting right on the edge of sleep when John pokes him in the side.
“Hey! Don’t do that.”
“Arthur.”
“What?”
“Can we take turns? With the bodies? I—I would miss being in yours. I don’t think I’d like it if I never saw… this again.”
“Sure, John,” sighs Arthur, irritably. “Go to sleep.”
There is another pause. Arthur can feel the mattress shake as John fidgets, and knows it’s not going to last. It’s unnerving to have to rely on the quality of silences to extrapolate what his other half is feeling. He should be getting the radio broadcast right into his skull—right into that place in his chest where they intertwine, which feels so empty and painful right now. Maybe, he thinks reluctantly, the King in Yellow hadn’t been so totally unreasonable to break his legs. He’d probably break someone’s legs if they tried to play keep-away with him over John. Hell, legs was mild; he’d break every bone in their—
“Arthur?”
“John.”
“…I miss you.”
I miss you, too. “I’m right here.”
“I miss your heartbeat. It reminds me of the time I was trapped in your dead body, that I can’t hear it.”
“Can’t you hear your own and pretend it’s mine?”
“No,” whines John, “because I know it’s not.”
Arthur sighs. Rolls over again. To hell with it.
He leans forward and pulls John (awkwardly; John is the larger of the two of them) to his chest, right against the bones and the scars and his thundering heart. John wraps his arms around him as if on instinct, as if that’s where he’s supposed to be. His hand finds Arthur’s—left to right, fingers intertwined.
“…is this better?”
“No,” says John mulishly, but he yawns, and Arthur chuckles.
“If you ask me one more thing tonight,” he says pleasantly, “you’ll be sleeping on the floor.”
John just tightens his grip. “You go where I go.”
——
Arthur wakes to golden sunlight on golden eyes which are looking into his own eyes, eyes which are pushing that gold down through them and shining a little warmth, a little light, on the aching empty cavity inside of him. He feels sunblind, dazzled and self-injured because he just can’t look away.
They’re close. So close. He could…
And then he-could becomes he-does as John cups his face in one shaking hand and brings their lips together awkwardly.
Arthur kisses him back. It seems the thing to do. He’s more skilled than John is—well, he should be; he’s had a human body for more than twelve hours. He tilts his head, and John follows his lead, hesitantly.
They draw apart. John’s eyes, amber-gold, firegold, are wide and lost, searching for something he can’t find.
“John,” says Arthur, softly, “what was that about?”
“Well,” says John, self-consciously, “that’s one thing I can’t do when we’re together.”
“Did you want to?”
“I—I have, yes. I wanted to try it.”
“Hm,” says Arthur, carefully neutral. “Was it—did you like it?”
“I—“ John sighs. “I don’t know. It wasn’t what I expected. It was supposed to be intimate. I thought—but it wasn’t, really. I mean, it was nice, but not…”
He exhales. His breath tickles Arthur with his own flyaway hairs.
“It wasn’t what I wanted,” says John at last.
“Oh, thank God,” says Arthur.
“You didn’t like it?”
Arthur shrugs. “Kissing is just… I mean, it’s fine. A little… damp. I don’t know if I’d want to do it all the time.”
“That’s what humans do, though, isn’t it? To show that… I mean, that’s how you express—”
He waves his hands, as though grasping at something intangible, pulling from the air something which cannot be put into words. The sunlight halos his fingertips in the red glow of blood.
“I want you to eat me,” he says, finally, almost accusatorily. “I want you to crack open my ribs and pull me out with your teeth and keep my heart on the tip of your tongue. That’s what humans do with that feeling, isn’t it? The safe way to eat each other. With tongues and hands and, and putting bits into other bits...”
Arthur, despite himself, snorts. John glares at him.
“I thought you’d want that,” he says, plaintively. “I thought you’d want me.”
“John,” says Arthur, annoyed. “I want you inside me. Not bits of your body. All of you. Your whole entire soul. Inside of me, and pressed up against mine.”
“Oh.“
“Oh,” says Arthur, snidely. Maybe, he thinks, that had been his problem with Bella. Maybe if they’d been able to pluck each other out of their skulls, they’d have had a better relationship. Maybe no one was ever going to be right for him on Earth, because humans couldn’t do that. Maybe… maybe it was just John, anyway, and he was doomed from the start, because the only person he could have ever given his entire heart to, raw and bloody and vulnerable, was a piece of an alien god from before the dawn of time. Or maybe it was none of that, just an amalgam of individual choices, nothing more mystical than that; maybe it was just circumstance and chance, and not fate. He thinks of Yellow, and of a universe where they kill a lot of people together and lose their arm to the elbow. Is the John in that universe his John? Is it Yellow? Is it someone else altogether?
Does it matter?
“…John?”
“Hm?”
“Let’s go find another goat.”